Monday, November 28, 2011

Egypt's post-Mubarak poll peaceful, high turnout (Reuters)

CAIRO (Reuters) ? Egyptians voted on Monday in the first election since a popular revolt toppled Hosni Mubarak's one-man rule, showing new-found faith in the ballot box that may sweep long-banned Islamists into parliament even as army generals cling to power.

Voters swarmed to the polls in a generally peaceful atmosphere despite the unrest that marred the election run-up, when 42 people were killed in demonstrations demanding an immediate transition from military to civilian rule.

"We want to make a difference, although we are depressed by what the country has come to," said Maha Amin, a 46-year-old pharmacy lecturer, before she voted in an upscale Cairo suburb.

The ruling army council, which has already extended polling to a second day, said voting stations would stay open two extra hours until 9 p.m. "to accommodate the high voter turnout."

The Muslim Brotherhood's party and other Islamists expect to do well in the parliamentary election staggered over the next six weeks, but much remains uncertain in Egypt's complex and unfamiliar voting system of party lists and individuals.

Political transformation in Egypt, traditional leader of the Arab world, will reverberate across the Middle East, where a new generation demanding democratic change has already toppled or challenged the leaders of Tunisia, Libya, Syria and Yemen.

Parliament's lower house will be Egypt's first nationally elected body since Mubarak's fall and those credentials alone may enable it to dilute the military's monopoly of power.

A high turnout throughout the election would give it legitimacy. Despite a host of reported electoral violations and lax supervision exploited by some groups, election monitors reported no systematic Mubarak-style campaign to rig the polls.

"We are very happy to be part of the election," said first-time Cairo voter Wafa Zaklama, 55. "What was the point before?"

In the northern city of Alexandria, 34-year-old engineer Walid Atta rejoiced in the occasion. "This is the first real election in 30 years. Egyptians are making history," he said.

ISLAMISTS SCENT POWER

Oppressed under Mubarak, the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist parties have stood aloof from those challenging army rule in Cairo's Tahrir Square and elsewhere, unwilling to let anything obstruct a vote that may bring them closer to power.

In the Nile Delta city of Damietta, some voters said they would punish the Brotherhood for its perceived opportunism.

"The Brotherhood has lost more in the past three months than it built in the last three decades," said tour operator Ayman Soliman, 35, who favors the moderate Islamist Wasat Party.

Nevertheless, the Brotherhood has formidable advantages that include a disciplined organization, name recognition among a welter of little-known parties and years of opposing Mubarak.

Brotherhood organizers stood near many polling stations with laptops to help people find where they should vote, printing out a paper with their Freedom and Justice Party candidate's name and symbol on the back.

"At least they are not giving people fruit inside the polling station," said Mouna Zuffakar, of the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights, noting widespread violations of a ban on campaigning near polling stations.

Many voters engaged in lively political debate as they waited patiently in long queues.

"Aren't the army officers the ones who protected us during the revolution?" one woman asked loudly at a polling station in Cairo's Nasr City, referring to the army's role in easing Mubarak from power. "What do those slumdogs in Tahrir want?"

One man replied: "Those in Tahrir are young men and women who are the reason why a 61-year-old man like me voted in a parliamentary election for the first time in his life today."

The world is closely watching the election, keen for stability in Egypt, which has a peace treaty with Israel, owns the Suez Canal linking Europe and Asia, and which in Mubarak's time was an ally in countering Islamist militants in the region.

Washington and its European allies have urged the generals to step aside swiftly and make way for civilian rule.

SEGREGATED VOTING

In Alexandria, Egypt's second city, men and women voted in separate queues. Posters for Islamist parties, such as the Brotherhood's FJP, the Salafi Nour Party and the moderate Wasat Party adorned the streets.

The segregated voting for men and women in Alexandria and many other places was a reminder of the conservative religious fabric of Egypt's mainly Muslim society, where Coptic Christians comprise 10 percent of a population of more than 80 million.

Myriad parties have emerged since the fall of Mubarak, who rigged elections to ensure his now-defunct National Democratic Party dominated parliament. The NDP's headquarters, torched in the popular revolt, still stands like a tombstone by the Nile.

Under the complex electoral system, voters pick both party lists and individual candidates.

Individual winners are to be announced on Wednesday, but many contests will go to a run-off vote on December 5. List results will not be declared until after the election ends on January 11.

About 17 million Egyptians are eligible to vote in the first two-day phase of three rounds of polling for the lower house.

Egyptians seemed enthused by the novelty of a vote where the outcome was, for a change, not a foregone conclusion.

"We are seeing clear signs of voter excitement and participation, as evidenced by long lines at polling stations, and it appears to be a genuine contest," said Les Campbell, of the Washington-based National Democratic Institute.

The army council has promised civilian rule by July after the parliamentary vote and a presidential poll, now expected in June -- much sooner than previously envisaged.

But army council member General Mamdouh Shahin said on Sunday the new parliament would have no right to remove a cabinet appointed by the army using its "presidential" powers.

On Friday, the army named Kamal Ganzouri to form a new government, a move quickly rejected by protesters in Tahrir Square demanding that generals step aside immediately in favor of a civilian body to oversee the transition to democracy.

Ganzouri said he had met the ruling army council on Monday to discuss forming a "civilian advisory committee" to work with his new cabinet, which he said could be unveiled by Thursday.

(Additional reporting by Edmund Blair, Maha El Dahan and Tom Perry in Cairo, Marwa Awad in Alexandria, Shaimaa Fayed in Damietta, Yusri Mohamed in Port Said and Jonathan Wright in Fayoum; Writing by Alistair Lyon; Editing by Peter Millership)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/world/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111128/wl_nm/us_egypt_election

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What's the worst password of 2011? "password" (Digital Trends)

password

This last year has brought an increased emphasis on online security?what with the PlayStation Network breach, seemingly endless stories of services, companies, and governments losing personal data or seeing their systems compromised (Valve, Sony, and RSA all spring to mind), one might think consumers would be more careful with passwords on their email and social networking accounts, mobile devices, and even online banking. According to a report published by SpashData?makers of password management software, that?s not really true. SpashData looked at files containing ?millions? of stolen passwords that were posted online by cyberattackers in the last year, and has compiled a list of the 25 most common passwords it found. At the top of the list: ?password.?

?Hackers can easily break into many accounts just by repeatedly trying common passwords,? said SplashData CEO Morgan Slain, in a statement. ?Even though people are encouraged to select secure, strong passwords, many people continue to choose weak, easy-to-guess ones, placing themselves at risk from fraud and identity theft.?

SpashData?s sample is admittedly biased: its list comprises the 25 most common passwords it found in lists of accounts that had been cracked?meaning accounts with more-secure passwords aren?t even in the sample set. There?s also no indication whether these accounts represent real people or simply accounts created by automation or for testing purposes: there?s no way of knowing whether guessing the password to any one of those accounts would actually have a harmful result. Nonetheless, the results seem to indicate a rather shocking naivet? from everyday Internet users.

According to SplashData, the 25 most common passwords cracked by cyberattackers are:

  • password
  • 123456
  • 12345678
  • qwerty
  • abc123
  • monkey
  • 1234567
  • letmein
  • trustno1
  • dragon
  • baseball
  • 111111
  • iloveyou
  • master
  • sunshine
  • ashley
  • bailey
  • passw0rd
  • shadow
  • 123123
  • 654321
  • superman
  • qazwsx
  • michael
  • football
One interesting entry is ?passw0rd??many people think they?re secure from dictionary attacks if they simply change out a letter for a numeral.

Security experts generally recommend a password be at least eight characters long, contain a mix of upper- and lower-case letters, numbers, and allowable punctuation. However, from a usability standpoint, those sorts of ?secure? passwords are difficult for users to remember and use?meaning they often wind up on sticky notes next to a monitor or in a file or note labelled ?password,? further compromising users? security.

?If you have a password that is short or common or a word in the dictionary, it?s like leaving your door open for identity thieves,? Slain said.

Another approach is to create rather long passwords from strings of seemingly, unrelated, ordinary words: those passwords are generally easier to type and remember, although they often aren?t accepted by systems that enforce rules about password length or requiring special characters.

xckd-password-strength

[Comic via the excellent xkcd: http://xkcd.com/936/]

[Image via Shutterstock]

This article was originally posted on Digital Trends

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Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/personaltech/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/digitaltrends/20111125/tc_digitaltrends/whatstheworstpasswordof2011password

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