Computerworld News catalogs A Sober Primer: The worm from A to Z. "With the Sober worm set to launch new attacks at midnight tonight, here's an A-to-Z guide to identifying the worm's many iterations for the past two years." The linked article talks about the latest incarnation, due to launch at midnight tonight. You may want to turn your Windows PC off tonight, just in case. Check to make sure your virus scanner is up to date, that your firewall is enabled (both incoming and outgoing, not the Windows one-way XP firewall), that your malware detectors are up to date and have scanned your machine recently.
It probably won't affect anything more than usual, but you ought to check to make sure you've got charged batteries for the cellphone, the PDA, the flashlight. A full tank of gas in case you need to drive off to a client first thing, and the Windows ATM isn't working. Filling the bathtub with water will let you flush the toilet if the water pressure goes. Perhaps you should review your Emergency Preparedness Checklist, just in case. Sleep tight. Don't let the bedbugs bite.
Trustworthy Computing. Ain't it grand?
5:47:20 PM comment []
Slashdot post: Wisconsin Requires Open Source, Verifiable Voting. AdamBLang writes "Previously covered on Slashdot, Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle today signed legislation that "will require the software of touch-screen voting machines used in elections to be open-source. Municipalities that use electronic voting machines are responsible for providing to the public, on request, the code used." Madison's Capital Times reports "the bill requires that if a municipality uses an electronic voting system that consists of a voting machine, the machine must generate a complete paper ballot showing all votes cast by each elector that is visually verifiable by the elector before he or she leaves the machine.""
Bravo! Kudos to Wisconsin! The electronic voting industry has been asking "Trust Us!" for much too long. Voting is far too important to trust a black-box, unverifiable, unauditable system. Full transparency is not an option, it's required.
9:57:17 AM comment []
