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Swarthmore Students Keep Diebold Memos Online
An anonymous reader submits "Two student groups based out of Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania announced today that they are rejecting Diebold Elections Systems' cease-and-desist orders and are initiating an electronic civil disobedience campaign that will ensure permanent public access to the controversial leaked memos. You can read the memos, search the memos, or download the memos."
Or host them in another country, and you'll always have access to them.
Would make it harder for Diebold to fight back...
As far as I can tell, it's only sleezy Diebold who is telling people not to post the memos. Unless these kids are standing up against a court order to take down the information, they are hardly participating in civil disobedience just because they are pointing out serious flaws in Diebold's buggy system and not listening to Diebold when they say to stop, flaws that Diebold would apparently like to hide.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
Ho, ho, ha ha, "Slashdot effect". This joke is more worn out than hot grits. Say something useful, says something funny but quit posting "Slashdot effect" trolls.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
This is the kind of information that can be easily postedon USENET. This would provide worldwide public access distribution for the content, except at ISPs that choose to censor the data of course.
Just another example of how America's colleges promote liberalism
Okay. That's a good thing.
and anti-americanism
How is it anti-American to expose flaws in voting machines which could threaten the very heart of our society; the fair democratic election of our leaders?
and promote the acceptance of lawbreaking
We should accept lawbreaking when the laws being broken. Did you ever learn about the Boston Tea Party? Ever hear of Rosa Parks refusing to give up her seat on a bus? Civil disobedience has a long, proud history in America.
If you like conservatism and patriotism, and you dislike civil disobedience, then move to Communist China. They are very conservative, very patriotic, and don't tolerate civil disobedience. Your kind of people...
The aptly-named "liberal arts college" should be banned if you ask me.
No one did, but you'd have really appreciated Mao's Cultural Revolution where intellectuals were rounded up and sent to brutal labor camps.
I belive it was Wired magazine a few months ago compared Schools and Universities and how they view their student's online rights.
For an example of a positive school, MIT supported the student(s) that started the bonsai kitty website after review from their legal department. Until they had explicity documentation that the webiste was somehow illegal or violated something or other, they allowed the site to remain up. I'm sure they were not happy to be painted as supporters of kitten abuse, but they were smart enough to see the real issue of free speech.
being a patriot is equated to being a nazi.
I've voted green in the last election, and will in the next, but I love my country and I'm sure the grand parent poster does too. Does that make us 'nazis' in your eyes, junior?
From the link...
War? believes that what we are doing is legal; though we see it as an issue of electronic civil disobedience we believe it is Diebold which is abusing copyright law in an attempt to shut down free speech and the democratic process.
Okay, now it's either legal OR it's civil disobedience (i.e., intentionally breaking a law, and accepting an unjust punishment, to draw attention to an issue). As someone who supports this effort -- someone who's done a little political action and gets steaming mad at scatterbrained hippies who drag down liberal progressive movements -- I'd prefer that they straighten out the claims of their action.
I think it would be preferable to claim that Diebold's cease-and-desist order is illegal and unenforceable. Then, keeping the memos online is even better than civil disobedience (noble in its own right), it's actually civil obedience for a just cause.
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
It's not like this is going to favor Republicans just because the guy running Diebold is a Republican - with security this bad it's open season for everyone. I think the more worrying thing would be if these machines weren't hackable but were iron-clad, then the only backdoors would belong to the guys who wrote the code; instead, the backdoors are wide open to any idiot who wishes to wander in.
If these machines really are hackable then they'll be hacked, and going by the intelligence of your average script kiddie they'll be hacked to such a ridiculous degree that the results will clearly be fake and the judiciary will declare all of these elections invalid. I mean, really, when Kevin Mitnick is mysteriously elected governor of Minnesota in a write-in vote and NORML supporters sweep the legislative elections in nine states, somebody's going to start asking questions...
To go further, I'll bet that printed flyers distributed by hand are immune to any sort of cease and desist order. It's clearly political speech, and it doesn't have that stigma of being "on the internet."
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
If you like conservatism and patriotism, and you dislike civil disobedience, then move to Communist China. They are very conservative, very patriotic, and don't tolerate civil disobedience. Your kind of people...
Kiss my patriotic ass. This stupid ultra-liberal backlash against patriotism is pissing me off. Patriotism != blindly following Dubya and his henchmen. Patriotism, as I see it, has always meant a love for the United States and the ideals set forth by the founding fathers, two of these ideals being the Constitutional rights to freedom of press and freedom of speech. By that view of patriotism, what these students are doing is clearly patriotic. No American in their right mind would argue that having our elections run by a bunch of incompetent buffoons who try to cover their massive flaws with lawsuits is a good thing.
Thankfully, the EFF is more enlightened than you are.
Dear God. What these people consider a 'release" version should count as criminal negligence on an ordinary project. This is about an election, nothing - with the possible exception of the judicial system that may have to step in over this - is more important in our system of government.
I mean... My God ! They don't know what they're sending to the client ! "Is this a "testing" release or not? (Ashamed to ask). I think the hallucinations ought to be resurfacing with Steve already. Ken"
Where are the US Marshall's ? Ashamed to ask ? How's he gonna feel under interrogation ? Or on the witness stand. Draft 'em and send 'em to Leavenworth.
Veteran, Bermuda Triangle Expeditionary Force, 1992-1951
What is with these misconceptions about freenet.
First of all, Freenet is making rapid progress despite the fact they have very *very* limited funding. I'm currently able to insert and receive gigabytes of stuff off freenet. Perhaps if you did as suggested and left your node on for a few days so it could intergrate into the network you'd see some speed.
Second, this child pornography thing is false. The main sites have little if any of it, see for yourself. As well, this porgraphy content could easily be displaced by projects like this Memo thing if people would just insert other content.
Third, content doesn't drop off fast. It usually takes months of non requests before it slides off. As well GNUnet, another p2p anonymous GPL project, has the ability to host specific files on your hard drive, perhaps this feature will be added to Freenet.
The coding is simple, and if you dont like Java, there is a close cousin of freenet in C,C++ type language called Entropy, as well as there is GNUnet. Why not look at the code and experiment, its all GPL.
You should stop trying to redefine conservatism as anything that pampered Western liberal intellectuals don't like, and vice versa. It's dishonest and despicable.
What's despicable and dishonest is your attempts to portray a society which subjugates women, resists change at all costs, and highly values conformity as anything other than conservative.
Currently, a leading manufacturer of electronic voting systems named Diebold Systems is attempting to squelch critics and critical discussion of their products and business methods. Some of these critics are your students, as you are probably well aware. Such Cease and Desist orders are the first step in a campaign to control those who would dissent, and to intimidate those who would research.
I believe this discussion rightly should include the publication of confidential business memoranda that have been acquired from Diebold Systems. These memoranda may show certain antipathy to the proper methodology and design for a secure voting infrastructure. It is only through such exposition that a frank discussion of security and responsibility can be pursued.
Lastly, I am very concerned at corporate influence in government function. I have long held the position that "a corporation has no vested interest in the rights of the individual." I am not anti- business or anti-profit, but companies which perform vital government functions such as producing voting equipment must be adherent to the principles of a free and informed electorate, both in products and in deeds.
I recommend you support your students, and support their cause to inform the public where possible on these issues.
Please show your students that Democracy and Research are more important than corporate greed, and that transparency is critical when building a government of the people, by the people, and for the people.
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You have aptly demonstrated you are too stupid to be reading Slashdot. Here's a hint -- you agree with the parent! You just insulted someone by affirming what that individual said.
And you got modded up for it! Looks like you're not the only person around today who's too stupid to be reading Slashdot.