Monday, September 12, 2005

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is being criticized for misallocation of personnel in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. FEMA representatives said they requested volunteers from fire departments around the U.S., to handle its community relations campaign. However, a document FEMA sent to local fire departments asked for firefighters with very specific skills and who were capable of working in “austere conditions”. Fire departments around the nation responded by sending crews to the FEMA staging ground in Atlanta. Some of these crews were unaware that they were only going to be used for public relations work. Others, however, merely hoped that FEMA would allocate them to rescue and damage control operations once it saw their qualifications.

The firefighter’s objections are particularly poignant as one of FEMA public relations training seminars coincided with New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin plea for firefighters on national television, to relieve his own exhausted crews. It is unclear if FEMA’s request for firefighters prevented any municipalities from responding to Mayor Nagin’s request.

Some firefighters have objected to their use as FEMA public relations officers because their municipalities must bear the cost of their salaries, as well as endure reduced firefighting capacity. FEMA has stated that it sought to use firefighters to avoid background checks required of federal employees.

Firefighters began receiving their assignments Monday, September 5th. Among these was a crew of 50 assigned to tour the devastated areas with President Bush and the press.

Monday, March 19, 2007

A 34 year old obstetrician from Forestville on Sydney’s Northern Beaches has escaped after he was robbed, car-jacked and locked in the boot (trunk) of his BMW, which was set alight. Police say the doctor was locked in the boot while his car was set alight, but was allowed to escape before flames engulfed the vehicle.

The Doctor was believed to have been heading to The Mater Hospital in North Sydney when he was waiting at the intersection of West and Falcon Streets in Chatswood around 3:15AM AEDT when a small red sedan with two men claiming to be police officers signalled him to stop. After crossing the intersection, the doctor stopped his car at the side of the road.

The doctor was then approached by the two men and when he asked to see identification, one man grabbed the keys from his car’s ignition before they both pulled the doctor out of his vehicle, hit him in the stomach with a hammer and stole his mobile phone and wallet. The robbers also demanded his key and credit cards along with their access codes before locking him in the boot.

Police allege that the men drove to several locations to withdraw cash and buy things before driving to Carisbook Street in Linley Point at around 4 a.m. local time where they set the car alight with the doctor still in the boot.

Crime Manager of the Harbourside Local Area Command, Detective Inspector Houlahan said that the doctor then “heard a click in the boot area and he heard someone call out: ‘Get out of the car'”

“When he pushed the boot up he found his car engulfed in flames.”

Det. Insp. Houlahan said the doctor told police he did not unlock the boot himself, and it appeared the man’s captors unlocked it before fleeing.

Det Insp Houlahan said that the doctor appeared to be “very distraught” and tired after the ordeal, and wanted to get home and see his wife and two young daughters.

He could only provide police with a vague description of his captors, but said the men were both Caucasian males aged in their 20s, and that one of them was about six feet tall (183cm) with short blond hair and medium build said Det. Insp. Houlahan.

Saturday, September 16, 2006

Researchers at Princeton University have conducted research into the security of electronic voting machines. They have created a virus that could breach voting machines and change votes. The creators of the voting machine say the research was unrealistic.

Edward William Felten, a professor of computer sciences and public affairs at Princeton University, and two Princeton graduate students, Ariel Feldman and Alex Halderman, created a computer virus that they say could remain concealed in tests, “steal” votes, delete itself to go undetected and spread to other machines.

They used a Diebold AccuVote-TS which is a small computer with a touch screen. The latest version of the software used 128-bit data encryption, digitally signed memory card data, secure socket layer (SSL) data encryption for transmitting results and dynamic passwords.

They opened the drawer with a key, picked the lock or undid screws to open the compartment that allows them to change the memory card. They suppressed the beep created by the computer when it reboots by using headphones. They say the virus can spread by using the same memory card which when inserted into a different machine will infect the machine.

The researchers say they received the machine they tested on from someone who wants to keep their name anonymous.

“You have to be a good programmer — not a genius — to do this,” Halderman said. “I believe a good programmer could reproduce our virus without very much effort.”

“Analysis of the machine…shows that it is vulnerable to extremely serious attacks,” the report states. “An attacker who gets physical access to a machine or its removable memory card for as little as a minute could install malicious code.”

Diebold Election Systems president Dave Byrd said that the research was done with security software that were two generations old.

“By any standard–academic or common sense–the study is unrealistic and inaccurate,” he said in a statement.

“Normal security procedures were ignored. Numbered security tape, 18 enclosure screws and numbered security tags were destroyed or missing so that the researchers could get inside the unit. A virus was introduced to a machine that is never attached to a network.”

“Every voter in every local jurisdiction that uses the AccuVote-TS should feel secure knowing that their vote will count on Election Day,”

“That’s what they were saying a few years ago,” said Halderman. He said he would very much like to study Diebold’s newer machines and software. “We expect and fear, unfortunately, that if we were to examine the newer version of the software, we could find similar problems.”