Internationaler Strafgerichtshof: Amazon und Paypal blockieren Richter in Europa

Ein französischer Richter erlebt, was passieren kann, wenn die US-Regierung Tech-Firmen als Waffe einsetzt: ein Leben ohne Hotelreservierungen, Amazon-Shopping, Paypal und Kreditkarten. (Amazon, Google)

Ein französischer Richter erlebt, was passieren kann, wenn die US-Regierung Tech-Firmen als Waffe einsetzt: ein Leben ohne Hotelreservierungen, Amazon-Shopping, Paypal und Kreditkarten. (Amazon, Google)

Oops. Cryptographers cancel election results after losing decryption key.

Voting system required three keys. One of them has been “irretrievably lost.”

One of the world’s premier security organizations has canceled the results of its annual leadership election after an official lost an encryption key needed to unlock results stored in a verifiable and privacy-preserving voting system.

The International Association of Cryptologic Research (IACR) said Friday that the votes were submitted and tallied using Helios, an open source voting system that uses peer-reviewed cryptography to cast and count votes in a verifiable, confidential, and privacy-preserving way. Helios encrypts each vote in a way that assures each ballot is secret. Other cryptography used by Helios allows each voter to confirm their ballot was counted fairly.

An “honest but unfortunate human mistake”

Per the association’s bylaws, three members of the election committee act as independent trustees. To prevent two of them from colluding to cook the results, each trustee holds a third of the cryptographic key material needed to decrypt results.

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Why you don’t want to get tuberculosis on your penis

While tuberculosis can attack anywhere, it’s extremely rare on the penis.

A man in Ireland earned the unpleasant distinction of developing an exceedingly rare infection on his penis—one that has a puzzling origin, but may be connected to his work with dead animals.

According to an article published in ASM Case Reports on Thursday, the 57-year-old man went to a hospital in Dublin after his penis became red, swollen, and painful over the course of a week. He also had a fever. Doctors promptly admitted him to the hospital and noted that he had received a kidney transplant 15 years prior. As such, he was on immunosuppressive drugs, which keep his body from rejecting the organ, but could also allow infections to run amok.

Initial blood work found hints of an infection, and the doctors initially suspected a bacterial skin infection (cellulitis) had taken hold in his nether region. So, they put him on some standard antibiotics for that. But his penis only got worse, redder, and more swollen. This prompted consultation with infectious disease doctors.

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