From the "we're so screwed" dept.: Voter Fraud

Unbelievable!

Not only is the country's leading touch-screen voting system so badly designed that votes can be easily changed, but its manufacturer is run by a die-hard GOP donor who vowed to deliver his state for Bush next year.

Worth going through the free day pass rigamarole, or read choice quotes at DailyKos. Diebold, the voter machine company in question, has confirmed that the memos about the flaw are theirs, so I don't think this is from Conspiracy TheoryLand.

I'm not sure which amazes me more - that Diebold knows there's a massive security flaw and have chosen to ignore it (!!!), or that it stores votes in a Microsoft Access database - even I know that Access has crappy security and shouldn't be used for anything even remotely "mission critical"!

Maybe I'm just naive or overly idealistic, but I always thought the motive behind computerized voting was to make the count faster and more accurate, and this system does not appear to be capable of doing EITHER! And why would it be so tragic to create a paper trail? I'd hope that there would be greater focus on security and accuracy than on the bottom line, but maybe my head IS in the clouds - if you read to the end of the Salon article it discusses the expensive publicity campaign that Diebold is starting to counter the negative publicity, and it does not appear that the company has any intention of fixing the errors in their software.

what a day!

Work news: I guess things backed up during the storm, changes came thick and fast today. In addition to Internet requests, I'm also trying to help with an ASP application and learn ASP.NET in my abundant free time (ha!). I finally got away from the "War and Peace" ASP.NET tome I'd been working with and found the "Dick and Jane" version so I'm finally starting to grasp the concepts, though it may take me awhile to memorize the syntax. Don't even ask me about C#!

I relaxed this evening with a new episode of Waking the Dead (no, not THAT Wake the Dead!), a British crime/mystery drama that I enjoy, and some more blackwork. (Tangent - discussing tv with hadesgirl we realized that neither of us watch much broadcast anymore - it's always sci-fi/cable stuff).

Traveled deep into Farscape fandom to find a geeky picture of Crichton to use as an LJ icon. Took me awhile to find, which was surprising in itself considering that he manages to look goofy at least once an episode. Crichton is my male alter ego; I'm sure I'm at least as cheesy and Southern as he is :P (Disclaimer: character/photo not mine; property of Jim Henson Co., I don't think they care but now my ass is covered, etc.)

Did some more writing of an experimental variety but my vocabulary is failing. This, and I have a small grey cat telling me it's bedtime. I need some rest for the circus tomorrow, anyway.