So seriously, can anyone tell me what is so hard about automating a paper process that has ticks in boxes?
The problem is not that making an automatic voting machine is difficult. It is not. Making one that is accurate, reliable, and secure is a problem. Even that, however, is not the biggest problem. Getting the voting public to accept the machines as accurate, reliable and secure is the real issue. Take the/. crowd as an example (please). How many posters here think that the existing Diebold machines are secure? Virtually none, because they have been shown to be wildly insecure and cracking them is trivial for anyone with a modicum of technical ability.
One solution to the perception problem would be for Diebold (or others) to open their engine to public scrutiny. Any weaknesses, short cuts or plain old fsck ups would be revealed and the systems could be modified and demonstrated to be secure. This would lead to warm, fuzzy feelings amongst the cognoscenti and they, in turn, would help spread the "these are trustworthy" word of faith among the great unwashed. Problem solved.
However, if you are Diebold and you open your engine for everyone to see, you have essentially given your competition an engraved invitation to eat your lunch. They point out all your flaws, provide an alternative that doesn't have them, everyone flocks to WeMakeVotingMachinesRight and now you, Mr. President and CEO of Diebold, are out of work because EBIT went down the tubes due to lack of confidence in your product. The BoD might say, "Yeah, that public comment about delivering the vote in Ohio for Bush? We can let that slide as long as you are delivering dividends and an ever increasing share price for us." Do something that causes earnings to slide, though, and you are toast.
So, in short, there is no technical reason the problem cannot be solved. There are, however, serious commercial interests preventing such a solution. By "serious commercial interests," of course, I really mean, "people interested primarily in protecting their positions and salaries." NTTAWWT.
a captive portal which records the MAC and username (authenticated with a password.) This ties the MAC to the user.
Out of curiosity, how do you make the logical jump from recording the username and the MAC to tying the MAC to the user? At best, you can tie the MAC to the username because that is all you have recorded.
A username does not uniquely identify the actual user of a given system any more than an IP address would. I believe that your premise is false.
The basic reality is that all capitalism is based upon the exploitation of someone
I don't think that word means what you think it means. In the economic sense, exploitation is defined as the making of a profit from the labor of others without providing a just return. In a broad sense, I suppose you could construe exploitation to mean using the resources (time, labor, etc.) of others for selfish ends. Either way, though, there is the notion that the individual being "exploited" is not getting a just return.
Thus while exploitive by nature, jobs are good because they enable workers to meet their daily survival challenges
I do not think that jobs (employment) are exploitive by nature. If you are forced to work in a job for less compensation than you would freely agree to, that is something other than employment. If, as you succinctly point out, your job enables you to meet your daily survival challenges, can you logically claim that you are being exploited? I suppose it hinges upon the word "just." I submit, however, that in reality you wouldn't work for an unjust reward...your level of effort will rise or fall in accord with the value you place upon your compensation, thereby rendering whatever you are receiving in exchange as "just" from your perspective.
We should allow public and private schools to compete for students and to be held accountable for their performance via the choices of the parents of those students.
I am almost there with you! I think that all schools should have to compete for funding. The tragedy that is our public school system (at least in Michigan) is allowed to continue because the schools are paid for with property taxes. There is a decoupling of the funding source from the activity from the results. If the school funding component of property taxes were removed (meaning property owners keep their money) and the cost of operating the school was charged to parents and guardians of the students who attend, there would be a massive sea change in the quality of schools provided. But, what then of the poor with limited funds to send their children to school? I don't know. Perhaps charitable organizations funded by the donations from property owners who are no longer paying for everyone's children to attend school? May not work, but it's a thought.
I think a more apt analogy would be something like, "I'm not refusing to pay my bill. Think of it as having the check returned for NSF and then having to resubmit it and it goes through." I'm sure that they wouldn't have a problem with that, considering all the Nigerian scammers out there trying to get your routing information.
Carl Sagan's excellent "The Demon Haunted World" is a very good read on all of this. He explores our historical tendencies to assign mystical meaning to things we don't (or don't WANT to) understand, and tracks the change from angels/demons to UFOs/aliens, etc. It's a good bit of ammo to have in your pocket when talking about this stuff with religious crazies, or just with soccer moms that swear their cousin is a serial UFO abductee.
An equally valid observation, then, is that Dr. Sagan may be implying that the soccer mom's UFO abductee cousin is psychotic because there are difficult truths he doesn't (or doesn't WANT to) understand. Does it matter if the label is angels/demons, UFOs/aliens, or rational/psychotic? Is the science of psychology any less mystical than religion?
Translated: Sanctified and exalted be G-d's great name...
Which is the opening to the Kaddish; the "Mourner's Kaddish," sometimes referred to as "the Jewish prayer for the dead." A tad maudlin, although I agree with the 'truth to power' sentiment of the OP.
I define a political centrist as a person who believes in small government, fiscal convervatism[1] and is socially liberal[2].
YMMV. HTH. HAND.
[1] Few taxes used to support only the Constitutionally defined role of the Federal government (enforce rights, legal/judicial issues, etc.) and promotion/provision of those 'common good' services and goods that aren't efficiently provided by the market (managing public airwaves, national defense, etc.). We can argue about that last bit.
[2] Feel free to do whatever you want, as long as it doesn't infringe on the rights of anyone else who is (or isn't) doing whatever they want.
Bush's administration f&@ked up in Iraq, and now he's certainly not coming back next time.
This may come as a surprise to some, but GWB is already on his second term. A person can not be elected to more than two terms as President. Therefore, he absolutely will not be 'coming back next time' and it has nothing to do with the present administration's handling of the attack on Iraq. Well, unless he declares martial law and suspends the Constitution...remember when the tin foil crowd was claiming that Clinton was going to do just that? Heh.
My best friend was in IT at the local credit union (dedicated to servicing the local Fortune 50 company's employees). He used to tell stories that were simply astounding. Mostly human error type stuff (e.g., someone forgot to run the manual overnight process that applies payments to credit cards; the automated process that handles direct deposits errored out and the operators hadn't noticed for three days, resulting in many overdrafts; etc.), but still, it was eye opening.
Now he's the VP of IT for a different CU. The malfeasance that occurs at the executive level is staggering in it's own way. But, at the end of the day, I suppose it can all be chalked up to 'the human factor.' After all, technology only does what we tell it. Right?
NOT, mind you, because dozens (hundreds? Impossible for me to find out) of companies consider my personal and financial information to be their intellectual property to be sold to other companies.
Then you said:
NOT, mind you, because these companies have basically no interest in protecting the data in that losing it does not hurt them any (maybe a token fine tops). So they don't encrypt it, lose backup tapes, let employees take it home on laptops, etc.
If the data is their IP and source of income, then they will be 'hurt' when said data is 'lost.' Not that it ever is really lost, I'm sure you'd agree. As the data is replicated, the likelihood increases that these companies will find that their customers (and prospective customers) already have the data and therefore don't have a need to buy.
Extrapolated to the extreme, we could conclude, then, that the only way to make 'our data' less valuable, or have no value at all, is to distribute it far and wide. Once everybody has access to it, it becomes worthless as a commodity to be traded. Of course, that might introduce other subtle difficulties, but...<shrug>
-- /. helpful tip #304: Insightful + Funny == Insunnyful!
The ability to revoke or alter all instances of a document worldwide and trusted systems in general would be quite useful to someone wanting attack a country's communications, especially if users and administrators were barred from preventing it at the hardware level.
It would also be quite useful to a corporately controlled government who wanted certain, shall we say, inconvenient documents to disappear down the memory hole. Say, something like this one?
-- Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get you.
As a bicycle commuter (somewhat rare in this Midwestern, Rust Belt, automotive driven state), I can see where Lumalive would be useful for safety gear. Instead of hanging a handful of 'blinkies' off the back of my bike, my whole back could be one big flashing signal. Perhaps a glowing 'slow moving vehicle' triangle of a square foot or so would be more attention-getting than what doesn't work now (lights, high-contrast clothing, evne high-viz yellow jackets don't help half the time).
Ken Lay rapes the Enron shareholders and creditors, goes to trial, manages to get himself convicted and when he dies before sentencing, the court drops the whole shebang; as if it never happened.
In this case, the RIAA wants to go after the heirs for the alleged crimes of the deceased.
Slashdot Mirror
So STFU and start paying your great-great-great grandkids taxes!
ITYM, "...start spending your great-great-great grandkids taxes!"
HTH. HAND.
Be that software, video or music -- why should I be prevented from sharing it with world ?
Because you aren't sharing profits with the people who make the laws.
So seriously, can anyone tell me what is so hard about automating a paper process that has ticks in boxes?
The problem is not that making an automatic voting machine is difficult. It is not. Making one that is accurate, reliable, and secure is a problem. Even that, however, is not the biggest problem. Getting the voting public to accept the machines as accurate, reliable and secure is the real issue. Take the /. crowd as an example (please). How many posters here think that the existing Diebold machines are secure? Virtually none, because they have been shown to be wildly insecure and cracking them is trivial for anyone with a modicum of technical ability.
One solution to the perception problem would be for Diebold (or others) to open their engine to public scrutiny. Any weaknesses, short cuts or plain old fsck ups would be revealed and the systems could be modified and demonstrated to be secure. This would lead to warm, fuzzy feelings amongst the cognoscenti and they, in turn, would help spread the "these are trustworthy" word of faith among the great unwashed. Problem solved.
However, if you are Diebold and you open your engine for everyone to see, you have essentially given your competition an engraved invitation to eat your lunch. They point out all your flaws, provide an alternative that doesn't have them, everyone flocks to WeMakeVotingMachinesRight and now you, Mr. President and CEO of Diebold, are out of work because EBIT went down the tubes due to lack of confidence in your product. The BoD might say, "Yeah, that public comment about delivering the vote in Ohio for Bush? We can let that slide as long as you are delivering dividends and an ever increasing share price for us." Do something that causes earnings to slide, though, and you are toast.
So, in short, there is no technical reason the problem cannot be solved. There are, however, serious commercial interests preventing such a solution. By "serious commercial interests," of course, I really mean, "people interested primarily in protecting their positions and salaries." NTTAWWT.
a captive portal which records the MAC and username (authenticated with a password.) This ties the MAC to the user.
Out of curiosity, how do you make the logical jump from recording the username and the MAC to tying the MAC to the user? At best, you can tie the MAC to the username because that is all you have recorded.
A username does not uniquely identify the actual user of a given system any more than an IP address would. I believe that your premise is false.
The basic reality is that all capitalism is based upon the exploitation of someone
I don't think that word means what you think it means. In the economic sense, exploitation is defined as the making of a profit from the labor of others without providing a just return. In a broad sense, I suppose you could construe exploitation to mean using the resources (time, labor, etc.) of others for selfish ends. Either way, though, there is the notion that the individual being "exploited" is not getting a just return.
Thus while exploitive by nature, jobs are good because they enable workers to meet their daily survival challenges
I do not think that jobs (employment) are exploitive by nature. If you are forced to work in a job for less compensation than you would freely agree to, that is something other than employment. If, as you succinctly point out, your job enables you to meet your daily survival challenges, can you logically claim that you are being exploited? I suppose it hinges upon the word "just." I submit, however, that in reality you wouldn't work for an unjust reward...your level of effort will rise or fall in accord with the value you place upon your compensation, thereby rendering whatever you are receiving in exchange as "just" from your perspective.
We should allow public and private schools to compete for students and to be held accountable for their performance via the choices of the parents of those students.
I am almost there with you! I think that all schools should have to compete for funding. The tragedy that is our public school system (at least in Michigan) is allowed to continue because the schools are paid for with property taxes. There is a decoupling of the funding source from the activity from the results. If the school funding component of property taxes were removed (meaning property owners keep their money) and the cost of operating the school was charged to parents and guardians of the students who attend, there would be a massive sea change in the quality of schools provided. But, what then of the poor with limited funds to send their children to school? I don't know. Perhaps charitable organizations funded by the donations from property owners who are no longer paying for everyone's children to attend school? May not work, but it's a thought.
Everything you ever needed to know about falling in love with robots is contained in Cherry 2000.
--
No sig today. Maybe sig tomorrow.
I think a more apt analogy would be something like, "I'm not refusing to pay my bill. Think of it as having the check returned for NSF and then having to resubmit it and it goes through." I'm sure that they wouldn't have a problem with that, considering all the Nigerian scammers out there trying to get your routing information.
Carl Sagan's excellent "The Demon Haunted World" is a very good read on all of this. He explores our historical tendencies to assign mystical meaning to things we don't (or don't WANT to) understand, and tracks the change from angels/demons to UFOs/aliens, etc. It's a good bit of ammo to have in your pocket when talking about this stuff with religious crazies, or just with soccer moms that swear their cousin is a serial UFO abductee.
.sig you are looking for
An equally valid observation, then, is that Dr. Sagan may be implying that the soccer mom's UFO abductee cousin is psychotic because there are difficult truths he doesn't (or doesn't WANT to) understand. Does it matter if the label is angels/demons, UFOs/aliens, or rational/psychotic? Is the science of psychology any less mystical than religion?
--
This is not the
For some strange, unknown reason I first parsed your post as:
.sig Please --->
Don't you get a rather large electrical bill when a magnetic field like that collapses? Should be an amazing revenue source.
Honestly, I have no idea why.
--
--- Next
You are aware, of course, that few things are as suspicious as pointing out that the Emperor(s) strutting around naked, right?
Translated: Sanctified and exalted be G-d's great name...
Which is the opening to the Kaddish; the "Mourner's Kaddish," sometimes referred to as "the Jewish prayer for the dead." A tad maudlin, although I agree with the 'truth to power' sentiment of the OP.
Y'he sh'lama rabba min sh'mayya v'chayyim tovim
HTH. HAND.
--
There's no business like
Hey, maybe Uranus is a slacker, but not mine!
Errr, wait...about that...
--
cat ~/.sig | lp -d/.
I define a political centrist as a person who believes in small government, fiscal convervatism[1] and is socially liberal[2].
YMMV. HTH. HAND.
[1] Few taxes used to support only the Constitutionally defined role of the Federal government (enforce rights, legal/judicial issues, etc.) and promotion/provision of those 'common good' services and goods that aren't efficiently provided by the market (managing public airwaves, national defense, etc.). We can argue about that last bit.
[2] Feel free to do whatever you want, as long as it doesn't infringe on the rights of anyone else who is (or isn't) doing whatever they want.
This may come as a surprise to some, but GWB is already on his second term. A person can not be elected to more than two terms as President. Therefore, he absolutely will not be 'coming back next time' and it has nothing to do with the present administration's handling of the attack on Iraq. Well, unless he declares martial law and suspends the Constitution...remember when the tin foil crowd was claiming that Clinton was going to do just that? Heh.
--
This is not the
/. is on the take from a big gaming magazine published in Japan!
Heh.
It was made of petrified GRITS!
.sig space for lease, inquire within
I knew that magazine had been around a while, but dayum! Petrified you say!? They should add that to the Grit History page!
--
This
My best friend was in IT at the local credit union (dedicated to servicing the local Fortune 50 company's employees). He used to tell stories that were simply astounding. Mostly human error type stuff (e.g., someone forgot to run the manual overnight process that applies payments to credit cards; the automated process that handles direct deposits errored out and the operators hadn't noticed for three days, resulting in many overdrafts; etc.), but still, it was eye opening.
Now he's the VP of IT for a different CU. The malfeasance that occurs at the executive level is staggering in it's own way. But, at the end of the day, I suppose it can all be chalked up to 'the human factor.' After all, technology only does what we tell it. Right?
You know you've been reading /. too long when the astroturfed dupes start messing with your reading comprehension. ;)
.sig a song of six pence
--
Imagine a Beowulf clust..I think you know the rest.
Er?
--
This sig intentionally left blank
irst you said:
/. helpful tip #304: Insightful + Funny == Insunnyful!
NOT, mind you, because dozens (hundreds? Impossible for me to find out) of companies consider my personal and financial information to be their intellectual property to be sold to other companies.
Then you said:
NOT, mind you, because these companies have basically no interest in protecting the data in that losing it does not hurt them any (maybe a token fine tops). So they don't encrypt it, lose backup tapes, let employees take it home on laptops, etc.
If the data is their IP and source of income, then they will be 'hurt' when said data is 'lost.' Not that it ever is really lost, I'm sure you'd agree. As the data is replicated, the likelihood increases that these companies will find that their customers (and prospective customers) already have the data and therefore don't have a need to buy.
Extrapolated to the extreme, we could conclude, then, that the only way to make 'our data' less valuable, or have no value at all, is to distribute it far and wide. Once everybody has access to it, it becomes worthless as a commodity to be traded. Of course, that might introduce other subtle difficulties, but...<shrug>
--
The ability to revoke or alter all instances of a document worldwide and trusted systems in general would be quite useful to someone wanting attack a country's communications, especially if users and administrators were barred from preventing it at the hardware level.
It would also be quite useful to a corporately controlled government who wanted certain, shall we say, inconvenient documents to disappear down the memory hole. Say, something like this one?
--
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get you.
As a bicycle commuter (somewhat rare in this Midwestern, Rust Belt, automotive driven state), I can see where Lumalive would be useful for safety gear. Instead of hanging a handful of 'blinkies' off the back of my bike, my whole back could be one big flashing signal. Perhaps a glowing 'slow moving vehicle' triangle of a square foot or so would be more attention-getting than what doesn't work now (lights, high-contrast clothing, evne high-viz yellow jackets don't help half the time).
It was on CSI: Crime Scene Imagineering
Maybe they'll just focus the development effort on the Phantom console. That should give them plenty of time.
It's how you know who you know.
Ken Lay rapes the Enron shareholders and creditors, goes to trial, manages to get himself convicted and when he dies before sentencing, the court drops the whole shebang; as if it never happened.
In this case, the RIAA wants to go after the heirs for the alleged crimes of the deceased.
Yeah, everything's right with the world.
-- .sig allowed
No