Updates: The Small Print, Annenberg Radio

More lovin’ for The Small Print Project today, this time from The Consumerist!

Viacom workers have to agree that Viacom owns anything they ever make in the “universe,” in, “perpetuity.” Use of the Yahoo! Toolbar expressly prohibits use of the technology to operate nuclear facilities.

Inane end-user-license agreements and waivers such as these are put in the stockades on a new blog, The Small Print Project.

In other news, I’ve begun posting radio pieces on Annenberg Radio News, including my profile of L.A. Derby Doll Puncherello and the original dog whisperer.

Sufjan Stevens Live in L.A. — Listen to Entire Show

sufjan stevens photo by Jeremiah GarciaAccordingn to his publicist, Sufjan is down with bootlegging his shows… so here goes:

Sufjan Stevens, Wiltern LG, Los Angeles, October 9, 2006 (read Ice Cream Man’s great review here).

1. Sister
2. The Transfiguration
3. The Man of Metropolis Steals Our Hearts
4. He Woke Me Up Again
5. Detroit, Lift Up Your Weary Head! (Rebuild! Restore! Reconsider!)
6. The Predatory Wasp Of The Palisades Is Out To Get Us
7. John Wayne Gacy, Jr.
8. A Good Man Is Hard To Find
9. Majesty Snowbird
10. Casimir Pulaski Day
11. Jacksonville
12. That Was The Worst Xmas Ever
13. Chicago
14. The Tallest Man, the Broadest Shoulders: The Great Frontier/Come to Me Only

-Encore-

15. To Be Alone With You
16. The Dress Looks Nice On You

or download all files as one ZIP file (130 MB). Please contact me if you can seed a torrent of this and I’ll post the link! Thanks!

recorded from the center row M floor level with Sony ECM-MS907 binaural stereo mic–> Sony Hi-MD MZ-RH910 –> some tracks optimized with Audacity, others with Adobe Audition, and some not at all (I’ve been slammed)!

——

**Help rid the world of bad EULAs, DRM and sneaky digital agreements! Visit the Small Print Project**

Hacking the Vote: Chicago Edition

A “very serious vulnerability” in Chicago’s elections Web site made it possible for hackers to swipe Social Security numbers and the personal information of over 1.3 million voters… No confirmation at this point of any information actually being gleaned from the site.

ABC News reports that the problem has existed for more than five years.

Chicago Tribune reports election officials claim to have patched the more than 5-year-old problem.

Can you imagine how much money may have been made by hackers over the past five years who accessed this info? I mean charging just 2 cents per SS# could provide nearly $30k toward an entire year’s tuition the outrageously expensive college of your choice. Is anyone gonna pay to fix this this

This story originally broken by the non-partisan Illinois Ballot Integrity Project

Ring Them Bells Already: May Diebold-Gate Begin

Last week, former Maryland state legislator Cheryl C. Kagan was anonymously given disks containing source code to Diebold’s BallotStation and Global Election Management System (GEMS) tabulation software used in the 2004 elections.

A machine running on the same software version (4.3.15c) defined in the source code sent to Kagan was thoroughly hacked into and documented in September by Princeton’s Ariel J. Feldman, J. Alex Halderman, and Edward W. Felten in the 26-page “Security Analysis of the Diebold AccuVote-TS Voting Machine” (view PDF, “Internet Christian minister” Rev. Bill McGinnis summarizes it here).

Kagan’s story was first reported last Friday in Baltimore Sun by reporter Melissa Harris.

An accompanying letter refers to the State Board of Elections and calls Kagan “the proud recipient of an ‘abandoned baby Diebold source code’ right from SBE accidentally picked up in this envelope, right in plain view at SBE. … You have the software because you are a credible person who can save the state from itself. You must alert the media and save democracy.”

No matter how or even if Kagan’s story is true, a crime, or whatever — it remains both ironic and suspicious that the one company authorized to make electronic voting systems in this country has kept their source code bottled up as if it contained the ingredients for Coca Cola’s secret syrup. Opening source code to independent professional reviewers and critics who may find bugs and other flaws should be mandatory for a company that for months has represented itself with broken HTML code on their home page (see http://www.diebold.com/dieboldes/).

(Coincidentally 2 men pleaded guilty this morning in the FBI investigation into stolen Coke “trade secrets.”)

Joe Strupp, of the newspaper industry watchdog Editor & Publisher asks, “Is Press Taking Possible Voting Problems Seriously?” (ABC’s World News Tonight is devoting a fair amount of programming to the issue.)

Kagan, a Democrat, is the executive director of the Freeman Foundation — a philanthropic community-focused charity — and is a noted critic of her state’s election chief and the Diebold voting systems. She said she’s been in contact with the FBI and intends to cooperate with any investigation.

Maryland’s deputy elections administrator claimed the disks contain “nothing that’s being used in this election.” Which is quite a suspicious thing to say in and of itself.

In other election season news, hasGoogle Earth new layers and placemarks with useful 2006 election info.