An E-Vote Of Confidence?

An E-Vote Of Confidence?
Number	2887
Broadcast Date	OCTOBER 25, 2016
Episode Length	46:33
Hosts	Tom Merritt
Guests	Patrick Beja, Dan Wallach

Can voting be hacked in the US? We ask computer science professor Dan Wallach about the possibilities. Tom Merritt and Patrick Beja discuss that, the first self-driving beer delivery and the upcoming Microsoft announcement.

Guest

• Patrick Beja
  • Patrick's Patreon
• Dan Wallach
  • Rice University

Top Stories

• Google's Jamboard is a 4K digital whiteboard for collaboration
• This is the new MacBook Pro with the Magic Toolbar mini display

Google announced a 55-inch 4K digital whiteboard called Jamboard that lets people collaborate remotely. It'll be $6,000 coming in the first half of 2017 for G Suite customers. And a picture found in the macOS Sierra 12.1 update shows a MacBook Pro with a mini display above the keyboard and a touch ID. IS IT REAL? We'll find out Thursday at the Apple announcement. Now here are some more top stories.

• Xiaomi is selling the concept phone of your wildest dreams

Xiaomi announced new phones and a VR headset Tuesday. The 6.4-inch Mi Mix has an almost bezel-free front at 91.4 percent screen. It uses ultrasound for proximity sensing, a piezoelectric speaker using the metal frame for sound, and the camera is on the bottom of the front face. It has the same Snapdragon 821 that's in the Google Pixel. It goes on sale November 4th in China starting at ¥3,499 ($516). Xiaomi also announced the 5.7-inch Mi Note 2 with a curved screen coming November 1st in China in silver or black starting at 2,799 yuan ($413) Xiaomi also announced the MIUI VR store and the new Mi VR headset for use with its newest phones. It has a motion sensor, 16ms latency and a 9-axis motion controller and costs $29.

• Google buys eye-tracking startup to boost its VR hardware

Google confirmed it has acquired virtual reality startup Eyefluence that lets you use your eyes as a tracking device like a mouse. Eyefluence not only tracks what you're looking at but tries to determine if you're interested or bored by what you see. It also aids in what is called foveated rendering which renders scenes selectively based on where you're looking.

• Microsoft’s Surface PC event: what to expect

Tomorrow at 10 AM Eastern time Microsoft will hold a press event in New York City. Best bets are we'll hear about an all-in-one Surface device and more details on upcoming Windows 10 updates. Windows is expected to get two major updates in 2017, the first coming in March. Trackpad control and customized gestures are already in the preview edition. Also expected are a feature to reduce blue light, a HomeHub feature for controlling smart devices and the Holographic Shell. So expect discussion of how Hololens works with PC and possibly a smart speaker similar to Amazon Echo. The all-in-one Surface is expected to be an iMac competitor with a 24 or 27-inch display on a hinge that can lay flat on a desk. It's also expected to have touchscreen and stylus support and be able to create 3D objects and holograms, perhaps with an Intel RealSense 3D scanning camera. A keyboard and mouse for Surface PC leaked in FCC filings recently as did a new Microsoft Paint that could create 3D objects.

• U.S. takes aim at cyber attacks from connected devices as recalls mount

The US Department of Homeland Security held a conference call with 18 major communication service providers to discuss strategic principles regarding Internet of Things devices, in the wake of the Mirai-based Denial of service attacks Friday. Surveillance camera part maker Xiongmai issued a partial recall of its devices Monday and Dahua Technology has also announced firmware upgrades and an exchange program for older cameras.

• WiGig's ready to save you from congested wireless networks

On Monday, the Wi-Fi Alliance launched the certification program for the 802.11ad standard known as WiGig. The standard certifies for interoperability with other WiGig devices as well as shift to standard WiFi. WiGig can transfer at up to 8 Gigabits per second, supplementing crowded 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz bands with the 60Ghz band, which cannot travel long distances or even penetrate walls, but provides directional, low latency connections.

• Uber’s self-driving truck company just completed its first shipment: 50,000 cans of Budweiser

Uber-owned Otto has completed it's first self-driving truck shipment. An 18-wheel Volvo semi carried a shipment of Budweiser beer 100 miles from a weigh station in Fort Collins, Colorado to Colorado Springs without human intervention. A human driver had taken it from the Anhueser-Busch plant in Loveland to the weigh station and remained on board during the autonomous leg of the journey. A Colorado state patrol vehicle followed the truck to monitor the journey.

• Apple's holiday surprise: big sales, not so big profits

Apple reported revenue of $46.85 billion and earnings per share of $X.XX for the past quarter. Analysts expected revenue of $47 billion and earnings per share of $1.65. Apple sold 45.51 million iPhones beating estimates.

Discussion

• How to Hack an Election in 7 Minutes
• VSAP – LAC Voter-Centered Approach
• STAR-Vote: A Secure, Transparent, Auditable, and Reliable Voting System
• In battleground Pennsylvania, claims of a 'rigged' election may be impossible to disprove

Messages

Tom and the Gang,

Something that keeps occurring to me when we talk about Samsung, Note 7 recalls and "can they survive?" or, "will they kill the Note brand?"

I happen to be old enough to remember the Ford Explorer/Firestone fiasco of decades past. If I'm remembering correctly, this "recall" and subsequent economic disaster (for these companies) was the result of more than 200 people dying.

Both Ford and Firestone survived just fine. I don't even remember which brand of tire was the problem. But, Ford Explorers are still sold and so are Firestone tires. (And, Ford was the only American car company to not take government bailout money. Apparently, this fiasco didn't hurt them too much).

I think Samsung will see this as a minor blip in years to come.

Sent by mawcs

Hey Tom, just thinking about the recent internet off things ddos attacks, if the connected devices are able to be hacked and turned into botnets by malicious hackers, then couldn't they also be hacked into remotely and the security flaws be patched? In a perfect world, I could imaging a "good" IoT virus that roamed the internet patching vulnerable devices. I think I have heard of a similar thing at least once before. This could be done either by white hat hackers or even state sponsored security experts.
There you go, internet saved!

Keep up the good work!

Sent by Mike, Melbourne Australia

• Hijacking the Coreflood Botnet

Hi. New listener here! Just listened to yesterday's show and I have a question. You mention many steps we could take to protect our smart devices from becoming bots, but what can we do if our device already has this malicious software and is being used for these attacks?

I have a Samsung smart tv and a philips hue light set. Thanks for keeping me up to date on tech news. Always enjoyed your segment on TMS but just got on board with DTNS. What took me so long? 😁

Sent by Anthony

• IoT Scanner Checks for Vulnerabilities In Your Connected Devices

Links

• This episode on dailytechnewsshow.com
• Support DTNS on Patreon
• DTNS subreddit

Preceded by: "The internet is Toast!"

An E-Vote Of Confidence?

Followed by: "I Ain’t No Holla-Gram, Girl"