This weekend, I voted in an election in the place where I live in Australia. I used one of their electronic voting things. Note that voting is compulsory here.
I walked in, they use a computer to work out that I had not gone to another area where I could vote. They then gave me a card with a barcode on it, which is randomly picked up from a pile. It is not associated with my name in any way. The only association was "yes, this person has elected for electronic voting", but no barcode info was recorded.
I then go to the system, swipe the barcode. The barcode thing had an approximately 70 character string underneath it. I think it was a hash or something to verify that a) the barcode related to the electorate that the voting booth was related too and b) that it was issued from this site. Each barcode had a different identifier.
I then vote for the candidates as I wish. The system would not allow you to make an invalid vote (we use a preferential system here; needed to vote in order of preference of at least 7 candidates, 35 on the ballot paper in total). I did this, and hit the button to let me review it.
The system then displays the preference information you've put in. You have to swipe your barcode again to verify that it is the correct one. If it would not swipe, or you needed help, you could hide the vote on the screen and get an election official to help.
Once the barcode is swiped, my vote was stored in the system. I then had to place the barcode into the ballot box that paper voters would place their completed ballots in. My vote would not have been counted from the system if my barcode had not been present.
Would I prefer an open system? Yes, most definitely, and I have written my comments to those running the election. I would have preferred it to print out a completed ballot paper I could check and lodge that.
I think it covers most of the fraud. Is the number of barcodes equal to the number of voters? If not, then fraud has been commited by someone trying to stuff the ballot box. My name is not in any way associated with my vote, but it is counted if the barcode is placed into the ballot box. The barcode also could not be used at different voting booths, even in the same electorate (at least that is my understanding).
So, for me, I think the issue of nontraceability and fraud prevention is somewhat solved by this system. Fraud could still occur in how the system records the vote, but at least you are given ample opportunity to see if your candidates have been correctly preferenced. Also, if it fucks up and you aren't happy with it, at any time you can say "no, clear my vote", your barcode is torn up, and you can do it by paper. I think that should always be an option.
A couple of years ago, a laptop (among other items) was stolen from my car. Didn't have any password protection on my user account (nothing good on there) and I had my MSN and ICQ accounts set to autosignin.
About a week after it was stolen, I came home from University to find that my desktop computer had been signed out of MSN cause someone else had signed in. Turns out someone with my laptop was coming on as me and being annoying to some of my friends.
Got a webserver set up that I had access to the logs from, and put on a certain page that no-one else knew about. One of my friends dropped it into the conversation, and bam, laptop user clicks on it.
I made a couple of sworn statements to the police and took a long time convincing them that I had something useful. Took about 10 weeks for them to act on the information, and unfortunately I was away from home when they did. They traced the IP back to an account registered to some bloke a couple of hours away, and they had him under some suspicion of receiving stolen goods but never caught him with any. So, the police raided and got my laptop (and others) back. They also found a considerable qauntity of drugs, which I guess helps seal a conviction for something.
The person was aout the 4th or 5th person to handle my laptop within the week, and I believe the police have never nailed the people who originally stole it (over 2 years ago).
The person actually on MSN that we used to take the bait was this guy's 13 year old nephew. When I got the laptop back it still had all my files on it (although the used a black marker to try to fill in some engraving I had under the battery with my details) and they'd also set up their own user account. This kid had his MSN signin info, all his emails, yada yada yada. Never signed into MSN as him or looked at his stuff, I shoulda. Just reformatted it and started again - never know what shit they had on there.
So, yes, it can be done. But it takes A LOT of work to convince some low-level police grunt that an eye-pea address has some credibility (I was helped cause I had set my browser to return a really random useragent string, so we pretty much knew it was my laptop).
Better than PC Phone Home - automatic MSN signin. No shit. I had my laptop stolen from my car about 10 weeks ago, and the person who ended up with it decided to log in as me (automatically logged in as me, since, fuck, if they have the laptop, they can crack my password anyway, and I had nothing of grave importance) onto MSN. Bad idea. I got signed out, went "hrrrm, who has my laptop". Unfortunately, the latest MSN sends files thru a hotmail server, so initiating a file transfer then netstat -an doesn't give you an IP address. However, getting the individual to access a website set up specifically for them, logging their IP address worked. It was a bit of a pain to get the police to believe me, but in the end they did, and raided a house....... and recovered my laptop (along with other laptops, other stolen goods and also 150 marijuana plants).
Worked a treat, even if they managed to b0rk my WinXP install and delete some of my Uni work (which I've managed to recover).
... the people who are actually stressed or whatever about making the claim itself?
I know lie detectors are supposed to be calibrated, but they aren't fool-proof and to hang decisions like this on them is just foolhardy.
Last time I had to make an insurance claim, it was against someone who thru their own negligent driving resulted in me having a serious enough motorbike accident to fuck my ankle, my bike & nearly write off their new, expensive enough, car. And I wasn't going fast, and did what I could to avoid it.
It was stressful enough having to deal with the claims people etc, tryin gto pick at everything anyway, so how is this going to help?
Now, I wonder if I can make use of the warranty on the original drive.........
In other news: how long before he's swapping logic boards on the webserver?
The problem is that you need to actually provide something that's worth looking at for the price.
I read my newspapers and shit online now, cause I don't want to pay AU$1 per day for a paper. I'd be interested in buying online newspapers etc and payng a lower fee every day, and one that represents the value that I am getting out of it. Just think about it - sure, you gotta have reporters and stuff. But all the stuff is typed into a computer, so it doesn't particularly cost much more to produce than it costs for the paper bit, and I ain't getting $1 worth of paper with it.
iTunes has shown that at least apple people are prepared to pay for songs online, as long as they reflect their true value.
Could it work for other things? Sure. Seems to work for some of the more major porn sites - some people don't want to have to troll (literally) thru usenet to get their daily fix. And as someone above pointed out, slashdot subscribers show this.
The problem occurs when stuff is done online for the sake of doing it online, or published, but then charged exhoribitantly, and piracy is too easy. The pricing is the issue; users will only pay for what they think they are getting value for - and piracy becomes a more attractive option as the cost rises.
...but can you run linux on it?
Seriously tho, that's a serious piece of hardware.
Every geek should have one.
I had to use a TI-83 as part of my schooling, and the fun we used to have with that - playing networked 2-player frogger games and shit via link cables we spanned across desks so you couldn't see.
It was pretty good for learning maths stuff, too. We had to go thru all the finding stuff out thru calculus methods etc before plotting them up on the machine, but it was good to show comparisons of families of curves without having to arse about drawing up countless graphs.
Pity IrDA sucks for data transfer when you are doing furious gaming sessions.
I finish my undergrad course this year, and that's certainly got my interested. I had messed about with various maths programs and the like on palm & pocketpc devices, but nothing replaces the way a graphing calculator type of thing works because it's designed for such a specific task, and they do them well.
along with:
* sugar (gotta get that energy to keep reloading slashdot for t3h frist post; also can be counted as part of beer)
* salt (how else do you raise your blood pressure enough to push blood through your arteries)
* fat (nothing tastes bad with fat)
After all, how else do you get a physique like this without some form of controlled diet.
Slashdot Mirror
This weekend, I voted in an election in the place where I live in Australia. I used one of their electronic voting things. Note that voting is compulsory here. I walked in, they use a computer to work out that I had not gone to another area where I could vote. They then gave me a card with a barcode on it, which is randomly picked up from a pile. It is not associated with my name in any way. The only association was "yes, this person has elected for electronic voting", but no barcode info was recorded. I then go to the system, swipe the barcode. The barcode thing had an approximately 70 character string underneath it. I think it was a hash or something to verify that a) the barcode related to the electorate that the voting booth was related too and b) that it was issued from this site. Each barcode had a different identifier. I then vote for the candidates as I wish. The system would not allow you to make an invalid vote (we use a preferential system here; needed to vote in order of preference of at least 7 candidates, 35 on the ballot paper in total). I did this, and hit the button to let me review it. The system then displays the preference information you've put in. You have to swipe your barcode again to verify that it is the correct one. If it would not swipe, or you needed help, you could hide the vote on the screen and get an election official to help. Once the barcode is swiped, my vote was stored in the system. I then had to place the barcode into the ballot box that paper voters would place their completed ballots in. My vote would not have been counted from the system if my barcode had not been present. Would I prefer an open system? Yes, most definitely, and I have written my comments to those running the election. I would have preferred it to print out a completed ballot paper I could check and lodge that. I think it covers most of the fraud. Is the number of barcodes equal to the number of voters? If not, then fraud has been commited by someone trying to stuff the ballot box. My name is not in any way associated with my vote, but it is counted if the barcode is placed into the ballot box. The barcode also could not be used at different voting booths, even in the same electorate (at least that is my understanding). So, for me, I think the issue of nontraceability and fraud prevention is somewhat solved by this system. Fraud could still occur in how the system records the vote, but at least you are given ample opportunity to see if your candidates have been correctly preferenced. Also, if it fucks up and you aren't happy with it, at any time you can say "no, clear my vote", your barcode is torn up, and you can do it by paper. I think that should always be an option.
A couple of years ago, a laptop (among other items) was stolen from my car. Didn't have any password protection on my user account (nothing good on there) and I had my MSN and ICQ accounts set to autosignin.
About a week after it was stolen, I came home from University to find that my desktop computer had been signed out of MSN cause someone else had signed in. Turns out someone with my laptop was coming on as me and being annoying to some of my friends. Got a webserver set up that I had access to the logs from, and put on a certain page that no-one else knew about. One of my friends dropped it into the conversation, and bam, laptop user clicks on it.
I made a couple of sworn statements to the police and took a long time convincing them that I had something useful. Took about 10 weeks for them to act on the information, and unfortunately I was away from home when they did. They traced the IP back to an account registered to some bloke a couple of hours away, and they had him under some suspicion of receiving stolen goods but never caught him with any. So, the police raided and got my laptop (and others) back. They also found a considerable qauntity of drugs, which I guess helps seal a conviction for something.
The person was aout the 4th or 5th person to handle my laptop within the week, and I believe the police have never nailed the people who originally stole it (over 2 years ago).
The person actually on MSN that we used to take the bait was this guy's 13 year old nephew. When I got the laptop back it still had all my files on it (although the used a black marker to try to fill in some engraving I had under the battery with my details) and they'd also set up their own user account. This kid had his MSN signin info, all his emails, yada yada yada. Never signed into MSN as him or looked at his stuff, I shoulda. Just reformatted it and started again - never know what shit they had on there.
So, yes, it can be done. But it takes A LOT of work to convince some low-level police grunt that an eye-pea address has some credibility (I was helped cause I had set my browser to return a really random useragent string, so we pretty much knew it was my laptop).
Better than PC Phone Home - automatic MSN signin. ... and recovered my laptop (along with other laptops, other stolen goods and also 150 marijuana plants).
No shit.
I had my laptop stolen from my car about 10 weeks ago, and the person who ended up with it decided to log in as me (automatically logged in as me, since, fuck, if they have the laptop, they can crack my password anyway, and I had nothing of grave importance) onto MSN.
Bad idea. I got signed out, went "hrrrm, who has my laptop". Unfortunately, the latest MSN sends files thru a hotmail server, so initiating a file transfer then netstat -an doesn't give you an IP address.
However, getting the individual to access a website set up specifically for them, logging their IP address worked.
It was a bit of a pain to get the police to believe me, but in the end they did, and raided a house....
Worked a treat, even if they managed to b0rk my WinXP install and delete some of my Uni work (which I've managed to recover).
I bet all the guys in Iraq are going to want to play Rez
... the people who are actually stressed or whatever about making the claim itself?
I know lie detectors are supposed to be calibrated, but they aren't fool-proof and to hang decisions like this on them is just foolhardy.
Last time I had to make an insurance claim, it was against someone who thru their own negligent driving resulted in me having a serious enough motorbike accident to fuck my ankle, my bike & nearly write off their new, expensive enough, car. And I wasn't going fast, and did what I could to avoid it.
It was stressful enough having to deal with the claims people etc, tryin gto pick at everything anyway, so how is this going to help?
Now, I wonder if I can make use of the warranty on the original drive.........
In other news: how long before he's swapping logic boards on the webserver?
The problem is that you need to actually provide something that's worth looking at for the price.
I read my newspapers and shit online now, cause I don't want to pay AU$1 per day for a paper. I'd be interested in buying online newspapers etc and payng a lower fee every day, and one that represents the value that I am getting out of it. Just think about it - sure, you gotta have reporters and stuff. But all the stuff is typed into a computer, so it doesn't particularly cost much more to produce than it costs for the paper bit, and I ain't getting $1 worth of paper with it.
iTunes has shown that at least apple people are prepared to pay for songs online, as long as they reflect their true value.
Could it work for other things? Sure. Seems to work for some of the more major porn sites - some people don't want to have to troll (literally) thru usenet to get their daily fix. And as someone above pointed out, slashdot subscribers show this.
The problem occurs when stuff is done online for the sake of doing it online, or published, but then charged exhoribitantly, and piracy is too easy. The pricing is the issue; users will only pay for what they think they are getting value for - and piracy becomes a more attractive option as the cost rises.
Damn, I guess for US$98 you *can* change the weather :).
...but can you run linux on it?
Seriously tho, that's a serious piece of hardware.
Every geek should have one.
I had to use a TI-83 as part of my schooling, and the fun we used to have with that - playing networked 2-player frogger games and shit via link cables we spanned across desks so you couldn't see.
It was pretty good for learning maths stuff, too. We had to go thru all the finding stuff out thru calculus methods etc before plotting them up on the machine, but it was good to show comparisons of families of curves without having to arse about drawing up countless graphs.
Pity IrDA sucks for data transfer when you are doing furious gaming sessions.
I finish my undergrad course this year, and that's certainly got my interested. I had messed about with various maths programs and the like on palm & pocketpc devices, but nothing replaces the way a graphing calculator type of thing works because it's designed for such a specific task, and they do them well.
... I see you are browsing alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.hornyteens
Would you like:
* tissues
* baby oil
* a life
* or me to fuck off
?
along with:
* sugar (gotta get that energy to keep reloading slashdot for t3h frist post; also can be counted as part of beer)
* salt (how else do you raise your blood pressure enough to push blood through your arteries)
* fat (nothing tastes bad with fat)
After all, how else do you get a physique like this without some form of controlled diet.