If you can't put a tick in a box because you're too dumb then you shouldn't be breathing, let alone voting.
You don't understand the problem.
The problem isn't the voters. If all we had to do was throw out the ballots of people who couldn't check boxes correctly, we'd be in good shape. But that's not the case.
The problem is the counters.
Who decides what counts as a ticked box and what doesn't?
Scantrons, checked boxes, punch cards, etc, are not yes/no mediums. They are open to INTERPRETATION. And when you have a close election, the last thing you want is interpretation. That's why we had all those lawsuits in Florida in 2000 - Republicans wanted as many ballots counted as possible in Republican counties and as few ballots counted as possible in Democratic counties, and vice versa. It's all about the 'hanging chads'.
Valentine's Day Special St. Patrick's Day Special Easter Special Memorial Day Special Independence Day Special Labor Day Special Halloween Special Thanksgiving Special
If you are willing to accept a scantron with votes as a ballot, there's no logical reason not to accept a sheet printed by an electronic voting machine as a ballot. The only difference is that one is filled out with a pen and one is filled out with a fancy typewriter.
What we have is a case of a good idea implemented very poorly. Honestly something as simple as connecting a drivers license number and name to each ballot would vastly increase accountability and how reviewable an election would be. It's a good idea in need of a huge makeover.
It would also entirely destroy the concept of an anonymous voting system. One of the important parts of voting is knowing the winning candidate won't be able to track down anyone who didn't vote for them.
I appreciate California's effort to verify that their electronic voting machines work. I have developed an economic process for certifying electronic voting machines.
1) Determine if the voting machine produces a voter-readable, paper ballot. 2) Determine if this ballot is the OFFICIAL voting record. 3) If 1 and 2 are true, then the machine is good. If not, it's not.
There you go. Why do people insist on making easy problems hard?
Electronic voting machines are in virtually every way superior to paper voting machines.
They prevent you from accidentally submitting an invalid ballot.
They can be updated with a correct ballot much easier than actually printing ballots.
They can more easily accommodate voting by the disabled.
They can randomly display the list of candidates, eliminating the 'first ballot position' advantage.
What does NOT have many advantages, and has several disadvantages, is electronic vote-STORING machines. We definitely don't want any of those. But as long as the voting machine kicks out a voter-readable paper ballot, we don't really even need to know the software it's running. Anything nefarious will be obvious on the ballots.
Database programmers using MySQL frequently have a need to verify the name or parameter list of a MySQL function
Ok...
or to check a statement or the data types available within its implementation of SQL.
Still with you...
This typically occurs when the programmer is caught up in a coding session,
Really? I usually run into this problem when I'm watching television.
and would much rather not break their creative flow by searching Web sites for the needed information,
If I wrote that most database programmers would not care to spend their evening with Natalie Portman and some grits, would that make it true?
or stepping away from their computer to hunt for a reference book.
Yeah, because I bet all those MySQL database programmers have no idea where their MySQL reference book is. I bet they have to spend a whole 3 seconds reaching to the shelf behind them, or typing 'mysql <command name>' into Google.
In these cases, nothing could be more valuable than a concise summary of all SQL statements and MySQL functions,
How about a beer?
in a form compact enough to be kept within reach on the desk or tacked up to the nearest wall space.
How about a beer on a shelf?
This is the goal of the VisiBone MySQL Cards and Charts
The card might make a good coaster.
Also...
1. State the existence of a problem. (Actual existence not necessary) 2. State the lack of solutions to problem (Actual lack of solutions not necessary) 3. Submit statement to Slashdot until read by lazy editor. 4. Profit!!!
The rebate is to promote energy efficiency. As has been stated above, part of making solar power work is modifying how much energy you consume through things like LED bulbs and better insulation etc. And the people who do that should get the rebate.
If, when you install solar power, you find that it's not making financial sense for you because you still use a bunch of peak-time power, your solar power 'solution' probably isn't very good, and you're exactly the kind of person the government should NOT be giving a rebate to.
It's a great way to make sure people arn't just gaming the system. Just because the number of applications for rebates has gone down doesn't mean that GOOD solar power adoption has gone down - it could very well just mean that giving away government money for little or no useful impact has been reduced.
I'm not a lawyer, but if someone posts an image of your likeness without your permission, I think you can make them take it down under a number of laws.
Not really. If someone exploits your image commercially, you have more considerable rights there. But you don't really have any rights to use of your likeness in non-commercial purposes when the image is owned by someone else. Exceptions would include something that could be considered libelous or slanderous.
If the plaintiff can prove that the fake ID is his/hers, then he/she has the legal right to post the takedown
EVERYONE has the legal right to post a take-down notice. No proof of anything is required.
But, as part of posting a take-down notice, you must state, under penalty of perjury, that you are the owner of the material in question, or an authorized representative of the owner.
So if you file a DMCA complaint about a fake ID, you would be screwed one way or the other - either you created (or paid someone else to create) the ID, or you committed perjury when filing the DMCA request.
You're not very good at grammar then.
on
Google's Evil NDA
·
· Score: 1
I agree that the sentence is confusing. BUT... let's make things easier.
Starting with:
(a) issue or release any articles, advertising, publicity, or other matter relating to this Agreement (including the fact that a meeting or discussion has taken place between the parties) or mentioning or implying the name of Google.
Let's first get rid of the stuff in parenthesis.
(a) issue or release any articles, advertising, publicity, or other matter relating to this Agreement or mentioning or implying the name of Google.
I think even with this simple change it should be clear that the mentioning or implying refers to the stuff that is issued or released. But if it's still not clear to you, let's replace the first list of items with one noun.
(a) issue or release anything relating to this Agreement or mentioning or implying the name of Google.
Note that in this sentence, the verbs are ISSUE and RELEASE. The object(s) are the list of items replaced by 'anything' in this last version. relating, mentioning, and implying are all *NOT* nouns. They're adverbs.
Uhm, you realize that time was NOT AN INPUT AT ALL, right? The only input is the last-generated (or last authorized) key. There is NO case where 43000 keys would have to be generated. Depending on the tightness of your security, you'd never generate more than 5-15 keys per authorization session.
1 Geoerge Kastanza wallet, containing receipts back to 1995 2 key chains, including: - One LED flashlight - One leatherman - One small swiss army knife - ~35 various keys - Nail clippers - Ninja Remote - ~ 10 supermarket/blockbuster/best buy/etc discount program dongles - Craftsman 4-headed flat-head screwdriver - large car key - remote car opener dongle ~ 5 various tags (volvo/strongbad/etc) and TWO cell phones.
If you can't fit your wallet in your front pocket with the rest of your stuff, you're just not trying hard enough.
Way to entirely miss the point. This security feature has NOTHING TO DO with transactions where the buyer and the seller are in the same place. In that case, the seller knows the buyer has the card because they can SEE it. And the seller can ask to see photo ID before accepting the card if they are so inclined.
This is geared towards transactions where the buyer and the seller are NOT in the same spot - either over the phone, or over the internet. In those kinds of transactions, it is not currently possible to determine if the person presenting a credit card number to you actually has the card, or just managed to swipe the CC number off a website somewhere.
This is actually a significant problem for online retailers of big-ticket items like jewelry. It will probably make financial sense for them to adopt whatever equipment/procedure changes necessary to use these codes. It probably isn't worthwhile for your local pizza place - they can just check your card when they deliver the pizza if they are so inclined.
I'm surprised that you have 6 replies to your post that are all wrong.
The cards don't generate the keys based on time. The keys are generated much the same way random numbers are generated in a computer.
The way this works:
You pick a number (seed) and a function that produces a pseudo-random output (the authentication key) based on an input. You program the same seed and function into both the card and the server.
When you go to log in, you have your credit card use the seed and function to generate a key (key1). You send key1 to the server. The server then takes the seed and function it has on record and also generates key1. If the outputs match, which they should, congratulations, you've authenticated.
Each time you request a key from the card, the card uses the last key generated as the input to the function to generate the next key. Each time you successfully authenticate, the server stores the key you authenticated with and the next time you try and authenticate it feeds that key into the function to generate the next key. Since both the card and the server know the last key they authenticated with and the function to compute the next key, they can both compute the next key.
Etc, etc. The card and the server continue to generate the same keys to compare - so getting a new key is not based on TIME, but on how many authentications you've attempted.
In practice, the server generally accepts the next key, AND some number of keys after that. So, if the last time you authenticated with key315, the next time you authenticate the server will check the key you present against not only key316, but also key317,318,319,320, etc. If the key you present matches any of those, it will accept your authentication and store that key as the 'last' key. This is to make the system more usable - in this case, you could generate 4 keys and not use them before your card would be too far out of sync with the server to succesfully authenticate.
I have a home loan. The fact that I have a home loan is a public record. The fact that I own a car is a public record. The fact that I am licensed to drive, in most states, is a public record. That I am registered to vote, and my address, is a public record.
All of those things probably should be public - i.e. if a particular party has a particular interest in those records, they should be able to walk down to the county courthouse or town hall or whatever and have access to them.
Historically, records have been public, but NOT EASILY ACCESSIBLE. The cost of accessing each individual record served as a barrier to accessing each record for trivial purposes.
But with technology, that barrier to access can be eliminated. So when accessing public records becomes trivial to do, what happens?
They get accessed for trivial purposes. For example, hardly a day goes by without me receiving some sort of offer to refinance my home loan. Voter registration is a public record. And they must be, if we are to guarantee free elections. But what happens when you can access all voter registrations (including addresses) in the country through Google? It's one thing when you suspect election fraud and have to walk down to the courthouse and inspect records; it's another thing entirely when you can run a query or event 200,000 queries and come up with the name and address of every registered voter in the country.
Just because a record is public does not mean it's a good thing that it can be found on Google.
I live in the US. I design a widget. I ship the design plans for the widget to China. A factory in China manufactures the widgets.
Where did the manufacturing occur?
Even better analogy:
You design a widget. You patent the widget. I read the patent, copy it, send it to China, and have widgets manufactured. Where does the manufacturing occur?
Slashdot Mirror
If you can't put a tick in a box because you're too dumb then you shouldn't be breathing, let alone voting.
You don't understand the problem.
The problem isn't the voters. If all we had to do was throw out the ballots of people who couldn't check boxes correctly, we'd be in good shape. But that's not the case.
The problem is the counters.
Who decides what counts as a ticked box and what doesn't?
Scantrons, checked boxes, punch cards, etc, are not yes/no mediums. They are open to INTERPRETATION. And when you have a close election, the last thing you want is interpretation. That's why we had all those lawsuits in Florida in 2000 - Republicans wanted as many ballots counted as possible in Republican counties and as few ballots counted as possible in Democratic counties, and vice versa. It's all about the 'hanging chads'.
Next two Star Wars films:
Valentine's Day Special
St. Patrick's Day Special
Easter Special
Memorial Day Special
Independence Day Special
Labor Day Special
Halloween Special
Thanksgiving Special
It's the paper output that is counted.
If you are willing to accept a scantron with votes as a ballot, there's no logical reason not to accept a sheet printed by an electronic voting machine as a ballot. The only difference is that one is filled out with a pen and one is filled out with a fancy typewriter.
What we have is a case of a good idea implemented very poorly. Honestly something as simple as connecting a drivers license number and name to each ballot would vastly increase accountability and how reviewable an election would be. It's a good idea in need of a huge makeover.
It would also entirely destroy the concept of an anonymous voting system. One of the important parts of voting is knowing the winning candidate won't be able to track down anyone who didn't vote for them.
I appreciate California's effort to verify that their electronic voting machines work. I have developed an economic process for certifying electronic voting machines.
1) Determine if the voting machine produces a voter-readable, paper ballot.
2) Determine if this ballot is the OFFICIAL voting record.
3) If 1 and 2 are true, then the machine is good. If not, it's not.
There you go. Why do people insist on making easy problems hard?
Voting machines provide no advantage
Electronic voting machines are in virtually every way superior to paper voting machines.
They prevent you from accidentally submitting an invalid ballot.
They can be updated with a correct ballot much easier than actually printing ballots.
They can more easily accommodate voting by the disabled.
They can randomly display the list of candidates, eliminating the 'first ballot position' advantage.
What does NOT have many advantages, and has several disadvantages, is electronic vote-STORING machines. We definitely don't want any of those. But as long as the voting machine kicks out a voter-readable paper ballot, we don't really even need to know the software it's running. Anything nefarious will be obvious on the ballots.
Database programmers using MySQL frequently have a need to verify the name or parameter list of a MySQL function
Ok...
or to check a statement or the data types available within its implementation of SQL.
Still with you...
This typically occurs when the programmer is caught up in a coding session,
Really? I usually run into this problem when I'm watching television.
and would much rather not break their creative flow by searching Web sites for the needed information,
If I wrote that most database programmers would not care to spend their evening with Natalie Portman and some grits, would that make it true?
or stepping away from their computer to hunt for a reference book.
Yeah, because I bet all those MySQL database programmers have no idea where their MySQL reference book is. I bet they have to spend a whole 3 seconds reaching to the shelf behind them, or typing 'mysql <command name>' into Google.
In these cases, nothing could be more valuable than a concise summary of all SQL statements and MySQL functions,
How about a beer?
in a form compact enough to be kept within reach on the desk or tacked up to the nearest wall space.
How about a beer on a shelf?
This is the goal of the VisiBone MySQL Cards and Charts
The card might make a good coaster.
Also...
1. State the existence of a problem. (Actual existence not necessary)
2. State the lack of solutions to problem (Actual lack of solutions not necessary)
3. Submit statement to Slashdot until read by lazy editor.
4. Profit!!!
The rebate is to promote energy efficiency. As has been stated above, part of making solar power work is modifying how much energy you consume through things like LED bulbs and better insulation etc. And the people who do that should get the rebate.
If, when you install solar power, you find that it's not making financial sense for you because you still use a bunch of peak-time power, your solar power 'solution' probably isn't very good, and you're exactly the kind of person the government should NOT be giving a rebate to.
It's a great way to make sure people arn't just gaming the system. Just because the number of applications for rebates has gone down doesn't mean that GOOD solar power adoption has gone down - it could very well just mean that giving away government money for little or no useful impact has been reduced.
But what is your 128 bit integer's name?
I'm not a lawyer, but if someone posts an image of your likeness without your permission, I think you can make them take it down under a number of laws.
Not really. If someone exploits your image commercially, you have more considerable rights there. But you don't really have any rights to use of your likeness in non-commercial purposes when the image is owned by someone else. Exceptions would include something that could be considered libelous or slanderous.
If the plaintiff can prove that the fake ID is his/hers, then he/she has the legal right to post the takedown
EVERYONE has the legal right to post a take-down notice. No proof of anything is required.
But, as part of posting a take-down notice, you must state, under penalty of perjury, that you are the owner of the material in question, or an authorized representative of the owner.
So if you file a DMCA complaint about a fake ID, you would be screwed one way or the other - either you created (or paid someone else to create) the ID, or you committed perjury when filing the DMCA request.
I agree that the sentence is confusing. BUT... let's make things easier.
Starting with:
(a) issue or release any articles, advertising, publicity, or other matter relating to this Agreement (including the fact that a meeting or discussion has taken place between the parties) or mentioning or implying the name of Google.
Let's first get rid of the stuff in parenthesis.
(a) issue or release any articles, advertising, publicity, or other matter relating to this Agreement or mentioning or implying the name of Google.
I think even with this simple change it should be clear that the mentioning or implying refers to the stuff that is issued or released. But if it's still not clear to you, let's replace the first list of items with one noun.
(a) issue or release anything relating to this Agreement or mentioning or implying the name of Google.
Note that in this sentence, the verbs are ISSUE and RELEASE. The object(s) are the list of items replaced by 'anything' in this last version. relating, mentioning, and implying are all *NOT* nouns. They're adverbs.
So what you're saying is that you're walking around with pockets bulging like the cheeks of a chipmunk on free nut day.
I solved that problem by adding 30 lbs to my waistline. Now the pocket bulges are barely noticeable.
Uhm, you realize that time was NOT AN INPUT AT ALL, right? The only input is the last-generated (or last authorized) key. There is NO case where 43000 keys would have to be generated. Depending on the tightness of your security, you'd never generate more than 5-15 keys per authorization session.
I have, right now, in my front pockets:
1 Geoerge Kastanza wallet, containing receipts back to 1995
2 key chains, including:
- One LED flashlight
- One leatherman
- One small swiss army knife
- ~35 various keys
- Nail clippers
- Ninja Remote
- ~ 10 supermarket/blockbuster/best buy/etc discount program dongles
- Craftsman 4-headed flat-head screwdriver
- large car key
- remote car opener dongle
~ 5 various tags (volvo/strongbad/etc)
and TWO cell phones.
If you can't fit your wallet in your front pocket with the rest of your stuff, you're just not trying hard enough.
Dear Verisign,
I would like to request the following pregenerated one-time passwords:
1
2
3
4
5
Way to entirely miss the point. This security feature has NOTHING TO DO with transactions where the buyer and the seller are in the same place. In that case, the seller knows the buyer has the card because they can SEE it. And the seller can ask to see photo ID before accepting the card if they are so inclined.
This is geared towards transactions where the buyer and the seller are NOT in the same spot - either over the phone, or over the internet. In those kinds of transactions, it is not currently possible to determine if the person presenting a credit card number to you actually has the card, or just managed to swipe the CC number off a website somewhere.
This is actually a significant problem for online retailers of big-ticket items like jewelry. It will probably make financial sense for them to adopt whatever equipment/procedure changes necessary to use these codes. It probably isn't worthwhile for your local pizza place - they can just check your card when they deliver the pizza if they are so inclined.
Do I have to go in to give the guy the password, or are they changing out all the pump credit terminals for ones with full keyboards?
Or maybe instead of asking you to enter a 5-digit zip code, you enter a 5-digit one-time-PIN.
I'm surprised that you have 6 replies to your post that are all wrong.
The cards don't generate the keys based on time. The keys are generated much the same way random numbers are generated in a computer.
The way this works:
You pick a number (seed) and a function that produces a pseudo-random output (the authentication key) based on an input. You program the same seed and function into both the card and the server.
When you go to log in, you have your credit card use the seed and function to generate a key (key1). You send key1 to the server. The server then takes the seed and function it has on record and also generates key1. If the outputs match, which they should, congratulations, you've authenticated.
Each time you request a key from the card, the card uses the last key generated as the input to the function to generate the next key. Each time you successfully authenticate, the server stores the key you authenticated with and the next time you try and authenticate it feeds that key into the function to generate the next key. Since both the card and the server know the last key they authenticated with and the function to compute the next key, they can both compute the next key.
Seed->run function->key 1
key 1->function->key 2
key 2->function->key 3
Etc, etc. The card and the server continue to generate the same keys to compare - so getting a new key is not based on TIME, but on how many authentications you've attempted.
In practice, the server generally accepts the next key, AND some number of keys after that. So, if the last time you authenticated with key315, the next time you authenticate the server will check the key you present against not only key316, but also key317,318,319,320, etc. If the key you present matches any of those, it will accept your authentication and store that key as the 'last' key. This is to make the system more usable - in this case, you could generate 4 keys and not use them before your card would be too far out of sync with the server to succesfully authenticate.
...but then who do I pay to tell me what to like?
I have a home loan. The fact that I have a home loan is a public record. The fact that I own a car is a public record. The fact that I am licensed to drive, in most states, is a public record. That I am registered to vote, and my address, is a public record.
All of those things probably should be public - i.e. if a particular party has a particular interest in those records, they should be able to walk down to the county courthouse or town hall or whatever and have access to them.
Historically, records have been public, but NOT EASILY ACCESSIBLE. The cost of accessing each individual record served as a barrier to accessing each record for trivial purposes.
But with technology, that barrier to access can be eliminated. So when accessing public records becomes trivial to do, what happens?
They get accessed for trivial purposes. For example, hardly a day goes by without me receiving some sort of offer to refinance my home loan. Voter registration is a public record. And they must be, if we are to guarantee free elections. But what happens when you can access all voter registrations (including addresses) in the country through Google? It's one thing when you suspect election fraud and have to walk down to the courthouse and inspect records; it's another thing entirely when you can run a query or event 200,000 queries and come up with the name and address of every registered voter in the country.
Just because a record is public does not mean it's a good thing that it can be found on Google.
I live in the US. I design a widget. I ship the design plans for the widget to China. A factory in China manufactures the widgets.
Where did the manufacturing occur?
Even better analogy:
You design a widget. You patent the widget. I read the patent, copy it, send it to China, and have widgets manufactured. Where does the manufacturing occur?
*WRITING* software isn't manufacture, it's design.
'Contaminated' just means above 'safe' levels. 'Safe' levels for drinking water are levels where long-term consumption is considered safe.
That doesn't mean that drinking 10 gallons of water that is contaminated to just-barely un-safe levels is going to hurt you.
You can't just show up at the border waving a firearm.
You might get away with it if you show them your firecrotch first.
We play an extremely technically advanced game of tag.