Page 24 - aruba-today-20190507

A24 Technology
Tuesday 7 May 2019
Microsoft offers software tools to secure elections

By FRANK BAJAK of hackers tampering with
Associated Press election results, experts say
Microsoft announced an systems used by millions of
ambitious effort it says will U.S. voters remain suscep-
make voting secure, verifi- tible to tampering.
able and subject to reliable One election official who
audits. Two of the three top has been in informal con-
U.S elections vendors have versations with the Elec-
expressed interest in po- tionGuard project leaders
tentially incorporating the is Dean Logan, who runs
open-source software into elections for Los Angeles
their proprietary voting sys- County, the nation's most
tems. populous, and is building an
The software kit is being open-source voting system
developed with Galois, an for it.Election integrity activ-
Oregon-based company ist Susan Greenhalgh of the
separately creating a se- National Election Defense
cure voting system proto- Coalition said she hoped
type under contract with the project would encour-
the Pentagon's advanced age innovative thinking at
research agency, DARPA. the level that elections are
Dubbed "ElectionGuard," With a screen displaying some of the new Microsoft Azure services and updates in the back- actually managed.
the Microsoft kit will be ground, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella delivers the keynote address at Build, the company's an- ElectionGuard aims to pro-
available this summer, the nual conference for software developers Monday, May 6, 2019, in Seattle. vide "end-to-end" verifica-
company says, with early Associated Press tion of voting in two ways,
prototypes ready to pilot Benaloh said. First, it lets vot-
for next year's general elec- companies control about vendor, Dominion Voting ect. ers confirm that their votes
tions. CEO Satya Nadella 90 percent of the market Systems of Denver, said the Benaloh helped produce a are accurately recorded.
announced the initiative for election equipment, company looks forward to National Academies of Sci- Second, the unique coded
Monday at a developer's but have long faced criti- "learning more" about the ence report last year that tracker it produces registers
conference in Seattle. cism for poor security, an- initiative. called for an urgent over- an encrypted version of the
Nadella said the project's tiquated technology and Anyone with an existing haul of the rickety U.S. elec- vote that keeps the ballot
software, provided free of insufficient transparency voting system or develop- tion system, which faced choice itself secret while
charge as part of Micro- around their proprietary, ing a new one will be able serious threats from Russian ensuring votes are accu-
soft's Defending Democ- black-box voting systems. to incorporate the Election- hackers who in 2016 at- rately counted. Outsiders
racy Program, would help Open-source software is Guard development kit — tempted to infiltrate voting such as election watchdog
"modernize all of the elec- inherently more secure be- at the state or local level in administration systems in groups, political parties,
tion infrastructure every- cause the underlying code the U.S. or national level for several states. journalists and voters them-
where in the world." Mi- is easily scrutinized by out- jurisdictions abroad. That report called for all selves can verify online that
crosoft also announced side security experts. "It can be used with a bal- U.S. elections to be held votes were properly count-
a cut-rate Office 365 ap- Two of the leading vendors, lot-marking device. It can on human-readable pa- ed without being altered.
plication suite for political Election Systems & Software be used with an optical per ballots by 2020. It also The system would also al-
parties and campaigns for of Omaha, Nebraska, and scanner, on hand-marked advocated a specific form low for reliable postelec-
what it charges nonprofits. Hart InterCivic of Austin, paper ballots," said Josh of routine postelection au- tion audits and recounts.
Both Microsoft and Google Texas, both expressed in- Benaloh, a senior cryp- dits intended to ensure Microsoft executives say
provide anti-phishing email terest in partnering with Mi- tographer at Microsoft Re- that votes are accurately they also plan to build a
support for campaigns. crosoft for ElectionGuard. search and key contributor counted. While U.S. officials prototype voting system for
Three little-known U.S. A spokeswoman for a third to the ElectionGuard proj- say there is no evidence reference.q

Students using drone to map dinosaur tracks in New Mexico

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) reports. access to the website,” he Clayton Lake was created the data so others can du-
— New Mexico college stu- The park located in the said. “It’s designed to help when officials dammed plicate the process in the
dents are using drones to northeastern part of the people explore the track up Seneca Creek north of future.” The dinosaur track
help map the location of state contained track sites site from anywhere in the Clayton in the 1960s. Con- drone project comes as
dinosaur tracks at a state that give can give scientists world.” struction of the dam’s spill- researchers from the Uni-
park, the latest project to key information about the Spencer Lucas, a curator way unveiled the tracks, versity of Denver are using
use drone technology to ancient reptiles. of paleontology at the mu- which were embedded in images gathered from a
gather data from historical Central New Mexico Com- seum, said the hundreds sandstone. drone to create a 3D re-
sites in the American West. munity College instructor of tracks found at Clayton Rick Leonhardt, a semi- construction of a World War
New Mexico State Parks Rick Watson says students Lake, which is about 4½ retired psychotherapist, is II-era Japanese internment
recently announced it is will fly the drones from dif- hours from Albuquerque, one of the students working camp in southern Colora-
teaming up with Central ferent heights in order to are from four different spe- on the projects. His first ca- do. Researchers last month
New Mexico Community record a variety of details. cies of dinosaurs and were reer, he said, was as a ge- dispatched the drone from
College students and the Once the project is com- all made within a year. ologist and now practices it the Switzerland-based
New Mexico Museum of plete, students will place “The Clayton Lake site is as a hobby. company senseFly as part
Natural History and Science the photographs, 3-D mod- a treasure,” he said. “The “This will help us digitally of a mapping project to
to map out the footprints at els, maps and other find- track sites are about 100 preserve these tracks,” he help future restoration
Clayton Lake State Park, ings on a website. million years old and along said. “We are putting pro- work at Camp Amache in
the Albuquerque Journal “The public will be able to an ancient sea coast.” cedures in place to collect Granada, Colorado.q