Judge Suppresses Report On Voting Systems

Irvu writes "A New Jersey Superior Court Judge has prohibited the release of an analysis conducted on the Sequoia AVC Advantage voting system. This report arose out of a lawsuit challenging on constitutional grounds the use of these systems. The study was conducted by Andrew Appel on behalf of the plaintiffs, after the judge in the case ordered the company to permit it. That same judge has now withheld it indefinitely from the public record on a verbal order."

Comments

Sounds like Sequoia is trying to avoid bad press

[morgan_greywolf]

According to TFA the judge was reluctant to suppress the report. The lawyers for Sequoia Voting Systems, which was not a party to the lawsuit, basically told the Court some BS about the report, and the judge, wanting to be fair to Sequoia, reluctantly agreed to suppress it for now. My guess is that a redacted version, which strikes out Sequoia's trade secret information, will eventually be released.

Conspiracy theorists need to put away their tinfoil hats on this one. It's pretty obvious what's going on here.

Trade secrets are by definition never published!

[Z-MaxX]

This has little to do with trade secrets, which are often published, and which are protected by patents.

You are completely and totally wrong on this.

FACTS

1. Trade secrets are never published. In fact the holder of a trade secret fails to protect it well enough and it is discovered, then it becomes public domain information.

2. Trade secrets and patents are mutually exclusive concepts. You either (a) choose to make something a trade secret and keep it secret, or (b) choose to publish information and patent the thing.

The reason patents were introduced is to create an incentive for companies to knowledge of an invention with the world around, and in exchange for that, the government gives the inventor exclusive rights to make money from that invention for a reasonable and limited time.

References

Patent or trade secret?
  Patent, Trademark, and Trade Secret