Entries categorized as ‘motivation’
September 23, 2008 · 2 Comments
I know that I have not blogged lately and that this is way off topic. But it is just irresistible.
(This is reposted from the Brad Blog but I’m sure it’s circulating through the net. I humbly present, the fed’s bailout as a 419 scam)
Dear American:
I need to ask you to support an urgent secret business relationship with a transfer of funds of great magnitude.
I am Ministry of the Treasury of the Republic of America. My country has had crisis that has caused the need for large transfer of funds of 800 billion USD. If you would assist me in this transfer, it would be most profitable to you.
I am working with Mr. Phil Gramm, lobbyist for UBS, who (God willing) will be my replacement as Ministry of the Treasury in January. As a former U.S. congressional leader and the architect of the PALIN / McCain Financial Doctrine, you may know him as the leader of the American banking deregulation movement in the 1990s. As such, you can be assured that this transaction is 100% safe.
This is a matter of great urgency. We need a blank check. We need the funds as quickly as possible. We cannot directly transfer these funds in the names of our close friends because we are constantly under surveillance. My family lawyer advised me that I should look for a reliable and trustworthy person who will act as a next of kin so the funds can be transferred.
Please reply with all of your bank account, IRA and college fund account numbers and those of your children and grandchildren to wallstreetbailout@treasury.gov so that we may transfer your commission for this transaction. After I receive that information, I will respond with detailed information about safeguards that will be used to protect the funds.
Yours Faithfully Minister of Treasury Paulson
Oh, wait, you want to know my thoughts on this bailout?
It’s disgusting. It’s short sighted. It’s idiotic. It’s socializing losses after privatizing profits. There may be merit to the taxpayers bailing out a private institutions but the way that this is being conducted acts as if no-one had a clue that these companies were in trouble until a few days before a bailout. Such a bailout using such
huge amounts of public money (IIRC, this costs more than the Iraq war) is deserving of thoughtful debate, a non rushed time-frame, and almost certainly the imposition of regulatory framework on the failed institutions.
Categories: motivation
December 5, 2007 · 1 Comment
Back when I discussed anonymity I raised some concerns about identity theft. Here is a follow up on my research on identity theft. Hopefully it will be of use to someone.
Domain Anonymizers
There are a number of domain anonymizer services such as as Domains by Proxy that allow you to legitimately register a domain anonymously. Note that there are some accounts of these services turning over your actual contact information with very little provocation.
Credit Report
I focussed my attention on fraud issues that reflect within your credit report.
I found that there are several approaches to protecting a credit report. You can get a good overview with a side of advocacy at The Consumers Union.
There are a few basic techniques.
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Categories: motivation
The Rose Report discusses algorithmic approaches to redistricting such as the shortest-splitline algorithm.
The Rose report points out that these algorithms could be unconstitutional and seems to consider algorithmic redistricting approaches to be politically naive.
A recent letter-to-the-editor in The Appeal-Democrat suggested we just draw district lines according to latitude across the state to create the areas our legislators represent. Many people say such things, not unreasonably, because they are ignorant of the fact that such districts would inevitably be unconstitutional.
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The idea behind such proposals is simple: people want to take the “politics” out of redistricting politics in a complete and total manner. Of course, in practice, trying to take the politics out of politics is as nonsensical and impossible as the verbal formulation. Further, such reforms might cause more problems than they would ever solve. Such exercises can be valuable as thought experiments, but realistic reforms strive for something much more moderate and, for lack of a better word, political.
I disagree with the assertions made by the Rose report that algorithmic approaches to redistricting are forever unrealistic reforms.
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Categories: algorithmic_redistricting · gerrymandering · incumbency · motivation · shortest_splitline
From Network World:
Swiss officials are using quantum cryptography technology to protect voting ballots cast in the Geneva region of Switzerland during parliamentary elections to be held Oct. 21, marking the first time this type of advanced encryption will be used for election protection purposes.
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For the Swiss ballot-collection process, the quantum cryptography system made by id Quantique will be used to secure the link between the central ballot-counting station in downtown Geneva and a government data center in the suburbs.
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“We would like to provide optimal security conditions for the work of counting the ballots,” said Robert Hensler, the Geneva State Chancellor, in a statement issued today. “In this context, the value added by quantum cryptography concerns not so much protection from outside attempts to interfere as the ability to verify that the data have not been corrupted in transit between entry and storage.”
Got that? Swiss officials will be using quantum crypto to encrypt the communication channel between a central ballot counting station and a government data center. It’s only used for a small part of the election process and, to the best of my knowledge, the information that is being transmitted along this channel ought to be public information anyways.
So I see nothing of value here. Standard communication techniques like SSL would have worked fine. I’m not alone in my assessment.
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Categories: motivation
Hi there. My name is Greg Wolfe.
When I started this blog I decided to be anonymous. Today I’ve decided to break that anonymity and public state who I am. Read on to learn why.
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Categories: motivation
September 26, 2007 · 1 Comment
A bit more brainstorming about ways to aid the end-to-end verifiability meme. Other suggestions are welcome.
- Have a forum for discussing E2E verifiable systems. For example a yahoo group or a google group. Initially I would suggest an open all-purpose forum covering both technical discussion and general advocacy and discussion.
- Have a website promoting the general idea of E2E verifiable systems - not just specific systems
- Each E2E project should have a website dedicated to it with clear descriptions of how it works intended for non-academic readers. (It should of course also include sections targeting academic readers) The Punchscan web site does very well here. But many others do not - even projects involving the same people.
Some examples:
Categories: fraud · motivation · punchscan · scratch_and_vote · security · three_ballot · votingmachines
September 20, 2007 · 2 Comments
Here is my point-by-point review of Daniel Castro’s ITIF eVoting report.
This is a long post. I recommend that you first read a summary of my views.
I am basic agreement with the thesis of the report which is that the debate about eVoting should move beyond voter-verified paper audit trails to include systems that can prove to a voter that their vote was counted as cast. However, I found the tone and focus of the report disagreeable and I disagreed with much of the material in the report advocating for eVoting and against voter-verified paper audit trails.
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Categories: fraud · itif · legislation · motivation · news · punchscan · security · votingmachines
Welcome to All About Voting!
I am launching this blog as a place where I can post musings on voting systems and social choice. In this blog I will describe some problems with our current system and discuss reforms to address them. I plan to discuss both the reforms that I favor and some reforms that I disparage.
What do I hope to achieve? At this point my main goals are:
- to stay interested and engaged in the topic voting systems and reforms
- to step up my interest into activism.
About me: I am a software developer who lives in Sacramento. See more about me on the ‘About’ page.
Categories: motivation
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