Monthly Archives: July 2008

Adam & Collin strike again

Posted on July 30, 2008 by ben

I’m now at Usenix Security, which I’m micro-blogging over at Identi.ca. Sometimes, though, one talk merits more than a micro-blog. Currently, I’m listening to Adam Barth presenting his web-security paper (joint with Collin Jackson) on subtle but huge issues with … Continue reading →

Posted in security, web | Leave a comment

Benaloh strikes again

Posted on July 28, 2008 by ben

Since I haven’t had the time to write up every talk, I’ll just highlight one talk today that I particularly enjoyed: Josh Benaloh’s paper on achieving both administrative and public verifiability in elections [PDF]. I’m a big fan of Josh’s … Continue reading →

Posted in crypto, voting | 4 Comments

Get Ready to be Depressed about Elections

Posted on July 28, 2008 by ben

I’m at the Electronic Voting Technology Workshop, where I’ll be blogging a few things. Jon Krosnick of Stanford is just wrapping up a fantastic invited talk on how ballot candidate ordering influences elections… and the result is stunningly depressing: it … Continue reading →

Posted in voting | Leave a comment

On Vote-By-Mail and Untimely Death

Posted on July 25, 2008 by ben

A fantastic question: If you vote by mail, but die before Election Day, does your vote count? It depends on where you lived. Oregon counts ballots no matter what happens to the voter. So does Florida. But in South Dakota, … Continue reading →

Posted in voting | 3 Comments

Blame the Device or the Carrier?

Posted on July 24, 2008 by ben

It’s always interesting to see who gets blamed for consumer-unfriendliness. Take the launch of the latest iPhone “3G”. Brendan Ballou over at Jonathan Zittrain’s blog makes a compelling case about how Apple is monetizing iPhone applications and benefits from locking … Continue reading →

Posted in policy | 5 Comments

Bridging the Clickable and Data Webs

Posted on July 14, 2008 by ben

Over the last few years, I’ve been the Creative Commons representative to the World Wide Web Consortium (w3c). This means that I work with a bunch of great folks on web standards, specifically trying to define solutions that will help … Continue reading →

Posted in data, web | Leave a comment

Understanding the Freakonomics of the Secret Ballot

Posted on July 8, 2008 by ben

Steven Levitt, of Freakonomics fame, considers the case of the Minnesota teen who tried to sell his vote on eBay: This guy’s hijinks did, however, give us a glimpse into the market price of a vote. The minimum bid was … Continue reading →

Posted in security, voting | Leave a comment