It’s interesting to be somewhere when a tide turns. Yesterday, I was in Sacramento.
“There will be an open process and as much transparency as we can muster all the way down to how voting machines and counting equipment operate. We are going to eliminate the use of private, invisible, proprietary software that no one can evaluate as a means of counting our votes.”
– California Secretary of State Debra Bowen’s inaugural remarks.
I wonder if Ms. Bowen knows what she’s saying. If I understand her correctly, it will obsolete everything in that area that California jurisdictions currently own.
Oh, trust me, she knows…
A.L.
Awesome! Can we borrow her when you’re done with her???
I don’t see a problem here. The State Gov. spent a lot of money on a bad idea. Now they will spend a lot of money on a good idea. Two lots of money is worth good democracy.
Well, eventually (like other technologies) the ‘proprietary, invisible and private’ becomes too costly and time-consuming. The reality of it is that for these systems, there needs only to be sufficient security, which means the only things that ought to be ‘private’ are the codes/passwords to tinker with the system.
Security through obscurity is only so good, and like I said, inefficient. Also, not well tested, as you don’t get any random intruders trying their luck.
Which is a good thing at times, but with so many suspicions going around, and the cost of these things, well, I’ve already said that.
Not to mention that gov’t contractors are notoriously inefficient and costly… (which is mostly a result of the contract system itself.)
Anyway, whether very successful or not, this is a positive step.
Also, this is just a side thought– one reason for ‘security through obscurity’ that I’ve found to be true in many cases– is that people want something that they don’t have to monitor, and yet have it be secure.
I think for the most part that applies to safes and personal ftp sites… everything else (especially some like voting systems) has to be reliably monitored.
Thank God it is impossible to cheat with paper or punchcard ballots.
Great news, AL. I hope it all turns out well.
Perhaps Ms Bowen may be un-connected to this group, but the bumper stickers on the cars at the bottom of “beach impeach”:http://www.zombietime.com/beach_impeach/ seem to indicate an unfortunate group of supporters for her candidacy.
Still waiting on those Iraqi reporters names and phone numbers Marc.
You didn’t forget did you?