TresSugar

Texting Democracy: Estonia to Vote by Mobile Phone in 2011

LibertySugar — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 14:30:29 -0800

American Idol may let you text in your vote, but Estonia will be the first actual country to implement voting by cell phone. Technologically-savvy citizens will place chips into their cell phones, that authenticate identifications, before they cast their ballots for the 2011 parliamentary election.

Estonia has already used online voting, without any major security breaches. In order to prevent coercion that might happen when people vote in private, Estonians can still cancel out their e-votes with a paper ballot. An independent study found that the new vote-by-phone procedure should go off without any manipulation or malfunctions.

Would you like to see more access to democracy from voting options like Internet or phone voting? I guess we'll be looking to E-stonia to see how it's done!
Source

Georgia's Websites Endure Russian Cyber Attack

LibertySugar — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 06:00:19 -0700

While Russian tanks and rockets roll into Georgia, Russian hackers have infiltrated the country's civic websites, disabling Georgia's presidential and defense ministry sites, along with other ".ge" domains. These cyber attacks, as well as bombing of Georgia's telecom infrastructure, indicate that information is under assault in Georgia.

Cyber attacks originating in Russia have previously been launched against Estonia and Lithuania. Georgia has responded to the latest assault by moving crucial websites to other hosts. Estonia has agreed to support the Georgian Foreign Ministry site, while Georgia has relocated the information flow regarding the conflict to the Google platform Blogspot. Estonia has also sent cyber defense experts to Georgia.

Do strategic attacks on news and government websites make you think twice about relying on the Internet for all your information?

View 5 Photos ›

Source

Finnish Culture 101: Traditional Wife Carrying

LibertySugar — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 09:00:14 -0700

It may seem like a joke, but wife carrying competition is a serious tradition in Finland. The practice comes from an early tribal practice of wife stealing. Sacks of rye have been swapped with wives, as the relay race is modeled after the work of 1800's bandit leader Ronkainen, who screened wannabe robbers by testing how they faired racing with sacks.

The tradition has gone global. Couples from 14 countries, including the US, Britain, China, Australia, Canada, Ireland, Israel, and Kenya, competed in this weekend's Wife Carrying World Championships. A husband from Estonia won the big prize - his wife's weight in beer!

To see video of the competition, read more.

Source