There's are some *huge* differences between demonstration projects on technically selective college campuses and general elections in a population where most people can't figure out how to program their VCR.
If this demonstration project failed, it would be newsworthy. If it succeeds, it only shows that this election protocol works with highly educated voters in trivial elections. (What's the worst that could happen with a bad group in the undergrad. assoc.?) What would happen if people were motivated to spend real money to crack the system? Or to compromise the staff? ("Change the vote tally and I'll let you spend the night with these two porn stars!") Or....
I've also expanded on David Chaum's ideas to design a cryptographically secure voting system. (In an ironic twist, I even borrowed a key idea from the government's "key escrow" ideas. My design requires "trusted third parties" hold certain critical information until the balloting closes, to prevent the government from "peeking" at the ballots early.)
But my design still used David's blinded key as a voting token. I don't see how you ensure each person votes at most once without tokens, and a token must always be identifiable to someone. Either the state, the voter, or a middleman. If you use a chain of middlemen you can blind that information, but at the cost of making ballot box stuffing trivial.
Finally, I think that off-site electronic ballots are useful in numerous non-governmental elections. (Corporate elections, anonymous performance reviews, etc.) I also think that on-site electronic ballots are workable, and several nations have experimented with such elections. The really nasty problems only come up when you have off-site balloting, something which has not been done in the past.
I certainly don't see how this would make everyone suddenly pressure others how to vote...
When you're talking about electoral systems, you need to look beyond the next year or two. These systems are expensive to implement and hard to change. Widespread abuse like this may be hard to fathom today, but what about in 20 years? 50 years?
Here's an extremely humbling thought. In the 20's the KKK was the *dominate* political party in several states. All state funding for the University of Colorado was cut for several years after the school refused to comply with the law requiring that professors teach the inherent superiority of the white man. (It survived off of its endowment, and the KKK lost its governor and legislature majority soon afterwards.)
It can happen here. Maybe not this year, but the political climate can change remarkly fast. Did any Eisenhower supporter in 1958 expect the summer of love... and riots at the Democratic convention, 10 years later? Did any faithful (Soviet) Communist Party member in 1980 expect the Berlin wall to come down and the reunification of Germany in the same interval?
... been to a church lately...
I don't think anyone objects to a minister "clarifying" moral issues for his congregation. What many of us find objectionable... and what lead to the IRS recently revoking the tax exempt status of the Christian Coalition... is "voter guides" which explicitly endorse particular candidates.
But even here, it's one thing for a church to allow voter guides to be passed out in the parking lot. It's another for them to hold a prayer meeting before voting, en masse, from the computer in the minister's study. And despite what someone else suggested, I don't think a "oops, I already voted" excuse will care much weight in this environment.
Saturdays are out because it would prevent Orthodox Jews from voting, (or would "ghettoize" them by forcing them to use absentee ballots or early voting),
Sundays are out because many voting precincts are located in churches. Politicking is prohibited within X feet (varies with jurisdiction) of the voting booths... the pulpit is certainly within that distance. That means that the minister/priest/shaman can't give a sermon on the evils of pornography if there's an anti-pornography issue on the ballot (or it's an issue with a candidate), etc., and thus we have a nasty little Church/State separation mess.
(And don't get me started on churches that don't realize that the Church/State separation issue goes both ways. If you want to be politically active, Christian Coalition, you must pay the entry fee. I don't mind a minister firing up the troops to vote God's way... as long as his church (and he personally) pays taxes like the rest of us!)
Fridays are out, because it's the Muslim holy day. Since most Muslims work the usual Monday-Friday work week, you're forcing them to choose between church and voting.
PS, in many states the bars are closed on election day, by law. In our wilder days candidates would offer voters a shot of whiskey as they came out of the ballot box.
A local "expert" (who makes his living walking a slackrope on the mall!) proposed a "vote-by-phone" experiment in Boulder, Colorado a few years back.
Besides the technical issues, someone identified a Constitutional issue with the entire idea of electronic ballots.
In Colorado, and probably other states, the state constitution requires that ballots be anonymous. It is required that ballots be impossible to tie to any particular voter.
This is not simply a requirement that the state (or anyone else) can't determine how a person voted. The voter himself can't prove how he voted! The reason for this is simple: it prevents vote-selling and coerced votes. That's also the reason why it's a criminal offense for anyone other than the voter to be in the voting booth.
David Chaum's ideas can be used to prevent the state from proving a ballot is mine... but since I know my own "blinding" factor (at least for a while, even if the software immediately discards it) I can prove how I voted. I suspect all cryptographic protocols will have the same problem.
Outside of the question about cryptographic protocols, this also suggests that any off-site voting, with the possible exception of official "floating" precincts which visit the invalid, may be unconstitutional. With electronic ballots it is certainly within the realm of possibility that some organizations will have "election parties" with incredible social pressure for everyone to publicly vote in the "correct" manner.
Imagine voting parties at churches. Vote for Smith or go to Hell!
Or voting parties at your office. Vote for Jones or clean out your desk!
Even if this doesn't happen, the possibility could cripple the electoral system. You voted for Smith but Jones won? Claim that you were coerced to vote for Jones at such an election party! Contested elections today are decided by the legislature (at the state level) or the House (at the national level), but what happens when over half of the elections are contested?
Obviously, this is a dystopic perspective. But the way we handle elections is critical, since it is the only way (short of armed rebellion) to get rid of a corrupt government. We must tread very carefully when changing it.
I'm reminded of Robert Heinlein's "Revolt in 2100." I don't have the book handy at the moment, but it opened with something like
By 2012 80% of the American population couldn't be bothered to vote. Rev. Shuller won the Presidential election with the support of only 12% of the people.
The impact speed was closer to 200 MPH, not 600. That's still far faster than a free-falling human, and fast enough to instantly dismember everyone upon impact.
Also, the reputable sources I've read said that the crew would have lost consciousness immediately due to high accelerations as the shuttle broke up, then remained unconscious due to the lack of oxygen. (They were not wearing full spacesuits, and their oxygen supply was (allegedly) cut off by the explosion). They *might* have regained consciousness as the flight deck reached lower altitudes, but humans aren't light bulbs and it would take them a moment to remember where they were. By this point they would have also reached terminal velocity, so it would feel like they were sitting on the ground at a very odd angle, adding to their initial confusion.
I don't think it's impossible that some of the crew might have been conscious *and* aware of their situation at the time of impact, but this is a situation where I don't think anyone could have done anything about it, even if the tools were available. The ultimate responsibility lies with the bureaucrats who ordered the launch despite clear danger, and to a lesser extent with the bureaucrats and engineers who didn't add air brakes (streamers, parachutes) to the flight deck module.
Just to be clear, I own firearms. I vote. In at least one Presidental election my ballot was decided by the actions of the local US Attorney... and then Clinton didn't replace the asshole for almost a year.
I'm not a member of the NRA, but reread your comments with that group in mind. They own guns. They are very politically active. And they catch a lot of flak for standing up for what they believe in. Most other political affinity groups are jealous of their ability to get their members to contact their elected representatives.
Nobody wants to take up arms against the government. Nobody even wants to consider that as a real possibility, except for some nutcases who are as representative of most gun owners as Jeffery Dalmer is of meat-eaters....
... but I also know that I don't expect my house to burn down. I don't live my life as if it will burn down at any moment. But I still pay my homeowners insurance since history shows that houses burn down.
In a lot of ways, I think an armed populace is like a smoke detector on every floor. They may not stop a fire, and they may not stop the place from burning to the ground. But you have a better chance of getting out of the rare fire alive with working smoke detectors than without them, and you have a better chance of saving at least part of the house.
If we can't ask the Vietnamese, what about the Afghans?
BTW, I don't think anyone seriously thinks that small arms, alone, could hold off the entire US military. But as others have pointed out, most people in the military are honorable and would have a hard time using the heavy weapons against lightly armed civilian "rebels" who had a valid grievance. (Racist nutcakes do not have a valid grievance. Randy Weaver *does* have one, but only because of the government's own actions.)
As for the rest, guerilla arms aren't that hard to produce. The DoD weapons are expensive because they are stored for years, must be usable anywhere from the Iraqi desert to northern Europe, and must often travel long distances on their own. Guerilla arms can be produced for immediate, local use. Think any American government can ban all basement metalworking shops?
Finally, I've heard the current (1945?) definition of "militia" used far more commonly than the 1792 one. IIRC, it's everyone subject to compulsary military service: abled-bodied men between the ages of 18 and 45(?). Some countries (e.g., Switzerland) require such men to undergo formal training, maintain weapons in their home and regularly demonstrate proficiency. In the US, we simply have the option of buying civilian-equivalent guns (e.g., the standard sidearm is(was?) a Beretta FS-92; my Centurion is nearly identical to the military version) and training on our own. The life we save may be our own, if the US gets in a war and we're drafted into the military!
Okay, a quickie comment on the reason why the Bill of Rights included the Fifth Amendment. It was not included simply so you could refuse to admit the crime in question.
It was included, in part, so that the state would have to actually produce evidence to convict a person of a crime. With compulsary self-incrimination and rubber hoses, it would be far too easy for an ambitious DA wrongly convict innocent people. (Who needs evidence when you have a confession?) This, incidently, is one of the most compelling arguments against pre-trial asset forfeiture. Such forfeiture often prevents a meaningful defense and a ruthless DA can dramatically improve his "conviction rate" by simply seizing any assets which could be used to mount a defense. Then, once the person is "convicted" the asset forfeiture is "validated."
More importantly, this right was included so the state couldn't charge you with a minor crime and then force you to confess to a more serious charge.
(Set "way-back machine" to 1775)
Tell me, Mr. Smith, where you were on the night of the 5th. Were you drinking in O'Toole's tavern and consorting with Molly Brown, a prostitute?
No. I was attending an organizing meeting for the Boston Sons of Liberty to discuss our grievences with the Crown.
Even today, there are many legal activities which meet with social disapproval. What if you were in a strip joint when your boss thought you were on a sales call? What if you were in bed with a woman other than your wife (and she with a man other than her husband)... and her husband happens to be the very prosecutor asking you this question?
Memory is so cheap that I think there's no excuse to be using *any* swap space. Check your memory usage every so often, and if you're using swap space then buy more memory.
That said, I agree with the other poster that swap space can be useful for long-term idle programs. And a decent sized swap area is cheap insurance against some program taking up a lot more VM than you expect - I've occasionally run out of VM (thanx, Netscape!) and it is not pretty. But your active applications should never hit the swap disk.
Of course, this assumes that you're using a recent motherboard and additional memory is available. I still occasionally use a 386 maxed out with 20 MB of RAM. In that case I do have a very large swap partition (when compared to the amount of RAM) and accept the performance hit.
The long ratification times can be annoying, but it's better than the alternatives. We're all frustrated at the Netscape and MSIE "extensions" to HTML. Imagine now that the HTTP was also changing as frequently.
How much time do shops waste getting "compliant" MSIE browsers and "compliant" Netscape browsers to render the same source document into reasonably close fascimiles? How many shops give up and have separate MSIE and Netscape trees?
Now multiply that by the HTTP 1.0 server, the 1.1 server, the 1.1b server, the 1.2 server, the 1.3 server, and the 2.0 server. You would either see development slow to a crawl, or a lot of shops simply announcing that they would support a single server/client pair. The one that is bundled with every PC sale due to it's unquestionable (*not* 'unquestioned!') technical excellence. *cough*
Gee, maybe Microsoft is right and having a strong Imperial hand *does* help competition. King Bill could have simply announced that everyone shall use HTTP 1.1 (after paying another $200 for the privilege of serving his liege, of course) years ago, and by now we would be running HTTP 1.4 complete with 'Microsoft' 'innovations' such as push technology, dedicated "channels", and Lord Bill knows what else.
The problem with easter eggs is that they obviously didn't go through any formal review process. Flight simulators and the like may be an exception, but *some* easter eggs are nasty lawsuit bait that *no* company would ever let out the door.
Anything that doesn't go through a formal review process is an unknown. Maybe it's bug free, or maybe it has a nasty bug that will make the entire product look bad. Run "flight simulator" and corrupt your disk. Or maybe it has actively malicious code embedded inside. Run "flight simulator" and have a copy of all "encrypted" Office documents ftp'd to a remote site, if you also have network connectivity.
We simply don't know.
The software vendor simply doesn't know.
And that uncertainty, in itself, is enough to cast a dark shadow on the product. It brings to mind angry line workers who weld bolts into car body cavities so the victim will be plagued with an uncorrectable rattle. Or the angry construction worker who seals a carton of milk, with a small hole, behind the drywall so the annoying owner who comes by with his annoying requests will suffer from an unlocatable stench for years.
I don't mind a simple group photo or list of contributors; in fact I think it's very reasonable to put that information under the "About" button so the programmers can show pride in their work. But anything beyond that raises serious questions about the quality of the software produced in that shop.
At first I couldn't figure out this article. Of course users have diverse needs, and of course software companies should write code to satisfy their customers. Our problem is with how MS forces these highly specific bits of code on everyone -- it's not like Windows totally lacks the concepts of dynamic libraries and soft menus.
It's like Toyota said that, to satisfy other users, my 2-seater MR-2 much now include a large cargo space (like a pickup) and high wheel clearance (like an SUV). The impact on the sports car's performance is... regretable.
There is no technical reason for this type of universal bloat, in fact there are several technical reasons to keep the code lean and only add what each customer needs. Decent programmers would *never* continually issue new releases where each file format is incompatible with the prior one. (Sometimes major changes are required, but they should be rare - once a decade is too often.) Only marketing benefits from the current setup.
Marketing.
Defense of a monopoly position.
Then it hit me. The article wasn't written for us code warriors - he knew that we would easily see through his smoke&mirror defense of the technically indefensible. The article was nothing more than FUD to make Joe User fear that MS's inevitable loss in the DoJ action will somehow lead to him losing the feature or two that he needs for his specific business. Or a bright shining future with voice recognition (like a bullpen full of chatting staff is somehow better than typing staff) and "Jewish Mother"/"Drill Sergeant" software ("Coyote, from your exercise log application I see you're slacking off again! Drop and give me twenty!") Technically, that's utter nonsense. Legally, that's utter nonsense (since neither the courts nor the DoJ want to harm the ultimate user).
But as groundwork to prepare Office users to write letters to their congressmen about how they are "harmed" by the court sanctions... it's brilliant. Why bitch about the cost of upgrading your system every year or so when the alternative is losing your business?
Expect to see more future articles refering this article as the definitive word (no pun intended) on this issue. Even the Weekly World News has learned that trick! A lot of people don't realize the tight relationship between Slate and Microsoft, or the significance of the fact that this site doesn't provide an immediate feedback section. And they'll certainly miss the significance of the missing OS between Windows CE (and palm pilots) and Windows 98, that awkward platform that shows you don't need 64 MB of memory to simply turn on the power (unlike Windows 2000).
A more widely accepted theory is that Britain never developed a true national economy until canals were dug - the dirt roads were too muddy for travel most of the year. Since most people are right-handed, they naturally led their mule trains on the *left* bank of the canal so the mules and barge would be on their right.
In contrast, the US developed a national economy with roads (although a few canals were built). Instead of mules pulling a barge to the side, we had horses pull carts behind themselves. Again the people walked so the horses and carts were to their right, but unlike barges the drivers could chat in the middle of the road. So they usually passed each other on the right so they could easily talk.
By the times automobiles were introduced (and they were *not* invented by Americans) the patterns were well established.
This theory may not be correct either, but I doubt anyone would take the first theory seriously. By the time of the French revolution the canal and horse-drawn cart patterns were well established and French revolutionary politics would only affect France, in the same way that only the US picked up the odd knife-and-fork usage (arguably) developed as a way to disarm dinners caught up in political discussion.
Let's be practical about the terms in that disclaimer. "Prior notice" usually means a letter to a registered mailing address, possibly a certified letter if the sender needs proof that the letter was actually delivered. You might be able to contractually specify that "notice" can be sent via e-mail, but what do you do with bounced messages?
"Prior consent" is even worse - it means, at the least, that the person sends back a postcard indicating aggrement. Even if nobody gave you a false address, what do you do with people who don't respond? Or who disagree, since this isn't a situation where a quorum decides the issue for everyone?
The only practical solution is to use this clause and honor a extra-legal period where customers can yank their pages if the new terms aren't acceptable. If you don't like the terms, yank your pages *today*. If your pages are still up in two weeks, they can reasonably assume that you do agree to the new terms.
It's not perfect, but it seems better than the alternatives.
I would put this more forcefully. If you are given specific performance targets by marketing, you meet them, and then marketing turns around and says that it's your problem that they dropped the ball, then the company has exactly one of two options:
Punish marketing, or not, for making poor predictions, or
Punish IT... and immediately tell HR to work on replacing the entire IT staff since no competent IT person will work under these conditions (at least, not in the current job market).
Some people might suggest that IT should routinely overbuild, but that has its own problems. If I'm the CEO of a company that decided to purchase X capacity for $Y, then I learn that IT bought 2X capacity for $Y, my first and only question will be why the outgoing head of IT didn't buy X capacity and return $Y/2 for reallocation. Maybe I would have used it to buy the excess capacity... or maybe I would have used it to shore up a specific project enough to land that lucrative contract that just barely got away.
Tapes still fill important roles. CD-R burners and media aren't expensive any more, but they're still limited to 650 MB... and in an era where 10+ GB disks are commonplace many datasets have grown far too large to easily put onto a CDs. A prime example is MS Word: 6 CDs. (How much effort did it take to package that?!)
In environments where tape drives are still commonplace for backups, tapes are also useful for transfering large amounts of data. Unfortunately most PC venders long ago stopped offering backup mechanisms due to price pressures.
Bullshit. Windows 9x gets clobbered repeatedly because EVERY F***ING USER IS ROOT. End of discussion - no OS with that architecture will ever be more than a braindead toy, and I am astoundished that Micros~1 hasn't been hit with a multibillion dollar class action lawsuit for damages despite their shrink-wrapped weasel clauses.
That's why NT, even with it's crippled "administrator" user, is affected by about half the viruses of W9x. (Why do I call "administrator" crippled? See this)
Unix systems, in contrast, have fairly good protection of root privileges. It's not perfect, and nothing stops a sysadmin from doing something Really Stupid. But with tools like sudo and ksu it's straightforward to ensure that anyone who does something stupid once won't be given a second chance, so you won't see the wildfire propogation that is quickly becoming Micros~1's legacy.
Don't forget DA's. The problem is not quite as bad is it used to be, but for a long time there was a persistent fear that some local DA seeking cheap press coverage would discover computer pornography *gasp*. Worse, said pornography could be illegal locally (a surprising number of states still ban pictures showing explicit penetration), so the DA's "shock" had real teeth to it. The fact that the images, pre web-browser, looked like MKH!K#Hlkh`l1lKCHQE$@ unless you knew multiple magic incantations was irrelevant.
Today there isn't the same problem with rural American DA's, but now sites may have problems from other countries complaining about the content.
Um, just to be clear I know that telcos offer support in Spanish, and all allow customers to speak whatever language they choose even if they can't offer customer support in that language.
The point was 'why would a telco want customers to speak English (only) to each other?' The only possible reason is that it makes it easier to eavesdrop.
Likewise, it's one thing for a telco to insist that digitial service customers use TCP/IP. It is not reasonable for the telco to pay particular attention to the payload of those packets, whether you connect to unusual ports (vs. doing something suspicious like port scanning), etc. And they most definitely shouldn't be demanding that customers run telco provided software on their system ("special version of internet explorer") - it would be far too easy for the "enhancements" to include functionality that no customer would ever support. (E.g., should the browser quietly upload all of your.jpg image files against the possibility that you're a pedophile? If you're not a perv, you have nothing to fear, neh?!)
Kevin Mitnick is the best known case, but 2600 magazine has discussed a number of similar cases; "Bernie S" is probably the best documented case over the past year or so.
I know that crackers could cause a lot more damage, but my original point remains. Consider an early episode of _Law and Order_ where the cops are chasing a murderer, and one cop comments that one of their few tools is the fact that the suspect is currently only facing life in prison. Kill a cop and he's facing the death sentence.
To touch on another slashdot thread, it's dangerous that the Georgia shooter is facing life in prison as an adult offender. What motivation will the next shooter have to not shoot to kill? Or to surrender? (What is fair? Perhaps a sentence of 20-25 years, about the same as that for many murders. It's stiff enough to be a deterrent, while not so stiff that the next shooter sees no reason to not take it to the same deadly extreme as Harris & Klebold.)
A cracker who knows how Kevin Mitnick and others have been treated may look at the situation and decide that there's no downside in escalating a minor crime to do as much damage as possible. From the available evidence he isn't gonna face a longer sentence and he just might be able to get away in the confusion. Then we'll know that the people who do serious damage intended to do so, and we can treat them appropriately.
Telcos, airlines, freight companies, etc., are "common carriers." I suggest you read an introduction to biz law book to get a feel for just how much that involves... and how useful it is.
ISPs have not been common carriers, although some of the provisions of the CDA are close. The courts have generally held that they get common carrier type protections only to the extent that they ignore what their customers are doing, modulo purely technical issues. E.g., they can monitor your activity to ensure you aren't consuming an inordinate amount of resources. They can monitor your packets to verify that they aren't malformed or otherwise indicative of trying to break other systems (e.g., portscanning). But if they try to restrict your service because you visit the "wrong" sites they open themselves up for legal action based on what they do allow.
(E.g., assume they prevent you, as an adult, from viewing playboy.com, but accidently allow a kid to access a hardcore site. Since they have demonstrated a willingness to restrict legal access to "pornography," then they must have intentionally allowed a kid illegal access to hardcore porn, neh? The penalties are usually far worse in this case than if the ISP simply ignored the content of visited sites.)
Hotel/motels are public accomodations with something close to "common carrier" status (they pretty much have to rent a room to anyone who can pay, space available), and apartments aren't a lot different. They can ban pets, but they can't ban assistance animals (e.g., seeing eye dogs). They generally can't ban children or limit families to particular units. They can reasonably limit the total number of occupants, but they can't refuse to rent to unmarried couples while accepting married couples. In some areas they can't refuse to rent to a gay couple. They can't refuse to rent a unit on the basis of gender, age, ethnic origin, religion, etc.
But unlike common carriers, apartments can reject applications on the basis of concern that they won't be able to pay the rent & possible damages a year down the road. Apartments can restrict the way the units are used. (E.g., no commercial use.) Apartment managers generally reserve the right to enter an apartment at any time, but telcos and shippers have extremely limited rights of this nature.
The bottom line to all of this is that ADSL service is offered by a telco and is almost certainly classified as a "common carrier" service. This means that the company must provide service to *anyone* who can pay and meets minimum technical standards. Since other telcos support Linux, and BellSouth itself apparently can't tell when customers switch to Linux, there is no reasonable technical problem with customers running Linux. Therefore the company must either accept Linux clients... or it must surrender its common carrier status. If it does the latter, it can be named as co-conspirator to every crime committed which involved a Bell South telephone in *any* manner. (E.g., it could be named as a codefendant if the murderer simply used a payphone to call the gun store to verify the hours they were opened, if he subsequently purchased the murder weapon at that store. Already that store is commonly named in civil suits. The cost of defending just one such suit would hire Linux support techs for many years.)
I'm sure many people at my ISPs think of me as a "troublemaker," although not for the reasons you cited.
I'm also sure that the technically aware tech support appreciate the detailed feedback I occasionally provide. E.g., instead of simply calling up and bitching that my newsreader crashed, I sent them a message giving the exact name of an illegally formed newsgroup name. (It was one character longer than the RFC allows, and this coincidently exposed an overflow bug in my newsreader.) I've also identified potential problems with modems where some connections, but not all, show extremely slow performance, instead of just bitching about bad performance.
Of course, I'm sure this pisses off the "we are GOD" crowd common among the lesser orders of system administrators, but all of the good sysadmins I know appreciate all of the useful help they can get.
So, bright guy, where do I find windows for my netwinder? Or Alpha? (Since some people have reported that Windows NT is also not "supported"?) Or my M68K? Or sparc? Or...
Or even for my i386's? I might still have Windows 3.1 on floppy, somewhere, but I've been building my systems from components for over five years. Are you suggesting it's reasonable for me to spend $200 for a new copy of Windows? Or perhaps you recommend I just buy a new PC with Windows preinstalled.
God, only Microsoft apologists would come up with the concept of disposable operating systems and/or disposable PCs.
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There's are some *huge* differences between demonstration projects on technically selective college campuses and general elections in a population where most people can't figure out how to program their VCR.
....
If this demonstration project failed, it would be newsworthy. If it succeeds, it only shows that this election protocol works with highly educated voters in trivial elections. (What's the worst that could happen with a bad group in the undergrad. assoc.?) What would happen if people were motivated to spend real money to crack the system? Or to compromise the staff? ("Change the vote tally and I'll let you spend the night with these two porn stars!") Or
I've also expanded on David Chaum's ideas to design a cryptographically secure voting system. (In an ironic twist, I even borrowed a key idea from the government's "key escrow" ideas. My design requires "trusted third parties" hold certain critical information until the balloting closes, to prevent the government from "peeking" at the ballots early.)
But my design still used David's blinded key as a voting token. I don't see how you ensure each person votes at most once without tokens, and a token must always be identifiable to someone. Either the state, the voter, or a middleman. If you use a chain of middlemen you can blind that information, but at the cost of making ballot box stuffing trivial.
Finally, I think that off-site electronic ballots are useful in numerous non-governmental elections. (Corporate elections, anonymous performance reviews, etc.) I also think that on-site electronic ballots are workable, and several nations have experimented with such elections. The really nasty problems only come up when you have off-site balloting, something which has not been done in the past.
I certainly don't see how this would make everyone suddenly pressure others how to vote...
... been to a church lately...
When you're talking about electoral systems, you need to look beyond the next year or two. These systems are expensive to implement and hard to change. Widespread abuse like this may be hard to fathom today, but what about in 20 years? 50 years?
Here's an extremely humbling thought. In the 20's the KKK was the *dominate* political party in several states. All state funding for the University of Colorado was cut for several years after the school refused to comply with the law requiring that professors teach the inherent superiority of the white man. (It survived off of its endowment, and the KKK lost its governor and legislature majority soon afterwards.)
It can happen here. Maybe not this year, but the political climate can change remarkly fast. Did any Eisenhower supporter in 1958 expect the summer of love... and riots at the Democratic convention, 10 years later? Did any faithful (Soviet) Communist Party member in 1980 expect the Berlin wall to come down and the reunification of Germany in the same interval?
I don't think anyone objects to a minister "clarifying" moral issues for his congregation. What many of us find objectionable... and what lead to the IRS recently revoking the tax exempt status of the Christian Coalition... is "voter guides" which explicitly endorse particular candidates.
But even here, it's one thing for a church to allow voter guides to be passed out in the parking lot. It's another for them to hold a prayer meeting before voting, en masse, from the computer in the minister's study. And despite what someone else suggested, I don't think a "oops, I already voted" excuse will care much weight in this environment.
Saturdays are out because it would prevent Orthodox Jews from voting, (or would "ghettoize" them by forcing them to use absentee ballots or early voting),
Sundays are out because many voting precincts are located in churches. Politicking is prohibited within X feet (varies with jurisdiction) of the voting booths... the pulpit is certainly within that distance. That means that the minister/priest/shaman can't give a sermon on the evils of pornography if there's an anti-pornography issue on the ballot (or it's an issue with a candidate), etc., and thus we have a nasty little Church/State separation mess.
(And don't get me started on churches that don't realize that the Church/State separation issue goes both ways. If you want to be politically active, Christian Coalition, you must pay the entry fee. I don't mind a minister firing up the troops to vote God's way... as long as his church (and he personally) pays taxes like the rest of us!)
Fridays are out, because it's the Muslim holy day. Since most Muslims work the usual Monday-Friday work week, you're forcing them to choose between church and voting.
PS, in many states the bars are closed on election day, by law. In our wilder days candidates would offer voters a shot of whiskey as they came out of the ballot box.
Besides the technical issues, someone identified a Constitutional issue with the entire idea of electronic ballots.
In Colorado, and probably other states, the state constitution requires that ballots be anonymous. It is required that ballots be impossible to tie to any particular voter.
This is not simply a requirement that the state (or anyone else) can't determine how a person voted. The voter himself can't prove how he voted! The reason for this is simple: it prevents vote-selling and coerced votes. That's also the reason why it's a criminal offense for anyone other than the voter to be in the voting booth.
David Chaum's ideas can be used to prevent the state from proving a ballot is mine... but since I know my own "blinding" factor (at least for a while, even if the software immediately discards it) I can prove how I voted. I suspect all cryptographic protocols will have the same problem.
Outside of the question about cryptographic protocols, this also suggests that any off-site voting, with the possible exception of official "floating" precincts which visit the invalid, may be unconstitutional. With electronic ballots it is certainly within the realm of possibility that some organizations will have "election parties" with incredible social pressure for everyone to publicly vote in the "correct" manner.
Imagine voting parties at churches. Vote for Smith or go to Hell!
Or voting parties at your office. Vote for Jones or clean out your desk!
Even if this doesn't happen, the possibility could cripple the electoral system. You voted for Smith but Jones won? Claim that you were coerced to vote for Jones at such an election party! Contested elections today are decided by the legislature (at the state level) or the House (at the national level), but what happens when over half of the elections are contested?
Obviously, this is a dystopic perspective. But the way we handle elections is critical, since it is the only way (short of armed rebellion) to get rid of a corrupt government. We must tread very carefully when changing it.
I'm reminded of Robert Heinlein's "Revolt in 2100." I don't have the book handy at the moment, but it opened with something like
<sarcasm>
What, you mean John Glenn wasn't the first human in space, as several major news organizations misreported during his recent shuttle flight?!
</sarcasm>
BTW, do you recall why the USSR sent up *two* women before Sally Ride's mission? Could the stories about Valentia's mission be true after all?...
The impact speed was closer to 200 MPH, not 600. That's still far faster than a free-falling human, and fast enough to instantly dismember everyone upon impact.
Also, the reputable sources I've read said that the crew would have lost consciousness immediately due to high accelerations as the shuttle broke up, then remained unconscious due to the lack of oxygen. (They were not wearing full spacesuits, and their oxygen supply was (allegedly) cut off by the explosion). They *might* have regained consciousness as the flight deck reached lower altitudes, but humans aren't light bulbs and it would take them a moment to remember where they were. By this point they would have also reached terminal velocity, so it would feel like they were sitting on the ground at a very odd angle, adding to their initial confusion.
I don't think it's impossible that some of the crew might have been conscious *and* aware of their situation at the time of impact, but this is a situation where I don't think anyone could have done anything about it, even if the tools were available. The ultimate responsibility lies with the bureaucrats who ordered the launch despite clear danger, and to a lesser extent with the bureaucrats and engineers who didn't add air brakes (streamers, parachutes) to the flight deck module.
Just to be clear, I own firearms. I vote. In at least one Presidental election my ballot was decided by the actions of the local US Attorney... and then Clinton didn't replace the asshole for almost a year.
I'm not a member of the NRA, but reread your comments with that group in mind. They own guns. They are very politically active. And they catch a lot of flak for standing up for what they believe in. Most other political affinity groups are jealous of their ability to get their members to contact their elected representatives.
Nobody wants to take up arms against the government. Nobody even wants to consider that as a real possibility, except for some nutcases who are as representative of most gun owners as Jeffery Dalmer is of meat-eaters....
... but I also know that I don't expect my house to burn down. I don't live my life as if it will burn down at any moment. But I still pay my homeowners insurance since history shows that houses burn down.
In a lot of ways, I think an armed populace is like a smoke detector on every floor. They may not stop a fire, and they may not stop the place from burning to the ground. But you have a better chance of getting out of the rare fire alive with working smoke detectors than without them, and you have a better chance of saving at least part of the house.
If we can't ask the Vietnamese, what about the Afghans?
BTW, I don't think anyone seriously thinks that small arms, alone, could hold off the entire US military. But as others have pointed out, most people in the military are honorable and would have a hard time using the heavy weapons against lightly armed civilian "rebels" who had a valid grievance. (Racist nutcakes do not have a valid grievance. Randy Weaver *does* have one, but only because of the government's own actions.)
As for the rest, guerilla arms aren't that hard to produce. The DoD weapons are expensive because they are stored for years, must be usable anywhere from the Iraqi desert to northern Europe, and must often travel long distances on their own. Guerilla arms can be produced for immediate, local use. Think any American government can ban all basement metalworking shops?
Finally, I've heard the current (1945?) definition of "militia" used far more commonly than the 1792 one. IIRC, it's everyone subject to compulsary military service: abled-bodied men between the ages of 18 and 45(?). Some countries (e.g., Switzerland) require such men to undergo formal training, maintain weapons in their home and regularly demonstrate proficiency. In the US, we simply have the option of buying civilian-equivalent guns (e.g., the standard sidearm is(was?) a Beretta FS-92; my Centurion is nearly identical to the military version) and training on our own. The life we save may be our own, if the US gets in a war and we're drafted into the military!
It was included, in part, so that the state would have to actually produce evidence to convict a person of a crime. With compulsary self-incrimination and rubber hoses, it would be far too easy for an ambitious DA wrongly convict innocent people. (Who needs evidence when you have a confession?) This, incidently, is one of the most compelling arguments against pre-trial asset forfeiture. Such forfeiture often prevents a meaningful defense and a ruthless DA can dramatically improve his "conviction rate" by simply seizing any assets which could be used to mount a defense. Then, once the person is "convicted" the asset forfeiture is "validated."
More importantly, this right was included so the state couldn't charge you with a minor crime and then force you to confess to a more serious charge.
Even today, there are many legal activities which meet with social disapproval. What if you were in a strip joint when your boss thought you were on a sales call? What if you were in bed with a woman other than your wife (and she with a man other than her husband)... and her husband happens to be the very prosecutor asking you this question?
Memory is so cheap that I think there's no excuse to be using *any* swap space. Check your memory usage every so often, and if you're using swap space then buy more memory.
That said, I agree with the other poster that swap space can be useful for long-term idle programs. And a decent sized swap area is cheap insurance against some program taking up a lot more VM than you expect - I've occasionally run out of VM (thanx, Netscape!) and it is not pretty. But your active applications should never hit the swap disk.
Of course, this assumes that you're using a recent motherboard and additional memory is available. I still occasionally use a 386 maxed out with 20 MB of RAM. In that case I do have a very large swap partition (when compared to the amount of RAM) and accept the performance hit.
The long ratification times can be annoying, but it's better than the alternatives. We're all frustrated at the Netscape and MSIE "extensions" to HTML. Imagine now that the HTTP was also changing as frequently.
How much time do shops waste getting "compliant" MSIE browsers and "compliant" Netscape browsers to render the same source document into reasonably close fascimiles? How many shops give up and have separate MSIE and Netscape trees?
Now multiply that by the HTTP 1.0 server, the 1.1 server, the 1.1b server, the 1.2 server, the 1.3 server, and the 2.0 server. You would either see development slow to a crawl, or a lot of shops simply announcing that they would support a single server/client pair. The one that is bundled with every PC sale due to it's unquestionable (*not* 'unquestioned!') technical excellence. *cough*
Gee, maybe Microsoft is right and having a strong Imperial hand *does* help competition. King Bill could have simply announced that everyone shall use HTTP 1.1 (after paying another $200 for the privilege of serving his liege, of course) years ago, and by now we would be running HTTP 1.4 complete with 'Microsoft' 'innovations' such as push technology, dedicated "channels", and Lord Bill knows what else.
The problem with easter eggs is that they obviously didn't go through any formal review process. Flight simulators and the like may be an exception, but *some* easter eggs are nasty lawsuit bait that *no* company would ever let out the door.
Anything that doesn't go through a formal review process is an unknown. Maybe it's bug free, or maybe it has a nasty bug that will make the entire product look bad. Run "flight simulator" and corrupt your disk. Or maybe it has actively malicious code embedded inside. Run "flight simulator" and have a copy of all "encrypted" Office documents ftp'd to a remote site, if you also have network connectivity.
We simply don't know.
The software vendor simply doesn't know.
And that uncertainty, in itself, is enough to cast a dark shadow on the product. It brings to mind angry line workers who weld bolts into car body cavities so the victim will be plagued with an uncorrectable rattle. Or the angry construction worker who seals a carton of milk, with a small hole, behind the drywall so the annoying owner who comes by with his annoying requests will suffer from an unlocatable stench for years.
I don't mind a simple group photo or list of contributors; in fact I think it's very reasonable to put that information under the "About" button so the programmers can show pride in their work. But anything beyond that raises serious questions about the quality of the software produced in that shop.
At first I couldn't figure out this article. Of course users have diverse needs, and of course software companies should write code to satisfy their customers. Our problem is with how MS forces these highly specific bits of code on everyone -- it's not like Windows totally lacks the concepts of dynamic libraries and soft menus.
It's like Toyota said that, to satisfy other users, my 2-seater MR-2 much now include a large cargo space (like a pickup) and high wheel clearance (like an SUV). The impact on the sports car's performance is... regretable.
There is no technical reason for this type of universal bloat, in fact there are several technical reasons to keep the code lean and only add what each customer needs. Decent programmers would *never* continually issue new releases where each file format is incompatible with the prior one. (Sometimes major changes are required, but they should be rare - once a decade is too often.) Only marketing benefits from the current setup.
Marketing.
Defense of a monopoly position.
Then it hit me. The article wasn't written for us code warriors - he knew that we would easily see through his smoke&mirror defense of the technically indefensible. The article was nothing more than FUD to make Joe User fear that MS's inevitable loss in the DoJ action will somehow lead to him losing the feature or two that he needs for his specific business. Or a bright shining future with voice recognition (like a bullpen full of chatting staff is somehow better than typing staff) and "Jewish Mother"/"Drill Sergeant" software ("Coyote, from your exercise log application I see you're slacking off again! Drop and give me twenty!") Technically, that's utter nonsense. Legally, that's utter nonsense (since neither the courts nor the DoJ want to harm the ultimate user).
But as groundwork to prepare Office users to write letters to their congressmen about how they are "harmed" by the court sanctions... it's brilliant. Why bitch about the cost of upgrading your system every year or so when the alternative is losing your business?
Expect to see more future articles refering this article as the definitive word (no pun intended) on this issue. Even the Weekly World News has learned that trick! A lot of people don't realize the tight relationship between Slate and Microsoft, or the significance of the fact that this site doesn't provide an immediate feedback section. And they'll certainly miss the significance of the missing OS between Windows CE (and palm pilots) and Windows 98, that awkward platform that shows you don't need 64 MB of memory to simply turn on the power (unlike Windows 2000).
A more widely accepted theory is that Britain never developed a true national economy until canals were dug - the dirt roads were too muddy for travel most of the year. Since most people are right-handed, they naturally led their mule trains on the *left* bank of the canal so the mules and barge would be on their right.
In contrast, the US developed a national economy with roads (although a few canals were built). Instead of mules pulling a barge to the side, we had horses pull carts behind themselves. Again the people walked so the horses and carts were to their right, but unlike barges the drivers could chat in the middle of the road. So they usually passed each other on the right so they could easily talk.
By the times automobiles were introduced (and they were *not* invented by Americans) the patterns were well established.
This theory may not be correct either, but I doubt anyone would take the first theory seriously. By the time of the French revolution the canal and horse-drawn cart patterns were well established and French revolutionary politics would only affect France, in the same way that only the US picked up the odd knife-and-fork usage (arguably) developed as a way to disarm dinners caught up in political discussion.
Let's be practical about the terms in that disclaimer. "Prior notice" usually means a letter to a registered mailing address, possibly a certified letter if the sender needs proof that the letter was actually delivered. You might be able to contractually specify that "notice" can be sent via e-mail, but what do you do with bounced messages?
"Prior consent" is even worse - it means, at the least, that the person sends back a postcard indicating aggrement. Even if nobody gave you a false address, what do you do with people who don't respond? Or who disagree, since this isn't a situation where a quorum decides the issue for everyone?
The only practical solution is to use this clause and honor a extra-legal period where customers can yank their pages if the new terms aren't acceptable. If you don't like the terms, yank your pages *today*. If your pages are still up in two weeks, they can reasonably assume that you do agree to the new terms.
It's not perfect, but it seems better than the alternatives.
Some people might suggest that IT should routinely overbuild, but that has its own problems. If I'm the CEO of a company that decided to purchase X capacity for $Y, then I learn that IT bought 2X capacity for $Y, my first and only question will be why the outgoing head of IT didn't buy X capacity and return $Y/2 for reallocation. Maybe I would have used it to buy the excess capacity... or maybe I would have used it to shore up a specific project enough to land that lucrative contract that just barely got away.
Tapes still fill important roles. CD-R burners and media aren't expensive any more, but they're still limited to 650 MB... and in an era where 10+ GB disks are commonplace many datasets have grown far too large to easily put onto a CDs. A prime example is MS Word: 6 CDs. (How much effort did it take to package that?!)
In environments where tape drives are still commonplace for backups, tapes are also useful for transfering large amounts of data. Unfortunately most PC venders long ago stopped offering backup mechanisms due to price pressures.
That's why NT, even with it's crippled "administrator" user, is affected by about half the viruses of W9x. (Why do I call "administrator" crippled? See this)
Unix systems, in contrast, have fairly good protection of root privileges. It's not perfect, and nothing stops a sysadmin from doing something Really Stupid. But with tools like sudo and ksu it's straightforward to ensure that anyone who does something stupid once won't be given a second chance, so you won't see the wildfire propogation that is quickly becoming Micros~1's legacy.
Don't forget DA's. The problem is not quite as bad is it used to be, but for a long time there was a persistent fear that some local DA seeking cheap press coverage would discover computer pornography *gasp*. Worse, said pornography could be illegal locally (a surprising number of states still ban pictures showing explicit penetration), so the DA's "shock" had real teeth to it. The fact that the images, pre web-browser, looked like MKH!K#Hlkh`l1lKCHQE$@ unless you knew multiple magic incantations was irrelevant.
Today there isn't the same problem with rural American DA's, but now sites may have problems from other countries complaining about the content.
Um, just to be clear I know that telcos offer support in Spanish, and all allow customers to speak whatever language they choose even if they can't offer customer support in that language.
.jpg image files against the possibility that you're a pedophile? If you're not a perv, you have nothing to fear, neh?!)
The point was 'why would a telco want customers to speak English (only) to each other?' The only possible reason is that it makes it easier to eavesdrop.
Likewise, it's one thing for a telco to insist that digitial service customers use TCP/IP. It is not reasonable for the telco to pay particular attention to the payload of those packets, whether you connect to unusual ports (vs. doing something suspicious like port scanning), etc. And they most definitely shouldn't be demanding that customers run telco provided software on their system ("special version of internet explorer") - it would be far too easy for the "enhancements" to include functionality that no customer would ever support. (E.g., should the browser quietly upload all of your
Kevin Mitnick is the best known case, but 2600 magazine has discussed a number of similar cases; "Bernie S" is probably the best documented case over the past year or so.
I know that crackers could cause a lot more damage, but my original point remains. Consider an early episode of _Law and Order_ where the cops are chasing a murderer, and one cop comments that one of their few tools is the fact that the suspect is currently only facing life in prison. Kill a cop and he's facing the death sentence.
To touch on another slashdot thread, it's dangerous that the Georgia shooter is facing life in prison as an adult offender. What motivation will the next shooter have to not shoot to kill? Or to surrender? (What is fair? Perhaps a sentence of 20-25 years, about the same as that for many murders. It's stiff enough to be a deterrent, while not so stiff that the next shooter sees no reason to not take it to the same deadly extreme as Harris & Klebold.)
A cracker who knows how Kevin Mitnick and others have been treated may look at the situation and decide that there's no downside in escalating a minor crime to do as much damage as possible. From the available evidence he isn't gonna face a longer sentence and he just might be able to get away in the confusion. Then we'll know that the people who do serious damage intended to do so, and we can treat them appropriately.
Telcos, airlines, freight companies, etc., are "common carriers." I suggest you read an introduction to biz law book to get a feel for just how much that involves... and how useful it is.
ISPs have not been common carriers, although some of the provisions of the CDA are close. The courts have generally held that they get common carrier type protections only to the extent that they ignore what their customers are doing, modulo purely technical issues. E.g., they can monitor your activity to ensure you aren't consuming an inordinate amount of resources. They can monitor your packets to verify that they aren't malformed or otherwise indicative of trying to break other systems (e.g., portscanning). But if they try to restrict your service because you visit the "wrong" sites they open themselves up for legal action based on what they do allow.
(E.g., assume they prevent you, as an adult, from viewing playboy.com, but accidently allow a kid to access a hardcore site. Since they have demonstrated a willingness to restrict legal access to "pornography," then they must have intentionally allowed a kid illegal access to hardcore porn, neh? The penalties are usually far worse in this case than if the ISP simply ignored the content of visited sites.)
Hotel/motels are public accomodations with something close to "common carrier" status (they pretty much have to rent a room to anyone who can pay, space available), and apartments aren't a lot different. They can ban pets, but they can't ban assistance animals (e.g., seeing eye dogs). They generally can't ban children or limit families to particular units. They can reasonably limit the total number of occupants, but they can't refuse to rent to unmarried couples while accepting married couples. In some areas they can't refuse to rent to a gay couple. They can't refuse to rent a unit on the basis of gender, age, ethnic origin, religion, etc.
But unlike common carriers, apartments can reject applications on the basis of concern that they won't be able to pay the rent & possible damages a year down the road. Apartments can restrict the way the units are used. (E.g., no commercial use.) Apartment managers generally reserve the right to enter an apartment at any time, but telcos and shippers have extremely limited rights of this nature.
The bottom line to all of this is that ADSL service is offered by a telco and is almost certainly classified as a "common carrier" service. This means that the company must provide service to *anyone* who can pay and meets minimum technical standards. Since other telcos support Linux, and BellSouth itself apparently can't tell when customers switch to Linux, there is no reasonable technical problem with customers running Linux. Therefore the company must either accept Linux clients... or it must surrender its common carrier status. If it does the latter, it can be named as co-conspirator to every crime committed which involved a Bell South telephone in *any* manner. (E.g., it could be named as a codefendant if the murderer simply used a payphone to call the gun store to verify the hours they were opened, if he subsequently purchased the murder weapon at that store. Already that store is commonly named in civil suits. The cost of defending just one such suit would hire Linux support techs for many years.)
I'm sure many people at my ISPs think of me as a "troublemaker," although not for the reasons you cited.
I'm also sure that the technically aware tech support appreciate the detailed feedback I occasionally provide. E.g., instead of simply calling up and bitching that my newsreader crashed, I sent them a message giving the exact name of an illegally formed newsgroup name. (It was one character longer than the RFC allows, and this coincidently exposed an overflow bug in my newsreader.) I've also identified potential problems with modems where some connections, but not all, show extremely slow performance, instead of just bitching about bad performance.
Of course, I'm sure this pisses off the "we are GOD" crowd common among the lesser orders of system administrators, but all of the good sysadmins I know appreciate all of the useful help they can get.
So, bright guy, where do I find windows for my netwinder? Or Alpha? (Since some people have reported that Windows NT is also not "supported"?) Or my M68K? Or sparc? Or ...
Or even for my i386's? I might still have Windows 3.1 on floppy, somewhere, but I've been building my systems from components for over five years. Are you suggesting it's reasonable for me to spend $200 for a new copy of Windows? Or perhaps you recommend I just buy a new PC with Windows preinstalled.
God, only Microsoft apologists would come up with the concept of disposable operating systems and/or disposable PCs.