Re:Distributed online voting perhaps?
on
BSD And Politics
·
· Score: 2
With enough planning, it might be possible for a selective DoS to keep your enemies from voting online. If you can
identify where they are coming from, or the time of day they are likely to vote, or simply find that a lower turnout in
general will influence the result in your favour, just make it hard for voters to get through.
Now that was my point. If there is no central server to DoS, but a large number of servers, each serving a random subset of voters, you would have a much harder time DoS-ing them AND you could not make make a more aimed effort (unless, as you suggested, you know that your opponents supporters are more likely to vote at a certain time)
Sure you could still keep *some* people away, but it would not be a predictable result.
As for the many countries, many different cultures issue: if you look at the European Union now, the member states are
not a homogeneous mass. They have their own local legistlation. For instance, cannabis is legal in Holland, whereas in
Norway it is not.
<NITPICK>
Norway is not part of the European Union
</NITPICK>
Re:Distributed online voting perhaps?
on
BSD And Politics
·
· Score: 1
Of course, but I figured that was a subset of a) /Guran
Re:Distributed online voting perhaps?
on
BSD And Politics
·
· Score: 2
Looks like you got *my* idea...
Anyway, disinformation and propaganda is considered part of the game. Outright cheating is not.
I don't think online voting can solve the old problems of a democracy. I was merely wondering how to avoid causing new ones.
Once Fraunhofer start getting heavy with MP3 licensing, the penguinhead army will adopt Vorbis in a flash, and
hopefully so will Windows-using music fans. Then the battle lines shift to hardware players.
Just like we all use use.png instead of.gif today you mean?
Sorry, I'm in a pessimistic mode today
Distributed online voting perhaps?
on
BSD And Politics
·
· Score: 3
I did some thinking and came up with the following:
There are two ways to tamper with an election (exept for the usual unholy game called election campaign)
a) You either try to cheat outright, replacing notes with "Guy X" printed on them with notes with "Guy Y" (or flood the booth with "Guy Y" votes, or rig the lists or counting) or
b) You disturb the election itself. Making it difficult for your opponents suspected supporters to vote.
Real life meatspace voting is not so easy to disturb. Sure, you can cause a lot of trouble, but to seriously affect the outcome of an election, you must have lots of people with you messing vith voting booths all over the country. That means to pull it off you must be big enough to be an important political factor anyway.
Online voting may be more sensitive to tampering than traditional voting since a single cracker, with or without a political agenda, might try to alter the results (method a) or simply DoS the voting server (method b).
Now the best way to counter this threat would be to large number of voting servers, each taking votes from a random subset of the population. This way one successful cracker attempt will be a nuisance, like a single bomb threat on election day, but will hardly have any affect on the overall results.
Re:Wonder if this could be dangerous?
on
Gnutella Vs. SPAM
·
· Score: 1
Left alone people find alternatives to monopoly services and goods.
True, and left alone the monopoly does everything in it's power to squash those alternatives. Some competitor or inventor might survive, but hardly on merits alone.
In a "free" economy, nothing stops people and corporations from acting in their own self interest. A good thing, you might say, but a society of people, each acting in his or her best interest, can go catastrophically wrong.
It is the classical "prisoners dilemma" on a greater scale. I'll give you a typical example:
Too much use of antibiotics leads to a faster evolvement of resistant strains of bacteria. It is clearly in everyones interest that the stronger kinds of antibiotics are reserved as a last resort, or the day will come when we have large outbreaks of incurable pneumonia, for example. However, if I'm ill it is in *my* best interest to get back on my feet as quickly as possible, and a stronger antibiotic will do that for me. The sum of rational people becomes an irrational society.
The role of a government is to avoid such situations while interfering as little as possible
The best thing a govenment can do in a free economy is to serve as a guarantee that everyone must play by the rules. (including the government itself, of course) There are anti-trust laws, since monopolies live by those rational-individual-irrational-society mechanisms. They have been around for decades. That makes price-fixing a calculated risk and trust busting a fair action.
Regarding the goverments own monopolies we can have a discusion about them too, but this rant is getting too long already.
Since you risk a two year sentence if you dont want to give the authorities the key to the PGP encrypted 733n pr0n on your laptop, you can send a killer e-mail instead after THEY come for you...
How is writing software like selling drugs? Holding software authors liable for the criminal activities of others would
be like holding hypodermic needle makers liable for people injecting heroin.
Nah, rather like holding the chemist who discovered a new hallucinogen responsible for it's use.
You discover such a substance - OK
You publish a detailed description on it's effects and how to make it. - Morally questionable perhaps, but definitly legal.
You cook some up and use it to get a trip. - Stupid, possibly illegal depending on how [over]protective your local laws are, but not a major offence.
You cook some up and start distributing it for free among friends. - No biggie morally, though the law will disagree. However, you are not likely to get caught, even less convicted.
You start cooking on an industrial scale and sell your product for a profit. - Beep, dead wrong!
The sequence of bits named "napster" might not be illegal, and definitly impossible to remove. The service "Napster" is possible illegal, and very possible to stop.
If company after company tries the same thing, RIAA might give up, but as long as they can fight a company or a person at a time, instead of half the internet, they are on their own territotry.
Re:Not according to Human developement report 2000
on
Hacker Crackdown?
·
· Score: 2
Yeah his facts were wrong, but still, that was one of his best trolls yet... lol
Don't fight the copying issue, because: 1.You're wrong. DeCSS really is useful for making perfect digital copies.
Yes *useful* but not *neccesary* If you are only interested in copying DVD's, bit for bit copy or frame capture is still there if DeCSS is successfully banned.
One of my reflections when I sat down and actually read it was how single persons are never gloryfied: It is the *people* that is. You get the notion that every people has their god(s). Jahve is by no means the only god around. The moral is that a) You should never betray your *own* god. b) Stick with Jahve, cause he's the strongest.
Exodus is a fine example. Pharao's magicians get aid from *their* gods. It is just that Mose has a stronger ally.
And, yes there are many ways to read the Torah (as well as the new testiment) Ever tried to read Exodus as a comedy? If you don't fint it heretical, I really recomend it.
That is fine,... in theory, but how do you find 12 unbisased people? Isn't it likely that the trial becomes more a case of getting the right jury and then convince them emotionally rather than sorting out facts and law?
I sure would like someone to be on my side if I went to court. However, a board is quite predictable. Either the evidence is enough to convict me or it is not. A jury could find me guilty cause they don't like my appearance or set me free cause they feel sorry for me.
While I certainly don't like the fact that everyone except me works for the government (which is only really a problem if some official is involved in the case) uncertainty is not a good protection of my rights.
The net has changed the de facto rules...
on
At The Crossroads
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· Score: 2
... of copyright infringement and other "information crimes"
They used to be: "It is illegal, but if you really want it, you can get it" Now they read: "It is illegal, but if you feel like it, you can get it,... easily"
The old testiment is one of the most complete histories of a people (Jews) available in modern times. Many events in the Bible have been varified by indepentant (and sometimes agnostic or athiest) historians.
The old testament is an intresting document indeed. Unfortunately it is more of an autobiography than a historical document. Every event is described so that the jewish people is glorified. Nothing unusual, every people has compiled history readings to show their greatness. However that is something one must consider when reading the bible (just like any other document) in a historical sense.
Regarding the morality of Country folk and christians: Remember that both of these communities (in their traditional sense) are close knit and everyone knows everyone else. This makes the raising of children in a moral fashion quite a bit easier
That makes raising conforming children easier. Wether they are more moral or not is a different question. I dont consider xenofobia to be a moral thing...
Posting anonymously and moderating our own comments are we?
And, next time you troll, you might want to stay with the good ol' "stupid opinion" method, and not mix it up with incorrect statistics. I mean at least not dead wrong numbers.
Is there not a deeper problem? Is a group of "peers" really best suited to making desicions on someones guilt or innosence?
In Sweden, cases are decided by a board instead of a jury (except in freedom of press cases) While that system also has its problems it avoids the uncertainity of jury trials.
Now as a law abiding non-lawyer citizen, I don't have much experience with our courts, and my "knowledge" of american courts come mostly from TV and slashdot, so I don't feel very qualified comparing the systems.
What do you say. Is the whole concept of an uninformed peer jury flawed or is it worh preserving?
Servers is the only arena in which Microsoft (as today) is really vulnerable. Linux (and other non-ms OS) are competing well on the servers, but except for a (admittedly large) couple of geeks, are not used on the desktop.
I do a great deal of development for MS backoffice platforms, IIS, SQL-server etc. The advantage of developing for a MS platform serving MS Clients from a MS desktop is scary.
That is why Back Office must be separated from the OS company just like the regular Office suite. No bundling of Word and IE with Windows 98, no bundling of IIS and SQL server with Win 2K.
The GPL would not be necessary without copyright law!
... and copyright law would not be necessary if there were not those who abuse free information
With the GPL you get something for "free" provided you don't keep it for yourself.
Free supply of goods is a very nice idea. However every large scale experiment sofar has crashed since some people always abuses the system. Free beer? Cool I'll have a truckload. Free food? excuse me while I take a caviar bath. Free independent music? Sounds nice, now show me the Britney Spears mp3z.
If you want a stable working system, you must make sure that what is good for the society is also good for the individual and vice versa.
With copyright (and patents) the creator/inventor is guaranteed a reward for sharing their ideas. Sell your code and the copyright protects your income (assuming there is one), GPL the same code and copyright protects your credits. Take away copyright and the only means of protection left is through obfuscation.
Sure some are content with coding/performing/writing/playing for free. Are they also content with coding/etc without any credit whatsoever?
The GPL is *still* a limitation of what you can do with someone elses work. If you don't want any limitation, post your work anonymously on a piublic forum. Just don't demand that everyone else does the same.
Well as I said, if you want freedom you must be prepared to move a bit.
There is not one single country that support "all freedom for everyone" Nor is there likely to be a person who does, exept in theory. The average/.-er, for example, is very likely to support freedom of speech to great extent. He (I guess the average/.er is a "he") is probably less likely to support some companys (*cough* MS *cough*) freedom to do business how they please. (hold thy flamethrower, that includes me as well)
In practice you never get more freedom than your neighbour allows. The trick is to choose your neighbour.
Slashdot Mirror
Now that was my point. If there is no central server to DoS, but a large number of servers, each serving a random subset of voters, you would have a much harder time DoS-ing them AND you could not make make a more aimed effort (unless, as you suggested, you know that your opponents supporters are more likely to vote at a certain time)
Sure you could still keep *some* people away, but it would not be a predictable result.
<NITPICK>
Norway is not part of the European Union
</NITPICK>
Of course, but I figured that was a subset of a)
/Guran
Anyway, disinformation and propaganda is considered part of the game. Outright cheating is not.
I don't think online voting can solve the old problems of a democracy. I was merely wondering how to avoid causing new ones.
Just like we all use use .png instead of .gif today you mean?
Sorry, I'm in a pessimistic mode today
There are two ways to tamper with an election (exept for the usual unholy game called election campaign)
a) You either try to cheat outright, replacing notes with "Guy X" printed on them with notes with "Guy Y" (or flood the booth with "Guy Y" votes, or rig the lists or counting) or
b) You disturb the election itself. Making it difficult for your opponents suspected supporters to vote.
Real life meatspace voting is not so easy to disturb. Sure, you can cause a lot of trouble, but to seriously affect the outcome of an election, you must have lots of people with you messing vith voting booths all over the country. That means to pull it off you must be big enough to be an important political factor anyway.
Online voting may be more sensitive to tampering than traditional voting since a single cracker, with or without a political agenda, might try to alter the results (method a) or simply DoS the voting server (method b).
Now the best way to counter this threat would be to large number of voting servers, each taking votes from a random subset of the population. This way one successful cracker attempt will be a nuisance, like a single bomb threat on election day, but will hardly have any affect on the overall results.
Been there done that...
A computer, running as mailserver, inside an empty can of spam would be nice too.
True, and left alone the monopoly does everything in it's power to squash those alternatives. Some competitor or inventor might survive, but hardly on merits alone.
In a "free" economy, nothing stops people and corporations from acting in their own self interest. A good thing, you might say, but a society of people, each acting in his or her best interest, can go catastrophically wrong.
It is the classical "prisoners dilemma" on a greater scale. I'll give you a typical example:
Too much use of antibiotics leads to a faster evolvement of resistant strains of bacteria. It is clearly in everyones interest that the stronger kinds of antibiotics are reserved as a last resort, or the day will come when we have large outbreaks of incurable pneumonia, for example. However, if I'm ill it is in *my* best interest to get back on my feet as quickly as possible, and a stronger antibiotic will do that for me. The sum of rational people becomes an irrational society.
The role of a government is to avoid such situations while interfering as little as possible
The best thing a govenment can do in a free economy is to serve as a guarantee that everyone must play by the rules. (including the government itself, of course) There are anti-trust laws, since monopolies live by those rational-individual-irrational-society mechanisms. They have been around for decades. That makes price-fixing a calculated risk and trust busting a fair action.
Regarding the goverments own monopolies we can have a discusion about them too, but this rant is getting too long already.
Since you risk a two year sentence if you dont want to give the authorities the key to the PGP encrypted 733n pr0n on your laptop, you can send a killer e-mail instead after THEY come for you...
Nah, rather like holding the chemist who discovered a new hallucinogen responsible for it's use.
You discover such a substance - OK
You publish a detailed description on it's effects and how to make it. - Morally questionable perhaps, but definitly legal.
You cook some up and use it to get a trip. - Stupid, possibly illegal depending on how [over]protective your local laws are, but not a major offence.
You cook some up and start distributing it for free among friends. - No biggie morally, though the law will disagree. However, you are not likely to get caught, even less convicted.
You start cooking on an industrial scale and sell your product for a profit. - Beep, dead wrong!
The sequence of bits named "napster" might not be illegal, and definitly impossible to remove. The service "Napster" is possible illegal, and very possible to stop.
If company after company tries the same thing, RIAA might give up, but as long as they can fight a company or a person at a time, instead of half the internet, they are on their own territotry.
Yeah his facts were wrong, but still, that was one of his best trolls yet... lol
You have not convinced me, but I learned something. Slashdot at it's best, for once...
1.You're wrong. DeCSS really is useful for making perfect digital copies.
Yes *useful* but not *neccesary* If you are only interested in copying DVD's, bit for bit copy or frame capture is still there if DeCSS is successfully banned.
One of my reflections when I sat down and actually read it was how single persons are never gloryfied: It is the *people* that is. You get the notion that every people has their god(s). Jahve is by no means the only god around. The moral is that a) You should never betray your *own* god. b) Stick with Jahve, cause he's the strongest.
Exodus is a fine example. Pharao's magicians get aid from *their* gods. It is just that Mose has a stronger ally.
And, yes there are many ways to read the Torah (as well as the new testiment)
Ever tried to read Exodus as a comedy? If you don't fint it heretical, I really recomend it.
I sure would like someone to be on my side if I went to court. However, a board is quite predictable. Either the evidence is enough to convict me or it is not. A jury could find me guilty cause they don't like my appearance or set me free cause they feel sorry for me.
While I certainly don't like the fact that everyone except me works for the government (which is only really a problem if some official is involved in the case) uncertainty is not a good protection of my rights.
They used to be: "It is illegal, but if you really want it, you can get it"
Now they read: "It is illegal, but if you feel like it, you can get it,... easily"
The old testament is an intresting document indeed. Unfortunately it is more of an autobiography than a historical document. Every event is described so that the jewish people is glorified. Nothing unusual, every people has compiled history readings to show their greatness. However that is something one must consider when reading the bible (just like any other document) in a historical sense.
Regarding the morality of Country folk and christians: Remember that both of these communities (in their traditional sense) are close knit and everyone knows everyone else. This makes the raising of children in a moral fashion quite a bit easier
That makes raising conforming children easier. Wether they are more moral or not is a different question. I dont consider xenofobia to be a moral thing...
Fortunately Jesus does not agree with you.
I could post a number of bible quotes here, but if you are really a christian I wont have to.
And, next time you troll, you might want to stay with the good ol' "stupid opinion" method, and not mix it up with incorrect statistics. I mean at least not dead wrong numbers.
In Sweden, cases are decided by a board instead of a jury (except in freedom of press cases) While that system also has its problems it avoids the uncertainity of jury trials.
Now as a law abiding non-lawyer citizen, I don't have much experience with our courts, and my "knowledge" of american courts come mostly from TV and slashdot, so I don't feel very qualified comparing the systems.
What do you say. Is the whole concept of an uninformed peer jury flawed or is it worh preserving?
Servers is the only arena in which Microsoft (as today) is really vulnerable. Linux (and other non-ms OS) are competing well on the servers, but except for a (admittedly large) couple of geeks, are not used on the desktop.
I do a great deal of development for MS backoffice platforms, IIS, SQL-server etc. The advantage of developing for a MS platform serving MS Clients from a MS desktop is scary.
That is why Back Office must be separated from the OS company just like the regular Office suite. No bundling of Word and IE with Windows 98, no bundling of IIS and SQL server with Win 2K.
With the GPL you get something for "free" provided you don't keep it for yourself.
Free supply of goods is a very nice idea. However every large scale experiment sofar has crashed since some people always abuses the system. Free beer? Cool I'll have a truckload. Free food? excuse me while I take a caviar bath. Free independent music? Sounds nice, now show me the Britney Spears mp3z.
If you want a stable working system, you must make sure that what is good for the society is also good for the individual and vice versa.
With copyright (and patents) the creator/inventor is guaranteed a reward for sharing their ideas. Sell your code and the copyright protects your income (assuming there is one), GPL the same code and copyright protects your credits. Take away copyright and the only means of protection left is through obfuscation.
Sure some are content with coding/performing/writing/playing for free. Are they also content with coding/etc without any credit whatsoever?
The GPL is *still* a limitation of what you can do with someone elses work. If you don't want any limitation, post your work anonymously on a piublic forum. Just don't demand that everyone else does the same.
Thinking like this is why you always lose in the end, right?
You're really onto something there. USA did not invade Russia and therefore lost WWII?
Guess *I* slept during history class...
There is not one single country that support "all freedom for everyone" Nor is there likely to be a person who does, exept in theory. The average /.-er, for example, is very likely to support freedom of speech to great extent. He (I guess the average /.er is a "he") is probably less likely to support some companys (*cough* MS *cough*) freedom to do business how they please. (hold thy flamethrower, that includes me as well)
In practice you never get more freedom than your neighbour allows. The trick is to choose your neighbour.