[EM] Hiding Abilities

[Dave Ketchum]

Reading about stuff getting included in programs, secretly, I am  
reminded of something that is close to ancient history:

I bought a disk, accepting the restriction that I was not allowed to  
make copies.

Curious as to what they might do for protection, more than making an  
idle threat, I looked at the code and found nothing.

So I did a trial copy of the disk, which KNEW it was not at home, and  
refused to do more than complain.  Looked closer at the code - there  
really was no instruction code to be so smart, meaning we were into  
magic.

Magic being a bit much to accept, I looked still closer and now know  
it was doable with normal disks - have fun thinking on this.

BTW, I believe there are good tasks for computers in election work -  
we just do need to get away from the excessive misuse and find and  
punish the worst of that.

Dave Ketchum

On Feb 21, 2010, at 5:08 PM, WarrenS wrote:
Re: [RangeVoting] Tallying ballot images is "trivial"?  NO worries  
about e-voting?
>
>> Tallying the ballot images is trivial, and can be done  
>> independently by numerous parties.  I suspect even you could do it.
>
> --this assumes that all the "numerous parties" HAVE the (true, not  
> false)
> "ballot images."
>
> There are two problems with that:
> (a) how do they get them?  In very, very few IRV races so far in  
> world history, have all the ballot data been distributed to  
> "numerous parties." In the vast majority they were kept secret.
> (b) And even assuming the government is willing to do that, how do  
> we know they did not fake the data?  How do we know it is real data?
>
> The concerns of those concerned about computers is, it is very easy  
> for a very small conspiracy to mess with stuff secretly and  
> massively.  E.g. the entire Greek government was wiretapped by  
> unknown parties messing with phone company hardware/software.    
> Google says it is going to pull out of China due to attacks.  The  
> Israelis supposedly managed to corrupt hardware manufacturers of  
> Syrian radar system components so they could shut down their radar  
> when they wanted.  SONY implanted a virus in thousands to millions  
> of computers via music CDs.  Microsoft spied on millions of computer  
> owners via software which transmitted data about their computer back  
> over the net to microsoft.  The head of Mexico election authority  
> admitted to the press they'd frauded a a presidential election via  
> computers (which had already been fairly obvious),  Etc. Etc.
>
> For this reason, many are very concerned about computers in  
> elections and feel they should either be outright abolished, or only  
> used in very restricted ways.   Unfortunately,
> I have so far never encountered or heard of any lawmaker savvy  
> enough to understand what the latter meant.