Not a stupid
question. I tried very hard to have this product and information about it
disseminated in a professional matter this time around. This failed.
My apologies, especially to Knecht. I have learned my
lesson.
There is an
application, downldr.exe, used to download the firmware onto the Spyrus
unit. I'll put it on the ftp site, password bn4sdkk8ofbqd. You'll
need the special Spyrus cable to connect the reader to your computer. Here
are the instructions:
Do
not install the windows software that comes with the Spyrus
reader. If you install it, then COM1 will be locked out by the driver, and
downldr.exe won't work. My hope is that the Spyrus CD and
instructions be removed from the box in McKinney before shipping so this
confusion is avoided.
Note that
distributing this software is extremely dangerous. Our smart card format
has absolutely no security, so if someone were to get a copy of this software
and a reader, they could stand at the ballot station and quietly burn new voter
cards all day. Of course that's also the case with PollBook.exe, but a
notebook computer is a little harder to smuggle into a polling place, and
besides most of our staff has trouble setting up a poll book, let alone
outsiders. The Card Manager (Spyrus) is actually simple to use.
Anyway, I can see the cover of USA Today in my head. Consider everyone
warned.
Good
luck,
Ken
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