EFF Announces 2004 Pioneer Award Winners

Christopher Soghoian writes "In an announcement earlier this week, the Electronic Frontier Foundation has revealed the winners of the Thirteenth Annual Pioneer Awards. Focusing on the area of electronic voting security and accountability, they have highlighted the work of Kim Alexander, the president of the California Voter Foundation, David Dill, a Stanford Professor and founder of VerifiedVoting.org, and Avi Rubin, a professor at Johns Hopkins University who co-authored the highly publicized Diebold report of 2003."

Comments

Historians note

[RedOregon]

More power to 'em. Individuals like these will be the people our grandchildren study (I hope!).

Re:Historians note

[Anonymous Coward]

Who modded this redundant? This is totally insightful you fuck sticks. God I wish I had mod points still.

Re:Historians note

[Anonymous Coward]

The whole point of the EFF is to point out people that our grandchildren will study.

Maybe you should have been modded "-1 Whore" instead

Re:Historians note

[Anonymous Coward]

Who modded this interesting? This is totally redundant you fuck sticks. God I wish I had mod points still.

How the hell can, and I quote,



be held to be anything but a statement devoid of insight, interest, humour or information. It states the obvious, it reeks of "the children are our future" cliche, it feels like a joke without a punchline, and is completely devoid of anything further to add to the articles.

A more interesting/insightful observation would be something along the lines of "Gee, I bet that David Dill got some harassment when he was a kid, especially with a name like that", and even that is the most redundant statement that would be possible to be made without actually saying "RedOregon, sounds like a dick".

Re:Historians note

[Anonymous Coward]

Shouldn't that be +1 Whore?

I don't think so.

[Anonymous Coward]

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What do they get?

[Anonymous Coward]

Do they get to pick the next President?

BENEDICT ARNOLDS OF THE OPEN SOURCE MOVEMENT

[Anonymous Coward]

• Marc Andreessen made 100s of millions of dollars shortly after graduating from UIUC. Today's graduates of the same university face moving back in with their parents. "Fuck that, I got mine!"
• Brian Behlendorf decided he'd rather go to India to recruit software engineers than help out the graduating classes of 2001-2004 here in the US.
• Robert Malda stood idly by and said NOTHING while his company offshored its flagship product.

Miguel de Icaza, Bruce Perens, Eric Raymond, and Linus Torvalds all got rich off the Open Source Movement. What do you have to look forward to?

Re:BENEDICT ARNOLDS OF THE OPEN SOURCE MOVEMENT

[Geoffreyerffoeg]

This is offtopic (mod me down, karma-bonus isn't working anyway), but I'll bite:

What do you have to look forward to?
Following in their footsteps: creating a wildly successful capitalist business that uses others' open-source to reduce costs, in the process possibly contributing back in minor amounts. It worked for Apple, it worked for Google, it worked for countless others I won't bother to name, it'll work for me.

Re:BENEDICT ARNOLDS OF THE OPEN SOURCE MOVEMENT

[Seth Finklestein]

Two words for you.

Michael FUCKING Sims .

Need I say more?

Sincerely,
Seth Finklestein
EFF Pioneer Award Winner

Re:BENEDICT ARNOLDS OF THE OPEN SOURCE MOVEMENT

[Zeinfeld]

Err Benedict Arnold decided to join the US revolution, decided that the revolutionaries were going to lose and that the sooner the war was over the better so returned to supporting the crown. Sounds a reasonable decision to me.

Marc Andressen a 'Benedict Arnold' of open source? Err when exactly did Marc do anything in the open source movement. The NCSA Mosaic program was always license restricted to educational use only. Netscape was set up to exploit the web as a commercial enterprise.

Same with the rest of the guys mentioned. Very few ever promoted open source as the religion currently held by some on slashdot.

It seems somewhat odd for folk who are trying to reduce the cost of software to zero to start complaining about offshore programming.

Come to that it is pretty rich for IT workers whose entire business is helping companies displace workers in blue collar jobs to start complaining about the same thing happening to them.

Dichotomy of Voting

[mfh]

There is a distinct dichotomy between the way voting should be handled, and the reality of the situation. Voting should be handled by the elderly ladies, with all their honesty and good faith, yet the gravity of the situation is that these ladies have become obsolete, due to the fact that they can easily be fooled now by those with a great deal of technological prowess. Sadly, these bastions of hope can't possibly keep up with the weasels who abuse power.

We need to utilize the honesty from these wonderful proctors, and harness that in whatever system of voting is brought forward. We need an auditing system that is open to the public, so that the votes can be quickly check-sum'd and factored by poll. Our votes should be accessible online so that we can check to make sure our vote has not been changed by wrong-doers.

Re:Dichotomy of Voting

[DarwinDan]

The reality of the situation is the fact that "e-Voting" technology will continue to progress and these ladies you speak of will continue to disappear.

It really is a sad fact (highlighted by the Diebold debacle) that there is little honesty left in the world of electronic voting. And, for that matter, even if a company is "honest" how can we be sure they aren't just doctoring their checksums or other statistics? *sigh*

Re:Dichotomy of Voting

[gid13]

"Our votes should be accessible online so that we can check to make sure our vote has not been changed by wrong-doers"

People will almost invariably respond to this with "But this opens the potential for people to abuse those with different votes than theirs". However, I've been in agreement with you for quite a while anyway. Those that are afraid to stand up for their vote simply wouldn't get one. Unfortunate, but I think it has a chance at making people appreciate their vote MORE rather than less.

Re:Dichotomy of Voting

[FsG]

This could be abused to death, by major employers who could "strongly encourage" their employees to vote for the pro-big-business candidate. So far, we've been safe from such abuse because there has been no way to verify whether any particular person voted for the "right" candidate; as soon as that changes, expect problems.

Re:Dichotomy of Voting

[sould]

It is possible to preserve anonymity and have votes accessible online.

Have the voting machine print you a receipt with a unique ID on it.If you are so inclined, you can look up the UID on the net and ensure your vote was tallied correctly.

If you are concerned about your privacy, simply leave your receipt in the polling station and your vote is untraceable.

And there you have it - a simple, user auditable system for e-voting that preserves privacy.

Re:Dichotomy of Voting

[stienman]

The problem with this is that the thugs can simply threaten to beat you in one of two cases:

1) You didn't get a receipt or
2) Your voting didn't please them

By allowing people the opportunity to check on themselves, you are also allowing others to check on them.

The only way to provide this kind of check and balance is to allow people to observe their paper ballot inside the voting place, but not allow them to leave with it.

This requires that the voting machines and operators are secure.

But then, this has always been the case. We've always relied on the operators and the machines we've used. This isn't as new a problem as you might think. The only reason people are up in arms is that the machine hides so much of the process that it's difficult, if not impossible, to verify. This is why so many people are pushing for voter receipts that the voter does not leave with. The receipts are collected, and if an audit is needed then the receipts are what gets counted since the voter ostensibly checked the receipt after voting.

The problem with this is that you get very large receipts since they have to be human readable.

But these are not insurmountable problems, and I'm quite certian that after another 12 years we'll be happy with our machines and the process. As long as we can audit the machines, any and all offenses can be punished accordingly when caught, just as they are now.

Besides, voting was never meant to be fool-proof. It's simply the best way that is currently practical to run a republic. Eventually this will change.

-Adam

Re:Dichotomy of Voting

[AuMatar]

And how do you know the machine doesn't store your real vote for diisplay but doesn't actually count it?

Re:Dichotomy of Voting

[Shakrai]

We need an auditing system that is open to the public, so that the votes can be quickly check-sum'd and factored by poll.

What's wrong with a paper ballot system that can be audited by the old ladies that you speak of? Place an "X" next to the candidates you wish to vote for. If we really must have e-voting then have it print a stinking paper ballot that is dropped into a drop-box. Don't even keep a running total on the PC -- count the damn paper ballots.

Failing that what's wrong with the old style mechanical voting machines (we still use them in my district -- I just got a huge training manual on them because I volunteered to be an elections inspector this year)? Pull a lever for your candidate and it increments a counter. Completely mechanical -- no electric or software needed. A fairly complex machine but it's certainly more resistant to tampering then software (and don't give me a lecture about OSS being the solution -- unless John Q. Public has root access to the e-Voting machine how do you know that OSS is really running on it?) -- and it's at least as reliable.

With the setup that my state has (again this is coming out of the handbooks that I got from my local Board of Elections after volunteering) you have two election inspectors from both major parties and observers from any interested candidate that can watch the voting and auditing process -- that's as tamper proof as it's going to get. And the old ladies can understand it! We don't need to be held hostage by a friggen company whose CEO has stated that "He will deliver Ohio's electoral votes to the President". Where's the damn outrage from the general public?

Our votes should be accessible online so that we can check to make sure our vote has not been changed by wrong-doers.

Doesn't that defeat the point of anonymous voting?

Re:Dichotomy of Voting

[mehtajr]

The problem with this is that you get very large receipts since they have to be human readable.

The receipts are no larger than today's paper ballots, which have, for the most part, served the purpose in elections. I think we can handle generating paper receipts and storing them.

People don't have perspective on e-voting; they expect it to be perfectly secure and foolproof. The system will never be wholly secure. Just like an election of entirely paper ballots will never be wholly secure; there is always room to manipulate the results, no matter what system is used. We always have to have a level of trust in the integrity of the people (the little old ladies parent wrote about) and the machinery (both in its fairness and technical soundness).

The key to improving the integrity of e-voting is to have verifiable paper trails, and perform sampled audits of all electonically counted races. If the numbers match in every race, that constantly reaffirms both the integrity and technical soundness of the electronic process.

The worst thing for e-voting is to advocate UIDs and audit trails that allow votes to be tied to specific voters, even if you try to sell it as not being name-specific. People don't react well to the idea of having their votes monitored, and in the long run it will only hurt the cause of trustworthiness.

Further, all the secure electronic technology in the world is useless if you don't enforce the rules before voters ever reach their polling place. Florida in 2000 was a clear indicator that misapplication of official powers can swing the outcome of an election (cutting people off the eligible voter list because they are wrongly identified as felons, etc.). We haven't solved anything until we ensure that things like that don't happen.

Re:Dichotomy of Voting

[JoeBuck]

Here's how you do it: first off, electronic voting software must be open source, and furthermore it must be inspected by qualified computer security experts. The software developers and security inspectors would be paid for their work, of course, but they would need to either assign their copyright to the state or at least assign unlimited distribution rights to the state.

Then, when the voter votes, a printout of that vote is produced, and the voter is asked by the machine to confirm that he or she has inspected the paper record and agrees that it matches the voter's intent. In the security inspection, particular attention is paid to ensuring that the printout will match the submitted vote. Nevertheless, the paper record is then deposited in a locked box, watched over by experienced little old ladies, one per political party per polling station the way things are done today. For a randomly selected sample of polling stations, all the paper ballots are counted and compared to the electronically reported figure. In very close races, all of the paper records can be counted. To make recounts more efficient, the paper printouts can be designed to be optically readable and machine counted if need be.

"But that will be expensive", some will whine. Big deal: assuring that the voters' will is respected is the #1 priority in a democratic society.

Re:Dichotomy of Voting

[sould]

And how do you know the machine doesn't store your real vote for diisplay but doesn't actually count it?

Because you can count everyone's votes online.

Everyone's vote is online anonymously. So they can be independantly counted (by anyone with the inclination).

Individuals can check to ensure that their vote was recorded correctly.

Pretty foolproof I think.

Re:Dichotomy of Voting

[Anonymous Coward]

And there you have it - a simple, user auditable system for e-voting that preserves privacy.

Grandparent post, though, implied that THE problem is that since YOU can access it, someone can coerce you to prove you voted certain way. Currently they can not, because there's no way you can check it.

Re:Dichotomy of Voting

[prshaw]

>>fairly complex machine but it's certainly more resistant to tampering then software

Do you really believe this? Could you tell if the machine had been tampered with to skip a vote every 100 or 1000? Could you tell if the counter always incremented the correct way?

Not saying that eletronic voting is the answer, but it is no easier to fix an election with it then with mechanical or any other voting means.

And, remember, dead people still vote. And they can do it just as easy with any method.

Re:Dichotomy of Voting

[AuMatar]

Only if everyone checks their vote. And you still have major privacy problems, because all you need is to match an id to a person. This is unacceptable, if you study history, there was a huge problem with people being fired for who they voted for before we instituted anonymous elections. The only way to make that approaching alright is to make it so only the person who voted can check their vote. That STILL isn't enough, because it can be traced back to a requesting IP, and from there to the ISP and the individual. And if you think the two major paries wouldn't check, welcome to reality. They already keep massive databases of salaries, car brands, etc to try and guess people's political affiliations.

The real way to do it is to make the vote have multiple ways of being counted (electronic, OCR, hand count), and that each way is counted independantly by totally separate commisions, with automatic recall elections if the counts are not within a percent or two of matching (and that the difference is less than the difference between candidates).

Re:Dichotomy of Voting

[Shakrai]

Do you really believe this? Could you tell if the machine had been tampered with to skip a vote every 100 or 1000? Could you tell if the counter always incremented the correct way?

Actually yes, for two reasons.

A) The election inspectors keep track of the total vote counter on the machine to make sure that it tallies up with the number of people who have voted. Of course this isn't the individual canaidate counters but this brings us to point B...
B) What's going to be easier for an election inspector to see? That a mechinial machine has been tampered with (how would you set it to skip votes? You'd have to sabotage the internal mechinisms) or software has? Last time I checked the Board of Elections didn't even have friggen access to the guts of the Diebold voting machines because it is a "trade secret".

Pioneer Awards?

[Anonymous Coward]

And yet no mention of this?

I don't know whether to be amazed or disgusted.

hey i have nothing important to say!

[Anonymous Coward]

mod me down. stop trying to mod the comments that actually have value. burn your mod point here you ignorant fuck.

The Future: bright, beautiful, and not here yet.

[LithiumX]

While electronic voting may be the way of the future, I'm a lot more inclined to be conservative about the entire process. We're in far too great a rush to revolutionize a system that has always had problems, and always will (in one form or another).
The recent near-tie's and questionable results are more a matter of our own political divisiveness and extreme political stances.
That, and a publicly-audited voting system dashes all my hopes of winning the 2012 elections by underhanded means.

recognition where it's due

[quelrods]

It's good to see those who work heard to protect our freedoms receiving proper recognition. With the various problems closed source electronic voting has had we can cheer on those who are fighting for us.

EFF IS COMMUNIST

[Anonymous Coward]

fuck the EFF they are commie dope-smoking linux-using smelly hippie wacko america-haters and probably jews too

Heather Has Two Mommies

[Anonymous Coward]

The Future is Here: Heather has Two Mommies

Thanks to this innovation, it will be even more difficult in the future for geeks to "get some." Why go to a man when a woman can give you everything you need?

The question everyone askls

[Anonymous Coward]

Where's Seth Finkelstein and Michael Sims with the Censorware project?

oh yeah?

[dj245]

I triple dog dare anyone to score a +5 funny of this thread. Really. This one is about as funny as, well, three linux guys winning an minor award.

Re:oh yeah?

[MikeXpop]

Well hey, at least it's not the Grammy's.

Re:oh yeah?

[platypibri]

Two Electronic Frontier Foundation Pioneer Award Winners walk into a bar......

Re:oh yeah?

[djcreamy]

I'll bet I can score a +5 funny, even though I'm already modded down as a troll for making fun of Akira (which truly is pathetic Anime compared to the original DragonBall, but I digress).

The key to getting a +5 is quoting the Simpsons (another overrated cartoon series if there ever was one). If the mods are excessivly intoxicated, an "I, for one, welcome our Communist EFF overlords" will do.

err...was I supposed to get +5 for Funny or -5 for Troll? Dunno.

Re:oh yeah?

[AnotherFreakboy]

It's not hard to score a +5 funny, you just have to use the right lines:

In Soviet Russia beowulf cluster of internet voting machines running BSD imagines you, and dies like Steven King.

Thank you, thank you, I'll be here all week, try the buffet.

Re:oh yeah?

[xSquaredAdmin]

Thank you, thank you, I'll be here all week, try the buffet.

In Soviet Russia, the buffet tries you.

dirty hippies

[aramith]

Like the EFF will ever actually be useful for anything more than posting about "Pioneer Awards". Dirty hippies, all of em.

Fucking missed bracket

[Anonymous Coward]

Who modded this interesting? This is totally redundant you fuck sticks. God I wish I had mod points still.

How the hell can, and I quote,

More power to 'em. Individuals like these will be the people our grandchildren study (I hope!).

,be held to be anything but a statement devoid of insight, interest, humour or information. It states the obvious, it reeks of "the children are our future" cliche, it feels like a joke without a punchline, and is completely devoid of anything further to add to the articles.

A more interesting/insightful observation would be something along the lines of "Gee, I bet that David Dill got some harassment when he was a kid, especially with a name like that", and even that is the most redundant statement that would be possible to be made without actually saying "RedOregon, sounds like a dick".

Re:Fucking missed bracket

[Anonymous Coward]

The funny thing is that you didn't bother to edit your post to complain about the multiple "Insightful" mods.

Re:Fucking missed bracket

[Anonymous Coward]

You know, you're right, allow me to correct myself:-

Who modded this insightful? This is totally redundant you fuck sticks. God I wish I had mod points still.

How the hell can, and I quote,

Individuals like RedOregon will be the people our grandchildren will never,ever hear about, let alone be able to learn from.

,be held to be anything but a statement devoid of insight, interest, humour or information. It states the obvious, it reeks of "the children are our future" cliche, it feels like a joke without a punchline, and is completely devoid of anything further to add to the articles.

A more interesting/insightful observation would be something along the lines of "Gee, I bet that David Dill got some harassment when he was a kid, especially with a name like that". But even this statement isn't as redundant as RedOregon's "insight".

And considering the fact that this comment has now been posted three times, with varying degrees of correctness, it is still not the most redundant statement possible to be made without actually saying "RedOregon, sounds like a dick" or alternatively, and more to the point "More power to 'em. Individuals like these will be the people our grandchildren study (I hope!)"

thanks, EFF

[the arbiter]

Just grateful that someone, anyone, is trying to defend the rights of the individual nowadays. Doesn't seem to be in vouge anymore.

Thank you, EFF!

I AM on TEH SPOKE!!!1!@~!one!

[Anonymous Coward]

Johns Hopkins University

[JackPo]

I am going to stick my neck out there and congratulate Professor Rubin while condemning hopkins... Avi Rubin's name has been thrown around quite a bit recently due to the Diebold controversy and the shutdown of bell labs. However, I'm sure many of you know about the leaked Diebold memoes that were hosted by members of academia throughout the united states. It is probably most ironic that it was @ Hopkins that the administration FORCED a student to remove the memoes even over Professor Rubin's very vocal support of the student....

Re:Johns Hopkins University

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree, and 75% of students agree that The Johns Hopkins University sucks.

What about Bruce?

[Anonymous Coward]

Perens that is, you know the guy that sits there and citizens Linux projects, but does nothing to help them like actually coding. Then has the audacity to try to profit off of theses same projects with UserLinux, another failure because he gave into the whiners that use KDE which uses a toolkit that your can commercialize without paying $3000 per developer, now it's become just another distro (it might have actually been worth something to me had he just standardized on GTK and Gnome). Purely a hypocrite probably was smoking a large amount of weed yesterday too, because as we all know he's a hippie just like the rest of the Linux gang, except for Linus ofcourse, he acutally has somewhat good hygiene.

Which country are you referring to?

[Anonymous Coward]

>The recent near-tie's and questionable results >are more a matter of our own political >divisiveness and extreme political stances

Two parties with the same agenda backed by the same people.
I guess if you see 'extreme political stances' then actually having a multi-party system would scare you to death.

Its almost as sad as Canada. Here we have one business owned party. Another slightly more to the right but regional so no chance of winning an election. Another party which is again regional and whose main goal is the end of the french- english farce and separation from Canada. And the lovable lefties who are around to remind us why we're the 'bestest' country in the world and to give the illusion that people have a choice.

This sham of a democracy gives us the moral authority to criticize Americorp Inc. down south and their twiddly dee and dummer options.

That's why we love the US; next to them we always seem like the good guys. They make us look good.

I personally love all the BS in US politics, hearing your president Georges Kerry Jr. speak is fascinating.

zack

No way!

[ShockerFan]

Mossad runs it. They've already decided the election results, and Schlomo over at ES&S/Diebold/McVoting is busy programming the machines to reflect the will of teh "Chosen Ones".

Whose fault is it? I guess you can say it's Hitler's. Either way, what does it really matter? I just hope we can all last long enough until the Jews are satisfied or when the Muslims claw their way to the top of the heap. There's a lesson in all this: Love One Another. The only law in the universe is Karma, and America is experiencing the turn of the karmic wheel they spun with the dead bodies of jews and muslims everywhere.

Shalom. Allah u Akbar. Jesus loves you but Ganesha thinks you're fucked up (but pretty lucky).

Re:No way!

[Anonymous Coward]

shockerfan@bellsouth.net

OT - Ungrateful PHB's

[Anonymous Coward]

Today I have just had my first KPI issue put against my name. Why? Because I ran a couple of weeks over on a year long project.

Yes, I probably deserved it for that reason

But, take into account that I also am the sole developer on this project - a customised CRM for a large company, I am expected to do tech support 24x7 if required even though its not in my contract, it is critical to the business so requires thorough testing of everything, they change the business logic after we have agreed on them, I have other projects dumped on me which I am ordered to give priority to, and then they have the hide to fucken KPI me when I run 2 weeks late!

All I can say...FUCK OFF! Give me the first chance and Im outta here, ungrateful FUCKS! Pay the FUCKEN CEO millions, work developers like myself fucken 24x7 then the CEO talks his way out of fuckups he creates, while I get permanent marks against my record.

Anyway, glad to get that off my chest. And yes I am feeling a lot better.

Privacy???

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe the "we need more rights online" arguments are a farse. Just look at the terrorism that runs rampant in this world. Suicide bombings, chemical and biological attacks, random acts of malice, etc.

Ask yourself this: "Is now the right time to be whining about my civil liberties?"

I believe the government should keep tabs on the entire citizenry to make for a safe, productive, moral society. Of course, the government can't possibly do this themselves, that's why they should subcontract out to the internet service providers who have better control over the type of content their users have access to.

Organizations like the EFF only make it easier for the terrorists by casting huge shadows from which they may plot their evil villainy.

In tough times we all need to give up a little.

Re: Privacy???

[Anonymous Coward]

Really now, have you never read 1984?

Shame on the EFF

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe the "we need more rights online" arguments are a farse. Just look at the terrorism that runs rampant in this world. Suicide bombings, chemical and biological attacks, random acts of malice, etc.

Ask yourself this: "Is now the right time to be whining about my civil liberties?"

I believe the government should keep tabs on the entire citizenry to make for a safe, productive, moral society. Of course, the government can't possibly do this themselves, that's why they should subcontract out to the internet service providers who have better control over the type of content their users have access to.

Organizations like the EFF only make it easier for the terrorists by casting huge shadows from which they may plot their evil villainy.

In tough times we all need to give up a little.

Pioneers? Not really.

[bartwol]

It strikes me as odd that these people would be awarded and celebrated as "pioneers." Rather than act as creaters, they serve as opposers to those who create. Now, I'm not trying to suggest that their criticism is invalid, nor that they play a less than a valuable role. But let us not celebrate these people as models of human potential; it is far easier to play the tear-it-down role than it is to play the build-it-up role. A world lead by the critics, however valid their reasoning, could only find purpose at the expense of true pioneers.

<bart

Re:Pioneers? Not really.

[Lars Arvestad]

Huh? It is not like these people are movie or art critics getting recognition! What do you think they are awarded for? "Insightful utterings in front of the 9-o'clock news"?

These people are actively working on changing things in society (primarily US). They are actually putting their reputation at risk, spending a lot of time and effort, and are trying hard to make things better! To spearhead change must not be confused with deconstructionism.

I have incidentally been fortunate enough to chat with Kim Alexander and her husband on an airplane trip (Hi guys, I know you are reading this), and it is clear to me that Kim is spending her career on trying to ensure that things like the Florida debacle does not happen again, that democracy will be guaranteed, and restore people's faith in elections. Kim and the others are definately good role models and creative people! Who would you like to reward if you want to highlight electronic voting? The creators of the Diebold machines perhaps?

plUs 4V, Troll)

[Anonymous Coward]

another special a full-time GNAA Addre5ses will win out; either the our ability to Or a public club, they are Come ARROGANCE WAS grandstanders, the From a technical FreeBSD had long been many, not the slings are limited, Luck I'll find Would like to direct orders, or working on various are allowed to play megs of ram runs 4.1BSD product, about 700 users Hubbard and Mike The most vibrant empire in decline, percent of the *BSD influence, the

Re:BENEDICT AsRNOLDS OF THE OPEN SOURCE MOVEMENT

[Anonymous Coward]

seriously, are you coked out of your mind?

how did they get RICH?

a million dollars is barely RICH now a days (you are rich if you dont have to work again, by my definition)

You are not very good at trolling

[ShockerFan]

Terrorism is the natural consequence of corporate colonialism. Turn off your television and turn on your japa:

Hare Krsna
Hare Krsna
Krsna Krsna
Krsna Krsna
Hare Rama
Hare Rama
Rama Rama
Hare Hare

Re:You are not very good at trolling

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not good at trolling? I just got one shiny "Troll" point. So there. ;p

Re:You are not very good at trolling

[ShockerFan]

Maybe I was a little drunk when I posted that, but now that a clearer head prevails what I meant to say was that your subtlety can use some work. Happy Trolling!

Don't hold your breath

[Intocabile]

Thanks to Bush clone, George W. Bush Jr. Junior and his revisionist history for lower taxes policy your grand children will be able to learn about technological visionaries like Darl McBride. Oddly Al Gore, while long dead is also rightfully credited for the creation of the Internet.

balackboxvoting

[r.future]

Anyone who is really wants some great info on Dibold, and the many flaws with electronic voting should IMO check out the following sites...

blackboxvoting.com, and blackboxvoting.org.

One of the sites is alwys up, one is often down because Dibold has been doing everything that it can to shut down the sites.

The .com site has a free PDF version of a great book called blakbox voting by Bev Harris PhD. (I'm shocked the EFF did not mention her.)

post hoc, ergo proctor hoc

[Anonymous Coward]

We need to utilize the honesty from these wonderful proctors, and harness that in whatever system of voting is brought forward.

However, if the Diebold system of voting is brought forward, we need to utilize the services of wonderful proctologists, and put their asses in a harness!

You idiot mod

[Anonymous Coward]

I was fucken OFF-TOPIC

Flamebait is if you are trying to start a flame war. I couldnt give a shit about starting a flamewar. If you dont know what a KPI is you lazy fuck then go out and get a job.

Now THIS comment is flamebait - I am bagging out the mods. Having said that, I bet I get marked as Troll now.

ok guys, here i go......

[Anonymous Coward]

hey guys,

i'm not sure exactly what i'm doing here. so...bear with me!

i clicked "geeky" on my match.com personals profile, thinking that i'd maybe get hooked up with somebody who was into math or some kind of toy train hobby or something...boy howdy was i in for a shock! i went on 4 dates with guys who all got on match.com because of osdn personals from slash-dot! 4 guys!

anyway, it didn't really work out with any of them, because it seemed like they were all under some kind of mind-control robot or something! i was like "what do you think about office? office 97 is enough for me, but there are some things about xp that are cool too...." the first guy i asked that to exploded on this tyrade about how office was evil, and that it uses html that's invalid...blah blah blah, whatever...i figured "ok, this guys a freak, but i'm not giving up that easily." so guy number two and i are having dinner, and just as a test i bring up office, and he says the *exact* *same* *things* the first guy said! it was like he was reading from a script! i'm thinking to myself "is everybody from slash-dot programmed to say the same thing or what?" i decided to do a bit of investigation.

i actually surfed over to slash-dot and read some of the articles...mostly they were pretty boring, and the comments were just like i expected judging from my previous past experience: scripted!!! just when i was about to completely write the whole thing off, i found a post from some guy who's with anti-slash, some kind of anti-slash-dot website. i mailed him and was all "i so agree with you guys, look at what sheap these slash-dot people are!" he wrote back and made some funny comments (funny and so *true*!...that is soooo the best kind of humor...but i dirgress...) and guess what? this weekend i'm supposed to meet him for dinner :) if you're reading this, i look forward to meeting you in person, john!

anyway, that's my story. ladies: if you're looking for the real cool geeks, check out anti-slash. and fellas, you should check it out too and maybe use to to break out of your mind-control suits!

ok see ya later,

cyndi

my story

[Anonymous Coward]

hey guys,

i'm not sure exactly what i'm doing here. so...bear with me!

i clicked "geeky" on my match.com personals profile, thinking that i'd maybe get hooked up with somebody who was into math or some kind of toy train hobby or something...boy howdy was i in for a shock! i went on 4 dates with guys who all got on match.com because of osdn personals from slash-dot! 4 guys!

anyway, it didn't really work out with any of them, because it seemed like they were all under some kind of mind-control robot or something! i was like "what do you think about office? office 97 is enough for me, but there are some things about xp that are cool too...." the first guy i asked that to exploded on this tyrade about how office was evil, and that it uses html that's invalid...blah blah blah, whatever...i figured "ok, this guys a freak, but i'm not giving up that easily." so guy number two and i are having dinner, and just as a test i bring up office, and he says the *exact* *same* *things* the first guy said! it was like he was reading from a script! i'm thinking to myself "is everybody from slash-dot programmed to say the same thing or what?" i decided to do a bit of investigation.

i actually surfed over to slash-dot and read some of the articles...mostly they were pretty boring, and the comments were just like i expected judging from my previous past experience: scripted!!! just when i was about to completely write the whole thing off, i found a post from some guy who's with anti-slash, some kind of anti-slash-dot website. i mailed him and was all "i so agree with you guys, look at what sheap these slash-dot people are!" he wrote back and made some funny comments (funny and so *true*!...that is soooo the best kind of humor...but i dirgress...) and guess what? this weekend i'm supposed to meet him for dinner :) if you're reading this, i look forward to meeting you in person, john!

anyway, that's my story. ladies: if you're looking for the real cool geeks, check out anti-slash. and fellas, you should check it out too and maybe use to to break out of your mind-control suits!

ok see ya later,

cyndi

Re:my story

[Anonymous Coward]

too much gab, not enough tits!!!

Unfortunately...

[stienman]

Unfortunately the ceremony was marred by an apparent 'wardrobe malfuntion' in the Diebold voting system during the final tally. During the brief time the code was naked many were shocked and offended by what they saw. One sobbing professor commented, "I took my students to see an innocent american tradition, only to have to explain to them afterwards what an 'access database' was, and how easy it was to change their votes. I'm quite certian the incident scarred them."

Diebold denied having planned this event, while the EFF solemnly vowed to prohibit Diebold from hosting any future votes. Google indicated that this was the most replayed cache during the ceremony.

-Adam

my experience with slash-dot

[Anonymous Coward]

hey guys,

i'm not sure exactly what i'm doing here. so...bear with me!

i clicked "geeky" on my match.com personals profile, thinking that i'd maybe get hooked up with somebody who was into math or some kind of toy train hobby or something...boy howdy was i in for a shock! i went on 4 dates with guys who all got on match.com because of osdn personals from slash-dot! 4 guys!

anyway, it didn't really work out with any of them, because it seemed like they were all under some kind of mind-control robot or something! i was like "what do you think about office? office 97 is enough for me, but there are some things about xp that are cool too...." the first guy i asked that to exploded on this tyrade about how office was evil, and that it uses html that's invalid...blah blah blah, whatever...i figured "ok, this guys a freak, but i'm not giving up that easily." so guy number two and i are having dinner, and just as a test i bring up office, and he says the *exact* *same* *things* the first guy said! it was like he was reading from a script! i'm thinking to myself "is everybody from slash-dot programmed to say the same thing or what?" i decided to do a bit of investigation.

i actually surfed over to slash-dot and read some of the articles...mostly they were pretty boring, and the comments were just like i expected judging from my previous past experience: scripted!!! just when i was about to completely write the whole thing off, i found a post from some guy who's with anti-slash, some kind of anti-slash-dot website. i mailed him and was all "i so agree with you guys, look at what sheap these slash-dot people are!" he wrote back and made some funny comments (funny and so *true*!...that is soooo the best kind of humor...but i dirgress...) and guess what? this weekend i'm supposed to meet him for dinner :) if you're reading this, i look forward to meeting you in person, john!

anyway, that's my story. ladies: if you're looking for the real cool geeks, check out anti-slash. and fellas, you should check it out too and maybe use to to break out of your mind-control suits!

ok see ya later,

cyndi

YUO AM IN TEH WEEDS!!!~!1` OLOLOLOL

[Anonymous Coward]

History is a bit wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

Benedict Arnold decided to join the US revolution, decided that the revolutionaries were going to lose and that the sooner the war was over the better so returned to supporting the crown. Sounds a reasonable decision to me.

Arnold changed over to the British because he was disgruntled over not getting promoted to General. Considering his exploits before turning traitor, a promotion he richly deserved.