* Forwarded (from: netmail) by Roy J. Tellason using timEd 1.10.y2k.



Date: Wed, 4 Jun 2003 17:44:15 -0400
From: Ed Ravin 
Subject: Phantom voting in Israeli Knesset

An investigation is going on in the Israeli Knesset (Parliament) on how
votes are being cast on behalf of parliamentarians who are absent from
their seats.  It seems that electronic voting has problems even in a
controlled environment like the floor of a parliament...

  Knesset probe fails to reveal who voted in Likud
  By Gidon Alon, Haaretz Correspondent

  A special committee set up by Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin, has failed to
  discover which MK was responsible for voting in place of Likud MK Inbal
  Gavrieli, who was not present in the Knesset plenum during a debate
  concerning the new budget plan, even though computer records indicate a
  vote was cast from her seat.
  Israel Radio reported several Likud MK's saying they had observed MK
  Yehiel Hazan (Likud) voting on Gavrieli's behalf. The vote was conducted
  electronically.

  The incident follows another case of double voting, in which MK Michael
  Gorlovski (Likud) admitted to having voted on behalf of another Likud MK,
  Gilad Erdan, also during the vote on the economic plan.

  http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml
 
?itemNo=300587&contrassID=1&subContrassID=7&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y



Date: Fri, 06 Jun 2003 09:43:26 -0400
From: Declan McCullagh 
Subject: Canadian firearm registration system overwhelmed by traffic

>Date: Fri, 6 Jun 2003 08:41:33 -0600
>From: swabsox 
>To: Declan McCullagh 
>Subject: ITBusiness.ca
>
>Gun registry backfires after system exceeds capacity:
>
>  The CFC's IT woes really aren't that different from any other government
>department's, said Wendy Cukier, president of the Toronto-based 
>Coalition for Gun Control. She noted that government projects are 
>frequently plagued by things like budget and capacity issues, but the 
>amount of vocal opposition to the gun registry and made the CFC a 
>flashpoint for controversy.
>
>"The system was built on the assumption that it would have something like 
>a 10% error rate and instead the error rate was 90 per cent. Some of that
>was because of the complexity of forms and some of that was deliberate" said
>Cukier, who's also a professor of information technology management at
>Ryerson University. "You'd be hard-pressed to find another program
>that faced
>such extensive efforts to undermine it."
>
>http://www.itbusiness.ca/index.asp?theaction=61&lid=1&sid=52538



Date: Sat, 31 May 2003 11:25:24 +0300 (EEST)
From: Teemu Leppänen 
Subject: Computer glitch causes traffic lights malfunction

In Oulu, Finland, computer glitch in central "traffic lights controlling"
computer caused traffic jams in city centre at 9am friday morning. The
computer transferred back to year 1991 and to night time (they did not
specify exact date and time), meaning some of the traffic lights were in
"night mode" and signaling "ignore me". Problem was
solved in 90 minutes,
but the original cause of the glitch remains yet unknown. Authorities say
this was the first glitch ever experienced by the tax payers, also admitting
there has been "minor" ones before. Seems that the police was not used to
guide the traffic instead.

No accidents were reported, hence no need to clear the way for the emergency
medical teams.. perhaps with system which state is unknown, even requiring
reboot, or having technicians trying to fix the issue at the same time.

Original article (in Finnish) http://plus.kaleva.fi/html/JTpage321980.html

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