I deal with cleanups every day. I understand that in many cases it's the user who allowed the malware in, but any conclusion which points at the user as a resolution to the problem is missing the point. It's been over 16 years since the Endless September, and we're in no better shape trying to educate people. Any security solution which requires the user to become educated is doomed. The problem may be the user in the strictest sense, but the solution has to be taken out of their hands to work in a widespread fashion. Prevention and eradication has to include the concept that most users will never become educated enough to prevent these issues.
P.S. To the hand-written paper-ballot (Australian ballot) wing nuts out there: your proposed solution is completely unworkable because it fails to account for reality.
Well, you didn't explain what you meant by that, but ftr, that's what Canada uses and it seems to work for them.
My model for smart voting is Canada. The Canadians are watching our election problems and laughing their butts off. They think we are crazy, and they are right.
Forget touch screens and electronic voting. In Canadian Federal elections, two barely-paid representatives of each party, known as "scrutineers," are present all day at the voting place. If there are more political parties, there are more scrutineers. To vote, you write an "X" with a pencil in a one centimeter circle beside the candidate's name, fold the ballot up and stuff it into a box. Later, the scrutineers AND ANY VOTER WHO WANTS TO WATCH all sit at a table for about half an hour and count every ballot, keeping a tally for each candidate. If the counts agree at the end of the process, the results are phoned-in and everyone goes home. If they don't, you do it again. Fairness is achieved by balanced self-interest, not by technology. The population of Canada is about the same as California, so the elections are of comparable scale. In the last Canadian Federal election the entire vote was counted in four hours. Why does it take us 30 days or more?
The 2002-2003 budget for Elections Canada is just over $57 million U.S. dollars, or $1.81 per Canadian citizen. It is extremely hard to get an equivalent per-citizen figure for U.S. elections, but trust me, it is a LOT higher. This week, San Francisco held a runoff mayoral election that cost $2.5 million, or $3.27 per citizen of the city. And this was for just one election, not a whole year of them.
We are spending $3.9 billion or $10 per citizen for new voting machines. Canada just prints ballots.
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I deal with cleanups every day. I understand that in many cases it's the user who allowed the malware in, but any conclusion which points at the user as a resolution to the problem is missing the point. It's been over 16 years since the Endless September, and we're in no better shape trying to educate people. Any security solution which requires the user to become educated is doomed. The problem may be the user in the strictest sense, but the solution has to be taken out of their hands to work in a widespread fashion. Prevention and eradication has to include the concept that most users will never become educated enough to prevent these issues.
If you're an Obama supporter, here's a group that is trying to pressure him to stand on principle: http://my.barackobama.com/page/group/SenatorObama-PleaseVoteAgainstFISA No matter whom you support, contact Obama's campaign, Senate office and other Senators: http://get-fisa-right.wetpaint.com/page/What+else+you+can+do
P.S. To the hand-written paper-ballot (Australian ballot) wing nuts out there: your proposed solution is completely unworkable because it fails to account for reality.
Well, you didn't explain what you meant by that, but ftr, that's what Canada uses and it seems to work for them.
http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2003/pulpit_20031211_000795.html
My model for smart voting is Canada. The Canadians are watching our election problems and laughing their butts off. They think we are crazy, and they are right.
Forget touch screens and electronic voting. In Canadian Federal elections, two barely-paid representatives of each party, known as "scrutineers," are present all day at the voting place. If there are more political parties, there are more scrutineers. To vote, you write an "X" with a pencil in a one centimeter circle beside the candidate's name, fold the ballot up and stuff it into a box. Later, the scrutineers AND ANY VOTER WHO WANTS TO WATCH all sit at a table for about half an hour and count every ballot, keeping a tally for each candidate. If the counts agree at the end of the process, the results are phoned-in and everyone goes home. If they don't, you do it again. Fairness is achieved by balanced self-interest, not by technology. The population of Canada is about the same as California, so the elections are of comparable scale. In the last Canadian Federal election the entire vote was counted in four hours. Why does it take us 30 days or more?
The 2002-2003 budget for Elections Canada is just over $57 million U.S. dollars, or $1.81 per Canadian citizen. It is extremely hard to get an equivalent per-citizen figure for U.S. elections, but trust me, it is a LOT higher. This week, San Francisco held a runoff mayoral election that cost $2.5 million, or $3.27 per citizen of the city. And this was for just one election, not a whole year of them.
We are spending $3.9 billion or $10 per citizen for new voting machines. Canada just prints ballots.