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Although true, it makes me wonder: what was the illiteracy rate, again?

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Secure card maker HID Corp. is objecting to a demonstration of a hacking tool at this week’s Black Hat Federal security conference in Washington, D.C. that could make it easy to clone a wide range of so-called “proximity” door access cards.

HID has sent a letter to IOActive, a security consulting firm, accusing Chris Paget, IOActive’s director of research and development, of possible patent infringement over a planned presentation, “RFID for beginners,” on Wednesday, a move that could lead to legal action should the talk go forward, according to Jeff Moss, founder and director of Black Hat.

IOActive will hold a press conference Tuesday at 9:00AM to discuss the issue, according to Joshua Pennell, IOActive’s CEO told InfoWorld.

Paget’s talk will address widespread security issues with the implementation of RFID in proximity cards that are sold by HID and other companies and that are widely used for building access. His RFID cloner was on display at the recent RSA Security Conference in San Francisco, where he demonstrated for InfoWorld how the device could be used to steal access codes from HID brand proximity cards, store them, then use the stolen codes to fool a HID card reader.

The presentation has been pulled.

In other words, “Your door is secure because bad guys would have to infringe on our patents to open it!”

Yeah, I feel safer already.

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Guess what? Despite Microsoft’s efforts to provide for a more fluid and agreeable interface with Vista’s Aero, Pfeiffer Consulting found Vista to be even worse than Windows XP (SP2) –and of course Mac OS X. Their conclusion is backed with cold, hard research. Pfeiffer Consulting conducted the research based on an independently financed series of benchmarks that establish how Vista impacts User Interface Friction (UIF) and user efficiency.

Pfeiffer Consulting, a Paris/France based international research and consulting operation specialised in technology and media, just recently released a report on Windows Vista User Interface Friction (UIF). UIF is a Pfeiffer concept, which describes and quantifies the perceived differences in efficiency and user experience between operating system, applications, and digital devices. UIF defines the fluidity and productivity that can be observed when performing the same operation on different computer systems, programs or devices.

Pfeiffer Consulting looked for a specific number of issues that it knew under-performed in previous versions of Windows. With Windows Vista, Microsoft claims to have re-invented the Windows interface, making it simpler and more efficient to use. Some Mac users pointed out from the beginning that Aero looked suspiciously close to what Tiger has to offer. With Pfeiffer’s report in mind, their observations seem to miss the point. Even if Microsoft has been playing copycat all over, the results are simply lousy –there’s no other word for it.

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Assume for a second that you’re among the almost 80% of people that use Internet Explorer to surf the web. You’re looking for Lexus Financial Services. You know that their actual domain name is LexusFinancial.com. But for some reason you enter Lexus-Financail.com into your browser bar – and you’re in good company, because millions of people mistype domain names every day.

Fire up Internet Explorer and try this right now. Enter Lexus-Financail.com into your address bar and hit enter. (If you’re on a different browser, click here to see the results you would get.)

As the domain Lexus-Financail.com doesn’t actually exist, Internet Explorer in its default configuration sends you to Live Search, which offers you two related terms: Lexus Financial and Lexus Financial Services.

If you click on either of these links, you’re taken to a Live Search Results Page filled with PPC (pay per click) ads:

Click on any of these ads and Microsoft earns anywhere from a few cents to a few dollars, thereby profiting from a typo of Lexus Financial’s trademark.

Pretty sneaky! If a domainer were to actually register such a typo domain and profit from it, wouldn’t he run the immediate risk of losing the domain and facing expensive lawsuits?

Case in point: The typo domain LexusFinancail.com (same as our example but without the dash) actually exists and is in the process of being taken away from its original registrant by Lexus. Lexus had brought a cybersquatting complaint before the WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center under ICANN‘s Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP).

Under this policy, which was established to resolve domain disputes quickly and inexpensively, a complainant must prove three different elements in order to win the rights to a disputed domain name:

1. The disputed domain name is identical or confusingly similar to a trademark or service mark in which the complainant has rights.
2. The respondent has no right or legitimate interest in respect of the disputed domain name.
3. The disputed domain name was registered and is being used in bad faith.

In the case of LexusFinancail.com, the WIPO panelist in charge of the proceedings ruled that the domain fulfilled all three of the above conditions must therefore be transferred to Lexus. The full decision is available here.

From a semantic point of view LexusFinancail.com and Lexus-Financail.com are almost identical. But there is a difference. LexusFinancail.com was registered by a domainer who subsequently lost it to Lexus due to anti-cybersquatting rules. And Lexus-Financail.com will be successfully monetized by Microsoft for as long as it actually doesn’t exist.

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Apple, long a ghost in the corporate-infrastructure mainstream, is beginning to cast a shadow as IT departments discover Mac platforms that are being transformed into realistic alternatives to Windows and Linux.

A number of factors are helping raise the eyebrows of those responsible for upgrading desktops and servers: for example, Apple’s shift to the Intel architecture; the inclusion of infrastructure and interoperability hooks, such as directory services in the Mac OS X Server; dual-boot capabilities; clustering and storage technology; third-party virtualization software; and comparison shopping, which is being fostered by migration costs and hardware overhauls associated with Microsoft’s Vista.

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“The changes in Vista are significant enough that we think we can absorb the change going to Macs just as easily as going to Vista,” says Tom Gonzales, a senior network administrator for the Colorado State Employees Credit Union in Denver. He says the thought of going to Apple is not as scary as it once was. “If you had asked me two years ago to consider Macs, I would have laughed. But Boot Camp and Parallels, anything we can’t do with our Macs we would be able to run a Windows environment under there,” says Gonzales, who is currently in the Mac evaluation stage.

I doubt many will switch anytime soon, but that last quote is a very scary one for Redmond.

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Bijna alle kiezers hebben vertrouwen in de stemcomputer. Bovendien vinden meer kiezers het stemmen met de stemcomputer betrouwbaarder dan met het potlood. Alternatieve vormen van stemmen, zoals per telefoon, via internet of per post, zijn niet erg populair. Slechts een minderheid van de kiezers heeft vertrouwen in deze stemprocedures.

Potdorie, we hebben nog een hoop uit te leggen…

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The Canadian parliament has refused to extend controversial anti-terrorism legislation enacted after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the US which allows for preventive arrests and compels testimony.

The motion by Stephen Harper, the prime minister, was defeated 159-124 in the House of Commons on Tuesday.

The ruling conservative government had wanted to extend the contentious pieces of legislation that are set to expire on Thursday.

“The powers that are there are necessary for national security,” Harper said before voting began.

The laws allow the authorities to arrest and detain suspects for three days without charge and to compel individuals with knowledge of terrorist activity to testify before a judge.

Neither piece of legislation has ever been applied.

But all three opposition parties argued that they were a blatant violation of civil rights.

Stephane Dion, leader of the opposition Liberal party, said the two measures were an unnecessary infringement on civil liberties and rejected charges that he was soft on terrorism.

“These two provisions especially have done nothing to fight against terrorism, have not been helpful and have continued to create some risk for civil liberties,” he said.

Laws that have never been applied are necessary for national security… now that’s the kind of prime minister you can vote out of office.