[ExI] Our Ageing World

[spike]

From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf
Of Anders
Sent: Tuesday, August 16, 2016 2:22 PM
To: extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
Subject: Re: [ExI] Our Ageing World

 

On 2016-08-14 19:33, William Flynn Wallace wrote:



>>. Will hackers win the next war?


>.It might be more relevant to ask whether hackers will win the next
diplomatic negotiation.

 

Ja.  The hacking led to this paradoxical comment in the article:

 

>.Even so, we have to accept that someone is attacking our nation's computer
systems in an apparent attempt to influence a presidential election.

 

Sure, but it resulted in catching the head of the DNC, who unfairly
attempted to influence the nomination of her party and lost her job.  So
this is a case where hacking caught the bad guy.  This is a good thing, ja?
On the other hand, the result was allowed to stand, even though it was
derived through cheating.  What does that tell us?  If hacking catches the
bad guy, is the hacker a bad guy?  Or does the hacker become the good guy?

 

>. And it points to the possibility of an even worse problem in November --
that our election systems and our voting machines could be vulnerable to a
similar attack.

 

Well ja.  We know those machines can be hacked: 

 

http://thenextweb.com/insider/2016/08/10/an-easy-to-find-15-piece-of-hardwar
e-is-all-it-takes-to-hack-a-voting-machine/#gref

 

And yet. still. with that known risk, the obvious solution is not even
suggested: get rid of those goddam voting machines.  Replace them all with a
system that leaves a permanent auditable re-countable paper trail.  Now,
wasn't that simple?  

 

We still have paper ballot boxes in many places; voters punch out their
ballots on paper cards, then physically drop their ballots in the box.  Then
a group of people of all political persuasions follow that box every minute
from the time it leaves the polling place until the time it arrives at the
countiong place and all the paper ballots are counted and filed.  But the
voting machines?  No, those are different.  No need to watch those.  Those
don't count.  They are just votes, not paper ballots, and besides no one is
quite sure what is actually going on there anyway, if anything at all.

 

OK sure, so what happens if a candidate appears to have won with plenty of
evidence of cheating?  Do we care if Americans lose faith in the democratic
process?  Do we then just shrug and let the suspicious result stand?  Or
what?

 

Anders this problem has been sticking in my craw at least since November
2000, if not before.  We had a suspicious result, there was no way to
recount some of the ballots, and the questionable outcome was left to stand.
There were consequences.  And yet, inexplicably, no one seems to want to
create a massive bipartisan effort to get rid of any and all voting systems
dependent in any way on electronics in any form.  Oy.

 

Hey cool, a post free of any partisan political content!  By me of all
people.

 

spike

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