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Monitoring the U.S. Elections Online?
shahman wonders: "I'll be on the road all day this election day, so the only access I'll have is through my PDA/Phone. I was wondering if any Slashdot readers know of WAP-enabled services or low-bandwidth sites that are providing (semi) real-time election coverage?" Nobbin has a similar, but less bandwidth-restrictive question: "I was wondering where I could find live results for the coming U.S. election, online. I live in Australia so I can't get them through watching CNN and so forth. I'm looking for something similar to the Austalian Electoral Commission's virtual tally room. So far, Google hasn't turned up much."
I've worked as a consultant with a firm certifying the security and accuracy of voting in several hotly contested states. It is my concern that Diebold machines have made their way into wide use and the results of this election cannot be trusted. Our analysis of Diebold machines showed numerous difficulties and vulnerabilities allowing tampering, multiple voting, and deletion or modification of existing votes. Nearly every vulnerability was due to the use of Linux in Diebold machines, our study determined. My firm has recommended use of voting machines using a more secure operating system such as Microsoft Windows XP in future elections to prevent voting fraud.
with a herring!!!
I'm posting this so that you (the moderator) have some context to consider twitter and not mod him up whenever he posts his filler preformatted rants about installing Knoppix or Mepis or whatever that unfortunately get him karma every single time and allow him to continue posting his trademark toxic crap (read on) day in and day out. You may consider this a troll - I consider it community service. And I ain't kidding.
If you're a /. subscriber, I invite you to look through some of his posting history. I guarantee that you'll be hard pressed to find someone that is more "out there" than twitter. You'll also probably notice he's got quite an AC following. Don't just read his posts, make sure you go through the replies.
To get an idea of what I'm talking about, check this post out. This is an article about email disclaimers. The parent of the post is complaining about the ads in the linked page and so on, and twitter actually goes off on a rant to blame it on Microsoft and recommend Lynx, because "is teh free".
Here's another. In this post twitter not only calls the OP a troll but attempts to "tell it like it is" while making some vague argument about "GNU". Yes, if you're confused, you're not alone. The reply (modded +4) proceeds to simply destroy his bogus argument. You will notice he did not reply. This is what some people call "drive-by advocacy". A sort of I'll just leave you with my thoughts here and move on to the next flamebait kind of deal. In fact, he almost never replies because he knows that his fanatical arguments simply do not hold up to any sort of discussion. It's not that he's chosen the wrong cause - he's just going at it in a completely wrong way.
Here's that drive-by advocacy and FUD in motion: twitter goes on about some topic and then drops the usual "oh and M$ is teh evil" because "WMP phones home" or some such. Called on his FUD, he then claims that WMP stores every song and movie you've ever played in a file, somewhere. Pressed further, he just sort of slithers out of sight, his FUD-spreading complete. This is not about some Microsoft technology that nobody likes anyway; it's about lying for the sake of lying. Way too many of his posts are exactly like this one.
More? Just read though this post and the subsequent replies. I guess this stands on its own. Or these two. Or this one. Or this one.
Still not convinced? This is what twitter considers "humour" while going about his daily "M$" routine.
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This is truly amazing. I had no idea that the GNAA had infiltrated Diebold.
In a way, I wish this was real. A troll of this scale would do wonders for getting Americans to take seriously the need for fair and accurate voting systems. Imagine the egg on Diebold's face as Peter Jennings tries to explain to the world what the GNAA is and how a small group of teenagers with no social life manipulated the elections of the largest democracy on the planet.
I consider /. an open discussion/forum, (feel free to correct me mods!), and therefore, everybody can voice their opinions. (As long as it's not abusive!)
Plus, just so you know, I'd give him points because at least he's man enough to be identified while voicing his opinions. And that my dear friend, is why people who are afraid to post likewise are listed as "Anonymous Coward's".
The main reason why I'm replying here is because I happen to disagree with what you advocate here, is concept of simply getting rid of someone because you don't like something about either their spelling, thier posting style, the way they look (or even smell!), or even thier opinion itself. All of which, in IMHO, are just the wrong reasons to remove someone. A good reason to remove someone is if they are being abusive, and you haven't proven that with your post.
Instead, all you've proven here is that you can't handle an opposing opinion without becoming antagonistic...
[Now, I'm off to lift my le... Um, visit... at another place.]