Skype May Be Spying on You!

It has been a while since I've updated, and certainly there has been a ton of interesting/frightening technopolitical news concerning the election that I should be posting, but I wanted to take a break from election news to talk about Skype. I use Skype, and I know a lot of phone losers use Skype.

However, the Chinese version of Skype has a built in monitoring feature that Skype implemented for the Chinese government. It scans for keywords (including "democracy" and "tibet") and reports them. Sound familiar? Skype: A high echelon of communications.

It is undetermined as of yet if the US version of Skype has similar "features."

Read the original article

News Round Up

It's been forever since I updated this blog, good thing no one reads it.

Here's some interesting news tidbits...

2008 Election Protection Toolkit - From blackboxvoting.org,

Evaluating the Security of Electronic Voting Systems - As one would guess, not so secure.

... On a mostly unrelated note, have you seen the McCain ads so dirty that even sleazeball Karl Rove is condemning? A certain party on the right is getting a little desperate.

McCain's Technology Platform and States Outlawing Diebold's Crooked Voting Machines

Two things I read over at Slashdot that I thought I might pass along to you...

A Critique of McCain's Technology Platform

and

States Throw Out Electronic Voting Machines

The State of Ohio Sues Diebold for Rigging Elections

Ohio is a little upset over that whole Diebold fucking the country thing. The state is suing the company for the "voting irregularities" their machines caused. Read the original article.

Grassroots Group Makes Anti-FISA Ad

"If you're one of the thousands of voters angry over the Democrats' cave on domestic spying and telecom amnesty, a new online grassroots movement is now making it easy to buy a local ad on MSNBC, CNN and several other networks, for less money than you'd think." Read the original article.

Unlike McCain, many seniors surf the Web

Nothing serious today, just something somewhat funny (albeit a little scary that a huge decision-maker doesn't know how to use a basic tool to help him make those decisions...)

http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/ptech/07/21/wired.seniors.ap/index.html

"John McCain is an outlier when you compare him to his peers," Fox says. "On one hand, a U.S. senator has access to information sources and staff assistance that most people do not. On the other, the Internet has become such a go-to resource that it's a curiosity to hear that someone doesn't rely on it the way most Americans do." Read the original article.

GOP cyber-security expert suggests Diebold tampered with 2002 election

New evidence for what we've already known for years... Diebold is rigging elections.

Published: Friday July 18, 2008 A leading cyber-security expert and former adviser to Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) says he has fresh evidence regarding election fraud on Diebold electronic voting machines during the 2002 Georgia gubernatorial and senatorial elections. Read The Original Article