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Diebold Election Results Released By AZ Judge
Windrip writes "A judge in the case covering the nature of the database used in Diebold Gems software during Pima County, Arizona elections has ruled the DB is not a computer program (pdf). The result is that the Arizona Democratic party will have the chance to review previous elections for transparency and accuracy. ''The Pima County Democratic Party sued the county this year for the electronic databases from past elections. The party requested the databases and passwords be released according to Arizona public-records law. Pima County denied that part of the request, while turning over other records the party asked for. In closing arguments of the four-day trial that began Dec. 4, Pima County argued the databases meet the definition of a computer program, which is protected by state law, said Deputy County Attorney Thomas Denker."
Diebold is the dictator's choice for subverting democracy.
Imagine a world where people vote, but the votes don't go anywhere. They just sit in a machine controlled by puppets of the fascist wing of the Republican Party. We are living this dream.
It's nice to see some judges can realise that a data set is not a program, I wonder how the previous decision really came about.
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
Why do they keep demanding recounts! Seems like the better approach would be to set out a platform that solves the basic problems for the majority of people. Instead they (both parties) spend time tearing down each other as well as themselves then run crying to the courts when things don't happen to fall their way.
Concentrate on solving the problems not trying to figure out some loop hole or proving some conspiracy and blaming others for not doing well at the polls.
I really wish there was a third party candidate that had a shot at winning.
CREATE TABLE total_votes (
democrat_vote_total TINYINT,
republican_vote_total BIGINT
);
Well the database files which contain the data are not executable and can't be compiled by a compiler or executed by an interpreter so yea they are not a program.
-AC
Why do I in any case guess that this database is either MSDE or SQL Express?
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
*runs to window, checks sky... hmm... not falling? wtf?*
A judge who knows the difference between a database and a program. Now, if I can find a heterosexual masseur, I've seen anything I thought could not exist.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
How is it possible in the 21st century in the USA that one uses electronic voting machines with one hand while publishing important documents as scanned images with the other one?
Maybe Computers will never be as intelligent as Humans.
For sure they won't ever become so stupid. [VR-1988]
Diebold is just a tool. And while I suspect that the republican party controls these, I suspect that if dems offered up more to diebold that they would win. IOW, highest bidder wins.
"There is a significant risk these systems could be hacked or discredited," Denker said.
I pretty much think that this is the point; and it is an important point, because without the ability to call "bullshit" then you lose the legitimacy of the votes. Any corporation wouldn't trust an accountant to maintain the books without auditing them periodically, this is basically the same thing.
also, the systems can already be hacked (quite easily I believe)
I could ask even the most unwashed user the different between a program and data and I'd guess they'd have some clue about the difference most of the time. These lawyers are supposed to be educated people. I cannot believe they could even consider such an argument with a straight face. Simply making such an argument should be cause for a bar hearing I think.
Because the only way Dennis Kucinich or Cynthia McKinney will ever win an election is when some smelly fat slob in a penguin t-shirt games the machines.
A database file is just data, to be interpreted by a database program.
But the database program is just data to be interpreted by the CPU.
Data vs. document is a spectrum. There is no clear distinction. We tend to think of documents as just information, describing some structured knowledge, which is true. But by contrast, we tend to think of programs as containing primarily step-by-step instructions. But those instructions don't execute themselves. They're input to something. And moreover, not all programs are instructions. Consider Prolog, where the functions are described in terms of logical relationships, and the step-by-step instructions are inferred by the interpreter. Just because the Prolog program doesn't include instructions, per se, doesn't make us say it's not a program. At the same time, the distinction between a Prolog program and an expert system knowledge base (in term of form and function) is not clear.
Everything is just data. What makes it meaningful is the order and interpretation that we impose on it.
Ever wonder which way precincts that have 100% turnout have 99.9% of their votes go? Just dig through Philadelphia's voting records over the years for examples.
There's a damn good reason why it's been said "When you're alive, you may as well vote Republican, because once you die you'll be voting Democrat!"
The text of the PDF requires them to release "every file .. that ends with the extension 'gbf' or 'mdb', and the password for 'gbf' files." It also mentions that the data has been scrutineered with Access.
The arguments about an Access database being a "program" are probably related to the ability of MDB to contain queries (aka stored procedures).
GBF files are encrypted / compressed MDB files. The dockit claims that "a gbf file can only be created and opened by the GEMS program", but I suspect it unpacks them to a temporary file somewhere before it opens them up with the normal library.
Other little GEMS (sorry, couldn't resist the pun)...
* "Microsoft has warned against using the mdb format for some critical applications, such as election management software."
* Each expert witness endorsed a statement that the GEMS software has significant security flaws.
If the security of the system depends on keeping the implementation secret, then it's not secure. Huckelberry's assertions are themselves an indictment of Diebold's product.
To have a fair election, give voters a slip of paper with a number randomly selected from the range of numbers of registered voters in their district. Post all of the election results on the web as a web-page and link the number they received with the vote that was recorded. 1-you would not have double vote counting. 2-the votes would be verifiable Or we could just use Ohio's voting system nation wide- time stamp the voters signature compare that list with the list of votes in order and you just might be able to see who voted for Secret Voting is passe
Hopefully, this ruling will lead to the removal of all of these "electoral vote control and modification machines" and getting back to a system of legit elections. I still think we need UN election monitors at every polling station in the US.
Does it make you a conspiracy theorist to be suspicious and cautious when an election comes down to a few hundred votes in a state whose election commissioner was appointed by the brother of the winning candidate?!?! If it is, then give me my tin-foil hat, brother!
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
"If voting made a difference, it would be illegal."
-- Emma Goldman
All programs are data.
All data can be stored in a database.
Some data are programs.
If I store my C code in a database that does not make it "not a program."
Election results are typically not a program.
However, I could design a machine that takes this data and interprets it as instructions. For example, I could design a plotter that took the candidate's name as a change-of-direction instruction and the number of votes as a draw-a-line-this-long instruction. If I do this then the election data becomes a program in much the same way that a Postscript file is a program.
I could also be silly to prove a point and take the raw database file and feed it directly into the CPU of your choice and see how soon the program crashed.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Those of you truly interested in this story should read the firehose version.
I think the links in the firehose version of the story are more apropos to this post's tags.
Of particular concern to me is the replacement of one the original post's links with one that references a newspaper I consider to be a parody of press oversight. I would never source that bloated, piss-stained, corporate catamite in any post I write.
So, when /. writes "Windrip writes", they're lying. I didn't write what was posted on the front page of /. I didn't even provide one of the links in the story.
Nevertheless, of particular interest to /. readers might be the forensic study conducted on the DB. I found it here.
The idea behind the secret ballot is to prevent things such as fraud, blackmail and coercion. I would much rather have to go through the rigmarole to make the voting process transparent and verifiable without having to resort to stripping away a basic protection that would leave me and everyone open to having real barbarian tactics used. Without a secret ballot you *have* to vote the way your social environment votes, or you're going to have some real difficulties. And that, in a democracy, is just not right.
[Ego]out
How very Hinduistically existential of you, actually. Quoting from a recent Natl. Geo. article, Faces of the Divine in the January 2008 issue (which I received earlier this week, thanks apparently to time-traveling magazine editors):
So I suppose what you describe would be the CPU's darshan of the code. (Though one could probably make a reasonable argument about which is data and which the program on the basis of specifically how dynamic the darshan needs to be to make sense of it.)
I find it somehow reassuring, and deeply cool, that certain wisdoms of the ancients can be perfectly relevant in wildly different contexts. It's also humbling to find how much our supposedly "primitive" ancestors got right in areas that we have forgotten or set aside. :)
Cheers,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
I agree with virtually everything you've said save for losing on abortion. I don't think that losing on that issue will motivate people as much as you think, and losing that will be a severe blow. Realize that the left's 'base' is very different than it used to be; they didn't grow up without abortion as a right, and don't necessarily understand what it means. Further, there are a lot of cultural issues pushing them away from activism.
The best for the left - and government in general - will be to have quick and transparent reporting of exactly what the government is doing.
[Ego]out
Or at the very least, read the post and have a look at the links. This is particularly damning of /. editors:
Cheers,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
Look, all institutions with significant finances require rigorous auditing. We require it for business - why not for our government? They say that no one wants to see how sausage or laws are made: but it's exactly that opinion that keeps us out of the loop and powerless.
More controls. More transparency. Fewer single points of failure. It's the only solution.
[Ego]out
Would that be last year's results, or next year's? I'm here all week, try the seafood platter.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
... can we get a peek at the 2008 election results that Diebold is planning?
Have gnu, will travel.
Can we get the last 8 years of our lives back? How about the thousands of Americans that've died in combat, and the resulting 100,000+ innocent Iraqi's that've died as a consequence of this bastard?
"The Zen philosopher Basho once wrote, 'A flute with no holes is not a flute, and a doughnut with no holes is a danish'... ba-na-na-na-na-na"
Sure, everything is data. What makes it a flute, not a flute, a doughnut, or a danish is not order and interpretation imposed upon that data, but rather who is in control of the conversation when such matters are discussed. The difference between a pterodactyl and a cheese danish is whoever is making up the definition.
Wow, he substituted "Corporation" for "Government"... how informative.
You stupid fucking nigger monkeys.
Let me fix those typos for you:
Wow, he substituted "Corporation" for "Government"... how corporation.
You stupid corporation corporation monkeys.
Corporation you, you corporation-damned corporation spawn of corporation!
It's because of corporations like you that we're in the corporation we are corporation.
You seriously regard the Arizona Daily Star as a hideous news source? Wow. Get some perspective, man. We could do far worse. (He could have quoted the Tucson Citizen, for example.)
I suspect the change of news source by the
Wow, this whole thing has gotten completely out of corporation, and ultimately I am responsible, because I corporated this whole thing to begin with. I would like to offer you my sincerest corporations. Hell, maybe someday we could even go grab a few cold corporations and play some corporation.