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Hacking the Presidential Election
An anonymous reader writes "Security researchers at a recent summit predicted US voters will be targeted by web-based dirty tricks campaigns as the 2008 election gets nearer. Spam, botnets and phishing all provide good opportunities to mislead voters and attack rivals with little risk of being caught, they say."
The 2008 election will be decided by 3 Ron Paul supporters, spamming the entire country with a pro-freedom, pro-liberty message that Americans find simply offensive in this day and age of the PATRIOT act and No Child Left Behind.
I'm a Thompson man, myself. Americans need their "folksy" fix, and maybe a little sadomasochism on the side.
Uh huh. I'm sure port 139 is open on all the electronic voting machines.
"A gentleman never strikes a lady with his hat on." - Fred Allen
How about ALREADY HAVE. Long before the internet, dirty tricks campaigns were typical political fare. Just ask John McCain how he lost South Carolina.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
*sarcasm* It'll probably be the same dozen or so guys who have been spamming all the web polls & Digg for Ron Paul. I wonder how they managed to scrape up $5.1 million though? */sarcasm*
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
...in the next election, we'll be lied to, we'll be tricked, and crooks try to get into our pockets and rip off the gullible.
Where the heck is the difference to earlier elections?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Ron Paul!
(so, does this count as a 'vote hack'?)
I ask since voting turnout traditionally has been abysmal in the United States, why put all this effort into swaying the masses when they're too busy watching dreck on Television to care?
I just received a fake call from "George W" that was effectively meant as a smear campaign against "the Republicans". "The Republicans" are no better; they've been calling my house multiple times daily with a fake caller ID # to sling mud at "the Democrats". Political Joe jobs and other nasty things don't only happen on the Internet.
(Of course, online, any idiot could do this, whereas calling people requires a bit more coordination and resources).
But honestly, we should be asking ourselves if we want people who stoop to such measures to make the policy for our country in the first place. I don't think I'm voting for any of them.
..the easiest, lowest-risk modern methods for criminally furthering one's agenda are likely to be used by modern criminals to further their agendas.
In other news, results of the study of wetness by the Institute for Applied Water are said to be forthcoming.
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
I don't want to start a holy war here, but what is the deal with you democracy fanatics? I've been sitting here at my freelance gig in front of an FBI agent (Fox Mulder) for about 20 minutes now while he attempts to extract 17 names from a terrorist in Camp X-Ray to another FBI agent. 20 minutes. At home, on my Inquisition-era rack and vise replica, which by all standards should be a lot slower than this FBI agent, the same operation would take about 2 minutes. If that.
In addition, during this name transfer, scapegoating the Democrats will not work. And everything else has ground to a halt. Even Fox News is straining to keep up as I type this.
I won't bore you with the laundry list of other problems that I've encountered while working with various democratic institutions, but suffice it to say there have been many, not the least of which is I've never seen a democracy that has run faster than its fascist counterpart, despite the democracies' faster marketplace of ideas. My banana republic with 8 torture specialists runs faster than this 300-million person democracy at times. From a productivity standpoint, I don't get how people can claim that democracy is a superior system of government.
Democracy addicts, flame me if you'd like, but I'd rather hear some intelligent reasons why anyone would choose to use a democracy over other faster, cheaper, more stable governments.
As an example of what's already happening, there have been stories about this the last couple days: apparently someone sent a 'spoofed' email, claiming to be from a Huckabee campaign functionary in Iowa, stating that he was going to ditch Huckabee for Romney. One of many stories.
The bigotry of the nonbeliever is for me nearly as funny as the bigotry of the believer. - Albert Einstein
1: Install a botnet.
2: Modify the hosts file so that the election website of you opponent points to goatse
3: profit.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
Erm, maybe with the phishing and similar then the difference is that you're getting ripped off, tricked and exploited by persons unknown as opposed to highly paid criminals...sorry, 'politicians' ;)
The Dems' "excuse" is that they're politicians and spineless pussies.
But yes, the GOP has made dirty tricks an art.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
It's not just that you can't determine for certain who is behind such campaigns - it's that the dirty players can frame anybody they choose. My prediction is, since everyone is so hypersensitive to "open foot, insert mouth" moments these days (thanks, Daily Show!*), we'll see at least one moderately successful Internet e-mail campaign that (1) purports to be from a candidate, and (2) includes a comment that can be construed as offensive and probably racist, but (3) is actually from some other group who hopes to make that candidate take a fall.
"Security researchers at a recent summit" obviously have a very limited knowledge of political campaigns. No campaign manager that actually got to the level of being on a serious contender's camapign would risk a media storm over something like that. I'm sure if "Security researchers at a recent summit" managed campaigns, that might happen...but otherwise there's no way to pull that off without paying someone a lot of money...and if you pay them it goes on your FEC report..and if it goes on your FEC report, your opponents' researchers see it as plain as day.
Not gonna happen.
...hijack the presidential election.. I am Federal agent Jack Bauer and this is the longest day of my life..
Shit, the mike is turned off..
Dammit Chloe.
... and I shall strike upon thee with great vegeance, furious anger and a slightly positive karma.
Only about Half of the eligible voters vote. And even many who actually vote aren't particularly careful or sophisticated enough to understand the issues - remember Butterfly ballots & Chads? Sadly, my greatest cynicism is that the Presidential elections will get largely decided on Guns, Gays, God and Abortion. Not worth hacking.
These people are asking for the greatest powers we can give, including life & death, and much of the course of the whole world's future. You'd think that if they were to actually get caught cheating their way in, that the trust and respect would be destroyed, and they'd be disqualified.
But even when they are caught, voters let them off the hook. There are many examples, but someone tell me how John Sununu remained in office, and is now campaigning to likely keep his New Hampshire Senate seat, even though he was narrowly elected in 2002 with the help of active phone jamming his opponent's Election Day "get out the vote" system? He stopped voters from voting to win. The guy actually operating the operation went to jail and gave evidence he'd coordinated with the Republican National Committee, and his phone logs show he worked with the White House during the operation. Sununu isn't just some "random senator": he's on the Senate Commerce Committee, which controls the FCC and telecom.
Of course these politicians will do anything for power. But when they're caught, what's our excuse for ignoring their criminal careers when we vote for them?
--
make install -not war
I used to think that education and critical thinking, social activism and voter participation, community involvement (less time shopping and watching the Stupevision), and ridicule and repudiation of weak thinking and corruption, and strong support for good legislators and the laws would prevent imbeciles, thugs, and demagogues from taking power.
But to hell with it! Let's make the Internet an enabler for democracy!
In a few years, the candidate who wins the "LOL" vote will win every election.
Rich And Stupid is not so bad as Working For Rich And Stupid.
Actually, I do have a fair bit to say on the topic of politics. In my university days I took a lot of directly related course such as demographics, history, computer science, and mathematics. I've continued to read on the topics since then, adding a lot of political science and some other fields, and I've even published a bit in related areas of computer security. Getting away from the writing and reading, I've participated in American politics for many years, even been a campaign volunteer, and more recently I've been able to observe a completely different political system up close, providing additional insight into the ugliness of politics around the world. (In some ways Florida in 2000 is a serious contender for the biggest election crime ever.)
/. "editors" sincerely want to encourage substantive dialog and discussion, but they have created a framework where such non-trivial comments are most likely to be targeted for destruction. The harder you work to write well to contribute to /., the more likely it is that you are wasting your time.
/. is becoming an increasingly minor anachronism while the rest of the Internet continues to grow and develop rapidly. It's called coasting to oblivion.
/. these days. I'm not joking, even recursively. [Or am I?] I really appreciate humor, but I'm sadly humor impaired when it comes to producing jokes. Is the death of humor on /. due to the punitive moderation of +funny, or have the authentically interesting and humorous people simply been driven away by negative moderation? The ghosts of /. want to know why!
/., I see no reason to care.
/.
However, the more carefully I present interesting or useful information, the more likely it becomes that my post will simply disappear into the black hole of negative mods. Why don't I feel motivated? Just because the more clearly I write the more certainly I will offend some cowardly anonymous moderator who will simply shoot my comment in the head with a truly meaningless "overrated" mod.
In engineering terms this is called negative dynamic stability. I suppose that the
That does not work very well. No wonder
Amusingly enough, the thing I miss these years is the humor. Almost none left on
Now I predict that if I have made my comment clearly enough, a bunch of anonymous negative mods will be piled upon it, presumably destroying my karma and causing me to effectively disappear as a contributor to any future discussions. But you know what? Given the quality of the typical discussion on
Oh yeah. On the actual topic, it isn't the hacking, it's the gerrymandering. The largest bloc of voters are the ones who don't vote--because they have correctly understood that their votes have been gerrymandered away from them. Why should they vote when they can't affect the election? It's about as useless as writing a thoughtful but provocative post on
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
Predictions and speculation about the future aren't news. Not for nerds, not for anyone.
In Soviet Russia they had elections and the government still got in.
threadeds blog
In recent years, a major strategy of Republicans has been vote suppression and non-internet dirty tricks. For example, they have distributed flyers in poor African-American neighborhoods stating that the election was on Wednesday (instead of Tuesday) and that it was illegal -- and grounds for arrest and prosecution -- for anyone with an overdue rent bill to vote. These issues have been widely reported.
However, the bigger, not as well reported, scandal is in the findings of the California Secretary of State. She set up teams to do penetration tests of the all-electronic (DRE) voting machines. Although the vendors later howled about the information given the penetration test teams, the information was similar to what the US Defense Department has been giving its penetration test teams for the last quarter century.
The team that tested the Diebold machine found that a minimally-skilled malicious voter could gain administrative access to the machine and erase all votes cast up to that point in the election. The access required a tool, described as being commonly found in an office, small enough to conceal in the palm of the hand, and such that it would create no suspicion in the minds of polling place officials. The description sounds to me like a paper clip.
In the 2004 general election, the board of elections of a Maryland county normally carried by Democratic candidates reported that up to 5% of their machines (all Diebolds) were suspected of having lost some or all of their recorded votes. Could this have been the same attack described by the California penetration test team? If so, where else was it performed? What other voting machine shenanigans occurred in 2004? How did that influence the outcome in 2004?
There was also a group of statisticians who determined that the 2006 Democratic margin in winning control of the House of Representatives was significantly different from the margin calculated from exit polls. The difference was around 3%, but should have been much smaller, according to well-tested statistical concepts. This could have meant several more Democratic seats in the House. Could this have been the result of voting machine tampering similar to what the California test teams demonstrated?
Could the 2008 election be decided, not by the voters, but by the sophistication of voting machine tamperers?
This was modded "Insightful"? The idea that either side could play fair and square but for some reason is "resorting" to dirty tricks demonstrates stupendous naivete.
Both sides will do absolutely anything if they think that it gives them even a tiny advantage and that they can get away with it.
Lemme guess, they're pussies because they don't agree with blatant fear/warmongering like any real, super, tough-guy, cowboy American should, right? Look, I don't think anyone will argue that people on both "teams" resort to some seriously shady business, but gimme a break with this whole "spineless" angle, it's just a steaming pile of crap. If you honestly believe that by being as bull-headed as we have been in our rush to war we have done ourselves any good at all, I really suggest you seek counseling.
No, dipshit. They're spineless pussies because they haven't earnestly pursued impeaching The Decider and stopping his many abuses.
I had high hopes in Nov '06 when the election results were announced. The best we can say is that at least Bush doesn't have a rubber stamp anymore, and that the minimum wage was finally raised. That's about it.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
The Dems should be playing fair and square. The Republicans are so far in a hole you know they're going to be doing dirty tricks, but the Dems have the advantage and should take the moral high ground.
This is just pathetic.
Care about privacy? Read this!
Anyway - the level has always been low whenever it comes to dirty tricks in politics. Watergate as an example... Or the OOXML voting.
What many politicians forget are that they are in place to serve the people - not the other way around! Maybe the voting should be held after a period instead and depending on approval rate the person in government may have a span from a voluntary lifetime vacation in Florida to a mandatory lifetime vacation in northern Alaska.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
Maybe these spamnets are actually going to prove useful at getting information out there not suitable for mainstream media. I frequently get political spam about various events going on in the falun gong struggle in china. I would much rather be getting some spammer's political political opinion than the usual phish/pennystock/mortgage/penis type spam that I see every day.
Yes cause I'm sure hacking the election is high up on the things to do list. Right up there with chemical castration. The only people who would hack the election would people working for the particular party.
Windows on a mac is Windows under Supervision. - Frank Soltis(Chief Scientist/Designer of AS400)
Yeah like when they sent those guys with rifles over to deport that little Cuban kid.
That was Bush right?
The Democrats couldn't impeach Bush if they tried. They have a slim majority, that's all. It's not nearly enough to impeach or pass veto-proof bills without Republican support.
i\hbar\dot{\psi}=\hat{H}\psi
Dear God, GP got +5 and this post didn't?
Hey bud, take it easy, I'm being cordial with you, no need to be a jerk here, we're having a discussion.
I had high hopes in Nov '06 when the election results were announced
Me too, and I voted to help make those results happen (I'm inferring that you did to) so I am hopeful that we're going to get some changes here, but I'm aware that these wheel turn agonizingly slowly. I agree, it sucks, and I wish it weren't the case, but with (as another poster stated) a slim majority, it's not like it's a slam dunk to get things done, particularly when both sides get caught up in partisan bullshit.
In short, it sounds like we want the same thing here, so lets not have dissension in the ranks. I'm also dissatisfied with the fact that we haven't been able to undo the shit that W has created yet, but I'm not going to let that stop me supporting anyone who can make that happen regardless of how slowly.
This has been popping up from this guy on multiple articles lately. Just mod it out of existence since it doesn't matter anyway. He doesn't really understand the moderation system, nor does his viewpoint matter. If he doesn't like the discussion system (as another poster already said) just don't visit.
My Babylon
"I really suggest you seek counseling" is not what I would call cordial. Your whole post was on the immature side, starting from the "Let me guess" (Let me create a strawman) all the way to your little comment about the OP's mental state.
Why not just "a family" instead of throwing the 12 year old in there first? Oh, that's right, it's for the children!
Speaking as a Democrat (I didn't used to be a partisan until dubya), I've watched this congress gain a Democrat majority, yet continue reauthorizing the war, continue the patriot act, reauthorize wiretapping...
Hell, I think the GOP is getting its way MORE often with the democrats in power -- at least before, they would threaten a filibuster (god wouldn't that have been great if the GOP did take the "nuclear option" they were talking about only to see it backfire one term later)
Done with slashdot, done with nerds, getting a life.
Those calls are designed to piss you off and make you want to stay home. So you look like a robocall success story. Just ignore the calls if you don't know who's making them. If you really want to know who's calling, listen to the entire thing because this information often comes at the end of the call.
Right before the last election people got flooded with robocalls where a dopey cheerful voice would say something like "Hello, I have some questions to ask you about Democratic candidate blah
Federal law allows political advocacy calls to numbers in the National Do-Not-Call registry, so those people had their lines tied up too. Nationwide, Democrats had narrow losses in seven Congressional districts that had been bombarded by the calls: Thirteen percent of the people who actually showed up to vote in that election refused to pull a lever for either candidate in that race, to "protest". Jennings lost by 373 votes.
Yeah, like getting thousands of dead people to the polls in Chicago on a regular basis. Oh, wait, that's the Democrats.
Let's see, I'll try again. Like sending Federal agents in to blast loud heavy metal at a compound in Texas full of civilian American women and children, then burn it to the ground with the people inside? Oh, wait, Democrats again.
Hmmm... What about bombing a Chinese embassy because they couldn't be bothered to put people on the ground long enough to confirm a target? Wait, wait, that was a Democrat, too.
Damn, I'm not doing so hot at proving all bone-headed criminal stuff is done by the party you despise, am I?
"I've watched this congress gain a Democrat majority, yet continue reauthorizing the war, continue the patriot act, reauthorize wiretapping..."
Indeed. A vote for either of these two parties is a wasted vote. They'll argue bitterly over BS issues like flag burning and school prayer, but in the end they'll agree to pass laws which prolong the wars, destroy civil liberties, keep the borders open to illegal immigration and drive our country further into debt.
Now that you've realized there is no difference between the two major parties, it's time to start voting for someone else. Vote Green, vote Libertarian, Constitution, Progressive, Communist, or whatever. Anyone but Republicans or Democrats.
All of these problems are nothing compared to the 800 lb gorilla that is the 2 party system.
The Democrats and Republicans have voted into place a system that pays for the Democrat and Republican parties. Oh sure, it doesn't say Democrat or Republican, it just says they have to get such and such a percentage to qualify, have to be nationwide, etc. All things that the Dems and Reps were at the time they inacted them. This is little different from Soviet Russia except instead of one party, we've got two.
The rules in place for running the House and Senate are even more blatant. It's all based on simple majority, which you can do with two parties. If a third party were ever to steal seats from both parties and neither of the two had a majority, they would have to rewrite all the rules for committees, offices, etc.
I will never donate any tax funds to pay for the elections of Democrats and Republicans and I urge everyone else not to either.
I think neocons would include tactical voting/public awareness efforts like hackthevote.us as being one of the "dirty tricks" campaigns.
That's some good leadership there, Lou.
You can't take the sky from me...
I wonder if they would include winwin08.org as a "dirty campaign".
First of all. . ,
,
Having looked through your recent posting history, it doesn't appear that you are particularly clear in your writing style. Perhaps a larger sample of your posts would disabuse me of this notion, but as it stands, you seem to write in a manner I would call, "reactive", (acting as though you are in the middle of a conversation when you are not), which leads to the use of mildly cryptic statements and terms designed only for those 'in the know' as opposed to making statements designed to convey insight to the largest number of readers. This comes off as sounding holier than thou, which is of course going to predispose people to having a certain bias against you. But like I said, I may be wrong in this view based on what little I've seen of your comment history.
Secondly. .
You are far too worried about digital karma. Long ago, I realized a basic truth about Slashdot. If you post honestly and with integrity, you will be modded up more often than down. You can afford then to burn karma by making comments which are important to you but which are not popular with the status quo. --I think the most karma I've burned during a sitting at Slashdot was something like 12 points. --I had something to say which was modded to -1, and I simply kept cutting and pasting it to the bottom of the thread, adding a sentence at the beginning which described my reasons for repeating myself. Rinse and repeat, and a few hours later you've lost a dozen karma points until finally everybody gets tired of hammering you and leaves the post up. --I wouldn't recommend this tactic often, but the few times I've done it were times when the message was, I felt, really important and unique. But the point is this, I managed to say what I wanted, and never lost my overall positive karma trend or any of the posting privileges I enjoy.
Three. . . The system works in both directions. When I get mod points, while I usually use them to mod people up who I think have contributed something worthwhile, I will also sometimes spend them to turn the volume down on somebody I think is posting like an idiot. --And that includes clearly worded treatises which attempt to mislead people into destructive thinking patterns. I like the "-1 Overrated" mod for this purpose when I see posts which have been modded as "insightful" for something which is patently stupid, or which has been properly shown as such by other posters.
Four. . , I keep my Slashdot filters wide open. I want to see everything posted. What if there's somebody who has uttered some painful truth and has been modded into the dust bin who could use a positive mod point or a supportive comment?
Slashdot remains a very useful forum for all manner of discussion. There is certainly a somewhat juvenile video-game-player quality to it at times, but so what? That's a huge demograph, and it's a valid one. I've learned a lot here, both by reading other posters and through having my own comments put through the crucible, cut apart and examined, (as it turns out, I am wrong sometimes. Gee whiz!) Slashdot is not going to turn to sour raisins and blow away any time soon just because you don't happen to like it when you are modded down by people who disagree with you.
The fact of the matter is that this world is at war. There are two ends to the spectrum of human experience; the self-serving experience and the other-serving experience. All battles resolve to working out where one exists on this basic balance. Self-serving people tend to cleave to ignorance, and other-serving people tend to want to grow in knowledge. Slashdot is a powerful stage upon which this battle is played out. The mod system is just another element of this war, and I have seen that it tends for the most part, to favor the good guys as it cuts down on several basic attacks which the dark side employs, (Bullying and 'post flooding' being the main ones. --The cyber equivalents of, well, Bullying and "La La La I Can't Hear You". The dark side is a petulant child.)
A year-long sideshow that would have had about as much effect it did for Oliver North?
If successful, guaranteed unreversible vetoes (from President Cheney) for any bill that had a Democratic sponsor?
A guarantee that Democratic candidates will have virtually no possibility getting any crossover Republican votes?
Guaranteed impeachment proceedings for the next generations of Presidents who make the egregious error of making an unpopular decision?
Don't get me wrong - the Bush administration has made plenty of mistakes - but you can't remedy them by tearing the country apart. The Bush term is about over. If the Democrats are going to focus on anything, they should be where we should be going, not where we should have been.
Well, when replying to a guy who supposes that the problem with Democrats is that they're "spineless pussies", I don't think it's completely out of line to take issue with whether or not the guy is really making a valid point or just babbling incoherently (regardless of whether or not I did so with a sarcastic remark). Same for the "strawman" tone. When I'm engaging someone who's taking an inflammatory point of view, it's reasonable that I'm going to come at the guy from a skeptical point of view. I said nothing that could be construed as anything other than a different perspective, and I didn't resort to petty name calling.
Sorry, but I heard that argument last time Nader ran. There really *is* a difference, and I think at least for the next 20 years, it's just got to be about undoing the damage. I simply won't risk another 3 supreme court appointments by Karl Rove.
Done with slashdot, done with nerds, getting a life.
People are doing some interesting things this campaign. For example I created an ever expanding Ron Paul Mosaic where supporters can upload photos and message of support. Someone else took the photos and created a mosaic in the image of Ron Paul which has since been turned into newspaper ads, T-Shirts, YouTube vidoes, and even a proposed TV Ad.
Others are doing lots more. Ron Paul Portal is a good starting point. And of course, there is Liv, the ever popular Ron Paul Girl.
"Sorry, but I heard that argument last time Nader ran. There really *is* a difference".
How so? You stated plainly in your original post that the Democratic Congress has:
-continued support for the wars
-supports the Patriot Act
-has basically given expostfacto endorsement for warrantless wiretapping
etc.
If the Democrats won't stop the wars, and are OK with eroding our civil liberties, what is the "damage" you think they are going to undo? They certainly won't attempt to get government spending under control, or do anything to stop illegal immigration.
Aw, I hurt your feelings enough that you made me a freak.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
Unfortunately it took segregationist Governor Wallace to reveal the truth that "there's not a dime's worth of difference between" Republicans and Democrats. The Democrats willingly went along with the War in Iraq, suspension of Habeas Corpus, opening mail, banning books like "America Deceived' from Amazon, stealing private lands (Kelo decision), warrant-less wiretapping and refusing to investigate 9/11 properly. They are both guilty of treason.
Support Dr. Ron Paul and save this great country.
Last link (before Google Books bends to gov't Will and drops the title):
America Deceived (book)
The (few remaining) old school American Conservatives understand that two wrongs don't make a right.
some of the biggest dicks I know are Republicans
{I should go now....}
A goal is a dream with a deadline
> So they don't try because it would be hard?
No, that proves they aren't entirely hopeless in that they are capable of learning. Remember the Republicans tilted at that windmill only a few short years ago. They knew they would never muster the votes to actually remove President Clinton but they held the Impeachment proceedings anyway, held up more productive legislative work for what seemed like an eternity and got the totally predictable failure to accomplish anything. Newt was soon gone and the Clintons were still secure in their position in the WH and now look set to return in triumph.
Personally I love to seem em go full moonbat and hold impeachment proceedings, attempt to defind the GWOT and the full routine. That sort of arrogance and overreaching is probably the only way to keep the WH in Republican hands in '08 and just might get the House back. (The Senate is a hopeless cause for '08, too much going against us.)
Democrat delenda est
.. because you'll be in jail for that time.
I hope you realise that's more than 2 Paris Hiltons, or do we measure it in Nicole Ritchies these days?
Sorry, missed the switch to metric..
Insert
Can you provide references about the tire slitting? It would be interesting to understand the details. A dumb, overzealous kid could be at fault, or there could be evidence of a wider conspiracy. The former is a misdemeanor, the latter should result in a significant criminal investigation.
Think global, act loco
Very thoughtful reply from a fairly senior contributor. Of course I do acknowledge that there are some intelligent users of /. I would like to reply briefly, but that seems impossible if I am going to address your issues properly.
/. discussions are intrinsically transient and I tend to regard them as dead within a few hours. They continue to exist, but it's like the tree falling in the forest. (On the uber topic at hand, I certainly wish the presidential candidates would answer questions honestly.) Though your new Subject was a question, you didn't ask any non-rhetorical questions in your actual post.
/. is only an accurate reflection of the political sickness of American democracy? Should I do a push poll about your illegitimate black baby? Or was McCain's baby supposed to be oriental?)
/. "demograph". Another one
Point one: If you find some reference in my writing unclear (though I try hard to balance clarity and complete references with brevity), then ask, and I will probably explain it, especially if it is germane to an ongoing discussion. However, the main problem there is that
Another aspect is that I have a time-lapse view of Slashdot. I visit for a while, then leave for a few months. When I return, my focus is on changes. In particular, I've been searching in vain for improvements. I suppose the loss of the Goatse guy might count as an improvement, but the only major change I've noticed is much less humor. The "funny" posts are mostly not funny, and they are also far fewer than on past visits. Given the paucity of "funny", perhaps the moderation system should be tweaked in that direction--but I regard that as a minor problem. Or perhaps it's seasonal?
Point two: I sort of agree that honest posts will generally be modded up--but only as long as you avoid mentioning certain opinions. My *MAIN* point is that mod points are very frequently used to prevent real discussion of issues. You are correct to describe karma as a game--but it is a game that is loaded against strong advocacy of unpopular positions without regard to their truth value or intrinsic merits. Negative mods are used to stifle discussion--and that is exactly what is being openly advocated by several posters in this case.
Your karma burning story only proves my point--and if you had actually felt your point was sufficiently important, then you would have been modded into oblivion. Here's my karma attack story. Several days *AFTER* posting a comment, I suddenly receive five or ten inexplicable and irrelevant negative mod points--on *OLD* posts. How would you explain that? (It hasn't happened recently, so maybe they put a patch over that particular abuse of the moderation system.) That you feel you had "the last word" when your post remains up strikes me as another tree falling in the forest, but in the middle of the night.
Your point #3 is very muddled, though you are apparently attempting to justify your use of negative mod points. Your attempt to justify the nuance of "overrated" is especially meaningless. In fact, "overrated" is a content-free criticism. *WHAT* aspect of the post is overrated? Perhaps you could clarify your interpretation of negative mods, but you mostly seem to be agreeing with me that they are effective for censorship without addressing any real issue. (Again I'm reminded of modern presidential politics. Perhaps the real problem is merely that
Your fourth point is you read everything. Either you read *EXTREMELY* fast and you have a *LOT* of free time, or you are exaggerating. And if you did, you are completely ignoring the moderation system. If we take you at your word, you have just pronounced the moderation system hopelessly broken and claimed that you completely ignore it.
You stopped numbering your points after that, and I feel this reply is becoming too long, too. I'll try for greater brevity, and I do not mean to slight your thoughtful ideas.
I think you overestimate the size and significance of the
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
you can vote for one of the two parties from the comfort of your home, using your iphone.
third-party modifications render your vote void, of course.
My conclusions about Doc Ruby come from previous exchanges with him. He's a particularly bitter partisan who's modus operandi is to call anyone he disagrees with evil and fit for death (in fact, I think in one post he invited me to commit suicide, but sadly, that gem of an example of what a great human being he is has scrolled off my post reply history).
My personal view is that conservatives, liberals, right-wingers and left-wingers all have legitimate issues and illegitimate issues. My interest is in constructive debate with rational people. DocRuby isn't one. For example, lets take a debate like welfare. The classical liberal argument for welfare is that we, as a wealthy society, have an obligation to help those less fortunate, especially children. Assistance, when done correctly, can help break the cycle of poverty and many of the associated ills that plague society along with it. The classical conservative argument is that welfare fosters dependence, and rather than breaking the cycle of poverty, it actually entrenches it by reinforcing helplessness (curse of unintended consequences). Those are positions where the merits of each can be argued on facts. Core to both arguments is the underlying goal...actually helping people (and which strategy or collection of strategies works best). Here's how Doc Ruby conducts the debate: when you question the effectiveness of current welfare policy, he accuses you of wanting to commit genocide on poor people. I mention this because 1) you seem reasonable, and 2) you defended Doc Ruby. You can't debate, reason, or compromise with folks like him. If you disagree with him, you are evil in his book. End of story. He's a moral absolutist with the instincts of an Catholic Inquisitor. He just happens to subscribe to a left wing ideology.
"That you feel you had "the last word" when your post remains up strikes me as another tree falling in the forest, but in the middle of the night."
As I said, you don't know how the mod system works: you can't post and mod in the same thread, so that can't happen. Guess you didn't get that, huh?
My Babylon
No, but they could have withheld war funding. Not doing that makes them spineless pussies.
Come to think of it, if they really had a spine they'd cut funding for the Secret Service and let nature take its course.
If you have adequate testicular fortitude there are a lot of things a majority can do to rein in a president gone batty.
& they also haven't brought contempt-of-Congress charges (or, IIRC, subpoenas) against certain current/former Justice Dept personnel involved in the firing-prosecutors scandal.
Sure, der Fuhrer would just pardon them, but make the effort. People will respect that, and the wingnuts won't vote for you anyway.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
The Dhimmicrats started spamming me shortly after the 2006 election. The first few messages got passed along to SpamCop, and I posted a JE when it began. When it became clear that Mad Howard didn't get the memo, I started rejecting traffic from their address space. With their willingness to smear anyone who dares to disagree with them, it's not much of a surprise that they'd take up spamming and other sleazy practices.
20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
This time they will do whatever they can do to steal the election and send a democrat to the white house. watch.
There is no issue of "campaign material being altered" since the image in question belonged to and was hosted by the other person in the first place, which image was hotlinked without his permission by McCain's staff.
http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/03/27/john-mccains-myspace-page-hacked/
I would take the rest of the article with a pinch of salt.
Ron Paul will win it!
Libertas in infinitum
A trial would put things quite solidly in the public record. Throwing a couple of people in jail doesn't matter, but getting corruption irrevocably documented in the public record is worth a whole lot.
What about the third POV. The one that realizes that the current programs are monetarily insoluble and will end up driving this country into the dirt long term without access to free energy(free energy being defined as an energy source with no limits, or limits so astronomical as to be negligible, and dirt cheap to get at)?
It seems to me that having a two party system is like having a one party system, with the added grief of having election campaigns with all the filthy tricks, the pathetic idiots that run for office and the lies; not to mention the long period of wasted time that could have been used for something sensible.
To hell with it all.
I am quite aware that you can't post and mod in the same thread. I've seen a number of messages about canceled mod points.
/. and will probably leave for a few more months. Maybe the new Al Gore thread will finally include a few amusing jokes? I have one, but it's old and boring...
It is possible that I misunderstood your karma burning story. As I thought you explained it, you posted and reposted the same point even though you knew it was going to elicit negative mods that would hurt your karma. You seemed to interpret it as some sort of victory when you got the last word. My interpretation of that part of it was simply that the thread had died and no one noticed your 'triumph'. Rereading your post and my reply, I am still unable to see anything that suggests I misunderstood your comment.
Your own use of negative mod points to censor posts is a different topic. You preferred to word it in terms of reducing the volume of posters you regard as too noisy. I see it as censorship of 'noise' you don't like.
I could say more, but this is now an old dead thread, and I'm pretty much bored with this visit to
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
Different posters, read UID on a message board to keep an eye on who you're responding to. Then again, if you can't keep track of that, and your points are nullified by the basic operation of the mod system, what do the details matter?
My Babylon
You seem to have mistaken me for someone who gives a shit about /.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
I don't know if this was how the Slashdot administrators intended the mod system to be used, but that's the way it works for many. --In our world, there will always be crowds and people will always have the option of booing people down who do not deserve to be booed down, and cheering on those who deserve to be silenced. --But that's the nature of human interaction. However, with skill and perseverance, this cannot prevent your message from propagating. It just offers a means for better knowing your target and of sculpting your message so that it can get in under the scales. The mod system thus provides extremely valuable feedback. That's what I've found, anyway. Those who post are performers in a very real sense, and performers need to know their audience.
--Also, to correct a false impression I obviously put forward, while I keep my slashdot filters open to all posting levels, certainly do not read all posts. I do not have the time. But I do skim. Skimming is an essential skill to have in Internet-Land. I have learned how to skim through information to quickly find the areas of value to me, but that only works when all the words are available. Those who use the mod system to hide from information are missing out, but that's their choice and their limitation and I don't let such things bother me. I just keep on posting as I see fit, and I never worry if anybody is actually reading because I know I'll be posting again later. The message isn't so important as the anchoring of a certain frequency of thought. Those who need to connect will, and those who do not want to will not. The vital thing is that the option remains open. --And of course, the vast side-benefit of being able to have your broken thoughts refined through debate.
So, the mod system may indeed be broken from your perspective, but it's not something which is going to change; the internet is all about audience participation. There will be wingdings and gadgets of all sorts on all the countless interfaces of the Web. Rather than be frustrated and thus limited by them, it's better to learn how to understand and surf them to your advantage. They're not going to go out of style anytime soon.
Anyway, it's been a pleasure to share this couple of posts with you! I very much hope you do stick around on Slashdot.
-FL