felten

HDCP antipiracy leak opens doors for black boxes

An antipiracy code used in set-top boxes, Blu-ray and DVD players has been cracked and published on the Internet, and as a result, we may soon see devices on the market that allow people to make unauthorized copies of movies.

Intel confirmed to CNET yesterday that code posted anonymously to the Internet earlier this week is the secret master key to the HDCP (High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection) protocol. Intel created HDCP to be used for ensuring that only authorized devices are playing copyright-protected video and audio, and it licenses the technology to hardware manufacturers.

The master key is supposed to … Read more

Google, Yahoo to appear before Congress on ad data

Internet companies and privacy experts will appear before a Congressional subcommittee later on Thursday to discuss the privacy implications of behavioral advertising.

Representatives from Google, Yahoo, and Facebook will appear before two subcommittees of the U.S. House of Representatives' Committee on Energy and Commerce to discuss behavioral advertising, or the practice of tailoring Internet ads to a Web surfer's behavior on a particular Web site. In order to do that, Internet companies have to collect personal data, and members of Congress as well as privacy advocates are interested in hearing more about how that data is being handled.… Read more

Evidence presented in New Jersey e-voting discrepancies

Despite the threat of legal action by one voting machine vendor, Princeton University professor Ed Felten is continuing his independent investigation of perceived irregularities in New Jersey's February 5, 2008 presidential primary election. On Friday, a New Jersey state judge ruled that voting rights activists will also have the right to have their own independent expert examine the state's electronic voting machines.

The question is integrity. What Felten has found so far isn't enough to change the election results, but evidence presented on his blog site suggests there might be enough to undermine our confidence in the … Read more

Sequoia Voting Systems site hacked

Part of the Sequoia Voting Systems Web site was defaced and subsequently taken down on Thursday, according to a report in InfoWorld. As CNET prepared this blog, the entire Sequoia Voting System site was frequently inaccessible.

The defacement and subsequent takedown occurred Thursday morning on the company's Ballot Blog page. Sequoia is one of a handful of electronic voting companies used in the United States. It has in recent days come under fire for apparent discrepancies in voter tallies in last month's New Jersey primary election.

The Ballot Blog page on SequoiaVote.com had contained information from Sequoia … Read more

Sequoia warns Princeton professors over e-voting analysis

Ed Felten is a Princeton University computer scientist who became well-known in technology circles for a paper he co-authored that showed flaws in digital audio watermarks. More precisely, Felten became well-known for the legal threats he received at the time from the Recording Industry Association of America.

Now Sequoia Voting Systems, which is one of the largest e-voting machine manufacturers in the United States, is threatening Felten too.

On Tuesday, Felten posted e-mail he and fellow Princeton professor Andrew Appel received from Sequoia saying:

As you have likely read in the news media, certain New Jersey election officials have stated … Read more

With improvements, e-voting could be good, says researcher.

WASHINGTON--In a keynote address at this year's ShmooCon, an East Coast computer hacker conference, J. Alex Halderman said that electronic voting machines could be good for the electorate--with some modifications.

Halderman is a graduate student studying under Ed Felten, a professor of computer science at Princeton, who is best known for demonstrating that the electronic voting machines produced by Diebold and other companies are vulnerable to attack. Diebold has since changed the name of election equipment to Premier Election Solutions. Felten was to make the keynote address, but canceled at the last minute due to the flu. Halderman is … Read more