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#201 |
Begging for Scraps
Join Date: Aug 2004
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What sort of blockchainWP? Which sort do you think the government would want?
We're saying that once certain problems are overcome you've addressed that problem, there's still a pile of other problems over there which have yet to be solved |
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“Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, and not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science.” - Charles Darwin ...like so many contemporary philosophers he especially enjoyed giving helpful advice to people who were happier than he was. - Tom Lehrer |
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#202 |
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There is a line from Harry Potter that I always thought summed up computer security perfectly:
Quote:
No matter what solutions anyone comes up with, it is only ever a matter of time before it can be compromised. Security is a technological and psychological arms race with, really, no end. Any move over to online voting would immediately become a giant international target. The question is, as I asked above, how much of an increase in voter fraud would be acceptable for the convenience? Because there is no question that voter fraud would constantly be on the rise. |
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"There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact." -- Sherlock Holmes. "It’s easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled." -- Mark Twain, maybe. |
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#203 |
Resident Skeptical Hobbit
Join Date: Jul 2005
Location: Waging war on woo-woo in Winnipeg
Posts: 5,495
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I'm a long time computer programmer with some interest in security; for example, I have a good understanding of how public/private key infrastructure works and how SSL/TLS works. I also read Bruce Schneier's Schneier on Security blog. I heartily agree with most posters here who posit that it's pretty much impossible to completely secure an e-voting process end-to-end.
Having said that, Estonia has had e-voting in general elections for over a decade now. [wikipedia]. Now, there is one huge difference between Estonia and the US: the e-voting system works in part because Estonia has a mandatory national ID card. The physical card is a smart card with an embedded cryptographic microprocessor. Try selling that in the States! |
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The social illusion reigns to-day upon all the heaped-up ruins of the past, and to it belongs the future. The masses have never thirsted after truth. They turn aside from evidence that is not to their taste, preferring to deify error, if error seduce them. Gustav Le Bon, The Crowd, 1895 (from the French) Canadian or living in Canada? PM me if you want an entry on the list of Canadians on the forum. |
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#204 |
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__________________
"There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact." -- Sherlock Holmes. "It’s easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled." -- Mark Twain, maybe. |
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#205 |
Begging for Scraps
Join Date: Aug 2004
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__________________
“Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, and not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science.” - Charles Darwin ...like so many contemporary philosophers he especially enjoyed giving helpful advice to people who were happier than he was. - Tom Lehrer |
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#206 |
Uncritical "thinker"
Join Date: Jan 2007
Location: UK
Posts: 19,966
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I'm not sure whether I am misunderstanding what you are saying here - so apologies if I am going off on the wrong track. There have been (few) occasions* in the UK where attempted double voting, voting as another person, or ballot tampering have been investigated https://www.electoralcommission.org....a-and-analysis It would be possible with the UK system to tie a particular vote to a particular person - we vote with numbered ballot papers and the number is recorded when we collect the ballot paper in the polling station. This would allow checking for ballot paper tampering, but it wouldn't be an easy job, and except in very particular circumstances the cross reference will not be performed. It would be easier to see whether a person's vote had been used (i.e. to check for possible personation, or double voting). *In 2017, there were 104 alleged voting offences. |
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OECD healthcare spending Expenditure on healthcare http://www.oecd.org/els/health-systems/health-data.htm link is 2015 data (2013 Data below): UK 8.5% of GDP of which 83.3% is public expenditure - 7.1% of GDP is public spending US 16.4% of GDP of which 48.2% is public expenditure - 7.9% of GDP is public spending |
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#207 |
Muse
Join Date: Jun 2003
Posts: 785
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#208 | |||
Begging for Scraps
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: 20 minutes in the future
Posts: 1,875
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And as Segnosaur pointed out at #186 150 million people had their personal details (including SSN) exposed in the Equifax breach last year.
Even though your Social Security card isn't meant to be used as ID...
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“Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, and not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science.” - Charles Darwin ...like so many contemporary philosophers he especially enjoyed giving helpful advice to people who were happier than he was. - Tom Lehrer |
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#209 |
Skeptical about skeptics
Join Date: Sep 2010
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Posts: 13,870
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"The process by which banks create money is so simple that the mind is repelled. Where something so important is involved, a deeper mystery seems only decent." - Galbraith, 1975 |
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#210 |
Philosopher
Join Date: Jul 2007
Posts: 9,528
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"Anything's possible, but only a few things actually happen" |
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#211 |
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Location: St. Louis, MO
Posts: 31,083
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Oh, I see. Are you under the impression I have a problem with blockchain itself? I don't. The problem is the question of GIGO and the transparency of what happens on the ends, like with the bitcoin exchanges. Especially on the voter side.
blockchain is great. It does not solve the underlying weaknesses of an online voting system. Continually posting "but but but ...blockchain is awesome!" doesn't change that. |
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"There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact." -- Sherlock Holmes. "It’s easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled." -- Mark Twain, maybe. |
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#212 |
Uncritical "thinker"
Join Date: Jan 2007
Location: UK
Posts: 19,966
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What could be more transparent? A full literal paper trail. My vote goes into a ballot box under supervision, the ballot box goes to the count under supervision, the count is supervised. As has been said, the attack methods for a paper vote are easily understood and also would require a lot of people on the ground to affect the outcome in most elections. Can you explain a bolockchain-based-system where anonymity is preserved whilst allowing traceability of votes if an investigation is needed? |
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OECD healthcare spending Expenditure on healthcare http://www.oecd.org/els/health-systems/health-data.htm link is 2015 data (2013 Data below): UK 8.5% of GDP of which 83.3% is public expenditure - 7.1% of GDP is public spending US 16.4% of GDP of which 48.2% is public expenditure - 7.9% of GDP is public spending |
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#213 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Dec 2012
Posts: 20,354
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YES
If I asked a thousand people what blockchain is and how it works. How many could say what it is or describe how it works? People understand how paper and pencil works. Every other day people read about breaches in software. Hackers all over the world are constantly at work trying to break or crack a code. I don't care how safe or unbreakable one might think their new code or lock might be, someone, somewhere seems to find a way to break it. How do you assure them that their vote is secure in this environment? I don't think you can. |
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“ A wise man proportions his belief to the evidence. ” ― David Hume |
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#214 |
Uncritical "thinker"
Join Date: Jan 2007
Location: UK
Posts: 19,966
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The electoral commission is interesting - note that special considerations need to be made if polling stations are serving a larger number of voters.
https://www.electoralcommission.org....ganisation.pdf
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OECD healthcare spending Expenditure on healthcare http://www.oecd.org/els/health-systems/health-data.htm link is 2015 data (2013 Data below): UK 8.5% of GDP of which 83.3% is public expenditure - 7.1% of GDP is public spending US 16.4% of GDP of which 48.2% is public expenditure - 7.9% of GDP is public spending |
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#215 |
Skeptical about skeptics
Join Date: Sep 2010
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"The process by which banks create money is so simple that the mind is repelled. Where something so important is involved, a deeper mystery seems only decent." - Galbraith, 1975 |
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#216 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Jan 2002
Posts: 12,260
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[quote=Blue Mountain;12382893]Having said that, Estonia has had e-voting in general elections for over a decade now. [wikipedia].
Yup. And lets take a look at Estonia.... The claim is that they've run electronic voting for several elections without problems. But from the wikipedia article: a team of International computer security experts released the results of their examination of the system, claiming they could be able to breach the system, change votes and vote totals, and erase any evidence of their actions if they could install malware on the election servers. ... In 2011 Paavo Pihelgas created a trojan that was theoretically able to change voter's choice without user noticing. Furthermore, from: https://www.csoonline.com/article/32...-using-it.html hilarious operational security failures, including an official video of the pre-election process that showed wi-fi passwords posted on the wall, administrators filmed typing in root passwords, and a software build system that was also being used to play PokerStars. Also, from the same article it mentions Australian state elections that used electronic voting... The NSW state election of 2015 was so insecure that one seat in the upper house of the state parliament may have been decided by hacked votes. In response to the scandal, the electoral commission went to great lengths to avoid transparency regarding the security issues... Which highlights 2 problems: - That hacking during an election can go undetected (the claim is that Estonia's elections have been fair and the system secure, but if they had been hacked, who could tell?) - That the response by the government will typically be "No problem exists" rather than to confront security flaws
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Trust me, I know what I'm doing. - Sledgehammer I'm Mary Poppin's Y'all! - Yondu We are Groot - Groot |
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#217 |
Muse
Join Date: Sep 2007
Posts: 976
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Ballots are not signed. In fact, signing ballots voids them. But even if they were, the problem is that how do we know that your digital signature is yours and not an imposter? How do we stop them from signing up for e-ballots before you do? Hell, how do we even know that you are you?
Paper ballots limit the total amount of fraud possible by a single entity. Electronic ballots open up voter fraud to largely amounts. One person can attempt to be 140 million voters. Roughly 40% of the US population doesn't vote. One person could impersonate all of them and nobody would know. There is no way to verify the credentials since they are, in fact, legitimate. They have the right names, drivers licenses, SSNs, and so on. And once the have that identity, the genuine voter would have an uphill battle getting it back. You would have to solve, or have a mitigation method, for the issue of ID theft. Blockchain does nothing to solve that. How would you handle 10,860,005,571 bad ballots? Looks like enough to determine an election. |
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#218 |
Philosopher
Join Date: Feb 2011
Posts: 5,724
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I have no idea what you're trying to say, but I'm still pretty sure that you're wrong. -Akhenaten I sometimes think the Bible was inspired by Satan to make God look bad. And then it backfired on Him when He underestimated the stupidity of religious ideologues. -MontagK505 |
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#219 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Dec 2012
Posts: 20,354
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“ A wise man proportions his belief to the evidence. ” ― David Hume |
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#220 |
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Location: St. Louis, MO
Posts: 31,083
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__________________
"There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact." -- Sherlock Holmes. "It’s easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled." -- Mark Twain, maybe. |
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#221 |
Philosopher
Join Date: Feb 2011
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I have no idea what you're trying to say, but I'm still pretty sure that you're wrong. -Akhenaten I sometimes think the Bible was inspired by Satan to make God look bad. And then it backfired on Him when He underestimated the stupidity of religious ideologues. -MontagK505 |
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#222 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Jan 2002
Posts: 12,260
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First of all, its not just problems on the "originating computer" that need to be overcome. People have posted about multiple attack vectors that could be used to interfere with electronic voting, so its not just the originating computer that needs to be dealt with.
Secondly... lets say we do admit Blockchain is a valid and secure way to store votes. I'm quite willing to say that if all of the security problems could be addressed then electronic voting would be OK. Are YOU willing to admit that all of the other problems are so intractable that the remainder of the security issues will not be solved until after the heat death of the universe? Seriously, its like arguing we should accept voting through ESP, assuming the problems of telepathy could be solved. If I had to give a list of concerns about electronic voting, the technology used to record the votes (be it blockchain or whatever) would not be be at the top of my list. In fact, I don't think it would even be in my top 10. This reminds me of the movie "Planes, Trains and Automobiles", where the 2 main characters are driving a car that had caught fire. A cop pulls them over for speeding (their speedometer had melted in the fire), and asks if they think their car is safe to drive. One of the characters points out that the Radio still works. That's what blockchain is to electronic voting... one extremely tiny (and almost irrelevant) issue among so many, much more serious issues. |
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Trust me, I know what I'm doing. - Sledgehammer I'm Mary Poppin's Y'all! - Yondu We are Groot - Groot |
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#223 |
Muse
Join Date: Sep 2007
Posts: 976
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But they aren't kept, most likely. They certainly aren't matched to the ballot. I would doubt the signatures are looked at past the "does it exist" or not. If it was discovered that someone else signed the envelope a week, or month later, how would they resolve the issue?
Signatures on tax returns are required. They are not verified. They just have to exist. Spelling isn't even checked. |
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#224 |
Skeptical about skeptics
Join Date: Sep 2010
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"The process by which banks create money is so simple that the mind is repelled. Where something so important is involved, a deeper mystery seems only decent." - Galbraith, 1975 |
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#225 |
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Posts: 31,083
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__________________
"There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact." -- Sherlock Holmes. "It’s easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled." -- Mark Twain, maybe. |
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#226 |
Uncritical "thinker"
Join Date: Jan 2007
Location: UK
Posts: 19,966
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OECD healthcare spending Expenditure on healthcare http://www.oecd.org/els/health-systems/health-data.htm link is 2015 data (2013 Data below): UK 8.5% of GDP of which 83.3% is public expenditure - 7.1% of GDP is public spending US 16.4% of GDP of which 48.2% is public expenditure - 7.9% of GDP is public spending |
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#227 |
Philosopher
Join Date: Feb 2011
Posts: 5,724
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I might be in favor of "e-voting" if I thought there was a big problem that it could solve.
The big problems I see with voting are disenfranchisement and gerrymandering, which aren't technology problems. |
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I have no idea what you're trying to say, but I'm still pretty sure that you're wrong. -Akhenaten I sometimes think the Bible was inspired by Satan to make God look bad. And then it backfired on Him when He underestimated the stupidity of religious ideologues. -MontagK505 |
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#228 |
Philosopher
Join Date: Sep 2002
Location: N.Cal/S.Or
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---------------------- Anything goes in the Goblin hut... anything. "Suggesting spurious explanations isn't relevant to my work." -- WTC Dust. "Both cannot be simultaneously true, and so one may conclude neither is true, and if neither is true, then Apollo is fraudulent." -- Patrick1000. |
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#229 |
Philosopher
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__________________
I have no idea what you're trying to say, but I'm still pretty sure that you're wrong. -Akhenaten I sometimes think the Bible was inspired by Satan to make God look bad. And then it backfired on Him when He underestimated the stupidity of religious ideologues. -MontagK505 |
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#230 |
Begging for Scraps
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: 20 minutes in the future
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Another board I hang out at has a lot of retail workers, people with two jobs or job and college, rely on public transport etc.
There are valid reason why it's hard to get out and vote, it's incorrect to assume apathy, and an easy remote vote would probably help greatly. It's still not a vote for app or web voting, just refining current rules to help these people. |
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“Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, and not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science.” - Charles Darwin ...like so many contemporary philosophers he especially enjoyed giving helpful advice to people who were happier than he was. - Tom Lehrer |
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#231 |
Muse
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#232 |
Resident Skeptical Hobbit
Join Date: Jul 2005
Location: Waging war on woo-woo in Winnipeg
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[quote=Segnosaur;12383049]
All great points. Despite the fact Estonia has electronic voting, the process is not completely secure, and that in a nation with just over a million people. And probably doesn't have the deep political divides we see in the US.
Getting it to work in the USA? There are some major hurdles to overcome. For now, paper provides the best combination of privacy with an audit trail. Those are much more important than knowing who has been elected microseconds after the polls close. |
__________________
The social illusion reigns to-day upon all the heaped-up ruins of the past, and to it belongs the future. The masses have never thirsted after truth. They turn aside from evidence that is not to their taste, preferring to deify error, if error seduce them. Gustav Le Bon, The Crowd, 1895 (from the French) Canadian or living in Canada? PM me if you want an entry on the list of Canadians on the forum. |
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#233 |
Skeptical about skeptics
Join Date: Sep 2010
Location: 31°57'S 115°57'E
Posts: 13,870
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__________________
"The process by which banks create money is so simple that the mind is repelled. Where something so important is involved, a deeper mystery seems only decent." - Galbraith, 1975 |
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#234 |
Philosopher
Join Date: Feb 2011
Posts: 5,724
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I have no idea what you're trying to say, but I'm still pretty sure that you're wrong. -Akhenaten I sometimes think the Bible was inspired by Satan to make God look bad. And then it backfired on Him when He underestimated the stupidity of religious ideologues. -MontagK505 |
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#235 |
![]() Join Date: May 2002
Location: St. Louis, MO
Posts: 31,083
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![]() Roughly a third of your posts, at the time I counted, were either extolling or defending blockchain by name. I’d estimate another sixth to a third we’re doing the same without mentioning it by name. I’m estimating about half to two-thirds of your posts have been promoting blockchain. You have the second most posts in this thread. So, yes, you have been hawking blockchain pretty heavily in this thread. Again, blockchain is an interesting technology, but it is largely inconsequential to the core problems of electronic voting. |
__________________
"There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact." -- Sherlock Holmes. "It’s easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled." -- Mark Twain, maybe. |
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#236 |
Begging for Scraps
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: 20 minutes in the future
Posts: 1,875
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__________________
“Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, and not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science.” - Charles Darwin ...like so many contemporary philosophers he especially enjoyed giving helpful advice to people who were happier than he was. - Tom Lehrer |
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#237 |
Skeptical about skeptics
Join Date: Sep 2010
Location: 31°57'S 115°57'E
Posts: 13,870
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__________________
"The process by which banks create money is so simple that the mind is repelled. Where something so important is involved, a deeper mystery seems only decent." - Galbraith, 1975 |
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#238 |
![]() Join Date: May 2002
Location: St. Louis, MO
Posts: 31,083
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__________________
"There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact." -- Sherlock Holmes. "It’s easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled." -- Mark Twain, maybe. |
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#239 |
Uncritical "thinker"
Join Date: Jan 2007
Location: UK
Posts: 19,966
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I guess you are talking about these
Which misses the point that WilliamSeger (amongst others) has made. I can be prepared to accept that Blockchain can be secure. I can't see how one can explain it to the majority of the population. I can't see how it prevents bad information being entered into the system in the first place. An electronic system is vulnerable to the inputs being subverted. There is also a large incentive to attempt this. A paper system would require far too many people for covert attacks to achieve much. |
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OECD healthcare spending Expenditure on healthcare http://www.oecd.org/els/health-systems/health-data.htm link is 2015 data (2013 Data below): UK 8.5% of GDP of which 83.3% is public expenditure - 7.1% of GDP is public spending US 16.4% of GDP of which 48.2% is public expenditure - 7.9% of GDP is public spending |
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#240 |
Begging for Scraps
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: 20 minutes in the future
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I apologise, you gave an explaination for how one sort of blockchainWP worked.
On a more thorough reading though, what's the proof of work? How are you going to be able to generate the robust key that is one of the lynchpins of blockchain while still being able to process people at a speedy rate? How do you stop a 51% attack, and you may want to read up on botnet swarms before answering. A search for 'Blockchain security' got this article from MIT Technology Review, from the article;
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__________________
“Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, and not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science.” - Charles Darwin ...like so many contemporary philosophers he especially enjoyed giving helpful advice to people who were happier than he was. - Tom Lehrer |
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