I don't really know how to respond to this, other than that I am disappointed for your lack of open-mindedness towards voting machines. Electronic voting technology is an active area of research: See http://accurate-voting.org/ for one example. Are voting machines fit for general use now? Absolutely not. But they continue to get better, as more and more research is being devoted to this hot topic.
All of the issues that you discussed can be subverted with better software, and more secure hardware. For instance, many people have suggested the use of TPM chips in voting machines to attempt to prevent software tampering. Teams of experts can validate source code and prove that it does what it's supposed to - I understand that you'd like to be able to validate it yourself, but the more open the source is, the more people that can look at it and can raise a red flag if something is wrong.
It's a shame that so many counties have poured money into machines like the flawed Diebold and iVotronic systems, because it means we may not see upgrades to more secure, and accurate systems for some time. However, pen and paper has its flaws as well. Voting machines have a lot of potential to fix the problems with both pen and paper, and the machines used today. What we need from the Government is more attention and action to these problems - audits and source code reviews should not be simply passed on as what seems to be happening in Sarasota, FL. What we need from members of the public, like yourself, is to not turn a blind eye to the possibilities, but to believe that researchers are doing their best to bring more secure voting machines to use.
I know some people who each have a PS2, Xbox, and Gamecube, and plan on getting each of the 3 new consoles. Sure you can keep the old systems, but then you need to have 6 hooked up to your TV and spend money to get an adapter, or keep switching them out, which is pretty annoying. It's not like all of the old system's games are obsolete; many times a great game will be released for a console right before its next-gen comes out. I don't see why they can't provide the backwards compatability so long as the medium stays the same (if its due to limitations of the medium I can certainly understand). It's also a huge selling factor at launch, because if I have the choice of buying a console which can play all of my games already or buying one that can only play the 1 or 2 games that launched with it, I'm certainly choosing the former.
I don't mean to stick up for Rockstar, but I have a feeling that some programmers may have snuck the content in without management's approval or knowledge. Of course that doesn't say much for their Quality Control department...
What Rockstar really needs to do is just come out and say that they have found the people who put the content in, and that they have been sacked. They won't be completely off the hook, but at least it will show that they are doing something about it. Hiding behind the problem, like they are doing now, will only make matters worse for them in the end.
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I don't really know how to respond to this, other than that I am disappointed for your lack of open-mindedness towards voting machines. Electronic voting technology is an active area of research: See http://accurate-voting.org/ for one example. Are voting machines fit for general use now? Absolutely not. But they continue to get better, as more and more research is being devoted to this hot topic.
All of the issues that you discussed can be subverted with better software, and more secure hardware. For instance, many people have suggested the use of TPM chips in voting machines to attempt to prevent software tampering. Teams of experts can validate source code and prove that it does what it's supposed to - I understand that you'd like to be able to validate it yourself, but the more open the source is, the more people that can look at it and can raise a red flag if something is wrong.
It's a shame that so many counties have poured money into machines like the flawed Diebold and iVotronic systems, because it means we may not see upgrades to more secure, and accurate systems for some time. However, pen and paper has its flaws as well. Voting machines have a lot of potential to fix the problems with both pen and paper, and the machines used today. What we need from the Government is more attention and action to these problems - audits and source code reviews should not be simply passed on as what seems to be happening in Sarasota, FL. What we need from members of the public, like yourself, is to not turn a blind eye to the possibilities, but to believe that researchers are doing their best to bring more secure voting machines to use.
I know some people who each have a PS2, Xbox, and Gamecube, and plan on getting each of the 3 new consoles. Sure you can keep the old systems, but then you need to have 6 hooked up to your TV and spend money to get an adapter, or keep switching them out, which is pretty annoying. It's not like all of the old system's games are obsolete; many times a great game will be released for a console right before its next-gen comes out. I don't see why they can't provide the backwards compatability so long as the medium stays the same (if its due to limitations of the medium I can certainly understand). It's also a huge selling factor at launch, because if I have the choice of buying a console which can play all of my games already or buying one that can only play the 1 or 2 games that launched with it, I'm certainly choosing the former.
I don't mean to stick up for Rockstar, but I have a feeling that some programmers may have snuck the content in without management's approval or knowledge. Of course that doesn't say much for their Quality Control department...
What Rockstar really needs to do is just come out and say that they have found the people who put the content in, and that they have been sacked. They won't be completely off the hook, but at least it will show that they are doing something about it. Hiding behind the problem, like they are doing now, will only make matters worse for them in the end.