[wplug] [wplug-announce] The Open Pitt, Issue 19

Vance Kochenderfer vkochend at nyx.net
Sun Dec 18 00:51:53 EST 2005


PDF version: <http://www.wplug.org/top/wplug-top019.pdf>

                               THE OPEN PITT
      What's cooking in Linux and Open Source in Western Pennsylvania

===========================================================================
Issue 19                       December 2005                  www.wplug.org
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In this issue:
  Voting on Open Source
  November Roundup
  From the Editors: Support Your Local LinuxFest

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
                               Coming Events

Dec. 17: Tutorial, Topic: Intro to Objective C.  10am to 3pm, 1507 Newell-
         Simon Hall, CMU
Jan. 7:  Installfest.  10am to 5pm, 1507 Newell-Simon Hall, CMU
Jan. 21: General User Meeting.  10am to 2pm, 1507 Newell-Simon Hall, CMU
         (date tentative)

                    The public is welcome at all events
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Voting on Open Source
by Chris Teodorski

Because of the federal Help America Vote Act, Allegheny County is replacing
its decades-old mechanical lever voting machines.  On November 17, the
county held a demonstration at the Westin Convention Center Hotel with the
potential voting machine vendors showing off their equipment.  The systems
fell into two categories: touch screen and optical scan (similar to a
standardized test).  Both types rely to some degree on computers to
interpret and tally votes.

Let me start with a confession: I am a card-carrying Free Software bigot. 
So when I went to see the dog-and-pony show being offered by the vendors, I
admit, I went to pick fights.  I went with the intent of blasting all of
them for marketing closed-source applications and challenging them to
justify keeping something as important as the source code that runs our
elections locked away as a proprietary trade secret.  They didn't
disappoint and neither did I.

I will spare you the details of the arguments with Diebold.  Suffice it to
say the salesperson that I spoke with implied that people who thought that
source code should be publicly accessible were just short of kook status. 
I hope I opened his mind a little, although I'm quite sure that my argument
was simply more crazy talk from another kook.

By the time I had made my rounds around the room, I was convinced that
Allegheny County's elections were doomed to take place on closed-source
machines, little secret black boxes, likely running Windows.  The last
place I visited was the Unisys/Accupoll station.  I started with my usual
question, "Can you tell me a little about the technology this thing runs?"

The salesman kind of looked at me as if waiting for some additional
clarification, so I explained, "I'm looking for someone who can answer
technical questions for me."  The reply: "You should talk to that guy over
there.  He can answer all of your questions.  You can't out-geek him."  And
that was how I met Dennis Vadura, Chairman and Chief Technology Officer of
Accupoll.

After short introductions, I asked him what operating system ran his
applications (this is where I load the argument gun).  "Red Hat Linux," he
explained.  I stopped, perplexed.  I didn't have a canned response for that
answer.  He continued, "I've been on my feet all day.  If you'd like to
talk some more, think we could sit down?  I'd be happy to answer any
questions you have."

So we did.  It turns out that Mr. Vadura wrote almost 60 percent of the
codebase that makes up Accupoll's election software.  The technology
underlying this application will be familiar to any user of Open Source--
Red Hat Linux, Perl, Java, Apache--and they are in the process of migrating
to PostgreSQL for their database technology.  Not only was Accupoll serious
about their utilization of Open Source software, they are serious about
security.  Mr. Vadura was more than happy to explain some of the security
measures implemented in Accupoll's election system.

The most impressive to me was the following: when a voting station (the
booth with a touch screen where the voter actually votes) comes on line,
the base station (which tabulates and stores the votes) initially assumes
that the voting station has been compromised.  It begins by getting an MD5
checksum of all of the files on the voting station, and if anything fails
to match, the machine is flagged as compromised.  If it passes, the base
station says "great" and proceeds to completely overwrite all the existing
files on the voting station with its own files (contained on a read-only
CD), assuring that all files on the voting station are valid and current.

In all fairness, I must disclose that the Accupoll software itself is
_not_ Open Source.  As is required for certification, Accupoll and the
other vendors have shared their code with the State of Pennsylvania, but it
is not available to the public.  However, Mr. Vadura said he has no
opposition whatsoever to opening his code, with one caveat.  His concern is
that some untrained eyes may go to news outlets suggesting that they found
a security hole or a bug in Accupoll's software (whether or not such a bug
or hole actually exists).  If the news story runs before Accupoll has a
chance to respond, their reputation could be destroyed.  So for now the
Accupoll code remains closed.

I hope that one day soon Accupoll decides to open their code and allow the
community to verify, validate, and potentially improve their software.  For
now, I'm happy knowing that there is a chance that our votes will be cast
on a system that uses some Open Source software instead of black-box code
running on a black-box operating system.

To read more about Accupoll and its system you can visit their web site at
<http://www.accupoll.com/>.  To learn more about the initiative to deliver
open voting systems for public elections, check out the Open Voting
Consortium at <http://www.openvotingconsortium.org/>.

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November Roundup

Nov. 5 General User Meeting: To go along with WPLUG's annual election
meeting (see last issue for the results), a series of lightning talks on
various topics was held.  Beth Lynn Eicher spoke about the history of
WPLUG.  Patrick Wagstrom discussed virtualization using VMware, and
followed that up with a presentation on the Linksys WRT54G, a wireless
router that runs on Linux.  _The Open Pitt_ itself was featured in Vance
Kochenderfer's discussion of how the newsletter is put together and what
types of contributions would be welcome.  David Ostroske covered SQL, the
nearly-universal database language standard.  Returning to the subject of
wireless networking, Rick Farina explored some of the legal issues involved
in finding and connecting to wireless hotspots out in public.

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 From the Editors: Support Your Local LinuxFest

If you're among the dozen or so people from WPLUG who attended this year's
Ohio LinuxFest, you know about the interesting presentations and
discussions (the rest of you can read the articles that are linked from
<http://www.ohiolinux.org/>).  It may not be one of the "big-name" events,
but on the other hand you don't have to travel to Boston or San Francisco
to participate.

Ohio LinuxFest has seen a doubling in attendance each year, with the third
annual event bringing in 726 visitors.  It's tempting to make a comparison
with the LinuxTag conference <http://www.linuxtag.org/>, started in Germany
in 1996.  Like its Ohio counterpart, LinuxTag is a community-organized
event and (until this year, when LinuxTag instituted a registration fee)
completely free of charge to participants.

The table below shows the growth in LinuxTag's popularity.  Part of this is
likely a result of the dot-com boom that hit in the late 90's, but
attendance has held up well even after the bubble burst.  Although few, if
any, readers of this column have ever been there, chances are good it's
affected you--the Knoppix live CD is a LinuxTag project.

                     --------------------------------
                     Table: LinuxTag Visitors by Year
                     --------------------------------
                               1996:     70
                               1997:    620
                               1998:  3,000
                               1999:  7,000
                               2000: 15,000
                               2001: 15,000
                               2002: 13,000
                               2003: 19,500
                               2004: 16,175
                               2005: 12,000 (est.)
                     --------------------------------
                     Source: LinuxTag, Linux Magazine

Can Ohio LinuxFest ever hope to duplicate this achievement?  Well, only if
people like you get involved and help out.  As Woody Allen famously
quipped, "Eighty percent of success is showing up."  Just by attending, you
send a message to major Open Source projects that it's worthwhile for them
to provide speakers, which in turn attracts more visitors.  KDE and Ubuntu
were both represented this year.  A larger attendance will surely pull in
other popular projects.

The next level is to promote LinuxFest.  Tell your friends and colleagues
with an interest in Open Source (or even if they only _might_ be
interested) about it.  Get the word out among the on-line forums and web
logs you visit.

To make the greatest difference, you'll need to pitch in some sweat equity.
It took about $15,000 in sponsorship, donation, and raffle money to hold
this year's event.  That works out to around $20 per attendee--a tiny sum
in the conference world.  Clearly, volunteer labor is a major contributor
toward pulling off an event like this.  You don't necessarily need any
special skills; job descriptions include selling raffle tickets, working
registration tables, or even just carting hardware around.  And you're
likely to get a free t-shirt out of the deal!

So mark October 7, 2006 on your calendar, and contact the organizers at
<team at ohiolinux.org> to volunteer.  See you there.

===========================================================================
The Open Pitt is published by the Western Pennsylvania Linux Users Group
<http://www.wplug.org/top/>

Editors: Elwin Green, Vance Kochenderfer

Copyright 2005 Western Pennsylvania Linux Users Group.  Any article in
this newsletter may be reprinted elsewhere in any medium, provided it is
not changed and attribution is given to the author and WPLUG.
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