Weekend plans - join us!

Lions and tigers and bears, oh my! Or in this case, puppets and munchkin and Hal...My, oh, my!
johngnassi has just posted our plans for this weekend. Read it.

Politics and Informatics don't mix well

The Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA) orders each state to create a "single, uniform, official, centralized, interactive computerized statewide voter registration" database that will be linked to other records such as ones stored by motor vehicle agencies. HAVA does say the database must be protected with "adequate technological security" but offers no details and fails to require encryption, for instance.

full article at http://news.com.com/2100-7348_3-6040781.html?part=rss&tag=6040781&subj=news

I'm sure this isn't the biggest threat going on in our lives right now. But the mere stupidity of it just makes me cringe. Leave it to each state to make their own. No guidelines (or rather, no useful ones). Probably no input from people who are good (or even competent) with security or privacy issues.

All states permit voter registration data to be sold for political purposes such as campaigning and direct mail. But 20 states and the District of Columbia also allow unrestricted access for commercial purposes such as marketing

Sure. Register to vote, and lose any privacy you had left under a barrage of unwanted crap.

And no doubt version 2.0.1 will have the added feature of keeping track of who you voted for.