Fear and Laptops on the Campaign Trail
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The bloggers covering the presidential race are maverick, funny, mostly partisan and always hypercaffeinated. Are they ruining political journalism or recharging it?
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The coming presidential election is sure to be about as close as they come, and technology is at the heart of much of the surrounding discussion.
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It's "Animal Planet" in the presidential advertising wars. In heavily symbolic television spots, President Bush's campaign uses prowling wolves to suggest that the country under Sen. John Kerry would be vulnerable to terrorists. The Democratic Party claims the Republican incumbent is a head-in-the-sand ostrich while his opponent is as strong as an eagle.
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As the United States' presidential candidates pinball their way across New Hampshire on the day of the state's closely watched primary elections, a new form of grassroots activism appears to be taking root across the Atlantic, in Eastern Europe, that melds dirty pool tactics with the cutting edge of malware technology.Researchers with carrier security specialists Arbor Networks claim that they recently discovered several additional incidents of botnet-driven DOS attacks that were tied to political issues. Danny McPherson, chief research officer at Arbor, will report his group's findings to the assembled computer security and law enforcement experts at next week's Department of Defense Cyber-crime conference in St. Louis.Since April 2007, when a campaign of targeted denial-of-service (DOS) attacks against Web sites controlled by the prime minister of Estonia and several regional banks were carried out with crushing results -- crippling the URLs for a period of several days -- experts have wondered aloud to what extent politics played a hand in the scheme.At the time, press reports and IT security experts speculated that tension between Estonia and Russia -- sparked by Estonia's decision to move a Soviet-era World War II memorial of a bronze soldier -- may have motivated the coordinated DOS attacks. With a number of well-known malware distribution and botnet control networks based out of the region, experts speculated that Russian hackers, either on their own or at the behest of a paying customer, took out the Estonian sites to display their displeasure with the statue's removal.Now new evidence has been discovered that indicates the same sort of political activism believed to have driven the 2007 Estonian Web site attacks not only exists but is becoming more popular."We spent some time after the Estonia attacks looking into this part of the world, and we've found evidence of other politically motivated botnet DOS attacks," said Jose Nazario, senior software engineer at Arbor. "It's hard to tell who is responsible for these campaigns, but they definitely appear to be tied to some recent Russian and Ukrainian elections."According to Nazario, who is known as an expert tracker of botnets -- the armies of malware-infected computers that can be controlled remotely to be used for everything from DOS campaigns to the distribution of spam -- two elections in particular appear to have drawn activity similar to the Estonia incidents.In one instance, Nazario said his team uncovered a botnet-driven DOS threat carried out against several Web sites controlled by Viktor Yanukovych, the recently defeated Ukranian prime minister, during his re-election campaign.In another incident, Nazario said that his team was able to discover a DOS campaign aimed at sites controlled by the "Other Russia" political party led by one-time 2008 Russian presidential candidate Garry Kasparov, who is more widely known as one of the greatest chess players of all time.During each of the individual attacks, banks of botnet-infected computers successfully took the candidates' sites down for several days before they were restored, according to Arbor.Additionally, Nazario said the botnets used in both sets of attacks represent the cutting-edge of the increasingly popular and sophisticated malware sub-genre.Rather than using IRC relays to communicate with each other like most traditional botnets, the politically driven threats utilized Web-based requests to speak to each other -- a much harder form of traffic to differentiate from legitimate network throughput, Nazario said.The same advanced botnets are currently being used to distribute malware and spam, but the systems also appear to have been specifically designed to help their controllers carry out different types of distributed DOS attacks, he said.Nazario said the botnets being used in Russia and the Ukraine closely resembled the zombie PC armies that have been used in years past to attack anti-spam efforts such as Spamhaus and CastleCops -- both of which have previously been targeted successfully and had their sites temporarily taken offline.The activity could also suggest that the systems are being rented out by their creators to other people for the purpose of executing their own threats -- or being built through botnet toolkit technologies being developed in the region, the expert said.Whether or not botnet activism will wash ashore in the U.S. any time soon remains unclear, but it seems apparent the trend is taking off across the pond.Nazario said it remains hard to tell if the botnet campaign tactic has become a weapon of official political entities, or merely a tool of groups acting independently to promote some cause or belief, but lean towards the latter scenario."We don't know who is behind any of this activity, and we don't want to speculate, but you have to ask yourself, is this directed by someone higher in the political organizations, or is it merely somebody who is acting as a lone vigilante?" Nazario said. "It could be that this is something that is being carried out by a handful of individuals that have some sort of belief or disagreement to promote, or it could of course represent something bigger."
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As the November presidential election nears, several groups are mobilizing to monitor the voting process -- including a group of observers from across the globe and over a thousand techies who will help evaluate voting machines. By Laila Weir.
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The IT industry has two horses in the U.S. presidential race this year.
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The presidential campaign trail is looking a bit like Hollywood Boulevard. Or a rock 'n' roll stage.
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Technology policy hasn&#39;t played a major role in this year&#39;s U.S. presidential campaign, but the major candidates have staked out positions on issues such as&#160;net neutrality&#160;and&#160;skilled-worker visas.As in past presidential campaigns, candidates haven&#39;t viewed technology issues as ones that drive voters to the polls.Instead, debate over the war in Iraq, the economy, illegal immigration, and other issues will inspire voters in 24 states (plus American Samoa and Democrats living overseas) on&#160;Super Tuesday&#160;to choose which candidates they want to be nominees of the Democratic or Republican parties.Some tech groups have long complained that many politicians don&#39;t get technology. In late January, the Washington, D.C., tech PR firm 463 Communications released a poll with two-thirds of respondents saying that presidential candidates should have at least as much knowledge about the Internet as they do. However, only 45 percent said the next president will know as much about the Internet as they do.In December, Garrett M. Graff, an editor at large at Washingtonian magazine and the first blogger admitted to a White House briefing, wrote a column in The Washington Post, complaining about the lack of tech-savvy candidates. That prompted others to comment as well.Members of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, the panel that debates many tech issues, often talk about their lack of tech experience, Adam Thierer, a senior follow with the tech-centric conservative think tank, the Progress and Freedom Foundation, wrote on the PFF&#39;s blog.&quot;Without missing a beat, they make jokes about not ever using the Internet or computers but that they have staffers or young family members who do and keep them informed,&quot; he wrote. &quot;And yet, despite this stunning unfamiliarity with all things high-tech, they then move right on to pass reams of regulations governing the Internet and digital economy. Again, it&#39;s not funny anymore and we should stop allowing them to pretend it is.&quot;That said, several presidential candidates have taken positions on tech-related issues this year. In alphabetical order, these are some of their views:Senator Hillary ClintonNew York Democrat Clinton, like other candidates, hasn&#39;t made tech issues a central part of her campaign, but she has championed an &quot; innovation agenda&quot; as one of her top issues. That agenda includes several policies that many large tech companies have embraced.Clinton wants to pump up the basic research budgets at the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy&#39;s Office of Science, and the Department of Defense by 50 percent over 10 years.She also would require that federal research agencies set aside at least 8 percent of their research budgets for discretionary funding of high-risk research, and she would increase funding for research on Internet- and IT-based tools, including supercomputing and simulation software.&quot;Under the Bush administration, agencies like the Defense Advance Research Projects Agency (DARPA) have reduced support for truly revolutionary research,&quot; Clinton&#39;s Web site says. &quot;This is a problem because DARPA has played a major role in maintaining America&#39;s economic and military leadership. DARPA backed such projects as the Internet, stealth technology, and the Global Positioning System.&quot;Clinton also wants tax incentives to encourage broadband providers to deploy services in underserved areas. She has called for federal support of state and local broadband programs, including municipal broadband projects. Clinton has also called for a research-and-development tax credit, extended temporarily multiple times since 1981, to be made permanent.Clinton has said she would support net neutrality regulations for U.S. broadband providers.Former Governor Mike HuckabeeHuckabee, an Arkansas Republican and ordained Baptist minister, has largely ignored tech issues during his campaign.He has, however, called for an increase in immigrant visas for highly skilled and highly educated workers, a position shared by many large tech companies. Otherwise, Huckabee would largely shut down U.S. borders to immigrants.Instead of technology, Huckabee has focused on social issues such as making abortion illegal and defining marriage as only between a man and a woman.Huckabee also wants the U.S. to achieve independence from oil-producing nations.Senator John McCainThe Arizona Republican is a long-time member of the Senate Commerce Committee. As such, he can argue that he has the most tech policy experience of any of the remaining major-party candidates.In recent years, McCain has pushed for a nationwide voice and data network for public safety agencies. He was one of the Senate&#39;s leading voices in the effort to get U.S. television stations to give up part of their analog spectrum for use by police and fire departments. The rest of that spectrum is being sold in the Federal Communications Commission&#39;s auctions now under way.McCain has been noncommittal about net neutrality laws. He&#39;s said he&#39;d be concerned if Internet users&#39; access is blocked, but he&#39;s also suggested broadband carriers need to recoup their investments.McCain last year also called for an increase in government research and development spending, and he&#39;s said he&#39;d draft &quot;the best and the brightest&quot; of American CEOs to work in his administration if he were elected, including Cisco Systems&#39; John Chambers and Microsoft&#39;s Steve Ballmer.He has also supported efforts to make an Internet tax moratorium permanent, recently calling the Internet &quot;likely the most popular invention since the light bulb.&quot; In 2004, he urged the Federal Trade Commission to focus more of its efforts on fighting spam.In 2005, McCain split from many other Republicans by authoring legislation that would prohibit states from outlawing municipal broadband projects. McCain said then he was concerned that the U.S. has fallen behind more than a dozen other countries on broadband adoption.Senator Barack ObamaThe Illinois Democrat in November released an extensive tech policy paper, earning him praise from several tech groups.Obama gets technology, said Julius Genachowski, co-founder of Rock Creek Ventures and a long-time friend. &quot;He will be a true 21st century president, using technology to improve the lives of all Americans,&quot; Genachowski said at a tech forum last week.In the tech agenda, Obama called for net neutrality regulations for broadband carriers. &quot;Users must be free to access content, to use applications, and to attach personal devices,&quot; he said in his tech policy.Parents need better tools and information to control what their children see on the Internet and television, he said.He called for greater privacy protections for all U.S. residents, including Internet users, and he said government and businesses should be held accountable for privacy violations. He wants an update of government surveillance laws that allow intelligence-gathering on U.S. citizens to be done &quot;only under the rule of law.&quot;Obama would also increase the Federal Trade Commission&#39;s enforcement budget and focus increased international cooperation to track down cybercriminals.Obama also wants to make government data more available online. He would revamp a number of existing programs, and create some new ones, to help roll out broadband in the U.S. He called for a review of wireless spectrum use in the U.S. and said he would &quot;confront the entrenched Washington interests that have kept our public airwaves from being maximized for the public&#39;s interest.&quot;He has pledged to make the research-and-development tax credit permanent. He also called for patent reform, primarily by giving the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office more resources to improve patent quality.Former Governor Mitt RomneyRomney, a Massachusetts Republican, hasn&#39;t made many tech issues a central part of his campaign, but he has focused on U.S. competitiveness, a popular issue for many IT companies.Romney&#39;s competitiveness initiative would seek to improve U.S. schools and at the same time cut individual and corporate tax rates. He wants to improve worker retraining programs by consolidating and streamlining numerous federal programs.He has taken positions on a couple of other tech-related issues as well. In interviews Romney has expressed support for a permanent Internet tax ban, and he&#39;s said he supports free trade, a position echoed by many large tech vendors.Romney has also said he would support an increase in H-1B visas for high-skilled workers.&quot;I like the idea of the best and brightest in the world coming here,&quot; he told the TechCrunch blog in November. &quot;I&#39;d rather have them come here permanently rather than come and go, but I believe our visa program is designed to help us solve gaps in our employment pool. Where there are individuals who have skills that we do not have in abundance here, I&#39;d like to bring them here and contribute to our economy.&quot;
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WASHINGTON - Concern about national security is dominating public attention in the final months of the presidential campaign because of continuing fears of terrorism and unhappiness about the war in Iraq, according to a poll released Wednesday.   "For the first time since the Vietnam era, national security issues are looming larger than economic issues in an election year," said Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press...
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One of the two democratic campaigns will end up with a fresh sense of possibility, the other with a sense of opportunity lost.
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Candidates use the Internet to generate buzz, draw grass-roots support and raise record amounts of money. But in the intense, round-the-clock world of online presidential campaigning, the good comes with the bad.
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Bloggers and other Internet activists made their marks in the past two presidential elections chiefly by building networks of political enthusiasts and raising money for candidates. Now, they are pushing aggressively into policymaking -- and not just over high-profile issues such as Iraq.
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In 2004, YouTube didn't exist. Three  years later, politicians have learned to fear and revere the  video-sharing Web site that has become a vital part of the  campaign for the 2008 U.S. presidential election.
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Voter databases are old hat to political campaigns. But by taking that same data and overlaying it on a map -- a technology called geographic information systems -- operatives are becoming more effective at getting out the vote. By Jacob Ogles.
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The energized voters that candidates see on the campaign trail
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For the 2008 presidential candidates, the Web is the newest place to stump for votes. Surprisingly, Republicans are more "Googly" then Democrats
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A sampling of youth outreach efforts in the presidential campaign: