* If you stop your client/server, your data must be distributed 3rd party nodes, that are owned by onknown people, so you don't get 100% guarantee your data is available if you close your client.
* You won't be able to use this social network if you only have a browser, or if everything except HTTP traffic is blocked.
* Add the usual about network effects, about how noone will switch because all their friends are already on facebook, etc. Also, NAT and piercing NATs is still an issue, especially if you are running something like this on your mobile.
If the servers are set us as bittorrent nodes, or something similar, with redundancy built in, that should address the issues you raise.
What we need is for some universities to start an open source electronic textbook project. Differernt experts could contribute different portions of the text, depending upon their area of expertise. There might be several different versions of a chapter to choose from, with the instructor choosing whichever ones he/she thinks most appropriate.
I am very concerned about the trend to using e-voting in this country. It seems to me that it is way too easy to hack something like that with no way to trace what happened. I would like to suggest the following solution (perhaps someone else has already thought of this, but I don't know why no one seems to be talking about it). It uses standard, off the shelf hardware, relatively simple software that does not have to be proprietary, and guarantees a paper trail. Please let me know what you think and if you think it's a good idea, lets try to push for its adoption.
Voting would be a 2 part process.
Part 1 would involve printing of the ballot. The voter would go to a booth with a touchscreen where he/she would choose candidates from a menu corresponding to the choices in that particular election district. After the voter has chosen, he/she would push the print button and a ballot would be printed on standard 8.5 x 11 paper with the appropriate boxes checked. Included on the ballot would be a bar code indicating the voter's choices. If the voter makes a mistake or changes his/her mind, a new ballot could be printed and the old one discarded. This part could even be done at home.
Part 2 - The voter takes the paper ballot and deposits it in a ballot box. There would need to be security measures to ensure that a voter only places one ballot in the box at a time, but this should not be hard to do. At the end of the day, all the ballots would be fed through a bar code reader and tabulated. Ballots would be kept for verification purposes. If need be, they could be rescanned, or if someone suspects foul play with the bar codes, they could be hand counted.
That's it. It would be cheap, efficient, and many companies could produce the software (or it could be open source). And the whole process would be transparent and auditable. Let me know what you think.
I am very concerned about the trend to using e-voting in this country. It seems to me that it is way too easy to hack something like that with no way to trace what happened. I would like to suggest the following solution (perhaps someone else has already thought of this, but I don't know why no one seems to be talking about it). It uses standard, off the shelf hardware, relatively simple software that does not have to be proprietary, and guarantees a paper trail. Please let me know what you think and if you think it's a good idea, lets try to push for its adoption.
Voting would be a 2 part process.
Part 1 would involve printing of the ballot. The voter would go to a booth with a touchscreen where he/she would choose candidates from a menu corresponding to the choices in that particular election district. After the voter has chosen, he/she would push the print button and a ballot would be printed on standard 8.5 x 11 paper with the appropriate boxes checked. Included on the ballot would be a bar code indicating the voter's choices. If the voter makes a mistake or changes his/her mind, a new ballot could be printed and the old one discarded. This part could even be done at home.
Part 2 - The voter takes the paper ballot and deposits it in a ballot box. There would need to be security measures to ensure that a voter only places one ballot in the box at a time, but this should not be hard to do. At the end of the day, all the ballots would be fed through a bar code reader and tabulated. Ballots would be kept for verification purposes. If need be, they could be rescanned, or if someone suspects foul play with the bar codes had counted.
This method could be easily adapted for the military. Step 1 would take place at a computer at the soldier's location. The printed ballot would then be mailed or otherwise sent in a signed and numbered envelope to a central processing facility(s).
That's it. It would be cheap, efficient, and many companies could produce the software (or it could be open source). And the whole process would be transparent and auditable. Let me know what you think.
Slashdot Mirror
* If you stop your client/server, your data must be distributed 3rd party nodes, that are owned by onknown people, so you don't get 100% guarantee your data is available if you close your client. * You won't be able to use this social network if you only have a browser, or if everything except HTTP traffic is blocked. * Add the usual about network effects, about how noone will switch because all their friends are already on facebook, etc. Also, NAT and piercing NATs is still an issue, especially if you are running something like this on your mobile.
If the servers are set us as bittorrent nodes, or something similar, with redundancy built in, that should address the issues you raise.
What we need is for some universities to start an open source electronic textbook project. Differernt experts could contribute different portions of the text, depending upon their area of expertise. There might be several different versions of a chapter to choose from, with the instructor choosing whichever ones he/she thinks most appropriate.
I am very concerned about the trend to using e-voting in this country. It seems to me that it is way too easy to hack something like that with no way to trace what happened. I would like to suggest the following solution (perhaps someone else has already thought of this, but I don't know why no one seems to be talking about it). It uses standard, off the shelf hardware, relatively simple software that does not have to be proprietary, and guarantees a paper trail. Please let me know what you think and if you think it's a good idea, lets try to push for its adoption.
Voting would be a 2 part process.
Part 1 would involve printing of the ballot. The voter would go to a booth with a touchscreen where he/she would choose candidates from a menu corresponding to the choices in that particular election district. After the voter has chosen, he/she would push the print button and a ballot would be printed on standard 8.5 x 11 paper with the appropriate boxes checked. Included on the ballot would be a bar code indicating the voter's choices. If the voter makes a mistake or changes his/her mind, a new ballot could be printed and the old one discarded. This part could even be done at home.
Part 2 - The voter takes the paper ballot and deposits it in a ballot box. There would need to be security measures to ensure that a voter only places one ballot in the box at a time, but this should not be hard to do. At the end of the day, all the ballots would be fed through a bar code reader and tabulated. Ballots would be kept for verification purposes. If need be, they could be rescanned, or if someone suspects foul play with the bar codes, they could be hand counted.
That's it. It would be cheap, efficient, and many companies could produce the software (or it could be open source). And the whole process would be transparent and auditable. Let me know what you think.
I am very concerned about the trend to using e-voting in this country. It seems to me that it is way too easy to hack something like that with no way to trace what happened. I would like to suggest the following solution (perhaps someone else has already thought of this, but I don't know why no one seems to be talking about it). It uses standard, off the shelf hardware, relatively simple software that does not have to be proprietary, and guarantees a paper trail. Please let me know what you think and if you think it's a good idea, lets try to push for its adoption.
Voting would be a 2 part process.
Part 1 would involve printing of the ballot. The voter would go to a booth with a touchscreen where he/she would choose candidates from a menu corresponding to the choices in that particular election district. After the voter has chosen, he/she would push the print button and a ballot would be printed on standard 8.5 x 11 paper with the appropriate boxes checked. Included on the ballot would be a bar code indicating the voter's choices. If the voter makes a mistake or changes his/her mind, a new ballot could be printed and the old one discarded. This part could even be done at home.
Part 2 - The voter takes the paper ballot and deposits it in a ballot box. There would need to be security measures to ensure that a voter only places one ballot in the box at a time, but this should not be hard to do. At the end of the day, all the ballots would be fed through a bar code reader and tabulated. Ballots would be kept for verification purposes. If need be, they could be rescanned, or if someone suspects foul play with the bar codes had counted.
This method could be easily adapted for the military. Step 1 would take place at a computer at the soldier's location. The printed ballot would then be mailed or otherwise sent in a signed and numbered envelope to a central processing facility(s).
That's it. It would be cheap, efficient, and many companies could produce the software (or it could be open source). And the whole process would be transparent and auditable. Let me know what you think.