Microsoft Moves To Change NY State Election Law

myspace-cn sends us to Bo Lipari's blog where it is revealed that Microsoft has moved forcefully into New York State with proposed changes to NY state election law drafted by Microsoft attorneys. A document has been circulating (PDF) among the legislators for a while now. The proposed changes would gut the source-code escrow and review provisions in current law that were hard-fought-for and passed in New York in 2005. Microsoft is siding with the makers of voting machines that run on Windows — the company doesn't want its code inspected by outsiders. From the article: "Now the software giant has gone a step further, not just saying 'we won't comply with your law' but actively trying to change state law to serve their corporate interests... Adding insult to injury, these changes are being slipped into a bill that may be voted on Monday or Tuesday, June 18 or 19."

Comments

Un. Bee. Leev. A. Bull.

[Temtongkek]

Read Subject.

Re:Un. Bee. Leev. A. Bull.

[HermMunster]

This is just something Microsoft will have to live with. If they want to provide access to software for that sort of device and that sort of service they need to make the code accessible to the proper authorities, otherwise stay out of that business.

Re:Un. Bee. Leev. A. Bull.

[perlchild]

It's not enough that they have to live with it...
Why can't we charge them with attempted electoral fraud, just for trying to hide the code?

Re:Un. Bee. Leev. A. Bull.

[Snaller]

Your subject doesn't make sense.

Wrong

[Ramble]

No matter how sympathetic I am to Microsoft and no matter how much I like Vista. This should be illegal and it is most certainly wrong. Lets hope that NY state officials have the sense to stick with open source software.

Re:Wrong

[trolltalk.com]

Companies lobby all the time to get laws changed in their favor. This is just "business as usual."

The real cure is electoral reform, including campaign financing. As long as "lawmakers" (I use the term liberally) can be tempted by companies with deep pockets and the hope of a seat on the board of directors after the bums are thrown out, this will just keep happening.

This is a symptom, not the disease itself.

Re:Wrong

[UbuntuDupe]

Could you name one issue where current law diverges from majority opinion, backed by some recent survey?

Re:Wrong

[daeg]

I think having full "cvs blame" on ALL legislation would be a great start to complete overhaul.

Currently we can see some of the evolution of a bill into law, but much of the direct personal responsibility is masked by committee changes. A lawmaker would be far, far more careful if he knew everyone (media, citizens, etc) could see exactly what changes he made, and when.

The "when" is important, for instance, a change of a bill a day before being voted on should be a major red flag.

Re:Wrong

[IdleTime]

I can not believe what I'm reading...

When are you American going to say enough is enough and cut down this crap? The US political system is a disaster and designed for corruption and this you think is the best? It's one of the worst political systems I have ever seen.

But I guess, you all feel fine and still think that USA is greatest thing since sliced bread. It is not, I have lived and worked in 6 different 1st world countries and USA is by far the worst.

Re:Wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, IdleTime says the USA sucks, so it must be true. You did such a good job of telling us something that is wrong with the US political system, or naming a country who has one that is better. We all learned so much from your comment.

Re:Wrong

[Associate]

Some would argue the recently killed and revived immigration reform bill falls into this category.

Re:Wrong

[Original Replica]

The real cure is electoral reform,

And a very significant part of the electoral process is haveing a voting system you can count on. From the proposed changes to the law, it looks like MS would like to make voting software from "off the shelf" Windows components. Why would they push for a differentiation between primarly-for-voteing or not, unless they were not going to be building this 100% custom? Do we really want our voting software to be compatible with home PCs? Do we want that software even based on a system that many many people have years of experience in finding weaknesses? Hell, if we are going to vote that way, just make the presidential election a web survey.

Re:Wrong

[trolltalk.com]

"Could you name one issue where current law diverges from majority opinion, backed by some recent survey?"

Totally irrelevant to the issue at hand, which is that companies have more "access" to legislators than the electorate does.

Electoral laws need reform.

But since you asked - the current war in Iraq. Current law funds it - current public opinion is that the invasion was a mistake and to get out.

Another one - the deficit. Current law says its okay to run huge deficits, and to keep raising the legal deficit ceiling. public opinion is WTF

The debt ceiling was raised just over a year ago. It's going to have to be raised again in the VERY near future.

Ten trillion or bust? More like Ten trillion AND bust!

Re:Wrong

[Tuoqui]

No matter how sympathetic I am to Microsoft and no matter how much I like Vista. This should be illegal and it is most certainly wrong. Lets hope that NY state officials have the sense to stick with open source software.
Wait you like Vista? So that makes what? 3 people now.

And yes it should be illegal. So should many other things that companies do like downsizing in the name of profit.

Re:Wrong

[UbuntuDupe]

otally irrelevant to the issue at hand, which is that companies have more "access" to legislators than the electorate does.

I'd say it's completely relevant -- if the law currently already does what "the people" want, what's the "value-add" of more stringent campaign financing rules?

But since you asked - the current war in Iraq. Current law funds it - current public opinion is that the invasion was a mistake and to get out.

No, it isn't. The Democrats control both houses and would have already done this if they didn't think it would get them kicked out of office at the next election.

Another one - the deficit. Current law says its okay to run huge deficits, and to keep raising the legal deficit ceiling. public opinion is WTF

I couldn't read the link (after trying some variants), but I suspect it simply says the public doesn't like deficits. But it's one thing to favor reducing debt in the abstract; it's quite another to accept the tradeoffs that that would require. Is the public willing to curtail lots of programs or raise taxes to pay down the deficit? Apparently not.

Re:Wrong

[Martin Blank]

The Democrats control both houses and would have already done this if they didn't think it would get them kicked out of office at the next election.

No, that's a balance of power issue. Pulling the troops won't hurt the Democrats in the next elections -- not as a whole, anyway -- but Bush will veto any bill that contains a deadline, and Congress doesn't have a veto-proof majority on the topic. What ends up happening (theoretically) is that the troops eventually don't get supplies, and due to that the Democrats get hurt. The president simply has the upper hand on this issue, regardless of the feeling of the populace or the majority party in Congress.

Re:Wrong

[Ramble]

Three, are you crazy? At least tens of dozens.

Re:Wrong

[Original Replica]

I would like to see reform go even farther. How about, "only one specific topic per bill" no tagging anything on any bill, ever. There would be no need for a line item veto, because there would ever only be one line item. With the enormous bloat of our legislation we don't need to worry about the efficiency with which more law can be passed. But we do need to have clarity in what is being proposed, and voted on.

Re:Wrong

[Spy der Mann]

A lawmaker would be far, far more careful if he knew everyone (media, citizens, etc) could see exactly what changes he made, and when.

I have the impression there's a name for that.
BTW, I think Slashdot and Transparency Intl. should collaborate more closely. Just a thought.

Re:Wrong

[bit01]

Companies lobby all the time to get laws changed in their favor. This is just "business as usual."

So what? This doesn't change whether particular law change lobbying is ethical or not. In this case it is clearly unethical; openness in every aspect of the voting process is needed for obvious reasons, despite M$' self-serving attempt to obscure that.

Or to put it another way: Why does getting paid to do something automatically make it ethical and right?

The "I was only doing my job" excuse went out at Nuremberg and you're being disingenuous trying to promote it now.

Yes, financing reform is needed. Doesn't change the fact that people at M$ are being unethical also.

---

"Advertising supported" just means you're paying twice over, once in time to watch/avoid the ad and twice in the increased price of the product to pay for the ad.

Re:Wrong

[value_added]

Totally irrelevant to the issue at hand, which is that companies have more "access" to legislators than the electorate does.

While I agree with the sentiment, I think that statement is somewhere between overbroad and naive. Put yourself in the shoes of an elected official (in any level of government) and see if you can answer the Pop Quiz "Whose call would you take?"

(a) Brad and Angelina call to make an appointment to discuss an issue of importance.

(b) A non-profit public interest group calls to advocate their positions on a specific matter of interest.

(c) A vocal and annoying citizens group (one that represents a large voter base) calls to schedule yet another meeting on a series of topics.

(d) A CEO whose business employs several thousand people in your district and generates big tax revenues for the economy calls to schedule an extended lunch appointment.

(e) Numerous well-informed, educated and articulate individuals who want to make the world a better place call to share their opinions.

If you picked (e), congratulations on being well-intentioned, but good luck making up with all those folks (the ones that matter) that are now pissed off. And good luck getting re-elected.

Electoral laws need reform.

Indeed. But getting that done is uphill both ways. Much like getting citizens to actually vote.

Re:Wrong

[trolltalk.com]

missed the h in http

You asked if there was any poll that showed a difference between current law and public opinion. While its totally irrelevant to the need for campaign reform (I'll address that in a moment) even one counter-example should be sufficient.

Your response that it is an "either-or" is a "missing middle" logical fallacy. Spending would have been hundreds of billions less if it weren't for the BS that the US pulled on the "missing WMDs" in its headlong rush to go to war with Iraq at any cost. That's a simple fact, and the current polls back this understanding.

Now, back to electoral reform - for people to trust a system, it not only has to work - it has to be SEEN to work. Electoral reform is an essential ingredient to that. Is it that hard to understand?

Re:Wrong

[Ajehals]

Look at the handling of Northern Ireland in the UK Just out of interest (And I agree that there have been some major issues regarding N. Ireland) what element of the way the situation in N. Ireland has been/is being handled do you take issue with? How does that issue relate to the way legislation is drafted?

Re:Wrong

[jellie]

Just to add to that, I think bills should be named after the person or people who introduced it, so that there's some accountability. I know it would definitely lead to cryptic names (though Sarbanes-Oxley, Roth, etc. aren't that bad), but it's still better than having propaganda-like names such as the "USA PATRIOT Act" and the "Help America Vote Act" (which gave financial incentives to use DRE voting machines, though other provisions were certainly beneficial). I imagine that people would accuse a politician of being a "terrorist" for not supporting the "Patriot" act.

Re:Wrong

[Cheviot]

Backed by a current survey... no... but...

Recently a 14 year old girl was charged with producing and possessing child pornography for taking and sending a topless picture of herself to her 14 year old boyfriend.

Now, no one thinks she should be doing this... but likewise I think the majority of people in this country can agree that not only wasn't she producing child pornography, but that she's also not a sex offender, as she would be automatically classified if she's convicted of the child pornography charge.

Re:Wrong

[644bd346996]

Duh?

Music Piracy.

Re:Wrong

[Baricom]

I appreciate the sentiment, but I have to disagree with the solution. The short names have a very important purpose - they're memorable for detractors and propagandists alike. I doubt very much people would know that Sensenbrenner was the person who introduced the bill "to deter and punish terrorist acts in the United States and around the world, to enhance law enforcement investigatory tools, and for other purposes," but everybody knows what the PATRIOT Act is.

Re:Wrong

[The One and Only]

My state's constitution (Washington) has this provision, so it's not unknown. However, it needs to be rigorously defined--a few tax-reform initiatives were struck down over the years for violating this provision.

Re:Wrong

[Gabrill]

The bills will make their own reputation, regardless of what they are called. Having propaganda titles is much worse and much more misleading than having the introducer's name in the title.

Re:Wrong

[tomstdenis]

The fact that England tries to have ANY claim to Ireland pisses me off. Since they're almost real members of the EU [that is the UK I mean] they should just relinquish Ireland to Ireland, and enjoy EU membership rights w.r.t. employment/travel/tourism/etc.

My post has nothing to do with the article and everything with the OPs comment that the USA is a hellhole [by comparison to the other first world nations he's been to].

My point was that just like ANY country, there are faults to be found. If anyone thinks that the states is the only country with faults they're fucking mistaken.

Tom

Re:Wrong

[erroneus]

I don't think a survey should be necessary in the case of the DMCA. It was passed through unscrupulous means and measures. It is abused more often than it's used and it definitely does not reflect the interests of the public at large. And without resorting to a poll, I think it's safe to say that nearly 100% of all people in the US would like to be able to back up their movies and record any given TV show or movie for later viewing whether the recording device is a tape, a DVR or a DVD+-R.

Re:Wrong

[chihowa]

OP:

"Could you name one issue where current law diverges from majority opinion, backed by some recent survey?"

Totally irrelevant to the issue at hand, which is that companies have more "access" to legislators than the electorate does.

(to supply context)

But since you asked - the current war in Iraq. Current law funds it - current public opinion is that the invasion was a mistake and to get out.

Your reply:

No, it isn't. The Democrats control both houses and would have already done this if they didn't think it would get them kicked out of office at the next election.

A bit of a non-sequiter? He says that legislators don't represent citizens and cites public disapproval of the continuing war in Iraq. You claim that he's wrong because some group of legislators support the war. I think you just made his point.

Re:Wrong

[RexRhino]

The real cure is electoral reform, including campaign financing.

No, the real cure is not having the government spend most of our money. When the U.S. government is the worlds biggest consumer, then it is inevitable that corporations will lobby the U.S. government to continue to sell the government product.

Just like the drug trade, when the stakes are as high as they are, you are not going to stop corruption. We have been fighting a 30 billion dollar a year war on drugs, and it hasn't done anything to prevent the sale of illegal drugs in the U.S. ... because if there is big money to be made, people will risk life in prison (or a bullet to the head from another drug dealer) to smuggle packets of drugs stuffed up their asshole.

Since government in the U.S. spends more than 50% of GDP (hundreds of times what people spend on illegal drugs), do you think that there is any hope whatsoever of stopping corruption. Even if you had the death penalty for bribing a government official, when the potential profits are trillions of dollars, it is definitly worth the risk. You can't even stop corruption with a totalitarian police state (Communist governments like the Soviet Union had rampant corruption, despite having a total lack of any civil liberties or human rights when it came to hunting down corrupt officials).

The only way to reduce government corruption, is to reduce government spending to the kind of unsustainable and insane levels of 30-40 years ago, as opposed to the "Jesus will come in 5 years and take us all to heaven so there is no need to worry about budgets" suicide levels we are at today. Not only will it help reduce corruption, but there might be a slim chance to avoid total economic collapse.

Re:Wrong

[jack455]

http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2007/05/ruy _deficit.html

clicked on newsletters and scrolled through all 5/2007 links until I saw one that looked promising.

Assuming this is the correct one the poster is correct that at least on budget defecits, most agree that we're completely out of control.

IMHO the ultra rich are happy about their taxbreaks, and certain extremist liberals aren't concerned. Everyone else realizes that screwing over our grandkids is wrong. With our current (unconstitutional) system of letting banks "create" their own virtual money, and "lend" it to the government, not only are we spending money we shouldn't, we're also handing over future (not today's) money to the banks. Kennedy and Lincoln both tried to fix this, or at least admit the problem.

Re:Wrong

[Frizzle Fry]

Yeah, the US is pretty much the only country left who doesn't choose its leaders with a voting system based on open source software. Wait, what?

Re:Wrong

[complete loony]

Not to mention having a good compiler and unit test coverage.

Re:Wrong

[bryan1945]

"I appreciate the sentiment, but I have to disagree with the solution. The short names have a very important purpose - they're memorable for detractors and propagandists alike"

How is this a plus for anyone? All it means is that politicians can bandy about a nifty name. Make it hard to remember (HR 20300330) and then the regular peons don't have a name to grab onto. They would actually have to remember what the hell they were talking about, which means for 90% of them they would have no idea, and therefore, the dumbasses would just forget. PATRIOT Act easy to remember; DMCA hard to remember. Ya really think this is just coincidence? There should be zero short names at all. If the regular person cares, they will remember without any neat acronym. You want to change how stuff works? Make it on its merits, not a spiffy name. I know this will never happen, but I wanted to disagree with your disagreement.

Re:Wrong

[bryan1945]

Sorry for my ignorance, but didn't we pass a balanced budget bill? Or does it have no teeth?

Or did it lapse, or is "emergency war funding" not covered?

Thanks.

Re:Wrong

[mpe]

Indeed. But getting that done is uphill both ways. Much like getting citizens to actually vote.

Unless elections can be seen to be fair what reason has anyone to vote.

Re:Wrong

[Weedlekin]

"The fact that England tries to have ANY claim to Ireland pisses me off. Since they're almost real members of the EU [that is the UK I mean] they should just relinquish Ireland to Ireland, and enjoy EU membership rights w.r.t. employment/travel/tourism/etc."

Ah, democracy in action: give Northern Ireland to Southern Ireland despite the fact that the majority of Northern Irish prefer to be part of the UK.

Re:Wrong

[Dan Ost]

If Congress had to vote on every single issue (no omnibus bills), they would run out of time. They simply handle too many things in a year to be able to research, debate, and vote on each one.

That's why 99% (made up statistic) of law making happens in committee.

Re:Wrong

[tomstdenis]

But they're EU members, it shouldn't matter eitherway. that's like Ontario and Quebec bickering over whether the border goes on one side or the other of a border town. In the grand scheme of things, yeah they're different provinces, but really it doesn't matter. Making all of Ireland belong to Ireland makes sense as it's a friggin Island.

But still, eitherway there is a conflict there that the governments have not resolved. Thus disputing the notion that the USA is the only place with turmoil on Earth [in the first world nation category that is].

Tom

Re:Wrong

[Khisanth Magus]

I agree completely. People have to see a reason to vote before they will actually do so. Currently the people have no real say in what the government does. I can either be screwed over by the democrats or screwed over by the republicans. What does it matter? They both want to screw me over in favor of big businesses and special interest groups. The days when it matters who you elect are long gone, if they ever existed at all.

Re:Wrong

[Weedlekin]

"But they're EU members, it shouldn't matter eitherway. that's like Ontario and Quebec bickering over whether the border goes on one side or the other of a border town. In the grand scheme of things, yeah they're different provinces, but really it doesn't matter."

The EU is a collection of separate countries, not a single country, so it's actually rather more like the US and Canada having a dispute over borders despite both being in NAFTA.

"Making all of Ireland belong to Ireland makes sense as it's a friggin Island."

So is the UK mainland, but the Scots, Welsh and English insist that it's three separate countries. Only a very foolish person would go to Scotland or Wales and tell them they're English because "it's a friggin island"...

"But still, eitherway there is a conflict there that the governments have not resolved"

It's a disagreement rather than a conflict nowadays. "The troubles" are well and truly over, much to the relief of nearly everyone on both sides of the border.

"Thus disputing the notion that the USA is the only place with turmoil on Earth [in the first world nation category that is]."

While I agree with what you're saying viz-a-viz the US, Northern Ireland was a poor example to pick in 2007, although it would have been an excellent one in (for example) the 1980s.

Re:Wrong

[trolltalk.com]

Let them all come to a public hearing instead - its about transparency. Let the CEO voice his concerns in front of the voters' lobby group, and vice versa.

Or to put it into context, let lobbyists be required to meet with legislators only in public discussion forums. No backroom wheeling and dealing.

Re:Wrong

[jedidiah]

There are a number of subtle issues here that you're just glossing over. The relevant laws do this too. Of course no one bothered to contemplate this possibility before passing those laws so we have this little absurdity to deal with.

It doesn't help that "children" are routinely trivialized in this society.

Re:Wrong

[trolltalk.com]

I agree that government spending has to be reduced, and more focused. I also believe that campaign finance reform is a part of this process. When people who benefit from pork-barrelling can no longer use your own money to continue to lobby for more pork-barrel projects, then maybe we'll see a change.

"Jesus will come in 5 years and take us all to heaven so there is no need to worry about budgets" suicide levels we are at today."

Unfortunately, that's the attitude of a lot of "true believers" - and why they're not really worried about deficits, the housing bubble, the environment, oil imports, etc - "Jeebus will fix all that because I BELIEVE"! Seems to me a lot of people died believing that ...

Re:Wrong

[poot_rootbeer]

I have lived and worked in 6 different 1st world countries and USA is by far the worst.

In that case I invite you to stay in one of the countries you do enjoy, and shut your fucking mouth about my home.

One of the more defining characteristics of the American political identity is the idea that nobody knows what's better for my country than its own people do. It's a noble and honorable sentiment, really--the cornerstone of all democracy.

Yes, sometimes we do overextend this until it's "nobody knows what's better for EVERY country than my country's people do," and that's foolish. I encourage you not to participate in such foolishness yourself; mind your own country's beeswax and we'll mind ours, thank you.

Re:Wrong

[pwainwright]

"... everybody knows what the PATRIOT Act is."

... The last refuge of the scoundrel.

Re:Wrong

[hey!]

No, it isn't. The Democrats control both houses and would have already done this if they didn't think it would get them kicked out of office at the next election.

OK, I call foul on this one, although it's probably not intentional. You are changing the question. The question posed was whether the GP could name a law which is opposed by the populate, not Democrats in Congress. Iraq is an example that shows (convincingly in my opinion) that the Congress (in this case Democratic) doesn't necessarily do what the people want it to.

Of course, there are reasons why this is so in this case, but then again there are always reasons.

Re:Wrong

[Alsee]

The president simply has the upper hand on this issue

Maybe I'm missing something, but it looks exactly the opposite to me. Congress supplies funding for the troops, Bush vetoes the funding. After the usual delay in running a new bill through the legislative system, Congress should pass the exact same bill funding the troops. Bush yet again vetoes funding for the troops. After yet another delay, it's "UhOh we need money for the troops ReallySoonNow" and congress makes a big production "Rushing" to push the exact same bill to fund the troops through the process again. Bush again vetoes funding for the troops. Now it's "Oh my god troop salaries have to be paid THIS WEEK" and Congressmen rush back in from all over the country for a special weekend Super Super EMERGENCY SESSION dedicated to the sole issue that the troops need to be paid immediately and they suspend all the usual Red-Tape procedural rules and in a single 8-hour session they slam through the exact same god-damn funding bill.

And then if Bush feels like it he can veto the bill. And then he can stand up there on the fucking Whitehouse lawn and explain why he refused to permit the soldiers to be paid. He can stand up there and explain how he is supporting and protecting the troops by denying them paychecks, he can explain how he is supporting the troops by denying them vital supplies. The US Army can grind to a screeching halt in total chaos and he can stand up there and explain how he's a hero for vetoing the Emergency Fund Our Troops Bill cutting off their money.

In general I consider the Democrats to be way better than the Republicans, but oh my god most Democrats are fucking incompetent cowering twits.

Bush can give all the speeches he likes, he can have his press secretary up there in press room day after day, yammering endlessly about how Democrats are Evil and how much they hate the troops and blaming congress and blaming Democrats yada yada yada... but at the end of the day the Constitutional division of Powers firmly hangs the noose around Bush's neck. At the end of the day Bush can let the bill go through and fund the troops, or Bush is the one standing there denying the troops paychecks and denying the troops supplies. He's the one standing there shutting everything off.

Bush is the Commander in Chief giving day-to-day orders to the military, but Congress is the one that gets to pass laws and supply money and how that money may be spent. Bush's power is and always has been to veto laws if he chooses... Bush power is and always has been to refuse to accept the money if he chooses... Bush's power is and always has been to refuse to pay the troops salaries if he chooses... Bush's power is and always has been to refuse to send needed supplies for the troops. Bush's power is and always has been to order the troops to strip down to their underwear and dance the Electric Boogaloo if he chooses.

I'm baffled (but sadly not too surprised) that Congress and the Democrats went all wussy and rolled over for Bush yet again. All they had to do was keep repassing the exact same god-damn bill to fund the troops and plant the noose firmly on Bush's neck.

-

Re:Wrong

[Martin Blank]

It's a matter of perspective. You see Bush issuing a veto as refusing to pay for the troops; others see a refusal of Congress to pass a bill that the president will sign a refusal to pay for the troops. This is like the mess that Republicans tried (somewhat successfully) to pin on Kerry in 2004, when they called his nay vote on a defense spending bill an attempt to cancel funding for numerous weapons systems. The truth was his vote was nothing of the kind -- he voted against the bill because he thought that it was inappropriate in some aspect, and so could not support its passage. He may have supported 99% of the text, but he found one small piece of it distasteful enough to vote against it. Bush got just about everything that he wanted -- and the Democrats got a lot of their own, unrelated items -- but disagreed with the withdrawal provision strongly enough that he would not sign it into law. In the end, he got not a year's worth of funding, but only several months of funding, with a renewal of debate on the issue at the end of summer.

On a side note, I was pleased with many of the incoming majority's plans for Congress, including five-day work-weeks, more transparent processes, and more open debates. I have seen none of these come to fruition, and when Republicans have taken them to task on it, they simply say that the Republicans were no better. This is true, but it's beside the point. Justifying one's own broken promises on the basis of someone else's hypocrisy is itself disingenuous. I'd call for the lot of them to be fired and new ones brought in, but we tried that in California, and got an even worse legislative body.

Re:Wrong

[Alsee]

Kerry/defense spending bill

Yep. Pathetic. He should have curtly and solidly said: I did my job. I voted for a good bill and voted against a bad bill. And just kept repeating it. A perfect sound bite. And (sadly) the most effective strategy being to avoid the anti-soundbite explanation why the bad bill was bad.

others see a refusal of Congress to pass a bill that the president will sign a refusal to pay for the troops

I certainly agree that is the angle the Whitehouse and some others would (and did) play up, but I'm saying it a temporary tactic absolutely doomed to fail at the end of the day. Bush and the press secretary could rant all they liked for a while as the conflict dragged on, but Bush would be standing there on the last day with the funding bill in his hand. Bush is all sorts of bad in all sorts of ways, but he's not *that* stupid as to actually "switch off" an active military under fire. It would be pretty much suicidal, and not just in a political sense. Many of his supporters would go along with the "blame congress / blame Demoncrats" routine during the conflict, but on that last day with Bush standing there with the money and supplies in his hand and denying them to the troops, with the military out there under fire and cut off, even his own his own most loyal base would be out for his blood - literally - if he didn't sign it. Any anger at congress over the lead up conflict would be buried by the outcry for congress to strip Bush from office. No, Bush would have no choice but sign it. And then the whole "refusal of Congress to pass a bill that the president will sign" vanishes in a puff of smoke and turns in support of congress and the Democrats... they passed the bill and Bush did sign it. Strength and credibility. Massively.

And it's not even that I think the Democrat's plan would have been some wonderful fix for Iraq. Leaving the troops there fueling anti-Americanism and endlessly dying is just going to get worse, and pulling the troops out leaving powerful chaotic factions will also going to make things worse. It's just really embarrassing the way the pathetic Democrats went crying... Oh please please don't give a press conference calling us bad names. Pathetic. Pathetic beyond even my cynical low expectations.

I was pleased with many of the incoming majority's plans for Congress... broken promises

Maybe I'm too much of a cynic, but I find it hard to work up more than passing disappointment there. My expectations in politicians in general are just so low in the first place.

In my opinion the Democrats incompetence and failures in a positive direction are a HUGE stup up from the Republicans Mussoliniesque-trains-run-on-time competence and successes is a very negative direction.

-

Microsoft shouldn't be in the voting business

[cyberianpan]

Any form of eVoting will raise trust issues. Without source code there cannot be trust of a complex computer program - testing won't work. E.g. maybe only when sysdate is 15.May.2009 will a particular "feature" manifest. Microsoft are a closed source firm so they shouldn't go near eVoting.

Re:Microsoft shouldn't be in the voting business

[Harmonious Botch]

What's the big deal? It's already a BLUE state...

Re:Microsoft shouldn't be in the voting business

[Anonymous Coward]

Testing with source code or inspection doesn't work either.

The only thing that works is a verifiable paper trail, so arguing about open vs. closed source on voting machines is totally moot.

Re:Microsoft shouldn't be in the voting business

[Anonymous Coward]

Even if you get the source code, you still can not trust "eVoting". How do you know the voting machines aren't using modified source code?

Answer: You don't.

Re:Microsoft shouldn't be in the voting business

[saibot834]

Parent is right. Any form of eVoting must be free software so that everyone can study it (or learn how to study it first). Besides, Microsoft is a way too big company that has its own political interests.

Re:Microsoft shouldn't be in the voting business

[Tatarize]

This is a match made in heaven though. The mission critical nature of eVoting combined with the fantastic security of Microsoft.

There's a reason so many Computer Scientists oppose eVoting, we think we could steal an election if we tried... and that's just a wee bit too easy.

Re:Microsoft shouldn't be in the voting business

[QuantumG]

The only thing that keeps the voting system honest is *people* who care more about the accuracy of the results than whether or not a particular party wins. In other words: little old ladies, and they're not the ones pushing for these devices. They're perfectly happy to keep counting the slips of paper.

Re:Microsoft shouldn't be in the voting business

[bit01]

Testing with source code or inspection doesn't work either.

It works better than closed source.

The only thing that works is a verifiable paper trail, so arguing about open vs. closed source on voting machines is totally moot.

Nonsense. This is a false dichotomy, beloved of marketing parasites everywhere.

To take just one example closed code could randomly not provide or make inaccessible options so the voter is not even aware their vote is being biased. Even something as simple as changing the colors on the display slightly.

Openness in the code helps. A paper trail helps also. All aspects of the voting process should be open to promote confidence in the voting system.

---

Astroturfing "marketers" are liars, fraudulently misrepresenting company propaganda as objective third party opinion.

Re:Microsoft shouldn't be in the voting business

[dana340]

being the mis-represented group of computer scientists that we are,why don't we just right the machines to vote CowboyNeal in as President, and the top moderators of slashdot to the legislature. this way, we can fix all these damn issues!

Re:Microsoft shouldn't be in the voting business

[barzok]

Only because of NYC & Long Island.

Look north of Westchester County and NY favors the republicans, though that has been changing slowly over the last few years.

Re:Microsoft shouldn't be in the voting business

[dhasenan]

A physical voting system rather than an electronic one helps. The labels on the buttons aren't going to change if they're engraved, and they can directly mark a piece of paper to record the vote in a way that a user can observe and verify.

Re:Microsoft shouldn't be in the voting business

[dhasenan]

Actually, that's a good idea. A crazy and stupid idea, but one that would have good effects. If the electronic voting machines reported that the winner of the election was, say, Bilbo Baggins, then people would very quickly lose faith in them and switch back to mechanical voting machines.

Even so, there's a margin of error for mechanical voting machines that's a fair bit larger than the margin of victory in many elections. Though the electoral college limits this somewhat.

Re:Microsoft shouldn't be in the voting business

[cr_nucleus]

The problem with evoting is not about closed/open source, it's about being able to check if the result is correct.
There is NO way (and i mean NO) to check without asking the machine itself, so you're basically asking the liar if he lied.

And the slashdot crowd certainly knows that even with the best intends, a bug can very easily slip through.
In France, for the recent presidential elections, some machines reported more votes than manually registered, not a pleasing thought.

Re:Microsoft shouldn't be in the voting business

[mpe]

The only thing that keeps the voting system honest is *people* who care more about the accuracy of the results than whether or not a particular party wins. In other words: little old ladies, and they're not the ones pushing for these devices. They're perfectly happy to keep counting the slips of paper.

They are the ones being pushed out by these machines.
The thing is that when you have people counting (or collating) physical ballot papers is that it is possible to verify that the process is fair and accurate. The moment you add "voting machines" (and multiple elections on one ballot paper) verifying the accuracy of a count becomes very difficult to impossible.

Re:Microsoft shouldn't be in the voting business

[jedidiah]

So the farmers and hicks are easy marks for the Nixon mentality. So what else is new?

NYC by itself would be bigger than most states (by population).

Re:Microsoft shouldn't be in the voting business

[MightyMartian]

Computers are capable of high accuracy precision operations. The problem here is that I suspect that the development of voting software simply isn't as rigorous as, say, the systems in place to monitor nuclear reactor facilities. Worse, operating systems represent a helluva black box, and even having open source operating systems running voting software still means you are stuck with a helluva lot of code to pour through.

I think the reasonable solution to the problem is to create very simplistic (ie VxWorks-style) operating systems that don't have the overhead and requirements of full-blown operating systems. Even the hardware ought to be pretty specialized. We're talking about vote tallying here and a recording system to verify things. We're not talking rocket science here, but we are talking about systems that are rigorous and fully documented, so that independent review of everything from the bloody monitor right down to the kernel can be implemented when a vote tally is questioned. Part of this must be a paper trail. Every vote must have a paper copy so that if the system truly does look screwed, there is the good ol' fashioned recount option available.

Automated or semi-automated voting technology has been around for a long time now. The problem appears to be government officials who don't really understand (or possibly care) what they're trying to implement, and run-of-the-mill software development that treats vote record and tallying with as much interest in reliability and security as one might put into an online phone book system.

Re:Microsoft shouldn't be in the voting business

[dana340]

yeah, see I've just lost faith in the system. The direction of the nation has done little to excite me.

Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country

I think the best thing i can do for my country is to shake up the political arena so we can get things done... other than put lame ducks into office.

rent-a-center, or Rent a Senator?

[v1]

these changes are being slipped into a bill that may be voted on Monday or Tuesday, June 18 or 19."

Can someone explain why it is that politicians are allowed to "slip" completely unrelated items into bills that must be voted on all-or-nothing? They do this all the time, tacking on things that only a small minority want, onto a bill that is important and that everyone is going to pass because the main item is needed by most/all.

One reason I could see is if they believed that congress moved too slow to be able to vote on everything unless things were bundled like this. That's a sad excuse still.

The other reason I could see is that there may be too many cases where it was impossible to get a majority vote on any single issue without puting something into the pot for several different interests to help the bill pass.

Anyway, what is this process by which they can just tack on other unrelated provisions? And who gets to say what gets added? Just pay off a senator and it's in basically?

Re:rent-a-center, or Rent a Senator?

[Bender0x7D1]

Amendments are reuired to meet germaneness rules. However, if you try hard enough, you can make almost anything sound germane to a specific bill. For example, if you are working on the state budget, you could attach almost anything since the costs associated with it affect the budget. Highway bill - anything related to oil and gas and automotive industry. Heck, even air travel since widespread construction may change the number of people flying. If you are changing the deadline for election paperwork, almost anything regarding elections. Oh, elections might be electronic? Then software laws may be germane. See how easy it is?

You just pay someone like a lawyer or lobbyist to come up with a plausible connection to some bill that is about to be voted on and attach it.

Re:rent-a-center, or Rent a Senator?

[Smight]

The idea is that in order to get a bill passed in which 45% of the people agree you will add on some things that that you aren't happy about to get the opposition to vote for it.

In practical application though they create a bill that 65%-70% would agree with and then see how many things they can stick on to make their constituents happy or those that give them funding.

Some would argue that items should pass on their own merit. But then how are you ever going to get a $315 million bridge built to an island with a population of 50?

Re:rent-a-center, or Rent a Senator?

[quacking duck]

They're called riders.

Slashdotters may remember software patent proponents in Europe tried attaching a rider to an agriculture and fisheries bill a few years back allowing them. Because you know, software patents are SO relevant to fish stocks and pig farmers.

These damn things should be outlawed. The supposed benefits are far outweighed by those that think nothing of abusing the good intention of riders ("think of the children!" "it's to fight terrorists!")

Re:rent-a-center, or Rent a Senator?

[Pizaz]

Because they can.

Re:rent-a-center, or Rent a Senator?

[evanknight]

I don't know where it came from, but it sure as hell made me laugh as kid learning about it. Come to think of it, most of our political process made me laugh the first time it was run by me in school. The general idea sounds great, but you you see what these people do with it in the real world, it's hilarious.

Re:rent-a-center, or Rent a Senator?

[ozbird]

Fight fire with fire... Attach anti-rider legislation to the back of something like the politician's payrise bill.

Re:rent-a-center, or Rent a Senator?

[Bios_Hakr]

Riders are seen as a way for a Democratic Congress to force a Republican president to pass a law that he doesn't want to. Attach anti-war legislation to the 2008 budget, for instance.

You may remember that Bill Clinton closed the federal government several times. It was because of riders like this.

Oh, and riders will never be outlawed. They are seen as a "bird in the hand" for the Legislative Branch. There may come a time when they need riders to get rid of an unpopular President.

I would, however, like to see them limited to 10 riders per year.

Re:rent-a-center, or Rent a Senator?

[bentcd]

They're called riders.
(...)
These damn things should be outlawed. The supposed benefits are far outweighed by those that think nothing of abusing the good intention of riders ("think of the children!" "it's to fight terrorists!") Riders aren't really the issue here - riders are just the mechanism by which political compromise is realized. The issue is that you have a large number of elected representatives, each of them has his own agenda, and many of them don't really care much one way or the other about some specific issue that you are trying to get through. So you negotiate with them until you have enough of them supporting your case that you can get it voted in. In order to get them on your side, however, you must give them something in return (i.e. you promise to vote with them on something they care about). This is just politics, and it is how politics must work in anything except a dictatorship (and even dictatorships can be complicated beasts).

Now, whether the end result gets passed as n separate laws or as one composite law is really beside the point - it will all go into law anyway. In fact, it can be argued that riders are preferrable because it makes it slightly more transparent, in retrospect, which issues were sold in exchange for which other issues. (It also, presumably, makes it more difficult for one side to back down on its promises and this would facilitate the forming of compromises.)

Re:rent-a-center, or Rent a Senator?

[ZorbaTHut]

I'd agree with you if that was the way they were used. Unfortunately, often it isn't. Riders are also used for political blackmail ("Bob voted against giving money to children! Clearly he hates America! I realize there was that little minor legalizing-torture thing attached, but really, it was called the Give Money To Children bill!") and for simple sneakiness ("What do you mean, you didn't realize torture was part of giving money to children? It was right there on page 1,943.")

This is where the whole line-item veto thing comes in - where people can say "well, I'm all for children, but I'm vetoing this torture section". Unfortunately, that has its own problems, as people have actually vetoed specific words out of a bill so it means something entirely different.

Personally, I'd like to see some requirement that bills divide their issues up in a sensible way, and provide an issue-level veto. But for some reason I don't think this will happen.

Re:rent-a-center, or Rent a Senator?

[Shadowlore]

The only way to outlaw riders is to slip it in as a rider to a completely unrelated yet "crucial" bill that is not seeing much opposition from either party. Slip in an additional one that no bill may be sectional. That means the bill must contain a complete copy of the proposed legislation - no "change word "foo" to "bar" in CR 16.4.3.2.4.1.12

Re:rent-a-center, or Rent a Senator?

[MyOtherUIDis3digits]

There may come a time when they need riders to get rid of an unpopular President.

Just out of curiosity, just what does a President have to do now-a-days to be considered unpopular? Mow down tourists in front of the White House with an AK-47?

Re:rent-a-center, or Rent a Senator?

[jc42]

,i>Can someone explain why it is that politicians are allowed to "slip" completely unrelated items into bills that must be voted on all-or-nothing? They do this all the time, tacking on things that only a small minority want, onto a bill that is important and that everyone is going to pass because the main item is needed by most/all.

Well, I think you just answered the question yourself pretty well.

Re:rent-a-center, or Rent a Senator?

[Bios_Hakr]

The President, for all the credit we give him, does not have much influence in the average person's life. He can start or end wars in foreign lands. He can sign bills into law. Most of those bills have zero effect on the average person. He can juggle billions of dollars, but the average person's taxes rarely change. And another few cents of taxes over a 4 year period is hardly noticable.

It just does not matter what the President does for the most part.

If he declared martial law or refused to leave office, then we might have a problem. If he vetoed all the budget bills and shut down the federal government, then we might have a problem.

Fine..

[symbolic]

Just pile the whole mess of these machines into a trailer rig, attach a bill for them to the rear door, and send it off to Redmond. There...no code, no code escrow worries. Next, locate a vendor that will produce a machine *with* a specification so that the software can be developed by any vendor that follows the specification. This would make a great open source project.

microsoft for president!

[widget54]

Lets cut out the well bribed middlemen and just elect corporations to run the country...think of the money it would save them!!!

Re:microsoft for president!

[callmetheraven]

Lets cut out the well bribed middlemen and just elect corporations to run the country
There's a word for this, it's called fascism.

Re:microsoft for president!

[CptPicard]

You're late with the idea ... A free market based solution to democracy.

Re:microsoft for president!

[callmetheraven]

OK, those of you who modded me "offtopic" are clearly idiots who deserve to live under a fascist regime then....

how convenient

[hxnwix]

* Voting machine manufacturers want their code closed so that they can take bribes for deciding the winner.

* Microsoft wants their code closed in order to protect lock-in.

* Those in power take bribes from Microsoft and the voting machine manufacturers, and moreover, they want to be able to hand their offices to friends and supporters when their own terms are up.

Summary: things are happening that appear to be motivated by agendas antithetical to democracy.

Re:how convenient

[Bios_Hakr]

You assume the worst.

>>* Voting machine manufacturers want their code closed so that they can take bribes for deciding the winner.

Not really. Mark Twain once remarked that two men can keep a secret only if one of them is dead. The government can't keep the political firings of US Attorneys' General secret. Why do you think that could keep bribing for election wins secret? HP can't violate the privacy of their own board members without everyone in the world reading about it.

Secrets as big as "9-11" or "buying an election" would be almost impossible to keep under wraps.

They want their code closed because it is designed by total morons and they want to hide the fact that it is so shitty. Access databases and mis-calibrated touch screens just go to show how dumb these designers are. If the code was opened, it would be trashed within seconds.

Plus, they probably re-used code from other projects. Opening one project would automatically open all the other shared source trees.

>>* Microsoft wants their code closed in order to protect lock-in.

Nope. MS has been pretty good about keeping their source secure. They know that if 900 people have code, then that's 900 places code can leak. Add to that the fact that the Federal Government wants code. Hell, most people don't trust the Feds with anything. Why should MS trust the Feds with their code?

>>* Those in power take bribes from Microsoft and the voting machine manufacturers, and moreover, they want to be able to hand their offices to friends and supporters when their own terms are up.

Well, that's the way it has always been. Look at the Olympics from the early 1900s. All the stars were "rich kids" just playing. Now we spend millions to locate the best runners. Then we spend millions more to make them 1/1000th of a second faster.

Politics is a lot like that. No one wants to spend millions finding the guy with the best ideas. No one wants to host "Who Wants to be a President". We just take the rich kids who can talk pretty good and haven't killed too many hookers. From those, we take the ones that are the best at hiding secrets and elect them.

The Olympics have taken about, what, 2000 years, to get to the point where "the best" are actually allowed to compete.

Politics is making it's way, but it'll be another thousand years or so before we can pick 450 guys to represent a country and really do what's right for that country as opposed to themselves.

Re:how convenient

[hxnwix]

You assume the worst. In certain contexts, this is pragmatic. Massive e-voting fraud could lead to a number of adverse outcomes that would benefit the very people entrusted to prevent it.

Secrets as big as "9-11" or "buying an election" would be almost impossible to keep under wraps. Would you mind elaborating on this? It's kind of hard to miss planes hitting buildings, whereas a backdoor hidden in a black box by its keepers could slip by.

They want their code closed because it is designed by total morons Accountability would help ensure that the code would be correct.

Politics is ... just [elect] the rich kids who can talk pretty good and haven't killed too many hookers. How do you account for GWB?

Re:how convenient

[Bios_Hakr]

>>Would you mind elaborating on this? It's kind of hard to miss planes hitting buildings, whereas a backdoor hidden in a black box by its keepers could slip by.

How many people would it take to steal an election? The candidate would probably be in on it. As would the president of DieBold. Probably they would need programmers to help. There would be written documents passed around to keep anyone from being left holding the bag. You are looking at dozens of people involved in this.

One of them would talk. No amount of money you could pay them would be more than they would get for publishing the plan.

How about 9-11? How many people in the government would have to know about that to pull it off? One of them would talk.

>>Accountability would help ensure that the code would be correct.

They don't care about "correct". They just want something that works for the lowest cost possible. Every day spent testing is one less day they can be selling.

And, again, you can't address the fact that companies re-use code. To open one product would also compromise other products.

Re:how convenient

[mcvos]

Not really. Mark Twain once remarked that two men can keep a secret only if one of them is dead. The government can't keep the political firings of US Attorneys' General secret. Why do you think that could keep bribing for election wins secret? HP can't violate the privacy of their own board members without everyone in the world reading about it.

Your examples represent a slightly different situation than this sort of corruption. When a corporation buys a politician or a politician buys a voting machine manufacturer, both have an extreme interest in keeping it secret. With the firing of Attorneys General it's possible, even likely, that someone involved may not agree or doesn't have as much to lose if it becomes public. Secrets can be kept as long as all parties involved have much more to lose by disclosure than they could possibly gain by it.

It's not all that uncommon that long-standing, deep, dark secrets do become public years later, so secrets can most certainly be kept for a reasonable amount of time.

Re:how convenient

[Shadowlore]

WHoc ares if it is antithetical to "democracy". It's antithetical to *freedom*. That's what is important. The federal government of the US was NOT created to protect, promote, or push democracy. It wasn't even founded as one. It was designed for the express purpose of protecting liberty and freedom. It was the first government in history with the specific design and intent to *limit* government power.

A Democracy can do evil things. A democracy eventually takes away your freedoms and liberties. Why should I care about democracy? Freedom. Liberty. That's what matters. The form of government only matters in how well it protects freedom and limits government incursion and abuse. There is nothing inherent about democracy that does those things.

For all those who believe in democracy as a savior, ask yourself if you think that democracies don't do evil. They do. ALL forms of government can and have done so. So why protect democracy? Why not try protect freedom instead?

Re:how convenient

[Bios_Hakr]

>>When a corporation buys a politician or a politician buys a voting machine manufacturer, both have an extreme interest in keeping it secret.

But there would be a lot of people in that Corp that know about it. The Board would have to know. The CEO would know. The accountants would see the expenditure. Someone of the other side would have to take the money and deposit it somewhere.

In a "best case" scenario, a CEO would hand a briefcase of cash to the candidate. Or, the other way around. But it's pretty hard to hide money transactions. Especially if you are running for office.

>>Secrets can be kept as long as all parties involved have much more to lose by disclosure than they could possibly gain by it.

Nope. If public school teaches people anything, it should be that someone will rat. Principal finds a cigarette butt in the locker room. He announces that they "know" who did it. Now, you have like 50 people coming forward to confess or turn someone in.

Secrets cannot be kept.

Plus, how much would you stand to gain by disclosing election fraud? You would be the savior of modern democracy. Your name would be in history books around the world for centuries to come. You'd make millions in interviews and more millions in book deals.

Re:how convenient

[hxnwix]

WHoc ares if it is antithetical to "democracy". It's antithetical to *freedom*. Why is it that the debasement of our democracy tends to reduce our liberty? Let's think it through. The constitution codifies our liberty - however, it can be amended to remove those freedoms or, to the same effect, ignored by those whom we select to represent us. Therefore, our liberties flow from the will of the people and through ballot box. That the people can will their democracy to act in any certain way is part of the point. Healthy democracies are evil if their people wish it so.

So why protect democracy? Why not try protect freedom instead? Democracy permits the people to express their will; if their will is to be free then so shall they be. What would you have us do instead? Elect a benevolent dictator?

Used car salesman

[sjames]

When the used car salesman if performing gymnastics to guide your eyes away from some aspect of the car, that's where you'd BETTER look if you don't want to be ripped off.

What we have here is a salesman who is desperate to keep us from examining the source of the OS.

Re:Used car salesman

[Dr.Merkwurdigeliebe]

This is a great comparison. However, remember that Microsoft's code is proprietary and is how they make their living. They wouldn't want someone looking at their code more than an author would want someone reading a book that's still in progress. I can certainly understand their situation, but I think that they did go to far in trying to change the law.

Re:Used car salesman

[bit01]

This is a great comparison. However, remember that Microsoft's code is proprietary and is how they make their living.

Which is irrelevant to the whether the source is visible or not.

M$ has done a great job the last few decades of obscuring that simple fact to keep their anti-competitive lockin.

The law could mandate that all delivered software come with the source and it wouldn't change the industry much other than substantially decrease the current non-accountability of software vendors and increase the openness of the market. Not something that companies with anti-competitive business models want; a free, open and fair market.

---

"Advertising supported" just means you're paying twice over, once in time to watch/avoid the ad and twice in the increased price of the product to pay for the ad.

Re:Used car salesman

[EzInKy]

This is a great comparison. However, remember that Microsoft's code is proprietary and is how they make their living. They wouldn't want someone looking at their code more than an author would want someone reading a book that's still in progress.


Great analogy! It would even make sense if the author could keep people from reading the words he used to write the book when he distributes it.

Re:Used car salesman

[sjames]

Their code would remain proprietary under the New York law, it would simply be escrowed with the state and subject to review (not publication).

In terms of an author, it's more like the publisher insisting on a copy of the manuscript before sending an advance check.

Re:Used car salesman

[dhasenan]

I doubt MS is seriously worried about someone producing a Windows clone or forking its codebase; it would be too identifiable. With embedded Windows, there isn't any worry about finding a way around WGA. The real worry would be potential customers finding out how buggy and unreliable Windows code is, if it is in fact unreliable. (Note this is specifically about embedded Windows, not desktop Windows. Embedded Windows might be reliable; I haven't used it.)

Oh, of course there's a chance that some Taiwanese company will start selling embedded Windows products without licenses, but that's already a risk.

The only issue I see is revealing hidden APIs -- hidden either because they're dangerous to use or because they give Microsoft a competitive advantage. That and any bugs or security holes could be exploited that much quicker.

Re:Used car salesman

[ClosedSource]

This isn't about fear of Windows clones, codebase forking, bug discovery, or hidden API exposure. It is simply protecting the trade secrets that are embodied in the source code that could give competitors a boost. If the source is made legally available to anyone who hasn't signed a NDA, those trade secrets will have not have any legal binding.

Re:Used car salesman

[MightyMartian]

What they want is to have their cake and eat it too. They want to have Windows on voting machines, but they don't want to have to deal with the rigourous approval system that ought to be in place before any voting machine is put in a live electoral situation.

I don't have a problem with MS keeping their code secret. It's their's (or at least most of it). I think that should automatically disqualify any voting system that runs on top of Windows. I don't see why MS should give that much of a damn about it. It's not as if voting machines are such a huge portion of the market that the company would see a meaningful or even measurable financial loss. A few thousand machines per state, big deal.

As to MS writing legislation, they're hardly the first non-government interest to do so. I think it's unseamly, and certainly something that should be considered by any legislative body preparing to vote on a bill. That's not to say that all such legislation should be rejected. Unfortunately, as with so many things in governance, we have to put a lot of faith in the legislators, and there are times, particularly where multibillion dollar corporate interests start applying pressure that we lose faith in the system. The good citizens of New York State need to contact their representatives and the Governor and let them know that this is clearly a piece of draft legislation that does not represent the public good, and is self-serving to the extreme. So, somehow, someone has got to let a lot of New Yorkers know what Microsoft is up to.

ATM failures

[Dr.Merkwurdigeliebe]

This is the company that sells software to Automatic Teller Machines, which are very important pieces of machinery in how they can effect a person's life. We've all read horror stories about ATM's running windows crashing, but MS expects people to put their trust in them when deciding who runs the country?!? This is lunacy!

Re:ATM failures

[ClosedSource]

"This is the company that sells software to Automatic Teller Machines"

How much software do ATM machines buy?

Re:Loaded Words Much?

[budword]

Because their interest is in screwing us over. Only a citizen should have the right to donate to (bribe) a public official. Letting a corporation have the same rights as a citizen with none of the responsibility is damaging to a democracy. A corporation has sociopathic tendenceys, because of the power/lack of accountability combination. I don't want them bribing public officials who make laws that affect me. You can't throw a corporation in prison.

Re:Loaded Words Much?

[FudRucker]

RE:["You can't throw a corporation in prison."]

no, but you can put those in control of that corporation in prison...

Corporatism

[k1e0x]

Here in Soviet Amerika, Microsoft and Haliburton write our laws. This is Corporatism, its Mercantilism, and its evil.. If we let it continue we will find ourselves homeless in the country our forefathers conquered.

Re:Corporatism

[k1e0x]

The state owned everything.

I'm shooting from the hip alright.

Re:Corporatism

[Dr. Noooo]

I think that Fascism is the appropriate term for what you are describing .. the melding of corporate interests with those of government, generally at the expense of the citizens.

The power of the vote.

[cyanyde]

I'd like to say none of this is new. Voting itself has never been all that secure anyways. The only security is that the number of people needed to pull of a rigged election was so large that the probability of someone or many someones spilling the beans kept the completion in check.

Now, with the automation of so many of life's crucial processes, fewer and fewer people are needed to rig any thing.

Everyone seems to be hyping the internet, but you're walking into a mindfield, where the truth will be subjugated beneath all the other junk.

The easiest way to hide a murder is to commit an atrocity. And now thanks to the internet and computers, it takes few like minds to do such.

Re:The power of the vote.

[tourvil]

Now, with the automation of so many of life's crucial processes, fewer and fewer people are needed to rig any thing.

Which is why I think we should return to traditional paper ballots, honestly. The field of computer security is simply too new and too fast paced to trust with the foundation of our democracy: elections.

At the very least, I feel that any software used in the election process should have its source viewable by the public. It doesn't necessarily have to be free/open source (though I think it would be beneficial), but people should at least be able to audit the code used to determine the nation's elections.

What I don't understand

[Colin Smith]

Is why aren't the amendments debated and voted on separately? It's completely bizarre that they are just stuck on like used chewing gum.

Re:What I don't understand

[Original Replica]

It's only bizarre if you are thinking that this part of the legislative process is intended to be clear and concise. But if you look at it as a part of the process intended to allow for the quiet incorporation of personal agendas, it makes perfect sense.

Re:What I don't understand

[Bender0x7D1]

The problem isn't amendments. For example, you might introduce a bill that addresses repairs of Interstate 80 from Chicago to Nebraska. After you introduce the bills, a Senator from Iowa points out that a part of it dealing with repairs around Des Moines doesn't work for some reason. (Maybe emergency repairs on I-35 would interfere.) The bill gets amended to deal with that problem.

Without the amendment, the entire bill would have to be redrafted, go back into committee and be debated (again) on the floor. Plus, it would open the door for more shenanigans as the entire text would have to be reexamined to make sure someone didn't add something.

I feel the problem is with the people who are trying to manipulate the system for personal or political game, and not with the rules that govern the system.

Re:Loaded Words Much?

[budword]

Which almost never happens. It happens so rarely that it makes the news when it does, and even then, these guys spend years out on bail while they appeal. Then they go to a country club "prison", and get out early anyway, when they aren't out on "work release". They are almost never punished to begin with, and the few times they get busted are not a deterrent to the rest of them.

Just use avionics (or gambling :) ) standards!

[PaulBu]

Given that voting is (generally) considered quite an important activity, with natinal security implications, I see no reason why the relevant software/hardware combination should be held to lesser standards than, say, software in avionics on our planes or on-board software on our satellites, both of which seem to work "just fine" (relatively speaking, yes, you get thousands of newspaper articles when there is a single failure).

Or, (google for the story) apparently writing the e-voting bill was really easy in Nevada, they said "Hey, we'll use the same audit standards that we already have for our slot machines" -- and all the Diebolds decided to skip NV as a customer... :)

Paul B.

Re:Just use avionics (or gambling :) ) standards!

[Khashishi]

Nah, voting needs to be held to much higher standards than that, seeing as political parties have much more interest in tampering with e-voting software than airplane software. Only terrorists are interested in designing flaws into plane software, and I'm much more afraid of politicians than terrorists.

Re:Loaded Words Much?

[budword]

A corporation is a "person" in the eyes of the law.

Contact your NY state representative...

[feranick]

From Bo Lipari's blog:

"Take Action Now - It's urgent that you call your State Senator and Assembly representatives on Monday, June 18, at their Albany offices, and tell them they must not weaken New York State's escrow and review requirements. Remind them that the Legislature passed a strong law 2 years ago - they must not give in to pressure by voting machine vendors to undermine those protections.

Find your Assembly member's contact information here:
http://www.assembly.state.ny.us/mem/
(Not sure who your Assembly member is? Click here to search by Zip Code)

Find your State Senator's contact information here:
http://www.senate.state.ny.us/senatehomepage.nsf/s enators?OpenForm
(Not sure who your State Senator is? Click here to search by Zip Code)"

Does anyone read?

[dbergerson]

The PDF is fine! Basically MS is saying that we will not release our source code to you for the underlying OS. They still want the APP to have the source code released. Apple would do the same with OSX if it was the underlying OS for the APP to run on. I am not sure how legal the current law is. It states that if a vendor creates an app that runs on any os, the app and the os have to have an audit review and the source code released. IANAL, but I think this would create an issue with the vendors submitting a voting machine that can not comply with the law.

Re:Does anyone read?

[EzInKy]

The PDF is fine! Basically MS is saying that we will not release our source code to you for the underlying OS. They still want the APP to have the source code released. Apple would do the same with OSX if it was the underlying OS for the APP to run on. I am not sure how legal the current law is. It states that if a vendor creates an app that runs on any os, the app and the os have to have an audit review and the source code released. IANAL, but I think this would create an issue with the vendors submitting a voting machine that can not comply with the law.


The issue is that the underlying OS has the ability to modify the results of any application it runs. Say, for example, Gates decides to run for President. Balmer could easily have the input coded to skew the results in Bill's favor in very subtle ways that only a thorough examination of the underlying system code would expose.

Re:Does anyone read?

[drsmithy]

The issue is that the underlying OS has the ability to modify the results of any application it runs. Say, for example, Gates decides to run for President. Balmer could easily have the input coded to skew the results in Bill's favor in very subtle ways that only a thorough examination of the underlying system code would expose.

Utter tripe. A simple examination and verification of the (limited and known) possible inputs and outputs would provide confirmation of correct operation.

If you have a calculator that's only designed to do a dozen different sums, it's *trivial* to prove whether or not it is doing those sums correctly, or whether some sort of environment effect is affecting the results.

Re:Does anyone read?

[EzInKy]

If you have a calculator that's only designed to do a dozen different sums, it's *trivial* to prove whether or not it is doing those sums correctly, or whether some sort of environment effect is affecting the results.


if(app == voting_app) ..if(date == second_tues_in_november) ....if(vote_time > too_soon) ......if(selected!=our_guy) ........if(random_cheat(cheat_factor)) ..........selected=our_guy

Re:Does anyone read?

[drsmithy]

if(app == voting_app) ..if(date == second_tues_in_november) ....if(vote_time > too_soon) ......if(selected!=our_guy) ........if(random_cheat(cheat_factor)) ..........selected=our_guy

C:\>date %ELECTION_DATE%
C:\>voting_app.exe

Again, as I said, with a very limited set if possible inputs and outputs (like you would have, say, in an election), it is trivial to determine if the environment is a factor.

Set the machine date appropriately (in fact, run the test for every day in the year), feed in a million votes, check the output for discrepencies.

Indeed, I would expect such basic functional verification to be part of the development process - to catch bugs - even _before_ the stupidly remote possibility of vote-rigging-via-OS was considered.

With that said, a paper trail is essential in any electronic voting system. There's simply too many ways inconsistent results can be introduced, by both fair means and foul (though mostly foul).

Re:Does anyone read?

[EzInKy]

C:\>date %ELECTION_DATE%
C:\>voting_app.exe

Again, as I said, with a very limited set if possible inputs and outputs (like you would have, say, in an election), it is trivial to determine if the environment is a factor.


It can be detected, but not trivially if the cheating is subtle. Coding the cheat to occur randomly and only if a certain period of time has elapsed since the previous vote was entered would make it very difficult to detect. In most elections in the US the difference between the leading candidates is usually just a couple of percentage points so randomly changing one vote in twenty cast at least two minutes apart would make the testing of millions of simulated votes difficult.

Re:Does anyone read?

[drsmithy]

It can be detected, but not trivially if the cheating is subtle. Coding the cheat to occur randomly and only if a certain period of time has elapsed since the previous vote was entered would make it very difficult to detect. In most elections in the US the difference between the leading candidates is usually just a couple of percentage points so randomly changing one vote in twenty cast at least two minutes apart would make the testing of millions of simulated votes difficult.

The testing scenario is not difficult. Certainly, it requires planning, but in and of itself, it is not difficult, because the scope is so tiny and the variables so few. Indeed, the scope is so small that the use of a formally verifiable specification and implementation (to prove the code is bug free) is more than feasible, making detection of outside influences even easier. An absolute code freeze (for all components - hardware and software) a fixed time period prior to the election (say, 90 days - IIRC US elections run on a fixed schedule, making this part even easier). Scripted testing of the system, with suitable delays between individual votes, running on multiple parallel systems and simulating multiple locations and voter demographics. Always have the machine's date set to the election date. Only run the tests during the hours voting would actually be happening. Etc, etc.

There's only a (very) limited number of variables that a vote-rigging system can key off to determine whether or not the "election" is real. Account for them and you can be confident that if no discrepencies show up in the testing, then even if they (undetectably) exist they're also too subtle to matter in the actual election.

That, and, of course, verification via the paper trail should be a requirement.

To look at it another way: Yes, it's feasible that vote-rigging could be introduced via the OS. But no more feasible that the same vote-rigging being introduced in any of the myriad pieces of hardware involved (and there would be a *lot* of hardware components involved) or even in an open-source solution using that backdoor-in-the-compiler trick.

Re:Does anyone read?

[molarmass192]

Apple would do the same with OSX if it was the underlying OS for the APP to run on.

That's not a good example since Apple does open source their kernel and tools. The exception is the Quartz windowing system. Anyhow, more to the point, I agree that the app SHOULD have it's source code released -but- here's the kicker, the app SHOULD be fully portable to other platforms. If the app can run on Windows / Linux / OS X / Solaris / etc ... then the opportunity for fraud is greatly reduced. The only system with GUI standardized across those platforms ... Java ... so that's where the answer lies. Code the voting app in Java, make the platform irrelevant, need for platform source is eliminated.

Re:Does anyone read?

[TheNicestGuy]

Code the voting app in Java, make the platform irrelevant, need for platform source is eliminated.

Writing a voting app for the Java platform does not make the platform irrelevant. It makes the platform Java. If your JVM implementation is closed-source, you're left with the exact same problem, just abstracted a little more.

Of course, there are open-source JVMs and SDKs, with Sun's own not far behind. But you still have to make sure that the source of every layer between the JVM and the hardware is also open, or else there's nothing stopping it from waylaying data on its way to the filesystem or something. If it's GNU/Linux, then you're probably okay. But just to be safe, better make sure the firmware/BIOS is also open source, because sneaky changes to data at that level would be awfully hard to track down.

Oh, and while you're at it, don't just compile all of this fresh. Make sure you recompile the compiler first, using a trusted compiler that you compiled from a trusted compiler, etc., so that there's no chance of a hack like the one Ken Thompson put into UNIX. The moral of his story bears repeating here: "You can't trust code that you did not totally create yourself. (Especially code from companies that employ people like me.)"

Sorry. I like Java and the notion of write once, run anywhere. But don't think that adding an extra layer between OS and application makes the platform irrelevant in such a mission-critical sense. There's no substitute for full transparency, and even the definition of "full transparency" is not always as simple as it should be.

Re:Life, liberty, and the pursuit of blogs.

[Anonymous Coward]

Bend over and take it up the tailpipe.

Seriously, who's even going to KNOW about this? The US is going to end up being the first country to collapse under the weight of all its corporations.

Re:Life, liberty, and the pursuit of blogs.

[BakaHoushi]

It sounds like the only way to solve America's growing problem of corporations taking over is... a good old fashioned rumble.

Microsoft v. Wal*Mart!
GE v. Disney!
Halliburton v. Exxon-Mobile!

This sunday, sunday, SUNDAY, watch white collar workers get red in the face and a bad case of the Mondays! Marketers place ads all OVEr each other's faces! Accountants will be adding up plenty of lumps!

And for the finale, Steve Ballmer v. Eisner! Hold on to your seats, because somebody is gonna get CEOwned!

Quick solution

[Spy der Mann]

Get a hacker to hack the said machines and display:

"This voting machine was infected with a virus. Who knows if they're altering the votes? MUAHAHAHAHAH!
P.S. Thank you for choosing Microsoft products :) "

That'll teach 'em. The voters i mean >:D

Re:Quick solution

[hoggoth]

You are joking (I think), but just imaging if on election day every e-voting display said something like 'THIS ELECTION HAS BEEN HACKED'.

The uproar would cause e-voting to be outlawed for good.

On second thought... maybe almost nobody would notice at all, and the few who noticed it woule think it was an ad for a new movie.

Re:Quick solution

[QuantumG]

Shya. The public would go on a rampage alright.. to lynch hackers. That's the way it works. Hackers are the bad guys, the idiots who make software with big security holes in it because they can't practice well known techniques are the victims.

Re:Quick solution

[hoggoth]

Alright, then a message with a litle more ooomph, like little letters in the corner reading 'Error 1d-10t: remote connection from skunkworks.halliburton.com disconnected'

Re:Quick solution

[QuantumG]

Nah, see, this isn't the way the public perception works. They have no imagination. You may scream that this stuff isn't secure but they're just going to say "no harm was done". If you want to get these things recognised as the danger to democracy that they are, you need to rig an election. Not to "prove it is possible" but simply to have something to say shouldn't have happened.

Re:Quick solution

[hoggoth]

It just occured to me that if that exact message appears on e-voting screens I am going to be spending some time at Abu-Ghraib.

I don't know you, who is this? Prank caller, prank caller!

Re:Quick solution

[hoggoth]

> If you want to get these things recognised as the danger to democracy that they are, you need to rig an election.

Ok then, it's Duncan Hunter in 2008!

Re:Quick solution

[LibertarianWackJob]

The Libertarian candidate wins by a landslide!!! ;-)

That is why we should have stuck with paper ballot

[Attila Dimedici]

This is just one more reason we should have stuck with the paper ballot. Despite all the complaints about the 2000 election, there was a clear paper trail to follow. I do not believe that there is any way to make an electronic ballot that there is a way to make it so that the average person could be confident that the vote wasn't rigged. Even with open source software, unless you compiled the code yourself (or at least were present when it was compiled), how do you know that the "open" code is actually what they installed on the machine?

Power needs control

[Opportunist]

And control needs power. Twice so in a democracy. The foundation of democracy is the free, anonymous voting system. So this voting system has to be testable by anyone in any way.

If the foundation of democracy cannot be tested by the people, the whole system is lacking a solid base to build on. I'd be very wary to weaken this kind of basic foundation of democracy. The building on top might collapse if the base is weak.

Why an OS?

[Pig Hogger]

Why an OS for an appliance computer? (Because a voting machine is basically an appliance computer).

I mean, what does a voting machine needs to do? Read a keyboard (or touch screen), write to a display device, print a receipt/results, read and write to a RAM card (to get the candidates and put the results).

So why do you need a whole goddammed operating system to do that? Are programmers becoming sufficiently incompetent to be unable to do those basic I/O tasks from scratch???

What's so difficult in booting from ROM? Set stack pointers, memory access registers, jump to start of POST routine and go.

It's not very hard at all.

So why do you need schwindoze (or schlinux) to do all those basic things????

Re:Why an OS?

[Keamos]

Agreed. It's not like they'd need to support hundreds of different configurations, either.

Re:Why an OS?

[belmolis]

No doubt a full-fledged OS is not necessary. I assume that the situation is that some companies are lazy and are basically putting some DB software on top of MS Windows. (Wasn't there something in one of the Diebold stories about the votes being tallied in Excell or in an Access database?)

Re:Why an OS?

[drsmithy]

So why do you need schwindoze (or schlinux) to do all those basic things????

Because it's a lot cheaper to buy (or download) an off-the-shelf OS than get someone to write the code you are talking about.

Re:Why an OS?

[poot_rootbeer]

Why an OS for an appliance computer? (Because a voting machine is basically an appliance computer).

Well, because building an appliance computer out of commodity hardware, running a commodity OS, with a rich API, is a lot more efficient than rolling your own solution out of breadboards and assembly code. Why re-invent the wheel -- or the file system, or keyboard driver, or task scheduler?

A better question might be, why not use a FREE commodity OS such as Linux on these appliance computers instead of an essentially opaque and unverifiable component like Windows?

Re:Why an OS?

[marcosdumay]

Because you don't need a keyboard driver, or a task scheduler, or a file system on a voting machine. And any extra line of code makes it harder to manualy verify it latter when you'll put it at the machine.

Godwin's Law

[deskin]

The "I was only doing my job" excuse went out at Nuremberg

I think you might have just triggered Godwin's Law there. On to the next article...

Re:Godwin's Law

[bit01]

I think you might have just triggered Godwin's Law there. On to the next article...

I was aware of that possible interpretation when I wrote it. However I decided to include it anyway as it's relevant; the archetypal example of "just doing my job". Besides, you've just reopened the thread...

---

Like trademarks, and for much the same reason, copyright should be lost if a product line becomes generic.

Re:Life, liberty, and the pursuit of blogs.

[VorpalEdge]

The Gilded Age says otherwise. Have you ever read any old late 1800s/early 1900s muckraker novels?

Things were far worse not so long ago, and I expect that things now will continue to get worse for quite a while until they get better.

It will be Illegal to test as well

[gelfling]

The other problem with these laws is that they go hand in glove with laws making it illegal to test the system or hack it or to publish the results.

Re:That is why we should have stuck with paper bal

[carlossch]

Even with open source software, unless you compiled the code yourself (or at least were present when it was compiled), how do you know that the "open" code is actually what they installed on the machine?

It's worse than that, actually.

Kent Brockman said it best:

[walterbyrd]

"I've said it before and I'll say it again, democracy simply doesn't work".
-- Kent Brockman

Okay, How about "blatant bribery" and "corruption"

[walterbyrd]

Because really, that is what it is. Does it make you feel better to use accurate wording now?

I don't care if other companies do the same thing: corruption is corruption - no matter who does it, not matter what you call it.

Are we certain that this is credible?

[walterbyrd]

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that it isn't credible. But, this is just a bloggers site, and the PDF could have been created by anybody. Could this possibly be a hoax?

Microsoft's beach head

[MrKaos]

If they succeed in NY then it's more than likley they will use the same template of laws for the other states and eventually federally. I wonder if they realise the long term implications or are simply so selfish they are prepared to devise and support the subvertion of the voting process enshrined in law. "America under attack by Corporate terrorists", how about that for a headline.

Of course it follows naturally the existing subversion of the political process and the failure of the two party system through corportate lobbying of candidates, which is the only issue in modern politics. Because until that's fixed nothing else can be.

Of couse, this is one thing that can be prevented from being broken but, to me at least, it looks like Benjamin Franklin is being proven right http://www.usconstitution.net/franklin.html

Re:That is why we should have stuck with paper bal

[mcneely.mike]

For myself, I think if Richard M. Stallman was present to go through the source code, do an MD5SUM on the source code, compile the code and do an MD5SUM on the binary, I personally would feel comfortable about his ethics enough to trust the ballot. Not sure how many other people I would trust, though... except of course Bill Gates or Monkey Boy... heh-heh. (Of course, I'd have to be able to verify the MD5SUM... hmmm.

Re:That is why we should have stuck with paper bal

[mithras invictus]

I would trust election officials to compile the code.
If the install media are stored securely after an election possible tampering by officials can always be proved/disproved afterwards.
Election software can be simple enough to even be verified manually by a knowledgable official. You don't need flip3d to hold an election.

Reality anyone?

[FlyingGuy]

Ok well... I just had to RTFA, and funny thing is that it no place in the article did he mention a bill number or a sponsor. Additionally there is generally nothing to back his assetion up with the exception of the PDF he points us all to. Now I am not saying its a hoax, but he gave us precious little information to go on.

Soooo I clicked on over to the New York State Assembly and had a look around. I keyword searched for "voting or software" and got one hit. Below is the text of the bill:

SUMMARY:

A6383 Benjamin
BENJAMIN
Amd S7-202, El L
Requires security and personnel safeguards in the use of electronic voting systems and

software. BILL TEXT:
STATE OF NEW YORK
_____
6383

2007-2008 Regular Sessions
IN ASSEMBLY
March 7, 2007
___________

Introduced by M. of A. BENJAMIN -- read once and referred to the Commit-
tee on Election Law
AN ACT to amend the election law, in relation to secure electronic voting machines and software.

The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assembly,
do enact as follows:


1 Section 1. Legislative declaration. The legislature hereby declares
2 that no electronic voting system shall at any time contain or use any
3 undisclosed software. Any voting system containing or using software
4 shall disclose the source code, object code, and executable represen-
5 tation of that software to the state board of elections, and such board
6 shall make that source code, object code, and executable representation
7 available for inspection upon request to any local election board.
8 2. Section 7-202 of the election law is amended by adding a new
9 subdivision 5 to read as follows:
10 5. No electronic voting system shall be used in an election for state
11 office unless the manufacturer of such system meets the following
12 requirements:
13 a. The manufacturer shall conduct background checks on individuals who
14 are programmers and developers before such individuals work on any soft-
15 ware used in connection with the electronic voting system.
16 b. The manufacturer shall document the chain of custody for the handl-
17 ing of software used in connection with the electronic voting system.
18 c. The manufacturer shall ensure that any software used in connection
19 with the electronic voting system is not transferred over the internet.
20 d. The manufacturer shall provide the codes used in any software used
21 in connection with the electronic voting system to the state board of
22 elections and may not alter such codes once certification has occurred
23 unless such system is recertified.
24 e. The manufacturer shall implement procedures to ensure internal
25 security, as required by the state board of elections.
26 f. The manufacturer shall meet such other requirements as may be
27 established by the state board of elections.
28 3. This act shall take effect immediately.

EXPLANATION--Matter in italics (underscored) is new; matter in brackets [ ] is old law to be omitted.

LBD07122-01-7

SPONSORS MEMO:
NEW YORK STATE ASSEMBLY
MEMORANDUM IN SUPPORT OF LEGISLATION
submitted in accordance with Assembly Rule III, Sec 1(e)

BILL NUMBER: A6383

SPONSOR: Benjamin

TITLE OF BILL: An act to amend the election law, in relation to secure electronic voting machines and software
PURPOSE OR GENERAL IDEA OF BILL: Requires security and personnel safe- guards in the use of electronic voting systems and software.
SUMMARY OF SPECIFIC PROVISIONS: To amend the election law, in relation to secure electronic voting machines and software.
JUSTIFICATION: This bill would ensure voting rights by preventing tampering to voting machines and their software through added security features.
PRIOR LEGISLATIVE HISTORY

Re:Hahaha... these Americans...

[ozmanjusri]

I know they would still vote Bill Gates for president.

Not Gates, Ballmer.

I'd say if Microsoft gets away with this, there's a damn good chance McCain'll be your next President.

"the 70 year old presidential hopeful also said that he would ask Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to serve on his cabinet to deal with technology issues if elected."
http://www.thedailybackground.com/2007/05/30/mccai n-comes-out-against-net-neutrality-says-would-hire -microsoft-ceo-steve-ballmer/ Conflict of interests? What conflict of interests?

Could MS be planning a coup?

[dcrockerjr]

1. Ballmer a potential cabinet member of one of the candidates. 2. Thomas Barnett assistant attorney general (formerly of Microsoft) uses position to write letters to state attorney generals telling them not to prosecute MS. 3.Delegations lead by Ambassador C. Boyden Gray (formerly of Microsoft). Additionally over the past few years MS has directly and indirectly hired a lot of lawyers who could fill one or more of the following rolls: A. Lawyers can easily be groomed for political office. B. The ability to take advantage of a favorable change in the political/judicial environment by engaging in massive parallel litigation. C. Simple high paying welfare for lawyers who tend to have influential relatives. MS writing code for voting machines is at the very least a conflict of interest. Notice that the amendment language effectively puts a gag order on anyone, courts included, that finds out the equipment/election/etc has been rigged preventing them from warning the populace.

Can anyone write a rider?

[padlocked.swings]

How is security at these legislative offices?

There was a story about some rider that was written by one of the **AA's for something to do with piracy. Apparently this was written without any congressman's knowledge, let alone approval.

What is to prevent anyone from walking in to a legislative office and write a rider? If lobbyists can do it, what is to prevent you or I? Do lobbyists have some sort of special ID to get into legislative offices?

Are these places so loosely run and chaotic that anyone can walk in and do anything?

I have walked into offices totally unescorted to look for someone or something. These are not places where I work; ie; I had no legitimate reason to be there except that I told the receptionist that I was looking for someone or something.

From the sound of things in these articles on Slashdot; I think that if we really want to; instead of sitting here and complaining; we should behave like lobbyists and go into these legislative offices as if we own them and start writing our own riders.

The scourage of all children in playgrounds . . . .

Padlocked Swings

Re:Can anyone write a rider?

[bryan1945]

"What is to prevent anyone from walking in to a legislative office and write a rider? "

From what I have read, it's mostly staffers who do these kind of things. I doubt you know how to write a rider that would look legitimate (but not outside the realm of possibility). But this is also speculation, not fact, so....

Re:The bill is useless anyway!

[dhasenan]

You can decompile the object code into C or C++ or whatever (in the case of C++, there will be template issues...). Then you can compare the results with the source you're given. If they don't match (variable names, file arrangements, comments etc notwithstanding), then you immediately invalidate the election results, start analyzing the decompiled code further, and start proceedings against the vendor for failure to comply.

Or, more simply, you demand an exact copy of the build system from the vendor, build the submitted sources on it, and check the MD5 sums against the sums from the voting machines. If they don't match, you start the same process.

But if you don't have the original sources, it's much harder to analyze anything.

I for one

[Premo_Maggot]

Would like to say get the fuck out of my state Microsoft. -A New Yorker content without M$ fucking with my legislation.

Re:Heathens!

[ClosedSource]

"Democracy =! A country in which you can have your political way by throwing money at stuff."

Then the US has never been a democracy. It wouldn't surprise me to find that Denmark isn't either, but I don't know enough about its political system to know for sure.

I agree

[ClosedSource]

My smart-ass criteria for a true embedded system is that it's not allowed to parse any ASCII while booting.

Who does the state represent?

[lsatenstein]

The people are the ones the state must protect, not the corporations. Wake up Americans. If Microsoft gets away with their stuff, then you can all kiss your freedom goodbye. The new government will be the corporation by the corporation for the corporation. As MS would say, we dont want to show how much we pirated from open source or other software packages, and we dont want to show code that we cut and pasted from other sources. I have no faith in MS Sr Management, though they do have good to excellent developers.

Re:Hahaha... these Americans...

[someone1234]

Not like it counts whom they vote for, given those voting machines. The winner will be the one whom the controllers or hackers of those machines wanted.

WE are the technocrats

[Metasquares]

Why are we, probably the ones most capable of hacking said machines, complaining? I'm not advocating doing so, but a blatantly altered election following passage of a bill like that would send a message to the state. Perhaps we can just give the legislature input on "how we'd do it if we did it"... assuming they cared.

Re:WE are the technocrats

[NickFortune]

Why are we, probably the ones most capable of hacking said machines, complaining?

Do I take it then that you are a Diebold employee, and that when you say "we" you are referring to your employer?

I'm not advocating doing so

Good, because it would be a spectacularly stupid thing to do. Especially in the current political climate. Which is probably why "we" (by which I mean a lot of people who read Slashdot) are complaining.

Re:Loaded Words Much?

[mcvos]

Why is that Microsoft doesn't deserve to have its interests represented by their government the same as every other citizen and corporation.

Because Microsoft isn't a citizen, and corporations don't have the same rights to representation as citizens. Or shouldn't have. In these plutocratic times they actually appear to have more representation than citizens, but that's not the way it should be. Not if you want to pretend you live in a democracy.

Re:Wrong Wong.

[trolltalk.com]

"Is this the same country whose citizens have a negative savings rate?"

Yep - and a lot of people justify it by saying "If the government can't balance its chequebook, why should I?" The federal deficit corrupts the public indirectly in this fashion.

Those of us who see the crunch coming either are already out of debt or are paying down debt as fast as possible.

Nowadays, when people ask "Can I afford this?", they're really asking "Can I cover the monthly payments?" That's insane. If you have to pay off things like a washer or dryer or tv or living room set at "so much a month", the answer is NO, you obviously cannot afford it - and you should be looking to either put off the purchase until you can pay it cash, or buy something cheaper.

Even those "36 monthly payments with no interest" are total BS. You're paying ALL the interest up-front. The retailer sells the contract to the finance company at a 14% discount (it may be even greater depending on the deal). Pay it off ahead of time, and you don't get a rebate of those hidden finance charges.

Go in there with a wad of cash, tell them you know about the hidden interest, you're not interested in contracting debt, you're a serious buyer, you have [wave stack of bills in their face] the money, and see how much they're willing to drop the price, or what they'll throw into the deal. The sales droid on the floor might believe that there's really no interest, but you can be sure that someone higher up will say "throw in a second night table, microwave, or an extra set of chairs".

Its not yours until its paid for, at which point its old, obsolete, and you're about ready to get back on the stupid debt treadmill again because its only "so much a month."

Then you have a month where you're sick, or temporarily laid off, or an unexpected bill ... no thanks. I'll stick with cash.

Re:Hahaha... these Americans...

[Maltheus]

I'd say if Microsoft gets away with this, there's a damn good chance McCain'll be your next President.

McCain has no chance of all catering to the bipartisan curious. He was done long ago.

How about simply reading the bills?

[Maltheus]

Even better is the Read the Bills Act which would require these thugs to be preset for a full and complete reading of every bill passed. If they had done this for the patriot act, they'd still be reading it and we wouldn't have been stuck with it today. No veto necessary. And it's hardly an unreasonable requirement that people voting on a bill should be forced to read it first. I think anything less is a subversion of the constitution.

Solar Lottery - part II

[fritsd]

Philip K. Dick, is that you? ;-)

Why a computer?

[Shadowlore]

Why not good old manual pushcards, levels, etc.? Have people gotten so incompetent that we think it's a good idea to have people who can't grasp basics of how to physically operate basic machinery (like "push the pen in the whole") deciding who gets to have their finger on the button?

Seriously. If that's how far we've devolved the make it a random lottery. Do a lotto style drawing. First draw for the state to choose from, then county, then city, district and then people to serve. Once you've served, your name is removed from future pools. The way it should be done for jury duty, btw.

Think of the money we coudl save. No more campaign contributions, no more plastering signs everywhere, no more "debates" and endless polling, no more occupying the "news" channels with meaningless sound bytes from candidates. Think of of the time, money, energy, and effort spent in campaigning on both sides (candidate and non-candidate) spent today being replaced by such a simple system.

Re:Why a computer?

[Pig Hogger]

Actually, where I live (a looooong day's drive from the US federal capital), the authorities in charge of voting have decreed that the technology/procedures for electronic voting is too immature and too diversified (read: not standardized enough) to allow it's continued usage, so it has effectively been outlawed.

I have been working as an election official in various elections lately (at various government levels) and the paper ballot system works perfectly well and offers sufficient accounting speed (barring fuckups, all results are tallied within 2 hours) and fraud prevention safeguards.

Re:Corporatism: No, it's not...

[k1e0x]

:: rolls eyes :: your wrong "Fascism" is not corporation control of government. In a Fascist's government your property and rights are second to that of the governments. Go back to school.