And what about when the return address does exist, but is someone completly unconnected with the spammer? Now the person being joe-jobbed will get not only a big pile of bounces for the spammed addresses that don't exist, but a big pile of challenges.
How often do blind people send email to people who are not expecting email from them?
Probably just as often as anyone else. And if you only accept email from people who you're expecting to get email from, you don't need a challenge/response system, as you can just whitelist everyone who you're expecting email from.
I have seen a challenge/response system that defeated the OCR problem. It's in an online game, Planetarion, that had a problem with cheats using programs to manage their accounts while they were away and to run large numbers of accounts (both against the game's rules.) To log in, you first have to give your username and password, and then answer a question that's in an image. The questions are always obvious to a human, but a computer would need to be able to understand English before it could answer them. Since they implemented the login question, the bots have (as far as I know) disapeared.
What ths State Dept. report says is
"Some US law-enforcement officers have expressed concern that Canadian privacy laws, as well as funding levels for law enforcement, inhibit a fuller and more timely exchange of information and response to requests for assistance. Also, Canadian laws and regulations intended to protect Canadian citizens and landed immigrants from Government intrusion sometimes limit the depth of investigations." (http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/pgtrpt/2002/html/19 987.htm)
Sounds to me like they're complaining that Canada cares too much about privacy and preventing Government intrusion, and I would consider that to be caring about liberty.
At the energy density involved for lasers to be an effective weapon then it is vaguely possible that the photon 'bolt' would have enough mass to locally curve space time, and hence affect the observed speed of propagation. Maybe.
Or maybe not. You're forgetting your Special Relativity. The speed of light is constant for all observers.
It's not as if the average person has a chance to examine the current voting machines today. Many places use machines whose actual workings are a mystery to them. I don't see why a more technologically advanced solution should make them worry more.
Why is there a need for any voting machine? Why not mark the ballot papers by hand with a pen? (It works here in the UK) Why replace one solution that most people don't understand with another one they don't understand when there's one available that anyone can understand?
The first and last of your points apply to any The first and last of your criticisms apply to any system that uses paper ballots, and as some of the entries on this list show, electronic voting isn't immune to "lost" or lost votes, or to incorrect couting.
As for people marking more than one candidate, well, anyone who's too dumb to understand "mark one candidate's name only" (or similar instructions) is pretty much beyond helping.
Why do you need a machine at all? What's wrong with using a pen to put a mark next to the name of the candidate you're voting for? No more problems with hanging/swining/pregnant/... chads, and just as verifiable (although satirists might not like it...)
The problem with electronic voting is just as much about transparency and accountability as whether it is more susceptable to fraud than a dead-tree vote. With a paper vote, the system is intrincially very simple - the voter marks a ballot paper according to who they're voting for. The ballot papers can be counted by hand, and anyone who wants to can observe the counting. With an electronic voting system, how can I check how it's working? Even if the source code is open for all to see, how do I know that the published source is what's actually being used? And how can someone who doesn't understand computer programming check that the system is correct. Any voting system is vulnerable to fraud of some sort, but, imho, a system which anyone can understand is better than one which only a privilaged minority (geeks) can.
It's priced at £1000 (plus tax) - that's something like $1500, I think
The £1000 price includes vat (sales tax) which is £851 ex vat. But although the exchange rate says that £1000 is US$1570 (according to xe.com,) typically something sold for £1000 will be sold in the US for about $1000 (or slightly more.) Basically, an example of Rip-Off Britain.
Think of it in terms of the logic, not in terms of how the actual code would run. If f1 halts, then f1 runs for ever, otherwise (i.e. f1 doesn't halt, i.e. runs for ever) f1 halts. Does f1 halt or not? It's rather like asking if "this statement is a lie" is true or not?
No, a bug in IIS is a bug in IIS, not a bug in Windows. The fact that IIS only runs on Windows is utterly irrelevant. If it were a Windows bug, it would affect Windows system, but a bug in IIS will only affect systems running IIS.
For me, it ends at the edge of my isp, where everything else goes on to alter.net, and from my university the connection is dead beyond janet in London.
Quick!
Call Bush to tell him that Venus has oil. That should get more funding for space exploration:-)
Unless he's heard of "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus," in which case he'll probably start a war against women^W^W^W^W^W take action to liberate the women of Venus from an evil opressive dictator...
Well, the judgement says that "unsolicited fax advertising... burdens the computer networks of those recipients who route incoming faxes into their electronic mail systems" as part of accepting that junk faxes do cause a cost to the recipent, so it seems to me that it could apply to (email) spam just as easily.
I think the two posts above mine show that the BBC is fairly impartial, given that it's being accused of bias in both directions (pro- and atni-war) at once.
Remeber, being impartial isn't about being liked, chances are anyone truely impartial will not be liked by either side.
Slashdot Mirror
I saw the little icon appear at the bottom on the Mozilla window that lets me know that a pop-up has been blocked.
And what about when the return address does exist, but is someone completly unconnected with the spammer? Now the person being joe-jobbed will get not only a big pile of bounces for the spammed addresses that don't exist, but a big pile of challenges.
How often do blind people send email to people who are not expecting email from them?
Probably just as often as anyone else. And if you only accept email from people who you're expecting to get email from, you don't need a challenge/response system, as you can just whitelist everyone who you're expecting email from.
I have seen a challenge/response system that defeated the OCR problem. It's in an online game, Planetarion, that had a problem with cheats using programs to manage their accounts while they were away and to run large numbers of accounts (both against the game's rules.) To log in, you first have to give your username and password, and then answer a question that's in an image. The questions are always obvious to a human, but a computer would need to be able to understand English before it could answer them. Since they implemented the login question, the bots have (as far as I know) disapeared.
What ths State Dept. report says is9 987.htm)
"Some US law-enforcement officers have expressed concern that Canadian privacy laws, as well as funding levels for law enforcement, inhibit a fuller and more timely exchange of information and response to requests for assistance. Also, Canadian laws and regulations intended to protect Canadian citizens and landed immigrants from Government intrusion sometimes limit the depth of investigations." (http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/pgtrpt/2002/html/1
Sounds to me like they're complaining that Canada cares too much about privacy and preventing Government intrusion, and I would consider that to be caring about liberty.
They do mention it. At the top, where it says "By Kevin Poulsen, SecurityFocus", and at the bottom with "© [SecurityFocus logo]" as a link to www.securityfocus.com. Clearly you did read it, so how did you manage to miss that?
At the energy density involved for lasers to be an effective weapon then it is vaguely possible that the photon 'bolt' would have enough mass to locally curve space time, and hence affect the observed speed of propagation. Maybe.
Or maybe not. You're forgetting your Special Relativity. The speed of light is constant for all observers.
It's not as if the average person has a chance to examine the current voting machines today. Many places use machines whose actual workings are a mystery to them. I don't see why a more technologically advanced solution should make them worry more.
Why is there a need for any voting machine? Why not mark the ballot papers by hand with a pen? (It works here in the UK) Why replace one solution that most people don't understand with another one they don't understand when there's one available that anyone can understand?
The first and last of your points apply to any The first and last of your criticisms apply to any system that uses paper ballots, and as some of the entries on this list show, electronic voting isn't immune to "lost" or lost votes, or to incorrect couting.
As for people marking more than one candidate, well, anyone who's too dumb to understand "mark one candidate's name only" (or similar instructions) is pretty much beyond helping.
Why do you need a machine at all?
What's wrong with using a pen to put a mark next to the name of the candidate you're voting for? No more problems with hanging/swining/pregnant/... chads, and just as verifiable (although satirists might not like it...)
The problem with electronic voting is just as much about transparency and accountability as whether it is more susceptable to fraud than a dead-tree vote.
With a paper vote, the system is intrincially very simple - the voter marks a ballot paper according to who they're voting for. The ballot papers can be counted by hand, and anyone who wants to can observe the counting.
With an electronic voting system, how can I check how it's working? Even if the source code is open for all to see, how do I know that the published source is what's actually being used? And how can someone who doesn't understand computer programming check that the system is correct.
Any voting system is vulnerable to fraud of some sort, but, imho, a system which anyone can understand is better than one which only a privilaged minority (geeks) can.
It's priced at £1000 (plus tax) - that's something like $1500, I think
The £1000 price includes vat (sales tax) which is £851 ex vat. But although the exchange rate says that £1000 is US$1570 (according to xe.com,) typically something sold for £1000 will be sold in the US for about $1000 (or slightly more.) Basically, an example of Rip-Off Britain.
Think of it in terms of the logic, not in terms of how the actual code would run. If f1 halts, then f1 runs for ever, otherwise (i.e. f1 doesn't halt, i.e. runs for ever) f1 halts. Does f1 halt or not?
It's rather like asking if "this statement is a lie" is true or not?
And what happens when you get stuck in traffic on your way home and get back half an hour later than usual? You got telepahtic cron?
Except that we always know something about it's velocity, because that must be less than c.
Who left the door to the old people's home unlocked? Come on kids, you'd better help me round them all up and get them back to the home.
I imagine it's "is the file person X is sending me the file they claim it is?" style trust.
No, a bug in IIS is a bug in IIS, not a bug in Windows. The fact that IIS only runs on Windows is utterly irrelevant. If it were a Windows bug, it would affect Windows system, but a bug in IIS will only affect systems running IIS.
For me, it ends at the edge of my isp, where everything else goes on to alter.net, and from my university the connection is dead beyond janet in London.
Doesn't that mean, ummm, ya know, slightly metalic?
Quick! :-)
Call Bush to tell him that Venus has oil. That should get more funding for space exploration
Unless he's heard of "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus," in which case he'll probably start a war against women^W^W^W^W^W take action to liberate the women of Venus from an evil opressive dictator...
Well, the judgement says that "unsolicited fax advertising ... burdens the computer networks of those recipients who route incoming faxes into their electronic mail systems" as part of accepting that junk faxes do cause a cost to the recipent, so it seems to me that it could apply to (email) spam just as easily.
There's a fifth type of post as well, the meta-posts, discussing what types of post there are.
I think the two posts above mine show that the BBC is fairly impartial, given that it's being accused of bias in both directions (pro- and atni-war) at once.
Remeber, being impartial isn't about being liked, chances are anyone truely impartial will not be liked by either side.
Welsh : we could then speak to our alien overlords in their own language
;-)
No, not Welsh, there simply isn't anough phlegm to go around