I get yout point, I wouldn't want to be a part of that scene either, but for most (all?) of these athletes, this is their livelihood, their passion, their years-long focus. Putting myself in their shoes, to say I might get sick is probably not what I want to hear but I bet I'd still participate.
I'm sure there's some interesting stuff buried in there, but damn... 533 pages?
I couldn't stand episodes 1, 2 and 3, and I sure as shit don't want to read about how / why George Lucas decided to make them suck so bad. Viewing them once apiece was painful enough.
$29 buys you a tiny usb dongle with an RJ-45 port for wired lan. It's listed on the accessories section of store.apple.com.
As for the battery needs, I'm a business user and while I do agree that extended batteries are nice, I don't think it's the norm that you need 8 hours of battery life without a single power outlet nearby. Where are you using your computer for that long that you're not near an outlet once in a while? I typically need stretches of several hours, possibly as much as 4 hours from time to time, but never much more than that. The people I know who have the extended battery packs seem to use them just because they can, not because they need to.
I think the integrated battery decision is possibly market-limiting to the users who really do (for some reason) need 8 hours of battery life, but not nearly as limiting as you suggest. Overall, a simpler design has positive aspects in that Apple can spend time making features that most of their target users will benefit from, they can also get the product to market faster and lower R&D costs building it.
This reminds me a lot when the iPod first came out. Most people just couldn't say enough bad things about it. Too simple. No features. No replaceable battery. Too expensive. But the core comptency of the iPod hasn't really changed that much over the years: it lets you organize your music in a really simple way, and find any song fast. When it comes down to it, if you can't find your music easily, you're far less likely to use the device. And if you don't use it, every other "neato" feature is irrelevant because it'll be sitting in your desk drawer.
I live in Austin, Texas, and basically people have been going apeshit for a week or two. Without any law, concerned parents already have the means to give this shot to their daughters (just ask your doctor). So why make it a legal issue?
This has been in the local news quite a bit recently, and I recall hearing various bits on the radio, such as: Rick Perry's brother works for Merck, Perry had large sums of money transferred into his account by Merck within days of announcing this law, and Perry usually doesn't take a stand for anything at all so it's extremely odd that he's pushing something as wide-sweeping as requiring all girls 11+ years old to get a shot. In the press, Perry keeps saying things like, "I want to do whatever I can to protect life", etc.
It's not "my" hypothesized link between thimerosal-preserved vaccinations and autism. Despite the flames I've received from WarCraft addicts on/. tonight, and lots of folks putting words in my mouth, or misquoting me (for example, you yourself quoted me as having written "all vaccinations", which I did not write) there are many, many people - some of them probably smarter than both of us - who suggest links between thimerosal-preserved vaccinations and autism. Proof? No. Suggestion? You bet. Any other competing theories that make more sense? Sure, there are other theories, but at best they're only as provable or sensible as thimerosal-autism causation is.
I don't see what's so difficult for people to accept: mercury is toxic; toxic things should not go inside your body; if they do, bad things might happen to you. If, as some people suggest, thimerosal (which is ~%50 mercury) causes no health risks to children, why is the FDA working to remove thimerosal from all vaccines? http://www.fda.gov/cber/vaccine/thimfaq.htm#q3 As an aside, I just spent a few minutes reading the answers to other questions on the FAQ, and I'll be damned if that wasn't written by a team of lawyers. Several of those questions do not have answers, but rather a barf of text that - if you can limp through reading all of it - will probably only confuse you.
Here's something from The Boston Globe (http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinio n/oped/articles/2005/07/01/autism_mercury_and_poli tics/):
"Numerous animal, DNA, epidemiological, and other studies point to Thimerosal as a culprit in America's epidemic of neurological disorders. Autistic children have been shown to have higher mercury loads than nonautistics, and there have been reports of significant improvements in some brain-injured children by removing mercury from their brains. Most of the symptoms of autism are similar to the symptoms of mercury poisoning. Scientists have been able to induce autism-like symptoms in mice by exposing them to Thimerosal. A recent study by an FDA scientist, Dr. Jill James, found that many autistic children are genetically deficient in their capacity to produce glutathione, an antioxidant generated in the brain that helps remove mercury from the body."
So the FDA scientist found that some kids can't flush mercury from their bodies as well as others. Why would this matter if mercury weren't a poison that was introduced into their bodies? Of course it matters, which is why the FDA wants thimerosal usage to stop. Most kids get tons of shots and flush the excess mercury without problems, but some of the kids do not flush it and they are negatively affected.
To recap, pharmacos use thimerosal, thimerosal is %50 mercury, mercury is toxic, some kids cannot flush mercury like others, mercury lingers in the body, mercury poisoning is similar in characteristics to autism, and the whole chain started from the shot. Seriously, you think this sounds like a conspiracy theory?
How much more evidence of trans-fat induced mental illness can you provide than currently exists showing that mercury is a known, proven poison for developing brains? Seriously, one question. That's it. Every doctor on the planet will tell you that mercury is toxic. What evidence exists showing that trans-fats have anything to do with autism? Or brain development?
It's rather suprising how nobody seems to question doctors, pharmacos, or the drones of citizens who read a fucking marketing brochure and think all of their problems are solved with a magical pill or shot. What the hell happened to critical thinking?
Look, as kids in the 80s (or earlier) everyone received a handful of shots, and this was drastically increased around 1990 to be way more than 3 shots. The FDA references citing tolerable amounts of mercury are talking about ONE SHOT. They do not discuss taking that tolerable amount and multiplying it for each shot the kid gets, which results in 4x or 8x or whatever.
Seriously, you think transfats are what's turned a 1 in 2,500 autism rate into 1 in 100 in 10 years? And that mercury in most vaccines and shots has nothing to do with it?
This whole autism topic is rather annoying. Finding a "cure"? Omfg. There's a ton of evidence showing that medical science (pharmaceutical companies, in particular) have basically caused the autism rates we're faced with today.
Over the past 10 or 20 years, there's been a way-more-than-coincidental relationship to the presence of mercury in most shots we give our children and the rates of autism. A quick google for "autism mercury" might give you some interesting reading: http://www.google.com/search?q=autism+mercury The latest autism rates are now below 1 in 100 children. Think about that - when you were a kid (however old you are), had you even heard of autism? Today, there are entire wings of schools that are dedicated solely for the autistic children, in addition to schools / learning centers that cater exclusively to autistic kids.
Don't get me wrong, I think it's a goddamn shame that so many kids are autistic today. I'm a parent, and I cannot imagine what life would be like if my child were autistic. But this whole topic infuriates me, because the "problem" is apparently caused by the very companies who are now producing a "cure". How convenient. I wonder how many billions of dollars that'll be worth to those pharmaco bastards.
The sad thing is, if you actually compare the data for most diseases for which children are vaccinated, the extreme negative side effects (caused by the drugs / shots, even if only in a small percentage of children) are so, so much worse than if the kid contracts the disease in the first place. Plus, vaccinations produce immunity that is not passed on to your offspring (by mothers), so vaccinations eff with nature's own process of protecting our offspring. Instead, if a child fights an illness naturally, their body will build a natural immunity and their immune system in general will be much better at doing what it's supposed to do - keep the kid healthy.
I saw her Switch ad when it came out. I didn't get the cult fascination then, and I don't get it now either. So fine, whatever. Fast forward 5 years later and I'm wondering what the hell any of us are doing reading an interview with her.
I read part of the interview and have concluded that it's just as interesting as most blogs by strangers I'll never meet. Funny thing is, most people are immediately appreciative of how much most blogs suck, yet an interview with Ellen Feiss is somehow above that.
Please, someone tell me, what the hell am I missing here? Really. I don't get it.
I used to zap CDs in the microwave, both for the show (it's cool to watch) and the results (the cd looks cool afterward). I was one of the few people who actually looked forward to a new AOL sign-up cd.
I haven't nuked a cd in years, mostly because it smells awful. But if anyone out there hasn't tried it, you should, and make sure you open your windows and get a fan, and be prepared for a smelly kitchen for a day or so. It's very cool to watch a cd inside a microwave - for a brief moment you'll see a wave of electricity spread from one side to the other, right across the surface of the cd. And afterward, the pattern will remain etched onto the aluminum of the cd itself, so you'll have a cool looking cd.
Trial and error shows that you'll get the best results by keeping the microwave time to a bare minimum, maybe only 1 second.
If nobody can make money from it, there will be no development and open source software quickly becomes outdated...
He's so right! Open source stuff is teh suck!
Check out Windows XP - it's not open source, it has no bugs, and it has totally progressed for the past five years! Erm... or not.
Wait a second... no progress, tons of bugs, outdated products... this all sounds very familiar. Are we sure this guy isn't bashing Microsoft products instead of open source?
Appreciate the thought and effort, kaan, but folks are still in the position of accepting one stranger's (your) word to confirm another stranger's (Gottesser's) claim that a site we can't directly verify (blackbox1.org) is truly being run by BBV.
Well, you don't know who I am, and there's not much I can do to earn instant creditibility with you. So I would suggest you go to http://www.blackboxvoting.org/contact.html yourself, and call the primary contact number. When I did that, Bev answered the phone herself. It will take about a minute to call and ask a few questions, and if you do call, please post back here. That way, it will be two nameless/. readers who say Bev (and www.blackbox1.org) is legit, not just me.:)
(Nothing personal, just illustrating the chains of trust necessarily involved in any security.)
I completely agree, as far as you know, I'm just some guy with a low uid.
How does one reliably examine software without the source code?
You're right, you can't tell as much from an executable as you can from looking at source. But it's still possible to make observations about behavior, operation, ways to break it or alter election results, all without looking at the source. I'm sure if Bev (or anyone else) could get the source code for the voting software, she would do so. For now, this is all she's got.
Why would anyone bother spending time on this?
Because our public elections are run through secret software that nobody knows about, nobody will explain, and nobody understands. So we're supposed to just sit back and say, "oh well"? Does it bother you that there are recorded, documented instances of candidates receiving negative votes? Like, "less than 0". Doesn't that concern you? It should.
The traceroute for one actually leads to floridawebmasters.com after going through rackspace.net.
Yep, I saw the same thing, don't know what to tell you.
12 vlan901.core1.dfw1.rackspace.com (72.3.128.21) 986.452 ms 756.475 ms 999.809 ms 13 aggr3a.dfw1.rackspace.net (72.3.129.11) 763.390 ms 1227.111 ms 1247.636 ms 14 floridawebmasters.com (72.32.2.234) 1504.584 ms 756.088 ms 250.646 ms
(I admit, I'm not going to call them)
Well, maybe you should call them. It will take 1 minute, probably less time than it would take you to write another response to this comment.
1) How is this software legal to distribute in the way that it is being done? Can she supply information about why it is legal, even i she won't say where it came from?
I asked Bev the same thing, she didn't want to say very much about it. So I'll add my own commentary: legality aside, if you piss off somebody big enough, they will find a way to shut you down, no matter what. Black Box Voting has had problems with this in the past (as explained in Hacking Democracy, where Bev originally found Diebold's Gems software on a public ftp server, her website was shut down, but not before many others had downloaded the contents).
2) Even if it is legal for us to download it and posses it, how can we usefully examine the software unless hack it it in such a way which will probably break the DMCA (or other laws)
Good question. The answer is, "you probably can't". The DMCA probably applies here, and probably says it's illegal for us to even discuss their proprietary software. I suggested to Bev that she try to participate in the discussion on/. because there are going to be some tough questions, especially when the initial comments are, "this whole thing looks bogus".
If she won't say where she got it from then I'm going to assume that it is illegal. Also if this is illegal then isn't/. now also guilty under the DMCA, and possibly other laws?
I can't disagree with you. Bev said she could not disclose anything about where it came from, because it would likely reveal who it came from, and she couldn't do that. I don't know what to tell you. The DMCA probably applies, and that's just something you'll have to decide on your own.
I would further suggest that you consider whether voting software for public elections should be so secret as to be hidden behind a generic law such as the DMCA. That's really the issue here - everything about electronic voting is a secret, and her organization is trying to expose that.
I just got on blackboxvoting.org and called the primary phone number, and Bev Harris answered the phone. This is legitimate. I talked to her for about 5 minutes, explained that an article showed up on/. and there were questions about its authenticity. She said it was legit, they set up a new domain name so they don't hammer their primary server (they've gotten a ton of traffic lately). She said she could not disclose where she obtained the executable code, but that it was real software and she wanted feedback from the slashdot community. This is really from Bev, and she's trying to solicit help from the/. community to dig into this stuff.
I just got on blackboxvoting.org and called the primary phone number, and Bev Harris answered the phone. She said she could not disclose where she obtained the software, but that it was legitimate, real software. She set up another domain to prevent/. of their primary domain. Run a traceroute and you'll see that both blackboxvoting.org and blackbox1.org are hosted with Rackspace. Phishers do not use Rackspace, they use domains in Russia or where ever.
This is not a phishing scam, it's really from Bev, and she's trying to solicit help from the/. community to dig into this stuff.
Oh, and yes, I'm posting similar comments in reply to all of the "is this real?" comments... Moderators: please do not mod me down without calling them yourself (go to blackboxvoting.org for phone number).
I just got on blackboxvoting.org and called the primary phone number, and Bev Harris answered the phone.
I spoke to her for about 5 minutes, explained that an article showed up on/. and there were questions about its authenticity. She said it was legit, they set up a new domain name so they don't hammer their primary server (they've gotten a ton of traffic lately). She said she could not disclose where she obtained the executable code, but that it was real software and she wanted feedback from the slashdot community.
This is not a phishing scam, it's really from Bev, and she's trying to solicit help from the/. community to dig into this stuff.
Oh, and yes, I'm posting this same comment in reply to all of the "is this real?" comments... Moderators: please do not mod me down without calling them yourself (go to blackboxvoting.org for phone number).
I just got on blackboxvoting.org and called the primary phone number, and Bev Harris answered the phone.
I spoke to her for about 5 minutes, explained that an article showed up on/. and there were questions about its authenticity. She said it was legit, they set up a new domain name so they don't hammer their primary server (they've gotten a ton of traffic lately). She said she could not disclose where she obtained the executable code, but that it was real software and she wanted feedback from the slashdot community.
This is not a phishing scam, it's really from Bev, and she's trying to solicit help from the/. community to dig into this stuff.
Not only is the keyboard an issue, consider the rest of his body! He's bent over the screen, neck bent to view the screen that's 2 feet below eye level. Any basic ergonomics advise says you should put the top edge of your display at eye level. Anything lower than that and you'll experience neck and back pain. Keyboard-related RSI will go nicely with a stiff neck.
I swear, if this were from a business selling some new product, I'd say they were trying to boost sales. But he's a researcher. I guess they must be up for more funding or something...?
In fact, it absolutey does have an interface. Granted, it's a simple interface, and one that contextually changes with each application, but it's still an interface. Basically, all he's showing is an interface that essentially has two mice, not one, and instead of using your hand to manipulate a physical mouse (which is then translated onto the screen), they've built a complicated touch-screen system to eliminate the mouse altogether. And then they added a second one. Don't get me wrong, this stuff is neato, but it isn't really that impressive. Looks like an insanely expensive touch-screen display, with software that supports two mice.
Also, I can't quite let it slide the claim on the website - "he demonstrates - for the first time publicly - his intuitive, "interface-free," touch -drive computer screen". They need to really emphasize the "publicly" part of that statement. I saw a show on National Geographic (might be a year or two old, too), pretty sure it's the same exact research group with some of the same types of demos like in the video. They very clearly used the same "interface-free" design to navigate city maps. The show was about stopping terrorits or something (it was actually kinda silly), and it emphasized this two-handed, "mouse-less" map navigation stuff so much that it almost seemed like an advertisement.
Perhaps they should call it "dual mouse" interface?:P
Slashdot Mirror
I get yout point, I wouldn't want to be a part of that scene either, but for most (all?) of these athletes, this is their livelihood, their passion, their years-long focus. Putting myself in their shoes, to say I might get sick is probably not what I want to hear but I bet I'd still participate.
Way... too... long.
I'm sure there's some interesting stuff buried in there, but damn... 533 pages?
I couldn't stand episodes 1, 2 and 3, and I sure as shit don't want to read about how / why George Lucas decided to make them suck so bad. Viewing them once apiece was painful enough.
Widow of missing multimillionaire adventurer Steve Fosset IS NOW MISSING TOO
State agencies are mounting a search party, in part because she's lost, but more importantly because she's lost and still owes them money.
There are reports coming in that their children, legal heirs to property and debts, are also believed missing.
$29 buys you a tiny usb dongle with an RJ-45 port for wired lan. It's listed on the accessories section of store.apple.com.
As for the battery needs, I'm a business user and while I do agree that extended batteries are nice, I don't think it's the norm that you need 8 hours of battery life without a single power outlet nearby. Where are you using your computer for that long that you're not near an outlet once in a while? I typically need stretches of several hours, possibly as much as 4 hours from time to time, but never much more than that. The people I know who have the extended battery packs seem to use them just because they can, not because they need to.
I think the integrated battery decision is possibly market-limiting to the users who really do (for some reason) need 8 hours of battery life, but not nearly as limiting as you suggest. Overall, a simpler design has positive aspects in that Apple can spend time making features that most of their target users will benefit from, they can also get the product to market faster and lower R&D costs building it.
This reminds me a lot when the iPod first came out. Most people just couldn't say enough bad things about it. Too simple. No features. No replaceable battery. Too expensive. But the core comptency of the iPod hasn't really changed that much over the years: it lets you organize your music in a really simple way, and find any song fast. When it comes down to it, if you can't find your music easily, you're far less likely to use the device. And if you don't use it, every other "neato" feature is irrelevant because it'll be sitting in your desk drawer.
All our source are belong to us.
... an advanced, high-tech way to die. Seriously, a jet-powered vehicle where the frontmost thing is your head? At 135mph?
Great post, probably the best I've read on this thread.
Yeah, the whole story stinks quite bad.
I live in Austin, Texas, and basically people have been going apeshit for a week or two. Without any law, concerned parents already have the means to give this shot to their daughters (just ask your doctor). So why make it a legal issue?
This has been in the local news quite a bit recently, and I recall hearing various bits on the radio, such as: Rick Perry's brother works for Merck, Perry had large sums of money transferred into his account by Merck within days of announcing this law, and Perry usually doesn't take a stand for anything at all so it's extremely odd that he's pushing something as wide-sweeping as requiring all girls 11+ years old to get a shot. In the press, Perry keeps saying things like, "I want to do whatever I can to protect life", etc.
It's not "my" hypothesized link between thimerosal-preserved vaccinations and autism. Despite the flames I've received from WarCraft addicts on /. tonight, and lots of folks putting words in my mouth, or misquoting me (for example, you yourself quoted me as having written "all vaccinations", which I did not write) there are many, many people - some of them probably smarter than both of us - who suggest links between thimerosal-preserved vaccinations and autism. Proof? No. Suggestion? You bet. Any other competing theories that make more sense? Sure, there are other theories, but at best they're only as provable or sensible as thimerosal-autism causation is.
o n/oped/articles/2005/07/01/autism_mercury_and_poli tics/):
I don't see what's so difficult for people to accept: mercury is toxic; toxic things should not go inside your body; if they do, bad things might happen to you. If, as some people suggest, thimerosal (which is ~%50 mercury) causes no health risks to children, why is the FDA working to remove thimerosal from all vaccines? http://www.fda.gov/cber/vaccine/thimfaq.htm#q3 As an aside, I just spent a few minutes reading the answers to other questions on the FAQ, and I'll be damned if that wasn't written by a team of lawyers. Several of those questions do not have answers, but rather a barf of text that - if you can limp through reading all of it - will probably only confuse you.
Here's something from The Boston Globe (http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opini
"Numerous animal, DNA, epidemiological, and other studies point to Thimerosal as a culprit in America's epidemic of neurological disorders. Autistic children have been shown to have higher mercury loads than nonautistics, and there have been reports of significant improvements in some brain-injured children by removing mercury from their brains. Most of the symptoms of autism are similar to the symptoms of mercury poisoning. Scientists have been able to induce autism-like symptoms in mice by exposing them to Thimerosal. A recent study by an FDA scientist, Dr. Jill James, found that many autistic children are genetically deficient in their capacity to produce glutathione, an antioxidant generated in the brain that helps remove mercury from the body."
So the FDA scientist found that some kids can't flush mercury from their bodies as well as others. Why would this matter if mercury weren't a poison that was introduced into their bodies? Of course it matters, which is why the FDA wants thimerosal usage to stop. Most kids get tons of shots and flush the excess mercury without problems, but some of the kids do not flush it and they are negatively affected.
To recap, pharmacos use thimerosal, thimerosal is %50 mercury, mercury is toxic, some kids cannot flush mercury like others, mercury lingers in the body, mercury poisoning is similar in characteristics to autism, and the whole chain started from the shot. Seriously, you think this sounds like a conspiracy theory?
Ok, I'll bite.
How much more evidence of trans-fat induced mental illness can you provide than currently exists showing that mercury is a known, proven poison for developing brains? Seriously, one question. That's it. Every doctor on the planet will tell you that mercury is toxic. What evidence exists showing that trans-fats have anything to do with autism? Or brain development?
It's rather suprising how nobody seems to question doctors, pharmacos, or the drones of citizens who read a fucking marketing brochure and think all of their problems are solved with a magical pill or shot. What the hell happened to critical thinking?
Look, as kids in the 80s (or earlier) everyone received a handful of shots, and this was drastically increased around 1990 to be way more than 3 shots. The FDA references citing tolerable amounts of mercury are talking about ONE SHOT. They do not discuss taking that tolerable amount and multiplying it for each shot the kid gets, which results in 4x or 8x or whatever.
Seriously, you think transfats are what's turned a 1 in 2,500 autism rate into 1 in 100 in 10 years? And that mercury in most vaccines and shots has nothing to do with it?
This whole autism topic is rather annoying. Finding a "cure"? Omfg. There's a ton of evidence showing that medical science (pharmaceutical companies, in particular) have basically caused the autism rates we're faced with today.
Over the past 10 or 20 years, there's been a way-more-than-coincidental relationship to the presence of mercury in most shots we give our children and the rates of autism. A quick google for "autism mercury" might give you some interesting reading: http://www.google.com/search?q=autism+mercury The latest autism rates are now below 1 in 100 children. Think about that - when you were a kid (however old you are), had you even heard of autism? Today, there are entire wings of schools that are dedicated solely for the autistic children, in addition to schools / learning centers that cater exclusively to autistic kids.
Don't get me wrong, I think it's a goddamn shame that so many kids are autistic today. I'm a parent, and I cannot imagine what life would be like if my child were autistic. But this whole topic infuriates me, because the "problem" is apparently caused by the very companies who are now producing a "cure". How convenient. I wonder how many billions of dollars that'll be worth to those pharmaco bastards.
The sad thing is, if you actually compare the data for most diseases for which children are vaccinated, the extreme negative side effects (caused by the drugs / shots, even if only in a small percentage of children) are so, so much worse than if the kid contracts the disease in the first place. Plus, vaccinations produce immunity that is not passed on to your offspring (by mothers), so vaccinations eff with nature's own process of protecting our offspring. Instead, if a child fights an illness naturally, their body will build a natural immunity and their immune system in general will be much better at doing what it's supposed to do - keep the kid healthy.
I saw her Switch ad when it came out. I didn't get the cult fascination then, and I don't get it now either. So fine, whatever. Fast forward 5 years later and I'm wondering what the hell any of us are doing reading an interview with her.
I read part of the interview and have concluded that it's just as interesting as most blogs by strangers I'll never meet. Funny thing is, most people are immediately appreciative of how much most blogs suck, yet an interview with Ellen Feiss is somehow above that.
Please, someone tell me, what the hell am I missing here? Really. I don't get it.
I used to zap CDs in the microwave, both for the show (it's cool to watch) and the results (the cd looks cool afterward). I was one of the few people who actually looked forward to a new AOL sign-up cd.
I haven't nuked a cd in years, mostly because it smells awful. But if anyone out there hasn't tried it, you should, and make sure you open your windows and get a fan, and be prepared for a smelly kitchen for a day or so. It's very cool to watch a cd inside a microwave - for a brief moment you'll see a wave of electricity spread from one side to the other, right across the surface of the cd. And afterward, the pattern will remain etched onto the aluminum of the cd itself, so you'll have a cool looking cd.
Trial and error shows that you'll get the best results by keeping the microwave time to a bare minimum, maybe only 1 second.
If nobody can make money from it, there will be no development and open source software quickly becomes outdated...
He's so right! Open source stuff is teh suck!
Check out Windows XP - it's not open source, it has no bugs, and it has totally progressed for the past five years!
Erm... or not.
Wait a second... no progress, tons of bugs, outdated products... this all sounds very familiar. Are we sure this guy isn't bashing Microsoft products instead of open source?
Appreciate the thought and effort, kaan, but folks are still in the position of accepting one stranger's (your) word to confirm another stranger's (Gottesser's) claim that a site we can't directly verify (blackbox1.org) is truly being run by BBV.
Already done. Check http://www.blackboxvoting.org/ and see for yourself.
So you say. How do we know who you are?
/. readers who say Bev (and www.blackbox1.org) is legit, not just me. :)
;-)
:)
Well, you don't know who I am, and there's not much I can do to earn instant creditibility with you. So I would suggest you go to http://www.blackboxvoting.org/contact.html yourself, and call the primary contact number. When I did that, Bev answered the phone herself. It will take about a minute to call and ask a few questions, and if you do call, please post back here. That way, it will be two nameless
(Nothing personal, just illustrating the chains of trust necessarily involved in any security.)
I completely agree, as far as you know, I'm just some guy with a low uid.
Thanks for checking. If you really did
I did, and you're welcome.
How does one reliably examine software without the source code?
You're right, you can't tell as much from an executable as you can from looking at source. But it's still possible to make observations about behavior, operation, ways to break it or alter election results, all without looking at the source. I'm sure if Bev (or anyone else) could get the source code for the voting software, she would do so. For now, this is all she's got.
Why would anyone bother spending time on this?
Because our public elections are run through secret software that nobody knows about, nobody will explain, and nobody understands. So we're supposed to just sit back and say, "oh well"? Does it bother you that there are recorded, documented instances of candidates receiving negative votes? Like, "less than 0". Doesn't that concern you? It should.
The traceroute for one actually leads to floridawebmasters.com after going through rackspace.net.
Yep, I saw the same thing, don't know what to tell you.
12 vlan901.core1.dfw1.rackspace.com (72.3.128.21) 986.452 ms 756.475 ms 999.809 ms
13 aggr3a.dfw1.rackspace.net (72.3.129.11) 763.390 ms 1227.111 ms 1247.636 ms
14 floridawebmasters.com (72.32.2.234) 1504.584 ms 756.088 ms 250.646 ms
(I admit, I'm not going to call them)
Well, maybe you should call them. It will take 1 minute, probably less time than it would take you to write another response to this comment.
Their phone number is on their website:
http://www.blackboxvoting.org/contact.html
1) How is this software legal to distribute in the way that it is being done? Can she supply information about why it is legal, even i she won't say where it came from?
/. because there are going to be some tough questions, especially when the initial comments are, "this whole thing looks bogus".
/. now also guilty under the DMCA, and possibly other laws?
I asked Bev the same thing, she didn't want to say very much about it. So I'll add my own commentary: legality aside, if you piss off somebody big enough, they will find a way to shut you down, no matter what. Black Box Voting has had problems with this in the past (as explained in Hacking Democracy, where Bev originally found Diebold's Gems software on a public ftp server, her website was shut down, but not before many others had downloaded the contents).
2) Even if it is legal for us to download it and posses it, how can we usefully examine the software unless hack it it in such a way which will probably break the DMCA (or other laws)
Good question. The answer is, "you probably can't". The DMCA probably applies here, and probably says it's illegal for us to even discuss their proprietary software. I suggested to Bev that she try to participate in the discussion on
If she won't say where she got it from then I'm going to assume that it is illegal. Also if this is illegal then isn't
I can't disagree with you. Bev said she could not disclose anything about where it came from, because it would likely reveal who it came from, and she couldn't do that. I don't know what to tell you. The DMCA probably applies, and that's just something you'll have to decide on your own.
I would further suggest that you consider whether voting software for public elections should be so secret as to be hidden behind a generic law such as the DMCA. That's really the issue here - everything about electronic voting is a secret, and her organization is trying to expose that.
Kaan
I just got on blackboxvoting.org and called the primary phone number, and Bev Harris answered the phone. This is legitimate. I talked to her for about 5 minutes, explained that an article showed up on /. and there were questions about its authenticity. She said it was legit, they set up a new domain name so they don't hammer their primary server (they've gotten a ton of traffic lately). She said she could not disclose where she obtained the executable code, but that it was real software and she wanted feedback from the slashdot community. This is really from Bev, and she's trying to solicit help from the /. community to dig into this stuff.
Kaan
I just got on blackboxvoting.org and called the primary phone number, and Bev Harris answered the phone. She said she could not disclose where she obtained the software, but that it was legitimate, real software. She set up another domain to prevent /. of their primary domain. Run a traceroute and you'll see that both blackboxvoting.org and blackbox1.org are hosted with Rackspace. Phishers do not use Rackspace, they use domains in Russia or where ever.
/. community to dig into this stuff.
This is not a phishing scam, it's really from Bev, and she's trying to solicit help from the
Oh, and yes, I'm posting similar comments in reply to all of the "is this real?" comments... Moderators: please do not mod me down without calling them yourself (go to blackboxvoting.org for phone number).
Kaan
I just got on blackboxvoting.org and called the primary phone number, and Bev Harris answered the phone.
/. and there were questions about its authenticity. She said it was legit, they set up a new domain name so they don't hammer their primary server (they've gotten a ton of traffic lately). She said she could not disclose where she obtained the executable code, but that it was real software and she wanted feedback from the slashdot community.
/. community to dig into this stuff.
I spoke to her for about 5 minutes, explained that an article showed up on
This is not a phishing scam, it's really from Bev, and she's trying to solicit help from the
Oh, and yes, I'm posting this same comment in reply to all of the "is this real?" comments... Moderators: please do not mod me down without calling them yourself (go to blackboxvoting.org for phone number).
Kaan
I just got on blackboxvoting.org and called the primary phone number, and Bev Harris answered the phone.
/. and there were questions about its authenticity. She said it was legit, they set up a new domain name so they don't hammer their primary server (they've gotten a ton of traffic lately). She said she could not disclose where she obtained the executable code, but that it was real software and she wanted feedback from the slashdot community.
/. community to dig into this stuff.
I spoke to her for about 5 minutes, explained that an article showed up on
This is not a phishing scam, it's really from Bev, and she's trying to solicit help from the
Kaan
Not only is the keyboard an issue, consider the rest of his body! He's bent over the screen, neck bent to view the screen that's 2 feet below eye level. Any basic ergonomics advise says you should put the top edge of your display at eye level. Anything lower than that and you'll experience neck and back pain. Keyboard-related RSI will go nicely with a stiff neck.
I swear, if this were from a business selling some new product, I'd say they were trying to boost sales. But he's a researcher. I guess they must be up for more funding or something...?
In fact, it absolutey does have an interface. Granted, it's a simple interface, and one that contextually changes with each application, but it's still an interface. Basically, all he's showing is an interface that essentially has two mice, not one, and instead of using your hand to manipulate a physical mouse (which is then translated onto the screen), they've built a complicated touch-screen system to eliminate the mouse altogether. And then they added a second one. Don't get me wrong, this stuff is neato, but it isn't really that impressive. Looks like an insanely expensive touch-screen display, with software that supports two mice.
:P
Also, I can't quite let it slide the claim on the website - "he demonstrates - for the first time publicly - his intuitive, "interface-free," touch -drive computer screen". They need to really emphasize the "publicly" part of that statement. I saw a show on National Geographic (might be a year or two old, too), pretty sure it's the same exact research group with some of the same types of demos like in the video. They very clearly used the same "interface-free" design to navigate city maps. The show was about stopping terrorits or something (it was actually kinda silly), and it emphasized this two-handed, "mouse-less" map navigation stuff so much that it almost seemed like an advertisement.
Perhaps they should call it "dual mouse" interface?