In 2000, his team dropped the hammer on the Hack SDMI challenge by demonstrating how easy it was to crack the decidedly mediocre Secure Digital Music Initiative.

Dragged into the Sony BMG CD copy-protection scandal in 2005, he discovered that Sony’s “fix” for the Digital Rights Management rootkit it used to protect some new music CDs furthered inflamed an already bad situation.

And then, of course, there were Felten’s various investigations into electronic voting machines, the most notorious being the one that revealed Diebold’s machines could be opened with a standard office furniture key. “The access panel door on a Diebold AccuVote-TS voting machine–the door that protects the memory card that stores the votes, and is the main barrier to the injection of a virus–can be opened with a standard key that is widely available on the Internet,” Felten wrote at the time. “The exact same key is used widely in office furniture, electronic equipment, jukeboxes, and hotel minibars.”

Thank God for Felten, right?

And thank God the FTC has seen fit to hire him. There’s a lot of good he can do there. As Felten described it, “My main job will be to advise the FTC leadership on technology policy issues. My goals are use my technical expertise and knowledge of the tech world to help the FTC make the best decisions on tech topics, and to contribute to building up the agency’s technical capabilities.”

Said FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz, “Ed is extraordinarily respected in the technology community, and his background and knowledge make him an outstanding choice to serve as the agency’s first Chief Technologist. He’s going to add unparalleled expertise on high-technology markets and computer security.”

Obama will appoint the nation’s first Chief Technology Officer (CTO) to ensure that our government and all its agencies have the right infrastructure, policies and services for the 21st century. The CTO will ensure the safety of our networks and will lead an interagency effort, working with chief technology and chief information officers of each of the federal agencies, to ensure that they use best-in-class technologies and share best practices.”

– Excerpt from “The Blueprint for Change: Obama’s Plan for America”

The short list of candidates for President Elect Barack Obama’s cabinet-level CTO may be quite a bit shorter than Washington insiders claim. In the run-up to Tuesday’s election, Vint Cerf, Google’s (GOOG) chief Internet evangelist, Microsoft (MSFT) CEO Steve Ballmer, Google CEO Eric Schmidt, Princeton professor Ed Felten and Amazon (AMZN) CEO Jeffrey Bezos were among the names of those who might be considered for the job. But it’s beginning to look more and more like the Obama camp already has someone in mind for the position: Julius Genachowski.

A longtime friend and adviser of Obama’s, Genachowski was named to the President-elect’s transition team today. And while that obviously doesn’t make him a sure thing for cabinet CTO, he’s certainly well-qualified for the job. After all, Genachowski was a former adviser to Federal Communications Commission chairs Reed Hundt and Bill Kennard. And with a lengthy stint at Internet company IAC, his acumen includes Internet business operations as well as Washington tech policy.

And then there’s this: Genachowski’s the guy who came up with the idea of cabinet-level CTO in the first place. Dibs!

Obama will appoint the nation’s first Chief Technology Officer (CTO) to ensure that our government and all its agencies have the right infrastructure, policies and services for the 21st century. The CTO will ensure the safety of our networks and will lead an interagency effort, working with chief technology and chief information officers of each of the federal agencies, to ensure that they use best-in-class technologies and share best practices.”

– Excerpt from “The Blueprint for Change: Obama’s Plan for America”

The short list of candidates for President Elect Barack Obama’s cabinet-level CTO may be quite a bit shorter than Washington insiders claim. In the run-up to Tuesday’s election, Vint Cerf, Google’s (GOOG) chief Internet evangelist, Microsoft (MSFT) CEO Steve Ballmer, Google CEO Eric Schmidt, Princeton professor Ed Felten and Amazon (AMZN) CEO Jeffrey Bezos were among the names of those who might be considered for the job. But it’s beginning to look more and more like the Obama camp already has someone in mind for the position: Julius Genachowski.

A longtime friend and adviser of Obama’s, Genachowski was named to the President-elect’s transition team today. And while that obviously doesn’t make him a sure thing for cabinet CTO, he’s certainly well-qualified for the job. After all, Genachowski was a former adviser to Federal Communications Commission chairs Reed Hundt and Bill Kennard. And with a lengthy stint at Internet company IAC, his acumen includes Internet business operations as well as Washington tech policy.

And then there’s this: Genachowski’s the guy who came up with the idea of cabinet-level CTO in the first place. Dibs!