It's running Windows CE? That gives me confidence!
Seriously, the blurb said nothing about verifiability. That is: how does the voter know that their vote will actually be counted? My guess is that the answer is "the voter should trust the machine, because the machine is rilly cool".
The big minus is that you can't press down hard enough to make copies, but the plus is that it feels sooo nice. And I get to spend ten minutes cleaning it every few months, which satisfies some weird geek urge.
I have no advice at all; all I can do is empathize. I was just like you, to the point where I never graduated.
I made my problem worse by choosing the wrong major: I stupidly chose math instead of Computer Science. I *was* good in math (it was the only subject I was good at), but I was the classic computer nerd, spending all my free time playing with the computer at the science museum. I would have worked harder at computer science than I worked at math, because I enjoyed it more. (I'm *extremely* lazy. I don't work unless I enjoy what I'm working on.) Of course I still would have blown off all the English, History, etc. classes.
The only reason I'm not a Thunderbird-swilling wino is that I had the good sense, after dropping out of college, to enroll in the local community college. Somehow something had changed by then; perhaps I was properly motivated; in any case, I took (the community-college equivalent of) computer science, and got a 4.0. And I got a "co-op" job (working part time while also being a part-time student) at a local software place, which turned into a permanent full-time once I graduated. That company has long since imploded, and I've moved on, but the lack of college degree has never hurt me -- whenever I've interviewed for a job, the interviewers (correctly, in my opinion) have been more interested in my previous job than in what I did in school.
Maybe my advice is: consider dropping out of wherever you are now, and trying a community college. You might not work any harder, but at least you'll waste less money while you loaf:)
Like any other application, they probably want to get the most coverage for the least effort, and that means Windows. As I understand SERVE, it doesn't require you to run out and buy a Windows machine; you can simply go to your local Internet Cafe (I bet there's an equivalent on big Navy ships) and use their computer.
For what it's worth, Woody's installer gives you the option of running `tasksel' instead of dselect. It's hard to imagine an easier installer: just click on zero or more collections of software (all with reasonably-easy-to-understand names), and it installs them.
Slashdot Mirror
By an amazing coincidence, my company's product meets all the above requirements.
Dan Wallach is teaching a course at Rice that, I think, includes this sort of challenge.
*nix
-------------
mozilla FireFox
GNU stow
subversion
emacs
ntp
screen
for BSD:
bash
GNU findutils
GNU make
winders:
--------------------
mozilla FireFox
Cygwin (_all_ of it)
PuTTY, Pagaent
TortoiseSVN
VNC
On any machine, I might install Privoxy, if that machine cannot connect to some other machine on which Privoxy is already running.
That made me laugh out loud. In the two or three years I've been reading /., that's only the second time that's happened.
It's running Windows CE? That gives me confidence!
Seriously, the blurb said nothing about verifiability. That is: how does the voter know that their vote will actually be counted? My guess is that the answer is "the voter should trust the machine, because the machine is rilly cool".
The big minus is that you can't press down hard enough to make copies, but the plus is that it feels sooo nice. And I get to spend ten minutes cleaning it every few months, which satisfies some weird geek urge.
David Dill is rasing the alarm about voter verification. Granted he's not part of the gummint, but he's asking the right questions.
I have no advice at all; all I can do is empathize. I was just like you, to the point where I never graduated.
:)
I made my problem worse by choosing the wrong major: I stupidly chose math instead of Computer Science. I *was* good in math (it was the only subject I was good at), but I was the classic computer nerd, spending all my free time playing with the computer at the science museum. I would have worked harder at computer science than I worked at math, because I enjoyed it more. (I'm *extremely* lazy. I don't work unless I enjoy what I'm working on.) Of course I still would have blown off all the English, History, etc. classes.
The only reason I'm not a Thunderbird-swilling wino is that I had the good sense, after dropping out of college, to enroll in the local community college. Somehow something had changed by then; perhaps I was properly motivated; in any case, I took (the community-college equivalent of) computer science, and got a 4.0. And I got a "co-op" job (working part time while also being a part-time student) at a local software place, which turned into a permanent full-time once I graduated. That company has long since imploded, and I've moved on, but the lack of college degree has never hurt me -- whenever I've interviewed for a job, the interviewers (correctly, in my opinion) have been more interested in my previous job than in what I did in school.
Maybe my advice is: consider dropping out of wherever you are now, and trying a community college. You might not work any harder, but at least you'll waste less money while you loaf
Like any other application, they probably want to get the most coverage for the least effort, and that means Windows. As I understand SERVE, it doesn't require you to run out and buy a Windows machine; you can simply go to your local Internet Cafe (I bet there's an equivalent on big Navy ships) and use their computer.
If the ballots all have signatures attached to them, how do you prevent vote selling?
Anti-aliased fonts simply aren't ready yet ... relax. They'll be here eventually.
And anyway, Joe User doesn't know what anti-aliased fonts are, so he's not gonna get upset when they don't work.
Mr/Ms Laplace, you have made me laugh out loud. Thank you.
For what it's worth, Woody's installer gives you the option of running `tasksel' instead of dselect. It's hard to imagine an easier installer: just click on zero or more collections of software (all with reasonably-easy-to-understand names), and it installs them.
Last I checked, Bruce Schneier (in his book Applied Cryptography) recommended PGP.