We bitch about and make light of all the delays going digital, and then we bitch when the government propose to help disadvantaged groups to maintain access to broadcast television, for whatever it's worth.
Let's not forget:
To be sure, the transition will facilitate a lot of progress for both the tech industry and the public sector. Once TV stations switch to digital transmission, they will return to the government a big chunk of the radio spectrum they currently use to transmit their analog channels.
Some of that spectrum will go to first responders -- police, fire and public safety officials -- so they can better communicate with one another. Breakdowns in emergency communication slowed the response to the September 11 terrorist attacks and Hurricane Katrina. New spectrum should help.
The rest of the spectrum will be auctioned off to the highest bidders -- probably tech companies. The sale of this valuable, scarce real estate is expected to bring in about $10 billion, maybe more. That will help reduce the federal budget deficit.
Better yet, when the spectrum is sold off, the companies that buy it will use it to develop new technology and services. Cheap, ubiquitous wireless broadband access is one possibility. Mobile TV or music services are others.
Scheduled for 2008, the auction will be the biggest spectrum sale since a 1994-95 spectrum auction. That sale helped boost the mobile phone industry, boosting the number of cell phone subscribers in the U.S. from 24 million to 200 million. It also helped drive down the cost of wireless minutes from an average of 47 cents a minute to 9 cents a minute, according to analysis from financial services firm Stifel Nicolaus.
"With the new auction, we will finally become a broadband nation," says Blair Levin, a Washington analyst with Stifel Nicolaus. "Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft, Intel, Dell -- these companies will all benefit. The more broadband pipes you have, the more applications will come along, the more often you will upgrade your device."
Indeed, Microsoft, Intel, Dell, and Cisco all joined a Washington lobbying effort called the High Tech DTV Coalition to push for digital television. Congress has been debating the issue for a decade, ever since the 1996 telecom bill gave digital spectrum to broadcasters, with the expectation that they would eventually give their analog spectrum back.
Seems like $1.5B to smooth the transition is a good deal for all involved.
Does Apple still support this when you're not running Mac OS X?
Yes, they do. Support, though the project hasn't needed it, is one of the main reasons we got it.
With AppleCare Premium, 24x7 telephone and email support is included, as well as 24x7 4-hour on-site hardware service. Apple supports it as fibre channel storage, and they don't care what it's attached to. See also Apple's non-Mac OS X certifications for Xserve RAID. No, it doesn't include Fedora Core, but they still support the product itself.
Must be nice to have money to burn, but "gut feeling" is a very, very poor way to select hardware.
Well, we purchased 35 Xserve RAID arrays for a single installation, for a total of 200TB of storage, after real research and comparisons as opposed to a gut feeling.
The installation is described here, with pictures. It is NOT a University-wide service; this was installed for one research project. We have much more storage around campus from EMC (in our two primary datacenters), Apple, Sun, and Storagetek, among others.
It has been up and running for almost a year now, and the only problem, across all 35 Xserve RAID units running 24x7, has been one failed disk. One alternative looked at was building whitebox PCs in huge tower cases and packing them with disk. Ultimately, it was decided that a major commercial vendor, from which 24x7 support and 4-hour on-site response is available for 3 years, was a good choice. And it was much cheaper than competitive commercial solutions. And at a cost of around $1.60/GB for enterprise storage, you can't really go wrong. And for the Mac OS X-haters out there, there is no Mac OS X as part of this solution. We are using commodity 1U servers running Fedora Core. The Linux boxes see it as generic fibre channel disk, because that's all it is. The servers are monitored with Apple's excellent Java-based, platform independent RAID Admin tools, and some command-line tools we wrote ourselves.
It's proven itself to be rock-solid. And that matches with my experience with the 20 Xserve servers we have installed, starting since around mid-2002: zero hardware failures, of any kind. Franzen had a good gut feeling. And, of course, given Apple's track record with reliability and lack of need for repairs (generally number one) when compared with other vendors from organizations such as Consumer Reports, guessing that the reliability of another Apple product will be good is probably a reasonable guess.;-)
And no, this isn't a project serving a whole campus or an entire university student body. This is one single research project operated by one entity. Oh well, I guess supporting the Large Hadron Collider isn't as cool as South Park.;-)
Unfortunately, GP is neither an enterprise nor a government.
Well, he said:
I don't want a camera in my cell phone either, because I work in the defense industry and I cannot take my phone into many buildings due to security restrictions.
Sounds like government and/or enterprise to me. But that is beside the point: if you're saying that he, personally, isn't an "enterprise" or "government", that's still irrelevant, because - and I know this is hard to believe - you can still get the non-camera versions of many phones as an individual from carriers as well.
Your issue is exactly why enterprise and government wireless providers offer versions of modern phones without cameras, such as the no-camera Treo 650NC offered by Sprint.
Yes, with free speech comes a certain degree of responsibility... On the part of the AUDIENCE. Charlatans and outright liers will always exist, and would even if we didn't have a 1st amendment in the US.
That's clever, but fallacious.
With free speech comes responsibility on the part of the speaker as well.
All rights have associated responsibility - which includes things like accountability - that lies with the exerciser of the right, and it is the refusal to acknowledge this from which problems arise.
With rights come responsibilities. They are intrinsically linked and inseparable. The problems come when people believe there is, or should be, no relationship between them.
What tool did he use to trace the IP back to the delivery company?
ARIN Whois only goes as far as Bellsouth for the IP address in question (65.81.97.208), as does pretty much every utility, geographic and otherwise, that I could find in a rudimentary search.
So, what tool did he use to actually narrow it down to a specific business?
Seigenthaler, founder of the First Amendment Center, said that as a longtime advocate of free speech, he found it awkward to be tracking down someone who had exercised that right. "I still believe in free expression," he said. "What I want is accountability."
Indeed.
The problem is that many people believe that actions - including speech - shouldn't have consequences.
I will take your statements under consideration, as I always do with differing statements.
(And yes, it was a mistake of me to say *only* social security in my first response; as I said, I was writing quickly, and "Social Security" is the major feature of that budget category. I intended no deception. Further, I don't think that those budget groupings are pointless, considering they're the same simplified groupings that the Treasury uses under Republican and Democratic administrations alike to communicate spending.)
First, let me say: I love your quoting style, which allows you to ignore the things you don't want to respond to. I don't do that to you.
No. That doesn't change the fact that it's hubris to automatically assume that those who do are simply "ignorant".
Has it struck you that the majority of people may not be correct, whether or not they're "ignorant"? And assuming "most of the world" would prefer that China be in charge in the stead of the US, does that mean one should automatically assume "Gee, we must be doing something wrong because people wish that a brutal Communist regime were in charge of world affairs"?
That's simply because the word "bracketted" isn't used very much by itself;) On the other hand, where I mentioned what the term is generally called (progressive taxation) gets plenty of hits.
Yes, fine. And we already have, and still do have, progressively increasing taxation. Whether it's not as much as you'd like, well, that's apparently the point of contention.
No, you don't; I saw it the first time, and I just explained *why* they pay a higher rate, which you seem to have ignored. It's the equivalent of charging a higher sales tax rate for luxury - they're being taxed at a higher rate because they spend more on luxury spending. And if they don't spend their money on luxury - say, they give it to charity? That's what deductions are for. What about this do you have a problem with? Do you think that luxury spending shouldn't be a higher tax-rate item than necessity spending?
I don't have a problem with it at all. I'm pointing out that that's *currently the way it is*. The bottom third already pay *no tax*.
So I ask again: let's just say, for the sake of argument, that we shifted the less-than-3% of the federal tax burden that the bottom 50% of taxpayers now pay to the top 50% (interestingly, that's where it's headed anyway, as the bottom 50% has paid less of the total tax burden for the last decade).
And, for the sake of argument, let's also say we eliminate sales tax on anything that costs below, say, $10000. Then what?
The poor would *still* be poor. They *still* would be struggling. The bottom 1/3 *already pay no tax*. The bottom half, in total, pay *less than 3% of the tax burden*. And you're saying that the wealthy are *getting off easy*? Oh, man. I really don't know what to say.
In fact, they're getting off easy. They may be one percent of the population, but they have 40% of the nation's wealth. The top 5% have 60% of the wealth. I.e., even with our progressive tax structure, they still get away with not paying more for their luxury spending; the numbers argue for *sharper* brackets.
So are you arguing for increasing the overall federal tax intake as well? Because the top 50% already pay over 97% of the tax. The top 5% pay over 60%. If you're arguing that they should pay *more*, fine, but I'm just trying to understand where you're coming from. If we magically had a system where the top 5% paid 100% of the federal tax burden, would that be fair to you? What's the cutoff for when people should pay no tax, when the bottom third already pay none?
[Re: "Unsigned"] It's a common term that you've apparently never heard [cnn.com].
Hm. First of all, your link puts the term "unsign" in quotes, too.
Even better is that your link proves exactly what I just said, which is that the US "unsigned" nothing: we're still a Kyoto signatory, and it's still not ratified. I.e., no change.
No, *Bush's* position was as followed. That was not Clinton's position. That was an about-shift position. And I'll note here that you completely ignored the speeches and publications by the respective administrations on the subject of climate change.
It's seems that you'd have the level of ignorance you accuse me of on any policy speeches, as the Bush administration isn't pro-global warming. However, they correctly believe that global warming isn't due exclusively and only t
There's a term used to describe people who believe "if anyone disagrees with me, even the majority of people in the world, then they're automatically wrong." It's 'hubris'. Did you even stop and consider that perhaps they might have valid views backing that up, or did you just instinctively assume "they must all be ignorant"?
So let's clear this up, for the record. Do YOU think the world would be better off if the Chinese government were in charge of world affairs?
An arbitrary time point just to demonstrate the degree of change. The most extreme example's required time period depends on the specific issue - for example, top tax brackets would be compared to the period from World War II to the late 1960s, when they were almost 90% (they fell to under 30% by the end of Reagan's term, rose somewhat under clinton, then fell back down under Bush).
...
Do you not know what bracketted taxation is? Then what are you doing in this debate? Lets back up to income taxes 101.
No, I know what tax brackets are, thanks, (though you appear to be the only person to refer to it as "bracketted taxation"). And by "I don't know what you're getting at, here," I thought I made myself clear with the link I posted, which I guess I'll have to post again. As I said, the difference is even more dramatic now. Over a full third of taxpayers in this country pay no taxes at all. The top 1% of taxpayers - and these aren't all or even mostly people who are fabulously wealthy; these include people who make just over $250,000/year in household income - as of 2004, pay over 40% of the tax. The top 5% now pay over 60% of the tax. The entire bottom 50% now pay less than 3% of the tax burden, and most of them are at the upper part of the 50%. The bottom 35% pay nothing.
So, I ask you: how is this not fair? Or should the entire tax burden be paid by the top, say, 5%? The poor - the bottom, say, 20%, will still be poor and struggling. Since, as you say, the more fortunate have more than enough money, perhaps we could take some of theirs, and simply give it to the poor?
If you're going to respond to this, please do so directly, as I did.
Clinton: Signed the Kyoto protocol; spoke regularly about the need to stop global warming Bush: Unsigned the Kyoto protocol. First denied any global warming, then admitted it but downplayed human effect on it. Summary: Complete Opposites.
"Unsigned." That's rich. Bush didn't "unsign" anything. Clinton signed the Kyoto protocol, which does nothing until it's submitted for ratification. We are still a signatory of the protocol (which means we support the basic tenets of it in principle), and it has still not been submitted for ratification. Literally no change from Clinton. Our position can be summed up as follows:
This is a challenge that requires a 100 percent effort; ours, and the rest of the world's. The world's second-largest emitter of greenhouse gases is China. Yet, China was entirely exempted from the requirements of the Kyoto Protocol. India and Germany are among the top emitters. Yet, India was also exempt from Kyoto. . . . America's unwillingness to embrace a flawed treaty should not be read by our friends and allies as any abdication of responsibility. To the contrary, my administration is committed to a leadership role on the issue of climate change. . . . . Our approach must be consistent with the long-term goal of stabilizing greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere. (Ref)
In other words, it's unfair if other nations - like, oh, the second largest consumer of petroleum products and the second largest emitter of greenhouse gases, and the one who is angling to become the world's next superpower and will essentially be in direct comp
The majority of the world disagrees with you on this. Heck, the majority of the world, according to polls, would rather have *China* of all countries dominating world affairs than America - that's how sick of our international policy they are. Agree or disagree with their stance, this is what the world views. They do *not* see the US as a "positive influence" as a whole.
Yes. And this is reflects an "anyone but the US" mentality. Similar to the "anyone but Bush" mentality in the last US election. And wishing that *China* were in charge, as it were, of world affairs isn't reflective of anything but the wholesale ignorance of the person or entity that wishes it.
Name an political issue - odds are, the US stance has changed. Bracketted taxation policy? Changed. Global warming stance? Changed. Containment vs. invasion? Partially changed (sorry people, Clinton was no angel there! Just not as wide-scale). Abortion? Changed. Gay rights? Changed. Social services? Changed. Military funding? Changed. Nuclear weapons development? Changed. Need I keep on going? American policy, domestic and foreign, has radically shifted in the past decade.
Decade? Well, I don't know who would have been responsible for it then, unless you're one of those people who think the Democrats and Republicans are just as bad as each other (and that's fine if you are; just making a statement).
And you and I have an extremely different view of what "radically shifted" means. The shifts in the last "decade", or any recent timeframe, whatever you believe them to be, are no different than any shifts that have occurred over the lifetime of the country. I realize you *think* they're far more drastic (at the hands of religious fundamentalists and conservatives, no doubt, since we've never had those in this country before!), but they're not. And any individual, specific, marked policy changes have a hell of a lot more context than you're giving them here.
Bracketted taxation? I'm not sure exactly what you're getting at here, but this could serve as a reminder. The difference is even more dramatic today.
Global warming? How has the global warming stance "changed"? Are we now for it? And before you say "well, they're certainly not against it", I'd remind you that smacks of the same ignorance some would paint a "you're either with us or against us" statement. The stance on global warming is simple and straightforward: we will not sacrifice beyond a certain threshold of negative economic impact as long as other nations, like the ever-popular China, are exempted from large portions of international guidelines.
Abortion? Just because a jurist believes that abortion isn't strictly and explicitly guaranteed in the Constitution (and I personally have no earthly idea how it could be) doesn't automatically make abortion "illegal". Roe v Wade is such a charged topic, but it is Constitutionally shaky, and has been ever since it was ruled. It was a horrid bastardization of the Court's role, taking the easy way out on a question that doesn't have easy answers. While I am not anti-abortion, I don't call myself "pro-choice". Because no matter how much someone would claim it, it's not only and exclusively about the "rights" of the woman.
Gay rights? How have they changed? Do gays have less rights because some ridiculous local and state legislatures pass resolutions defining marriage as exactly what it is, namely, the union of a man and a woman? How have any rights been rolled back? From a strictly legal perspective, gays have the same "rights" as any person: they can marry a person of the opposite sex. But the problem is that the state never should have been involved in "marriage" in the first place, between any two persons. Legal union? Yes. Civil union? Sure. Whatever they want to call it. And no, the gay marriage issue is nothing like the interracial marriage issue. Interracial marriage was a civil rights issue. Gay marriage is attempting t
While it's pointless to argue the degrees of separation between one US military action in particular, and one individual person's right to say something, you're missing the point.
Not only that, but you're missing one huge point here: slashdot is an *American site*.
Think slashdot would survive as-is in, say, China, or Iran, or countless other nations, including many in the mideast?
Didn't think so.
The point is that whether you personally agree or not with the current US administration's strategy in Iraq, the US and its might is generally aimed at preserving the rights we hold dear. And along with that is the lifestyle that contributes to the power the United States has; power which is needed to protect our national status, or interests, our allies, and economy, and, ultimately, our rights.
This isn't to say that every action is "right" by everyone's opinion and standards, and this isn't to say that you personally have to agree with it. This also isn't to say that people acting in the name of the United States haven't done terrible things. But if you believe the United States doesn't work, *overall*, as a force for good in this world, then we see two very different pictures. And yes, I'm aware of just about every single anecdote about some US evil you could trot out here to "prove" me wrong. Trust me. But that's what's called "not seeing the forest for the trees". If you want to cherry pick things the US has done wrong and ignore any positive influence, by all means, be my guest. That, too, is your protected right.
People can sit there and talk about how the US is going down some totalitarian path or about how Bush is the biggest danger the world has ever faced and a bunch of other Orwellian-style hyperbole, but the fact is, it's not true. And the "path" people think the US is going down isn't actually indicative of any real substantive change: it's more indicative of the fact that we have a free flow of information that can keep us awash in every single thing the US does the globe over instantly. Nothing has changed, but our access to the information.
Of course, some people will ALWAYS be anti-US, anti-military, anti-authority, anti-police, anti-capitalism, anti-corporate, anti-Christian, and anti-everything else, and the beauty is that they can do that in the US without fear of retribution[1].
[1] Converting to radical Islam, changing your name, traveling to Afghanistan to train alongside the Taliban and Wahabbists in terrorist training camps, maintaining direct ties with known terrorists and terror funding groups, and then planning and openly declaring intentions to detonate a radiological dirty bomb in downtown Chicago does not constitute "dissent".
1. Put your computer behind literally any personal firewall/router (Linksys, DLink, etc.) that can be had - wireless and wired or both - for under $50.
2. If you have Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2), just make sure the firewall for your network connection is still enabled; it is by default on SP2, and Security Center will warn you if it isn't. Unless you explicitly disabled it, it will still be enabled.
If you don't yet have Service Pack 2, simply enable the Windows firewall (Internet Connection Firewall) for any network interface(s) you have. This can be done on the Advanced tab of each connection's Properties.
3. There is no step 3.
There's nothing you have to do other than ensure you have a software firewall enabled, and optionally have your machine behind a nice little personal firewall/router. Then it doesn't matter how long it's been or what exploits are out there[1].
That's it. Even the built-in Windows software firewall on a machine with no patches or service packs installed will protect a Windows XP system. Seem simple? It is. One wonders why it took Microsoft *so long* to make it the default.
[1] Sure, there may be exploits that affect browsers or other aspects of the system that could be exploited by *visiting malicious sites*, but the machine, just sitting there, won't be vulnerable. If all you're going to do is immediately update everything anyway, you have nothing to worry about.
I'm talking about the video iPod. Everything Creative copied has nothing specific to do with a hierarchical menu system, and if you don't see the Zen Vision:M as a complete and total ripoff of the current iPod (which was what I was referring to; it's official name is just "iPod", not "iPod video", so I said "iPod"). Now, if you say that all of those things are just natural features for a portable media player, then I'd say so are hierarchical menus. If anyone is ripping someone off here and trying to capitalize on someone else's success, I'm sorry to say that it's Creative, not Apple.
...where "???" in this context is apparently "file a patent on hierarchical menus (!!!), almost literally identical in every way to the menu system iPod has used for several years prior". (And, if Creative's patent covers iPod's interface elements, then why were they also not denied their patent because of a preexisting Microsoft patent, as Apple was?)
Click "Be entertained". and mouse over some of the items in the room. EVERY feature, except the FM tuner, is ripped off directly from iPod, and even looks almost identical to iPod. Every bit of the interface has iPod written all over it. Menu names, screen layout, and so on.
I think we're after the same thing, here: and indeed, I would call for the system you describe. That is, one in which electronic systems merely take the same role as the writing utensil a voter may have used on previous paper ballots. The electronic systems are only there to, ostensibly, reduce confusion and increase uniformity and to assist in streamlining the process; but an independent and permanently auditable mechanism that counts the physical tokens (receipts) that contain the votes in a human-readable manner would still be in place. I understand that a system such as that is currently NOT in place.
Note that I am arguing for 100% verification and reliability; nothing less. Nice of you to paint me as arguing for something else.
Further, it's quite arrogant of you, presumably as an open source advocate, to assume that all tasks can always be reliably run on open source systems. Open source is not the end-all be-all. I am by no means a Windows defender. In fact, I personally think Windows is a horrible choice for a wide variety of tasks, for an equally wide variety of reasons.
But the fact of the matter is that many devices, systems, and specialty software, as well as those charged to support and work with it at levels from programming to implementation to end-user ("end-user" here being voting officials deploying it in counties, not the voters themselves) are familiar with practices and procedures surrounding Windows. It is unfair and unacceptable to require Windows' code to be opened, period. And it's not just opened to the state; in order to satisfy your requirements, it must be open to all. And unless you think that businesses should be arbitrarily required to open their unrelated source code to the public, I'm sure you can see that's unfair.
If your reaction to this is along the lines that e-voting vendors should simply build using all-open-source solutions (e.g., Linux), they still might not be able to comply with this statute's guidelines (as has been discussed by others here - can we really catalog EVERY person who has ever worked on Linux?). Not to mention that building enterprise solutions on all open-source products isn't as easy as you seem to think it would be. Closed and/or proprietary systems have their place.
But your implied assertion that everything should be built exclusively on open-source products and OSes rests on your fallacious implication that without open-source-everything, elections could still somehow be rigged. There most certainly could be integrity checks that could reveal irregularities. In fact, what if I were to propose a manual paper hand count of ALL results in ALL elections? Would you still then crow for everything to be open source? What's your retort to that? The PURPOSE of going to e-voting is to make it easier for everyone: easier and fairer for the voter, and easier and more efficient for the municipality administering the election. There are numerous ways that the permanent paper trail could be continuously and constantly audited and compared with the results of the voting machines, and done in ways such that any "system-gaming" would be ineffective (nice try on that one, though!). Is that not good enough for you? I suppose this is asking too much from an anonymous troll, but a direct response to that would be appreciated.
Also, what about the hardware that goes into these systems? Does that also all have to be all open source, from the ground up? No proprietary chipsets or subsystems of any kind, even in a video card or touch screen control? After all, by your ridiculous arguments, those could all somehow be used to "rig" the voting process.
Unfortunately, you haven't responded to the primary point, which is that a permanent, voter-verified trackable paper trail can most certainly completely and without question be used to verify election results, on an ongoing and aggregate basis. I imagine your response won't address this, or will continue your sarcastic tone, completely dancing around the fact that I am a proponent of 100% verifiable voting and nothing less, albeit in a realistic fashion. If a person votes for candidate A, the vote should be recorded and counted as such, and printed on a piece of paper that reflects such a vote. Such paper should be collected and independently logged using the same practices and procedures that you presumably find acceptable in "paper" elections (which themselves have had electronic components for quite some time, the only difference being that the paper is there if we need it). I'm asking for no less than completely verifiable accuracy, and 100% accurate counts.
Nice sarcasm, but enterprise systems like this are in fact not as simple as you think. I wish you could see the volume of components, both hardware and software, documentation, policies, procedures, and techniques surrounding this, not to mention differences in needs, requirements, laws, and so on, from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.
Nice strawmanning, too. I didn't say that they needed "secret procedures". I also said that the vote counts should be independently manually verifiable, and should have a voter verifiable permanent paper trail. So yes, it is that simple. If a voter votes, can verify it, and the municipality/county can verify it if needed with spot-checks of totals, and complete manual hand counts if necessary, then what do people care if the code is closed? Further, as was noted by other commenters in this story who worked on the bill, they chose to not make ANY distinctions for the software that runs these systems - meaning that if they run on Windows, Windows' source code MUST be opened. Or, if it runs on a proprietary embedded OS, that vendor MUST open their code to the state.
Anyway, nice troll, considering I am completely in support of total transparency and verifiability when it comes to the actual vote totals: if the totals that are spit out of any automated system are the same as a permanent paper trail that can also be verified by the voter at vote-time, I see no problem at all. But bravo for simultaneously not understanding that, and glossing over any reference to it in my post at the same time!
What I want to know is how they are implementing this under the guise of E911. "E911" means different things with landlines than it does with, say, cell phones. So how are they meeting the threshold of "E911" service? These devices are portable; what happens if it is moved down the street? Taken on a trip? Taken to the office? What guarantees the E911 capability stays in effect? I'm not saying the VoIP companies should be able to perform miracles; in fact, I think too much was being asked of them as it was. If the E911 information is valid for the device at a particular location, how is it guaranteed to stay valid?
Um, no. That's what the various state and federal electronic voting bills have said. Moving to electronic and computerized systems has aided and streamlined countless other tasks; why should voting be different? It just has to be done properly, and I agree it hasn't been yet. Electronic voting doesn't automatically equal rigged elections.
Really? Do you speak for Diebold with more authority than its CEO, who said that he was "Committed To Helping Ohio Deliver Its Electoral Votes To The President Next Year"?
Yes. I do. As a person with a shred of common sense, which he (and you) apparently didn't have. He was speaking as a GOP campaigner and contributor who was a business owner in Ohio. I will fully and wholeheartedly agree that it was completely inappropriate for him to present such a shocking disregard for this gross appearance of impropriety.
If you take it to mean "since I run an e-voting firm, I literally mean I am going to use my company to rig elections in the United States to give elections to Republicans", then I feel very sorry for the cynicism and distrust you must live your life with. I know it's hard to live when you think everyone is out to get you.
The truth is it was an idiotic thing to say. But guess what? People have personal opinions and beliefs, and private lives. What if he was a liberal anti-war activist, and happened to be the CEO of Diebold. Rich White Men who are business owners and CEOs exist as liberals too, you know. Just because they don't state their opinions inappropriately means they don't have them? Again, I can't stress how astounded I am that because, as an Ohio business owner and Ohio GOP campaigner at an Ohio event, a statement was made that has been made thousands of times in this context, that you think that literally translates into Diebold's sole purpose being to rig elections for Republicans.
It's actually quite sad, really.
Glad to hear that. What ARE you saying?
I think I stated it pretty clear the first time: there is nothing inherently bad with e-voting. Voter verified paper trails are now, and have been for some time, possible, on all systems from all vendors. But they will COST MONEY to implement, like anything. With a voter verified permanent paper trail, open source code is NOT NECESSARY, and asking that ALL CODE from ALL VENDORS (including Windows, or other closed source embedded system manufacturers) be opened is completely unreasonable, and it's no surprise - as even many other slashdot readers comment in this very article - that they can't comply. We need reliable, verifiable voting. I don't care whether it's electronic. But ultimately, if it is verifiable by the same people who are the stewards of our elections now (i.e., county government), you should have no problem.
Unless, of course, you also think that all counties are in league to secretly hand elections to Republicans, too.
But then, you're probably one of those people who honestly believe that Bush stole the election because of rigging and dirty tricks in 2000 and 2004.
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We bitch about and make light of all the delays going digital, and then we bitch when the government propose to help disadvantaged groups to maintain access to broadcast television, for whatever it's worth.
Let's not forget:
To be sure, the transition will facilitate a lot of progress for both the tech industry and the public sector. Once TV stations switch to digital transmission, they will return to the government a big chunk of the radio spectrum they currently use to transmit their analog channels.
Some of that spectrum will go to first responders -- police, fire and public safety officials -- so they can better communicate with one another. Breakdowns in emergency communication slowed the response to the September 11 terrorist attacks and Hurricane Katrina. New spectrum should help.
The rest of the spectrum will be auctioned off to the highest bidders -- probably tech companies. The sale of this valuable, scarce real estate is expected to bring in about $10 billion, maybe more. That will help reduce the federal budget deficit.
Better yet, when the spectrum is sold off, the companies that buy it will use it to develop new technology and services. Cheap, ubiquitous wireless broadband access is one possibility. Mobile TV or music services are others.
Scheduled for 2008, the auction will be the biggest spectrum sale since a 1994-95 spectrum auction. That sale helped boost the mobile phone industry, boosting the number of cell phone subscribers in the U.S. from 24 million to 200 million. It also helped drive down the cost of wireless minutes from an average of 47 cents a minute to 9 cents a minute, according to analysis from financial services firm Stifel Nicolaus.
"With the new auction, we will finally become a broadband nation," says Blair Levin, a Washington analyst with Stifel Nicolaus. "Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft, Intel, Dell -- these companies will all benefit. The more broadband pipes you have, the more applications will come along, the more often you will upgrade your device."
Indeed, Microsoft, Intel, Dell, and Cisco all joined a Washington lobbying effort called the High Tech DTV Coalition to push for digital television. Congress has been debating the issue for a decade, ever since the 1996 telecom bill gave digital spectrum to broadcasters, with the expectation that they would eventually give their analog spectrum back.
Seems like $1.5B to smooth the transition is a good deal for all involved.
Does Apple still support this when you're not running Mac OS X?
Yes, they do. Support, though the project hasn't needed it, is one of the main reasons we got it.
With AppleCare Premium, 24x7 telephone and email support is included, as well as 24x7 4-hour on-site hardware service. Apple supports it as fibre channel storage, and they don't care what it's attached to. See also Apple's non-Mac OS X certifications for Xserve RAID. No, it doesn't include Fedora Core, but they still support the product itself.
Must be nice to have money to burn, but "gut feeling" is a very, very poor way to select hardware.
;-)
Well, we purchased 35 Xserve RAID arrays for a single installation, for a total of 200TB of storage, after real research and comparisons as opposed to a gut feeling.
The installation is described here, with pictures. It is NOT a University-wide service; this was installed for one research project. We have much more storage around campus from EMC (in our two primary datacenters), Apple, Sun, and Storagetek, among others.
It has been up and running for almost a year now, and the only problem, across all 35 Xserve RAID units running 24x7, has been one failed disk. One alternative looked at was building whitebox PCs in huge tower cases and packing them with disk. Ultimately, it was decided that a major commercial vendor, from which 24x7 support and 4-hour on-site response is available for 3 years, was a good choice. And it was much cheaper than competitive commercial solutions. And at a cost of around $1.60/GB for enterprise storage, you can't really go wrong. And for the Mac OS X-haters out there, there is no Mac OS X as part of this solution. We are using commodity 1U servers running Fedora Core. The Linux boxes see it as generic fibre channel disk, because that's all it is. The servers are monitored with Apple's excellent Java-based, platform independent RAID Admin tools, and some command-line tools we wrote ourselves.
It's proven itself to be rock-solid. And that matches with my experience with the 20 Xserve servers we have installed, starting since around mid-2002: zero hardware failures, of any kind. Franzen had a good gut feeling. And, of course, given Apple's track record with reliability and lack of need for repairs (generally number one) when compared with other vendors from organizations such as Consumer Reports, guessing that the reliability of another Apple product will be good is probably a reasonable guess.
Why is 15TB of storage news? (And they don't even the full 15TB yet!)
;-)
What about the 200TB of Xserve RAID storage for a single project at the University of Wisconsin, which has been up and running for over half a year?
And no, this isn't a project serving a whole campus or an entire university student body. This is one single research project operated by one entity. Oh well, I guess supporting the Large Hadron Collider isn't as cool as South Park.
Unfortunately, GP is neither an enterprise nor a government.
Well, he said:
I don't want a camera in my cell phone either, because I work in the defense industry and I cannot take my phone into many buildings due to security restrictions.
Sounds like government and/or enterprise to me. But that is beside the point: if you're saying that he, personally, isn't an "enterprise" or "government", that's still irrelevant, because - and I know this is hard to believe - you can still get the non-camera versions of many phones as an individual from carriers as well.
Your issue is exactly why enterprise and government wireless providers offer versions of modern phones without cameras, such as the no-camera Treo 650NC offered by Sprint.
Yes, with free speech comes a certain degree of responsibility... On the part of the AUDIENCE. Charlatans and outright liers will always exist, and would even if we didn't have a 1st amendment in the US.
That's clever, but fallacious.
With free speech comes responsibility on the part of the speaker as well.
All rights have associated responsibility - which includes things like accountability - that lies with the exerciser of the right, and it is the refusal to acknowledge this from which problems arise.
Free - as in "of consequences - to me".
No. Free of consequences from the state.
With rights come responsibilities. They are intrinsically linked and inseparable. The problems come when people believe there is, or should be, no relationship between them.
What tool did he use to trace the IP back to the delivery company?
ARIN Whois only goes as far as Bellsouth for the IP address in question (65.81.97.208), as does pretty much every utility, geographic and otherwise, that I could find in a rudimentary search.
So, what tool did he use to actually narrow it down to a specific business?
Seigenthaler, founder of the First Amendment Center, said that as a longtime advocate of free speech, he found it awkward to be tracking down someone who had exercised that right. "I still believe in free expression," he said. "What I want is accountability."
Indeed.
The problem is that many people believe that actions - including speech - shouldn't have consequences.
Thank you for your kind responses on this topic.
I will take your statements under consideration, as I always do with differing statements.
(And yes, it was a mistake of me to say *only* social security in my first response; as I said, I was writing quickly, and "Social Security" is the major feature of that budget category. I intended no deception. Further, I don't think that those budget groupings are pointless, considering they're the same simplified groupings that the Treasury uses under Republican and Democratic administrations alike to communicate spending.)
"7? Yes." should of course read "2? Yes."
First, let me say: I love your quoting style, which allows you to ignore the things you don't want to respond to. I don't do that to you.
;) On the other hand, where I mentioned what the term is generally called (progressive taxation) gets plenty of hits.
No. That doesn't change the fact that it's hubris to automatically assume that those who do are simply "ignorant".
Has it struck you that the majority of people may not be correct, whether or not they're "ignorant"? And assuming "most of the world" would prefer that China be in charge in the stead of the US, does that mean one should automatically assume "Gee, we must be doing something wrong because people wish that a brutal Communist regime were in charge of world affairs"?
That's simply because the word "bracketted" isn't used very much by itself
Yes, fine. And we already have, and still do have, progressively increasing taxation. Whether it's not as much as you'd like, well, that's apparently the point of contention.
No, you don't; I saw it the first time, and I just explained *why* they pay a higher rate, which you seem to have ignored. It's the equivalent of charging a higher sales tax rate for luxury - they're being taxed at a higher rate because they spend more on luxury spending. And if they don't spend their money on luxury - say, they give it to charity? That's what deductions are for. What about this do you have a problem with? Do you think that luxury spending shouldn't be a higher tax-rate item than necessity spending?
I don't have a problem with it at all. I'm pointing out that that's *currently the way it is*. The bottom third already pay *no tax*.
So I ask again: let's just say, for the sake of argument, that we shifted the less-than-3% of the federal tax burden that the bottom 50% of taxpayers now pay to the top 50% (interestingly, that's where it's headed anyway, as the bottom 50% has paid less of the total tax burden for the last decade).
And, for the sake of argument, let's also say we eliminate sales tax on anything that costs below, say, $10000. Then what?
The poor would *still* be poor. They *still* would be struggling. The bottom 1/3 *already pay no tax*. The bottom half, in total, pay *less than 3% of the tax burden*. And you're saying that the wealthy are *getting off easy*? Oh, man. I really don't know what to say.
In fact, they're getting off easy. They may be one percent of the population, but they have 40% of the nation's wealth. The top 5% have 60% of the wealth. I.e., even with our progressive tax structure, they still get away with not paying more for their luxury spending; the numbers argue for *sharper* brackets.
So are you arguing for increasing the overall federal tax intake as well? Because the top 50% already pay over 97% of the tax. The top 5% pay over 60%. If you're arguing that they should pay *more*, fine, but I'm just trying to understand where you're coming from. If we magically had a system where the top 5% paid 100% of the federal tax burden, would that be fair to you? What's the cutoff for when people should pay no tax, when the bottom third already pay none?
[Re: "Unsigned"] It's a common term that you've apparently never heard [cnn.com].
Hm. First of all, your link puts the term "unsign" in quotes, too.
Even better is that your link proves exactly what I just said, which is that the US "unsigned" nothing: we're still a Kyoto signatory, and it's still not ratified. I.e., no change.
No, *Bush's* position was as followed. That was not Clinton's position. That was an about-shift position. And I'll note here that you completely ignored the speeches and publications by the respective administrations on the subject of climate change.
It's seems that you'd have the level of ignorance you accuse me of on any policy speeches, as the Bush administration isn't pro-global warming. However, they correctly believe that global warming isn't due exclusively and only t
So let's clear this up, for the record. Do YOU think the world would be better off if the Chinese government were in charge of world affairs?
An arbitrary time point just to demonstrate the degree of change. The most extreme example's required time period depends on the specific issue - for example, top tax brackets would be compared to the period from World War II to the late 1960s, when they were almost 90% (they fell to under 30% by the end of Reagan's term, rose somewhat under clinton, then fell back down under Bush).
Do you not know what bracketted taxation is? Then what are you doing in this debate? Lets back up to income taxes 101.
No, I know what tax brackets are, thanks, (though you appear to be the only person to refer to it as "bracketted taxation"). And by "I don't know what you're getting at, here," I thought I made myself clear with the link I posted, which I guess I'll have to post again. As I said, the difference is even more dramatic now. Over a full third of taxpayers in this country pay no taxes at all. The top 1% of taxpayers - and these aren't all or even mostly people who are fabulously wealthy; these include people who make just over $250,000/year in household income - as of 2004, pay over 40% of the tax. The top 5% now pay over 60% of the tax. The entire bottom 50% now pay less than 3% of the tax burden, and most of them are at the upper part of the 50%. The bottom 35% pay nothing.
So, I ask you: how is this not fair? Or should the entire tax burden be paid by the top, say, 5%? The poor - the bottom, say, 20%, will still be poor and struggling. Since, as you say, the more fortunate have more than enough money, perhaps we could take some of theirs, and simply give it to the poor?
If you're going to respond to this, please do so directly, as I did.
Clinton: Signed the Kyoto protocol; spoke regularly about the need to stop global warming
Bush: Unsigned the Kyoto protocol. First denied any global warming, then admitted it but downplayed human effect on it.
Summary: Complete Opposites.
"Unsigned." That's rich. Bush didn't "unsign" anything. Clinton signed the Kyoto protocol, which does nothing until it's submitted for ratification. We are still a signatory of the protocol (which means we support the basic tenets of it in principle), and it has still not been submitted for ratification. Literally no change from Clinton. Our position can be summed up as follows:
This is a challenge that requires a 100 percent effort; ours, and the rest of the world's. The world's second-largest emitter of greenhouse gases is China. Yet, China was entirely exempted from the requirements of the Kyoto Protocol. India and Germany are among the top emitters. Yet, India was also exempt from Kyoto. . . . America's unwillingness to embrace a flawed treaty should not be read by our friends and allies as any abdication of responsibility. To the contrary, my administration is committed to a leadership role on the issue of climate change. . . . . Our approach must be consistent with the long-term goal of stabilizing greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere. (Ref)
In other words, it's unfair if other nations - like, oh, the second largest consumer of petroleum products and the second largest emitter of greenhouse gases, and the one who is angling to become the world's next superpower and will essentially be in direct comp
The majority of the world disagrees with you on this. Heck, the majority of the world, according to polls, would rather have *China* of all countries dominating world affairs than America - that's how sick of our international policy they are. Agree or disagree with their stance, this is what the world views. They do *not* see the US as a "positive influence" as a whole.
Yes. And this is reflects an "anyone but the US" mentality. Similar to the "anyone but Bush" mentality in the last US election. And wishing that *China* were in charge, as it were, of world affairs isn't reflective of anything but the wholesale ignorance of the person or entity that wishes it.
Name an political issue - odds are, the US stance has changed. Bracketted taxation policy? Changed. Global warming stance? Changed. Containment vs. invasion? Partially changed (sorry people, Clinton was no angel there! Just not as wide-scale). Abortion? Changed. Gay rights? Changed. Social services? Changed. Military funding? Changed. Nuclear weapons development? Changed. Need I keep on going? American policy, domestic and foreign, has radically shifted in the past decade.
Decade? Well, I don't know who would have been responsible for it then, unless you're one of those people who think the Democrats and Republicans are just as bad as each other (and that's fine if you are; just making a statement).
And you and I have an extremely different view of what "radically shifted" means. The shifts in the last "decade", or any recent timeframe, whatever you believe them to be, are no different than any shifts that have occurred over the lifetime of the country. I realize you *think* they're far more drastic (at the hands of religious fundamentalists and conservatives, no doubt, since we've never had those in this country before!), but they're not. And any individual, specific, marked policy changes have a hell of a lot more context than you're giving them here.
Bracketted taxation? I'm not sure exactly what you're getting at here, but this could serve as a reminder. The difference is even more dramatic today.
Global warming? How has the global warming stance "changed"? Are we now for it? And before you say "well, they're certainly not against it", I'd remind you that smacks of the same ignorance some would paint a "you're either with us or against us" statement. The stance on global warming is simple and straightforward: we will not sacrifice beyond a certain threshold of negative economic impact as long as other nations, like the ever-popular China, are exempted from large portions of international guidelines.
Abortion? Just because a jurist believes that abortion isn't strictly and explicitly guaranteed in the Constitution (and I personally have no earthly idea how it could be) doesn't automatically make abortion "illegal". Roe v Wade is such a charged topic, but it is Constitutionally shaky, and has been ever since it was ruled. It was a horrid bastardization of the Court's role, taking the easy way out on a question that doesn't have easy answers. While I am not anti-abortion, I don't call myself "pro-choice". Because no matter how much someone would claim it, it's not only and exclusively about the "rights" of the woman.
Gay rights? How have they changed? Do gays have less rights because some ridiculous local and state legislatures pass resolutions defining marriage as exactly what it is, namely, the union of a man and a woman? How have any rights been rolled back? From a strictly legal perspective, gays have the same "rights" as any person: they can marry a person of the opposite sex. But the problem is that the state never should have been involved in "marriage" in the first place, between any two persons. Legal union? Yes. Civil union? Sure. Whatever they want to call it. And no, the gay marriage issue is nothing like the interracial marriage issue. Interracial marriage was a civil rights issue. Gay marriage is attempting t
While it's pointless to argue the degrees of separation between one US military action in particular, and one individual person's right to say something, you're missing the point.
Not only that, but you're missing one huge point here: slashdot is an *American site*.
Think slashdot would survive as-is in, say, China, or Iran, or countless other nations, including many in the mideast?
Didn't think so.
The point is that whether you personally agree or not with the current US administration's strategy in Iraq, the US and its might is generally aimed at preserving the rights we hold dear. And along with that is the lifestyle that contributes to the power the United States has; power which is needed to protect our national status, or interests, our allies, and economy, and, ultimately, our rights.
This isn't to say that every action is "right" by everyone's opinion and standards, and this isn't to say that you personally have to agree with it. This also isn't to say that people acting in the name of the United States haven't done terrible things. But if you believe the United States doesn't work, *overall*, as a force for good in this world, then we see two very different pictures. And yes, I'm aware of just about every single anecdote about some US evil you could trot out here to "prove" me wrong. Trust me. But that's what's called "not seeing the forest for the trees". If you want to cherry pick things the US has done wrong and ignore any positive influence, by all means, be my guest. That, too, is your protected right.
People can sit there and talk about how the US is going down some totalitarian path or about how Bush is the biggest danger the world has ever faced and a bunch of other Orwellian-style hyperbole, but the fact is, it's not true. And the "path" people think the US is going down isn't actually indicative of any real substantive change: it's more indicative of the fact that we have a free flow of information that can keep us awash in every single thing the US does the globe over instantly. Nothing has changed, but our access to the information.
Of course, some people will ALWAYS be anti-US, anti-military, anti-authority, anti-police, anti-capitalism, anti-corporate, anti-Christian, and anti-everything else, and the beauty is that they can do that in the US without fear of retribution[1].
[1] Converting to radical Islam, changing your name, traveling to Afghanistan to train alongside the Taliban and Wahabbists in terrorist training camps, maintaining direct ties with known terrorists and terror funding groups, and then planning and openly declaring intentions to detonate a radiological dirty bomb in downtown Chicago does not constitute "dissent".
...with an unprotected connection? Who cares?
1. Put your computer behind literally any personal firewall/router (Linksys, DLink, etc.) that can be had - wireless and wired or both - for under $50.
2. If you have Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2), just make sure the firewall for your network connection is still enabled; it is by default on SP2, and Security Center will warn you if it isn't. Unless you explicitly disabled it, it will still be enabled.
If you don't yet have Service Pack 2, simply enable the Windows firewall (Internet Connection Firewall) for any network interface(s) you have. This can be done on the Advanced tab of each connection's Properties.
3. There is no step 3.
There's nothing you have to do other than ensure you have a software firewall enabled, and optionally have your machine behind a nice little personal firewall/router. Then it doesn't matter how long it's been or what exploits are out there[1].
That's it. Even the built-in Windows software firewall on a machine with no patches or service packs installed will protect a Windows XP system. Seem simple? It is. One wonders why it took Microsoft *so long* to make it the default.
[1] Sure, there may be exploits that affect browsers or other aspects of the system that could be exploited by *visiting malicious sites*, but the machine, just sitting there, won't be vulnerable. If all you're going to do is immediately update everything anyway, you have nothing to worry about.
I'm talking about the video iPod. Everything Creative copied has nothing specific to do with a hierarchical menu system, and if you don't see the Zen Vision:M as a complete and total ripoff of the current iPod (which was what I was referring to; it's official name is just "iPod", not "iPod video", so I said "iPod"). Now, if you say that all of those things are just natural features for a portable media player, then I'd say so are hierarchical menus. If anyone is ripping someone off here and trying to capitalize on someone else's success, I'm sorry to say that it's Creative, not Apple.
2. ???
3. Profit!
...where "???" in this context is apparently "file a patent on hierarchical menus (!!!), almost literally identical in every way to the menu system iPod has used for several years prior". (And, if Creative's patent covers iPod's interface elements, then why were they also not denied their patent because of a preexisting Microsoft patent, as Apple was?)
Seriously, look at this thing:
Zen Vision:M demo
Click "Be entertained". and mouse over some of the items in the room. EVERY feature, except the FM tuner, is ripped off directly from iPod, and even looks almost identical to iPod. Every bit of the interface has iPod written all over it. Menu names, screen layout, and so on.
Product page
Specifications
(Not to mention that the Zen weighs 20% more: 5.8 vs 4.8 oz)
But what's missing?
Elegant integration with software (mostly iTunes, but also things like iPhoto, iMovie, and so on).
That, and about 92% market share.
The domains in question are pretty clearly designed to spam Google by leveraging the enormous PageRank that Slashdot has.
Well, it's working. A search for George Harrison on Google yields his george-harrison.info site in the first page of search results.
I thank you for the direct answer.
I think we're after the same thing, here: and indeed, I would call for the system you describe. That is, one in which electronic systems merely take the same role as the writing utensil a voter may have used on previous paper ballots. The electronic systems are only there to, ostensibly, reduce confusion and increase uniformity and to assist in streamlining the process; but an independent and permanently auditable mechanism that counts the physical tokens (receipts) that contain the votes in a human-readable manner would still be in place. I understand that a system such as that is currently NOT in place.
Again, thank you for your honest response.
Bravo, bravo.
Note that I am arguing for 100% verification and reliability; nothing less. Nice of you to paint me as arguing for something else.
Further, it's quite arrogant of you, presumably as an open source advocate, to assume that all tasks can always be reliably run on open source systems. Open source is not the end-all be-all. I am by no means a Windows defender. In fact, I personally think Windows is a horrible choice for a wide variety of tasks, for an equally wide variety of reasons.
But the fact of the matter is that many devices, systems, and specialty software, as well as those charged to support and work with it at levels from programming to implementation to end-user ("end-user" here being voting officials deploying it in counties, not the voters themselves) are familiar with practices and procedures surrounding Windows. It is unfair and unacceptable to require Windows' code to be opened, period. And it's not just opened to the state; in order to satisfy your requirements, it must be open to all. And unless you think that businesses should be arbitrarily required to open their unrelated source code to the public, I'm sure you can see that's unfair.
If your reaction to this is along the lines that e-voting vendors should simply build using all-open-source solutions (e.g., Linux), they still might not be able to comply with this statute's guidelines (as has been discussed by others here - can we really catalog EVERY person who has ever worked on Linux?). Not to mention that building enterprise solutions on all open-source products isn't as easy as you seem to think it would be. Closed and/or proprietary systems have their place.
But your implied assertion that everything should be built exclusively on open-source products and OSes rests on your fallacious implication that without open-source-everything, elections could still somehow be rigged. There most certainly could be integrity checks that could reveal irregularities. In fact, what if I were to propose a manual paper hand count of ALL results in ALL elections? Would you still then crow for everything to be open source? What's your retort to that? The PURPOSE of going to e-voting is to make it easier for everyone: easier and fairer for the voter, and easier and more efficient for the municipality administering the election. There are numerous ways that the permanent paper trail could be continuously and constantly audited and compared with the results of the voting machines, and done in ways such that any "system-gaming" would be ineffective (nice try on that one, though!). Is that not good enough for you? I suppose this is asking too much from an anonymous troll, but a direct response to that would be appreciated.
Also, what about the hardware that goes into these systems? Does that also all have to be all open source, from the ground up? No proprietary chipsets or subsystems of any kind, even in a video card or touch screen control? After all, by your ridiculous arguments, those could all somehow be used to "rig" the voting process.
Unfortunately, you haven't responded to the primary point, which is that a permanent, voter-verified trackable paper trail can most certainly completely and without question be used to verify election results, on an ongoing and aggregate basis. I imagine your response won't address this, or will continue your sarcastic tone, completely dancing around the fact that I am a proponent of 100% verifiable voting and nothing less, albeit in a realistic fashion. If a person votes for candidate A, the vote should be recorded and counted as such, and printed on a piece of paper that reflects such a vote. Such paper should be collected and independently logged using the same practices and procedures that you presumably find acceptable in "paper" elections (which themselves have had electronic components for quite some time, the only difference being that the paper is there if we need it). I'm asking for no less than completely verifiable accuracy, and 100% accurate counts.
Nice sarcasm, but enterprise systems like this are in fact not as simple as you think. I wish you could see the volume of components, both hardware and software, documentation, policies, procedures, and techniques surrounding this, not to mention differences in needs, requirements, laws, and so on, from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.
Nice strawmanning, too. I didn't say that they needed "secret procedures". I also said that the vote counts should be independently manually verifiable, and should have a voter verifiable permanent paper trail. So yes, it is that simple. If a voter votes, can verify it, and the municipality/county can verify it if needed with spot-checks of totals, and complete manual hand counts if necessary, then what do people care if the code is closed? Further, as was noted by other commenters in this story who worked on the bill, they chose to not make ANY distinctions for the software that runs these systems - meaning that if they run on Windows, Windows' source code MUST be opened. Or, if it runs on a proprietary embedded OS, that vendor MUST open their code to the state.
Anyway, nice troll, considering I am completely in support of total transparency and verifiability when it comes to the actual vote totals: if the totals that are spit out of any automated system are the same as a permanent paper trail that can also be verified by the voter at vote-time, I see no problem at all. But bravo for simultaneously not understanding that, and glossing over any reference to it in my post at the same time!
What I want to know is how they are implementing this under the guise of E911. "E911" means different things with landlines than it does with, say, cell phones. So how are they meeting the threshold of "E911" service? These devices are portable; what happens if it is moved down the street? Taken on a trip? Taken to the office? What guarantees the E911 capability stays in effect? I'm not saying the VoIP companies should be able to perform miracles; in fact, I think too much was being asked of them as it was. If the E911 information is valid for the device at a particular location, how is it guaranteed to stay valid?
Way to fall for Diebold's press releases.
Um, no. That's what the various state and federal electronic voting bills have said. Moving to electronic and computerized systems has aided and streamlined countless other tasks; why should voting be different? It just has to be done properly, and I agree it hasn't been yet. Electronic voting doesn't automatically equal rigged elections.
Really? Do you speak for Diebold with more authority than its CEO, who said that he was "Committed To Helping Ohio Deliver Its Electoral Votes To The President Next Year"?
Yes. I do. As a person with a shred of common sense, which he (and you) apparently didn't have. He was speaking as a GOP campaigner and contributor who was a business owner in Ohio. I will fully and wholeheartedly agree that it was completely inappropriate for him to present such a shocking disregard for this gross appearance of impropriety.
If you take it to mean "since I run an e-voting firm, I literally mean I am going to use my company to rig elections in the United States to give elections to Republicans", then I feel very sorry for the cynicism and distrust you must live your life with. I know it's hard to live when you think everyone is out to get you.
The truth is it was an idiotic thing to say. But guess what? People have personal opinions and beliefs, and private lives. What if he was a liberal anti-war activist, and happened to be the CEO of Diebold. Rich White Men who are business owners and CEOs exist as liberals too, you know. Just because they don't state their opinions inappropriately means they don't have them? Again, I can't stress how astounded I am that because, as an Ohio business owner and Ohio GOP campaigner at an Ohio event, a statement was made that has been made thousands of times in this context, that you think that literally translates into Diebold's sole purpose being to rig elections for Republicans.
It's actually quite sad, really.
Glad to hear that. What ARE you saying?
I think I stated it pretty clear the first time: there is nothing inherently bad with e-voting. Voter verified paper trails are now, and have been for some time, possible, on all systems from all vendors. But they will COST MONEY to implement, like anything. With a voter verified permanent paper trail, open source code is NOT NECESSARY, and asking that ALL CODE from ALL VENDORS (including Windows, or other closed source embedded system manufacturers) be opened is completely unreasonable, and it's no surprise - as even many other slashdot readers comment in this very article - that they can't comply. We need reliable, verifiable voting. I don't care whether it's electronic. But ultimately, if it is verifiable by the same people who are the stewards of our elections now (i.e., county government), you should have no problem.
Unless, of course, you also think that all counties are in league to secretly hand elections to Republicans, too.
But then, you're probably one of those people who honestly believe that Bush stole the election because of rigging and dirty tricks in 2000 and 2004.
And I didn't even vote for Bush.