Re: Vote!
Re: Vote!
- Subject: Re: Vote!
- From: deivy petrescu <email@hidden>
- Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2005 17:22:07 -0400
On Aug 17, 2005, at 13:41, Chris Tangora wrote:
The real question is why isn't it trackable.
If a program was to erase part of itself, the date modified for
that particular program would have to be the date it was modifed by
the program? Right? I always thought so, but I may be wrong.
Of course you can turn back system clocks, but I think he has a
good point.... is this possible? What I want to know is, is it
possible to do without leaving a footprint?
chris
On Aug 12, 2005, at 7:56 PM, Roy Whelden wrote:
I have an "open source" Applescript project for this list.
I'm a volunteer working with Bill Rouverol, former professor of
mechanical engineering at UC Berkeley (home of Berkeley Unix!) and
the designer of the first Votamatic Voting Machine, which is now
in the Smithsonian. Mr. Rouverol has studied the 2004 United State
Presidential Election. He has come to the conclusion that there
was massive rigging by the private companies that made the
electronic voting machines (primarily Diebold, E.S.&S and Sequoia).
How was this rigging possible? One scenario Mr. Rouverol imagines
is that the voting programs written by these companies could have
had a subroutine (or handler) which was activated at a certain
time on Election Day. If it sensed that, say, political party A
was behind, the subroutine would then switch votes from party B to
party A in a subtle manner. After it finished switching votes, the
subroutine would erase itself at exactly the moment the voting
stations closed.
I've simplified somewhat, but this is the essence of one scenario
imagined by Mr. Rouverol. (I've tried to make it apolitical.)
I wish to propose an "open source" AppleScript project. I propose
that interested scripters work together to build a very simple
"proof of concept." In other words, we build the simplest possible
voting machine V using just AppleScript. To keep things simple,
the voters should be given, in a given segment of time, just two
choices: party A or party B. The voting machine V should have the
capability of erasing, at a predetermined time t, a subroutine S
contained within V. The subroutine S should be capable of
switching votes from party B to party A if it senses that party A
is falling behind party B.
I confess that my AppleScripting skills are not up to this task.
On the other hand, as a longtime reader of this list, I sense that
there are many here who would have the ability, if not the
interest, to do this fairly rapidly.
Thanks for your attention. Any comments at all are appreciated.
Roy Whelden
P.S. Mr. Rouverol is writing a paper on "The New Science of
Election Rigging." Anyone contributing to this proof-of-concept
open source project will surely get a mention in the published paper.
I thought about the issue. There are some things that are unknown,
namely the environment that the program runs. I have no idea of the
OS. I thought of what could be done to have something that is not
traceable.
It could not be an "outside" source because the calls to this source
would be traceable.
So it should be the program itself that should be able to re-
regenerate itself. Re-regenerate because you would generate something
different. But since it is the same program, it will have the same
creation date. It would have a different modification date.
This change (modification date) would be alright since running a
program would naturally change the program, it will have to keep tabs
on the votes, so something should change.
I do not really care for the counting process itself, everyone can
create one. However, I was able to create a script (application
really) that can change itself.
This I believe would qualify as a "proof of concept".
So, save the following script as an application no splash screen and
run it.
<script>
display dialog "I am going to chang myself" giving up after 5
set l to path to me as string
tell application "Script Editor"
open alias l
tell document 1
set contents to "display dialog \"I just changed myself\"
giving up after 5"
save
close
end tell
end tell
</script>
If you run the script twice or more you will get "I just changed
myself".
Deivy
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| References: | |
| | >Vote! (From: Roy Whelden <email@hidden>) |
| | >Re: Vote! (From: Chris Tangora <email@hidden>) |