Re: Courts interfering with election
TimMay wrote: #I thought I was jaded, but this is too much even for me to believe. # #A judge in St. Louis has ordered the polls kept open later, until 10 #pm local time. The effect will be to let more inner city, #Democrat-leaning voters vote. What a lame-ass complaint. For some reason, certain polling areas got jammed up, as in long lines. The court agreed to keep the polls open longer so the people could vote. It didn't matter who the people might vote for, despite the Democrats asking for the extended hours. The Republicans actually went into federal court to try and block this, and failed. Did you expect a Republican judge to say no since the people who might be unable to vote by the normal deadline were Democrats? What's your objection to people voting? Try not to mention a political party in your reply. It's not an objection to voting, it's an objection to manipulating the open and closing times of polls (in this case the closing time) to make it more convenient for a specific segment of the population. If I remember correctly, in Missouri Polls are open from 7 am to 7pm (though that could have changed), and IIRC it is mandatory for an employer to allow you time to vote. There is simply no reason for polls to have to be open longer than their allotted time, and specifically not just for specific sections of a state. If anything, it would make more sense to keep rural polls open longer, since they are often more difficult to get to. The thing is, voting should *not* be easy. It *should* require some effort (not a LOT of effort, but it should be non-trivial) so that only those who actually care to bother will. -- When money becomes the objective, truth is abandoned. --The Guru
PGP on the Palm Pilot.
Hi, Could send me where I can find more explanation about PGP using on a Palm Pilot. Best Regard, Jacques GARSOUS Network Engineering Glavinfo E-mail[EMAIL PROTECTED] Tél + 32 2 658 05 32 Mobile +32 476 40 97 93 Glavinfo E.I.G. Vandammestraat 7, Bus 2 B-1560 Hoeilaart Belgium
One question about pgp-integration
I've read the pgp-integration man page, and tried to implement the sample codes using the system calls. The encryption example was ok, but the decryption sample code I wasn't able to make it work well. Whenever I ran the program I got a core file, when the program try to open the second stream to stdout or stdin. I don't know if you have a tip for me. thanks eduardo _ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com. Share information about yourself, create your own public profile at http://profiles.msn.com.
Re: Phil Zimmerman Profiled
these days. However, he sees his contribution as critical, believing that "encryption software architectural decisions must be made by knowledgeable cryptographers, not software engineers." He has very firm opinions, for example, about Gnu Privacy Guard (GnuPG), an open source competitor to PGP. There's no doubt in Zimmermann's mind that GnuPG suffers for being managed by programmers. He offers the Blowfish encryption method as an example: "I would never, ever allow Blowfish to be implemented in PGP, because it's not as good a design as Twofish; Twofish is superior. PGP 7 implements Two fish. Yet we see GnuPG implemented Blowfish." Even the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) makes cryptographic mistakes, he says. Zimmermann asserts, "I would never allow El-Gamal signatures to be put in PGP. I don't know how that got in" RFC 2440, which defines the OpenPGP standard. It is the "knowledgeable cryptographer" Zimmermann who is responsible for the broken DSA signatures in PGP. And Additinal Decryption Keys are okay, but Blowfish is an inacceptable security risk? What a moron.
Where is Jim Bell?
Declan; Why haven't you found out yet what happened to Jim Bell? Certainly you could ask questions of Portland PD, whatever, or his mom, find out what they've done with him. This is certainly a newsworthy item. Squelching free speech by terrorizing dissedents is what it's all about.
Stars' bank details revealed on Internet
So, boys and girls, which do you think is safer, bearer cash and negotiable securities stored anonymously all over the net in m-of-n hashes, or in a single bank account -- regardless of jurisdiction, for the sake of argument -- with web access? See? I knew you could... Cheers, RAH - CNN Stars' bank details revealed on Internet Roger Moore, a victim of Internet error November 9, 2000 Web posted at: 7:22 AM EST (1222 GMT) ZURICH, Switzerland -- The bank details of several show business stars, including former James Bond actor Roger Moore, were posted on the public Internet for a week as a result of an error by a Swiss bank. A technical glitch revealed the stars' secret bank account numbers, private addresses and money transfers on a Credit Suisse Group Web site, the bank acknowledged on Thursday. That meant that Internet users could get a rare glimpse into account details of such stars as Moore, Swiss entertainer DJ Bobo and German pop star Udo Juergens. The Swiss Blick newspaper said in a front-page story that several stars were affected by the inadvertent publication of details of 675 money transfers, but did not say exactly how many. Credit Suisse, Switzerland's second-largest bank, confirmed the report and said it had shut down a test Web site where the details appeared. 'First-class scandal' "We are investigating how exactly that could have happened and have closed down the page," CS spokesman Georg Soentgerath told CNN.com. "A third person put data in there which should never have gone in there. Unfortunately it could lead to a loss of confidence in the bank." The problem cropped up when a Swiss agency that coordinates royalty payments sent the confidential data to Credit Suisse as a test of its transfer system. But the numbers inexplicably appeared on the bank's Internet banking Web site, Direct.net. "This is a first-class scandal," Juergens told Blick. "How can I feel secure at such an institution?" "I am mad as hell. I am going to close my two accounts at CS," Swiss singer Polo Hofer was quoted as saying. Reuters contributed to this report. -- - R. A. Hettinga mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED] The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation http://www.ibuc.com/ 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'
Re: A successful lawsuit means Gore wins!
And the lawsuit has been filed. http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB973731700780133282.htm # #November 9, 2000 # #Lawsuit to Recover Lost Gore Votes Overshadows the Recount in #Florida # #By GLENN R. SIMPSON, JACKIE CALMES and CHAD TERHUNE Staff #Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL # #Overshadowing a state ballot recount in the tightest presidential #election in memory, Democrats filed suit to help Al Gore recover #thousands of votes he may have lost because of a confusing ballot #in Palm Beach County. # #Democratic State Sen. Ron Klein and lawyer Jeffrey Liggio, #official observers in the Palm Beach County recount, said county #officials disqualified 19,120 presidential votes here on Tuesday #because voters selected more than one candidate. That is about #4.14% of total votes cast in the county for president, an #unusually high figure, says Mr. Klein. # #The figures were confirmed by Carol Roberts, a county commissioner #and a member of the Palm Beach County canvassing board. She added #in an interview that ballots were rejected in the Florida Senate #contest at a far lower rate -- 0.82%. # #Democrats said they believe most of the disqualified votes were #cast for Al Gore and Pat Buchanan by confused voters who intended #to pick Mr. Gore, but inadvertently selected both men because #of the proximity of their names on the paper ballot. If they #are correct, the problem may have cost Mr. Gore a clear margin #of victory here statewide and could boost calls to overturn the #Florida results, which favored George W. Bush by less than 2,000 #votes. # #Late Wednesday, a suit was filed in Palm Beach County circuit #court by three local Democrats to force a new vote in the county #because of the allegedly confusing ballots. # #"It's pretty clear this ballot defect has thwarted the will of #the people in that county in an amount that would appear to be #in excess of the current margin between Bush and Gore statewide #-- well in excess," said Democratic ballot lawyer Chris Sautter, #an adviser to the Gore campaign who isn't involved in the suit. # #The layout of the ballot was intended to make it easier for #seniors to read. "Obviously, it didn't work that way," said Mr. #Klein. # #Democrats are exploring the possibility that the ballot design #violates state standards. An official in the governor's office #disputed the idea, saying the standards only apply to ballots #counted manually. # #Reeve Bright, a lawyer for the Republican Party of Palm Beach #County, conceded the 19,000 disqualified votes occurred. But #that doesn't mean the tossed-out votes were all for Gore, he #stressed. He added that he didn't know whether the total was #an unusually high one. # #"They're just blowing smoke," he said of Democrats' concerns. #"Are they trying to say the voters are that incompetent, that #they can't read and follow directions?" # #Complaints of ballot confusion and the lawsuit came as state #officials were outlining the process by which all 67 Florida #counties would recount the ballots cast Tuesday and help determine #which candidate wins the state's 25 electoral votes. As of #Wednesday morning, George W. Bush led by about 1,800 votes of #the nearly six million cast. # #"What happens here will determine the next presidency of the #United States," said Florida Attorney General Bob Butterworth. # #Appearing with Mr. Butterworth was Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, the #Republican candidate's brother. To avoid the appearance of a #conflict of interest, Jeb Bush said he won't serve on the #three-member state canvassing board that will meet to certify #final results after Florida counties complete their recount. # #State officials had set 5 p.m. Thursday as the deadline for the #recount, but the governor suggested a further wrinkle: An #estimated 3,000 ballots still arriving from Florida military #personnel abroad could further delay the outcome by as many as #10 days. # #Florida's electoral votes would give either Mr. Bush or Mr. Gore #the election. Without Florida, Mr. Gore leads narrowly in the #national popular vote, and he carried enough states to compile #260 electoral votes -- 10 shy of the 270 needed for an Electoral #College majority. Mr. Bush has 246 electoral votes. Besides #Florida, Oregon was also still too close to call Wednesday because #of delays in counting ballots in what was the state's first #mail-in presidential election. But Oregon's seven electoral votes #aren't enough to give either man the majority. # #Meanwhile, the two campaigns each dispatched a former U.S. #
Close Elections and Causality
* In a close, nearly-tied election, should a re-vote be allowed? * In a close sports game, should all potential "fork" decisions (referee calls) be reviewed and the game rolled-back...even hours later? Should critical plays be re-played the next day? * Did the woman who voted at 9 a.m. but whose vote was counted at the _end_ of the final count, and whose vote seemingly "caused" one candidate to win and another to lose _actually_ "cause" the outcome? * Did Oregon, for example, whose votes were counted last and whose votes put a candidate over the top actually "cause" the outcome? First, a few words about causality. Most people think they know about cause-and-effect. The earth turns, and this "causes" the sun to rise. A rooster crows, but this is _not_ the cause of the sun coming up...so we know from modern science. But how about this example: a golfer is about to be defeated in a tournament. He hits his ball, it appears to be going wide, then it hits a tree branch and bounces toward the hole. It goes in. The golfer wins. It turns out (pointed out by Patrick Suppes 30 years ago in one of his textbooks) that nearly every person will say something like "The tree branch _caused_ him to win." That is, the tree branch is seen as an intervening agent which altered history. The weird thing is that a ball bouncing off a tree branch is quite clearly a _scattering_ event. In our crypto and information theory terms, we would say it "increases entropy," it randomizes the outcome. The fact that sometimes the randomization or scattering works to the benefit of one player does not mean much about "causation." How this relates to voting: In close elections, as in close sports games, as in the golf example, there will be many events which are later claimed to be "hinge points," or forks. -- Someone will say that a highway being closed prevented them from getting to the polling place in time, and that there additional vote "would have made the difference." They want a re-vote. -- Someone who voted at 9 a.m. will be characterized as having "caused" the outcome to be as it was...which is an obvious misuse of "causation" (just by the basic ontology that her vote at 9 a.m. could not have "caused" other votes to be as they were). -- The most commonly heard version of this "causation fallacy" is the usual stuff about how "Oregon made the difference. The voters in Oregon caused Al Gore to win." Do the mental experiment of assuming votes were tallied in the _other direction_, with votes on the West Coast counted and reported _before_ votes to the east. Then the comments would be about how "Rhode Island made the difference...the voters in Rhode Island caused Al Gore to be elected." Again, a misuse of the term "causation." Ironically, the book I recommended several weeks ago, Judea Pearl's "Causality," is very apropos here. It _caused_ me to better understand these points. OK, how about re-votes? Many are calling for a re-vote in Palm County, Florida. Various issues are cited, and the "voters in Palm County will make the difference" point is heard often. "The vote in Florida will cause one or the other of the candidate to win." "The outcome hinges on the vote in Palm County." First off, the points above, about causality and who gets counted last, apply. Second, at the time of the "approximately simultaneous" vote on Tuesday, no particular state, no particular county, and no particular precinct had any way of "knowing" that it would be a hinge site. Thus, some people didn't bother to vote, some were careless in reading the ballot instructions, some just made random marks, some were drunk, all of the usual stuff happening in polling places across the country. This despite the estimated $3 billion spent on wooing voters. Deciding that one of those states or one of those counties was "decisive" (caused the outcome, was a hinge point, etc.) and thus should be given a chance to hold a new vote, has numerous implications for fairness: * instead of being just another voter, just another voting site, the N residents will now have the weight of the entire election outcome on their shoulders * intensive lobbying for votes will occur, far beyond the original lobbying (when I say "far beyond" I mean by several orders of magnitude...it might be that all residents would have to be sequestered from the time of the announcement of a re-vote to the actual re-vote just to ensure that bribes are not offered, etc.). * the claims by some that people would simply "repeat their votes, except without the confusing ballot issue" are naive. Sensing their new role as determiners of the outcome, many would change their original votes (And of course there would be no way of knowing if someone had changed their vote, for obvious reasons that ballots are not linkable to the voter.) * and there are the points about the ballot raised earlier: the ballot had been used before, there
Reporting weirdness: Hagelin vs. Browne
On CNN I watched the election results coming in. They always listed four candidates: Bush, Gore, Nader, and Hagelin. The usual format was Bush/Gore on the "crawl" at the bottom of the screen and then a second page with the crawl having Nader/Hagelin. Sometimes Buchanan was listed. It sure looked like Hagelin was doing better than Browne, the Libertarian Party candidate. Well, here's what the "Washington Post" is reporting as the nearly final tally for the lesser candidates: Harry Browne (Lib.) 0 373,109 0 Howard Phillips (CST) 0 98,224 0 John Hagelin (NLP) 0 87,914 0 James Harris (SWP) 0 11,190 0 L. Neil Smith (Lib.)0 5,181 0 Monica Moorehead (WW) 0 4,245 0 David McReynolds (Soc.) 0 4,097 0 I guess it was "natural law" that caused CNN (and perhaps other networks) to report on Hagelin over Browne. The Libertarian Party should request a "Do-over!" like the Palm Beach Jews are now demanding. --Tim May -- -:-:-:-:-:-:-: Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, ComSec 3DES: 831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, "Cyphernomicon" | black markets, collapse of governments.
RE: Close Elections and Causality
Title: RE: Close Elections and Causality Thanks Tim. (First, I genuinely appreciate the specificity. Now we can discuss just where we disagree.) Given your points, one would have to argue that the proper election would have to be extremely simultaneous (e.g. everyone votes within 1 hour or whatever will most likely beat any realistic attempt to predict voter results before the vote is actually finished). I can see your point. However, it ain't gonna happen precisely because people have normal life concerns that truly are 24x7 and simply cannot work around them. (e.g. kids, certain kinds of jobs, etc ...). A reasonable level of flexibility is required. Reasonable appears to mean opening polls for most of the day, but I would hate to have some faceless fed tell me what reasonable is. Tax day is another example. Shit. Why should the Post Office do anything extra special for you if you don't get your forms filed in time? Why should they set up special lines and special times on the night of April 15? Because it's a compromise. It's pragmatic. The goal is to get people to file and to file on time. Same thing here. The goal is to give people a chance to vote. Otherwise, national elections should have national rules, according to your reasoning. States should not be allowed to set up their own mechanisms to vote on national elections. But in fact, the states ARE granted such flexibility because that's the tradition. It does not fit yours or someone else's absolute ideals, but then it's such a huge process and who knows what level of flexibility each state or local region needs. So on the issue of extending hours: If each district, county, township, neighborhood should decide to open the polls LONGER, I can't see a problem with that. If they close it earlier, it's probably not a problem either unless someone felt they did not have a chance to get to the polls. Then someone will have to decide whether that person had a fair chance to vote. But you don't want some no-name federal government bureaucrat deciding what constitutes a fair and reasonable chance to vote in your circumstances, right? Yes, I know, you can probably name all sorts of extreme and clearly abusive behavior that this would allow. But surprisingly, most people do not abuse the system. Most people don't if it is too inconvenient to be a pain-in-the-ass. On the issue of re-voting: The causality and the hinge issues are irrelevant if ANY state, county, district, whatever can go to a judge and argue (not demand arbitrarily) for re-vote. It's exactly YOUR argument: Just because county X is demanding a re-vote does not suddenly make that county the hinge vote. They obviously do not know or care if county Y also demand a re-vote. Same flaw. Because every area of the country have the same right (as Palm Beach) to demand a re-vote. But reasonableness and compromise will usually demand some upper bound on how much of this can occur to correct for any problems that arise. My personal view is that it is obvious that the election is close, period. Therefore, any particular place where it's winner-take-all, a reasonable request to re-vote should be granted. Lots of places here and abroad have the concept of run-off elections for precisely the same reasons: Let's see what the voters really want. Ern -Original Message- From: Tim May [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Thursday, November 09, 2000 9:02 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Close Elections and Causality [ Long educational rant about causation and how some people are not clued in. ]
RE: Close Elections and Causality
At 9:43 AM -0800 11/9/00, Ernest Hua wrote: Thanks Tim. (First, I genuinely appreciate the specificity. Now we can discuss just where we disagree.) Given your points, one would have to argue that the proper election would have to be extremely simultaneous (e.g. everyone votes within 1 hour or whatever will most likely beat any realistic attempt to predict voter results before the vote is actually finished). I can see your point. However, it ain't gonna happen precisely because people have normal life concerns that truly are 24x7 and simply cannot work around them. (e.g. kids, certain kinds of jobs, etc ...). "Designing fairer elections" has very little to do with my points, about causality, re-dos, and re-votes. I can think of various improvements to the election process, such as operating the polls for a 15 hour period, nationwide, simultaneously. Whatever. This is a matter for those involved in designing elections, not at all related to this business of whether some particular polling site should get a "do-over." I urge you to get involved in the Election Commission in your state and to make your suggestions for future elections. A reasonable level of flexibility is required. "Reasonable" appears to mean opening polls for most of the day, but I would hate to have some faceless fed tell me what reasonable is. The voting periods are set by the states, not the Feds. You, ironically, seem to be arguing for more of a role for the Feds, not less of a role. Same thing here. The goal is to give people a chance to vote. Otherwise, national elections should have national rules, according to your reasoning. States should not be allowed to set up their own mechanisms to vote on national elections. See what I mean? How do you square your "I would hate to have some faceless fed tell me what reasonable is" with "states should not be allowed to set up their own mechanisms..." point? I really need to give up on you. You blather, you ramble, you contradict yourself, you lack a consistent point of view, you probably would have voted for Buchanan and then claimed you wanted a do-over. So on the issue of extending hours: If each district, county, township, neighborhood should decide to open the polls LONGER, I can't see a problem with that. If they close it earlier, it's probably not a problem either unless someone felt they did not have a chance to get to the polls. You fail to grasp the essential point: the hours must not be changed once they have been established. It is utterly wrong to close the polls _early_. Your point "it's probably not a problem either someone felt..." is utterly vacuous. It is also utterly wrong to keep the pollling places open longer. Especially when a political calculation is made that more Democrats appear to be straggling, as was the calculation in St. Louis on Tuesday. That you don't get this point, about consistent rules, does not surprise me at all. On the issue of re-voting: The causality and the hinge issues are irrelevant if ANY state, county, district, whatever can go to a judge and argue (not demand arbitrarily) for re-vote. No, it is not irrelevant. It would give the courts the power to determine elections and would likely put an end to our system of government. Perhaps we should adopt your suggestion. Let the lawyers take over the election process just as they have taken over most things. Lots of places here and abroad have the concept of run-off elections for precisely the same reasons: Let's see what the voters really want. We did just this--we had the election. Do-overs are not allowed. Fools like you just don't get it. --Tim May -- -:-:-:-:-:-:-: Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, ComSec 3DES: 831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, "Cyphernomicon" | black markets, collapse of governments.
Re: A successful lawsuit means Gore wins!
Amusing. But that's a suggested ballot, and not one that's legally required. Which was my point. At the very least, the law is not as clear as the Dems want to claim. -Declan On Thu, Nov 09, 2000 at 11:42:42AM -0500, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Declan, King of the Wired, wrote: #TO VOTE for a candidate whose name is printed on the ballot, #mark a cross (X) in the blank space at the RIGHT of the name #of the candidate for whom you desire to vote. To vote for a #candidate whose name is not printed on the ballot, write the #candidate's name in the blank space provided for that purpose. Yep: that was clear. Declan, King of the Wired, wrote: #(As a followup, I should say I see "RIGHT" in the sample ballot, You're so cute! C'mere...coootchi-coootchie-coo!!!
The Butterfly Effect
Devil's Dictionary, 2005 edition: "Butterfly Effect: Wherein the use of a "butterfly ballot" having candidates listed on either side of a central column was claimed to have confused some elderly Jewish voters in Palm County, Florida and thus was used by lawyers as an excuse to take full control of the American election process." --Tim May -- -:-:-:-:-:-:-: Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, ComSec 3DES: 831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, "Cyphernomicon" | black markets, collapse of governments.
Re: A successful lawsuit means Gore wins!
At 10:42 AM 11/9/00 -0500, Declan McCullagh wrote: It would be simpler, and probably fairer (in a general sense) to discard those ballots that are suspect. Elections such as this should not be re-run. Take it down to its most general form. Gore and Bush are tied. My ballot was mangled during processing and is unreadable; I successfully sue for a rerun of the election, just for my ballot alone. Is this a good thing? There are at least two problems with that 0) That's what happened now, and nobody likes it :-) 1) The ballots that appear to have been misvoted, about 19000 of them, disproportionately appear to have been for Gore, and not for Bush, so it seriously biases the results in that district. You could avoid this by voiding _all_ Presidential votes from the district. 2) The district itself is heavily Democrat, so voiding all their votes doesn't fix the imbalance either. Thanks! Bill Bill Stewart, [EMAIL PROTECTED] PGP Fingerprint D454 E202 CBC8 40BF 3C85 B884 0ABE 4639
Re: Reporting weirdness: Hagelin vs. Browne
On Thu, 9 Nov 2000, Tim May wrote: On CNN I watched the election results coming in. They always listed four candidates: Bush, Gore, Nader, and Hagelin. The usual format was Bush/Gore on the "crawl" at the bottom of the screen and then a second page with the crawl having Nader/Hagelin. Sometimes Buchanan was listed. It sure looked like Hagelin was doing better than Browne, the Libertarian Party candidate. Well, here's what the "Washington Post" is reporting as the nearly final tally for the lesser candidates: Harry Browne (Lib.) 0 373,109 0 Howard Phillips (CST) 0 98,224 0 John Hagelin (NLP)0 87,914 0 James Harris (SWP)0 11,190 0 L. Neil Smith (Lib.) 0 5,181 0 Monica Moorehead (WW) 0 4,245 0 David McReynolds (Soc.) 0 4,097 0 Browne was the un-canidate in this election. The press went out of their way to avoid mentioning or reporting on him in any way, shape or form. When Harry Browne held a rally in Portland, the Oregonian (the newspaper for Portland) did not mention it at all. Buchannon (who gets MUCH less of the vote here than just about anyone) recieved much more press than he did. Maybe it is because he is not a member of the New Bavarian Conspiracy, the Conspiracy of Bavarian Seers, or the Ancient Baverian Conspiracy. It is similar to what happened with Measure 3 here. Measure 3 requires that they actually convict a person before walking off with everything he owned. During the election coverage, there was no mention of it even being on the ballot. I had to go to a web site that had the totals. It won by a 2 to 1 vote, yet was not declared as winning until the next morning, long after ballot measures with similar margins had been declared as having passed. And it was not just one station or newspaper that did it either. It was ignored by every station that I watched that night. (Which was most of them, because they kept repeating themselves after a while.) [EMAIL PROTECTED] | Note to AOL users: for a quick shortcut to reply Alan Olsen| to my mail, just hit the ctrl, alt and del keys. "In the future, everything will have its 15 minutes of blame."
Re: A successful lawsuit means Gore wins!
Jim Burnes [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: #I could stomach 'might be illegal', but illegal? Warren Christopher was just on TV, calling the ballot illegal. Let's leave it at that until a court decides. Spooky Cypherpunk Niggar Tim May Moroned: #And, of course, Palm County will _not_ be given a #second chance to vote in this election. I guarantee it. It's either that or the choice you liked even less. Protest crowds are growing. Bush can't take office when half the country thinks people were screwed out of their vote to have that happen. Not in America, buddy. And your hallucinatory Truck O' Dynamite will never change that. Declan, King of the Wired, wrote: #Amusing. But that's a suggested ballot, and not one #that's legally required. Which was my point. But the _directions_ were not "sample" directions. Florida is now saying it won't be until Nov 17th until they can certify the vote. Bush's lead is now only 359. Federal investigators are looking into U.S.P.O. funny business at one unnamed office.
Re: Close Elections and Causality
At 09:02 AM 11/9/00 -0800, Tim May wrote: [lots of good comments on causality] -- Someone will say that a highway being closed prevented them from getting to the polling place in time, and that there additional vote "would have made the difference." They want a re-vote. A few years ago, Christie Whitman was busy campaigning for governor of New Jersey, and didn't get back home to vote in a school bond election. It lost by one vote. (On the other hand, the local district or state or somebody ignored their loss in the election and sold the bonds anyway) Second, at the time of the "approximately simultaneous" vote on Tuesday, no particular state, no particular county, and no particular precinct had any way of "knowing" that it would be a hinge site. Thus, some people didn't bother to vote, some were careless in reading the ballot instructions, some just made random marks, some were drunk, all of the usual stuff happening in polling places across the country. This despite the estimated $3 billion spent on wooing voters. The electoral college system means that in almost all states, except the one or two with the middlest results, a difference of a small number of votes doesn't change the outcome. Usually even changing the outcome for a whole state doesn't change the outcome of the election either, except a few big states. In Florida, where the vote totals are close to equal, a small number of changed votes could change the election. Arguably, the votes on the 19000 spoiled ballots _have_ changed the outcome of the election, because the vote went into the voting booth saying "I'm voting for Gore", and the ballot counters tossed those votes after they were made. Rules are rules. The time to object is beforehand. Unless extremely serious voter fraud is found, results should not be thrown out when those results are in accordance with the rules. In no cases should a re-vote of a "hinge county" be allowed for less-than-massive-fraud reasons. I agree that that's a strong point - if any of those 19000 voters was confused, the time for them to raise the issue was at the poll. If they _did_ ask "hey, this is confusing, how do I vote for Gore?" at the polling place, and the poll workers told them what to do and voided their ballots anyway, then they've got a cause of action. If they didn't complain, it's much harder to argue. Thanks! Bill Bill Stewart, [EMAIL PROTECTED] PGP Fingerprint D454 E202 CBC8 40BF 3C85 B884 0ABE 4639
Re: A successful lawsuit means Gore wins!
Marc [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: # #However, FL 101.5609 is a much clearer point against #the "must be to the right" claims. # #101.5609(6): # Voting squares may be placed in front of or in back of the names # of candidates and statements of questions and shall be of such size as If you go by that text... Either "in front of", Or "in back of". It's a basic choice of one format or the other. Otherwise "And/Or" would have been used.
Re: A successful lawsuit means Gore wins!
Huh? Tim has been posting such articles for years. You weren't around for the Y2K discussions. -Declan On Thu, Nov 09, 2000 at 05:58:11PM -0500, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Spooky Cypherpunk Niggar Tim May Moroned: #When I hear Jesse Jackson saying that unless the Palm Beach voters #are given the chance to have a new vote there will be a race war, I #rejoice. # #I was just reading in misc.survivalism that some folks in Florida are #saying that if Al Gore and his Voters of Color succeed in twisting #the courts into stealing the election, that white folks will start #killing. # #Music to my ears. The fuse is burning on the powder keg. Holy shit! I vote you are hereby ex-communicated from the Cypherpunks club, joining Dimitry Vulis.
Re: Reporting weirdness: Hagelin vs. Browne
On Thu, Nov 09, 2000 at 11:40:10AM -0800, Alan Olsen wrote: Browne was the un-canidate in this election. The press went out of their way to avoid mentioning or reporting on him in any way, shape or form. Yes, and no. We profiled him at Wired; I mentioned him in about seven articles. LA Times did a front-page story. Etc. A better question might be was his coverage (what there was) fair or biased? -Declan
Democrats are arguing for statistical sampling voting
Democrat spinners are now talking up the idea of using "statistical sampling" to assign some fraction of the spoiled ballots to Al Gore. Not a surprise, given that it was the Democrats who wanted to augment the "direct count" of the U.S. Census with "statistical fudge factors." I never thought I'd hear this bizarre notion extended to the vote, though! --Tim May -- -:-:-:-:-:-:-: Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, ComSec 3DES: 831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, "Cyphernomicon" | black markets, collapse of governments.
Re: Where is Jim Bell?
At 8:50 AM -0800 11/9/00, A. Melon wrote: Declan; Why haven't you found out yet what happened to Jim Bell? Certainly you could ask questions of Portland PD, whatever, or his mom, find out what they've done with him. This is certainly a newsworthy item. Squelching free speech by terrorizing dissedents is what it's all about. And where is John Young? His last post I can find was on 11/2. Nothing since about the time the Bell raid happened. (And his posting statistics were fairly uniform prior to this: a post or two every day, with very few long gaps.) I was only half-joking that maybe Bell's and Young's work on tracing down those CIA safe houses in Bend, Oregon were getting him in trouble. John, say it ain't so. --Tim May -- -:-:-:-:-:-:-: Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, ComSec 3DES: 831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, "Cyphernomicon" | black markets, collapse of governments.
Re: Democrats are arguing for statistical sampling voting
I suggest that we find one county for each state that we believe to be representative, let them vote, and then extrapolate from their results and assign electors accordingly. Or perhaps one household per state. I volunteer Tim and his cats to to represent California. I know the way Nietzsche would vote, at least. -Declan On Thu, Nov 09, 2000 at 04:26:21PM -0800, Tim May wrote: Democrat spinners are now talking up the idea of using "statistical sampling" to assign some fraction of the spoiled ballots to Al Gore. Not a surprise, given that it was the Democrats who wanted to augment the "direct count" of the U.S. Census with "statistical fudge factors." I never thought I'd hear this bizarre notion extended to the vote, though! --Tim May -- -:-:-:-:-:-:-: Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, ComSec 3DES: 831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, "Cyphernomicon" | black markets, collapse of governments.
Bush campaign responds to Florida county controversy
On Thu, Nov 09, 2000 at 04:22:21PM -0800, Tim May wrote: At 7:05 PM -0500 11/9/00, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: James "too damn bad about the 19,000" Baker ain't no piece of cake either, FYI. He's right about the "19,000 spoiled ballots." Four years ago there were 16,000 spoiled ballots in the same district, and that was with lower overall turnout. Right. See below. -Declan FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Ari Fleischer, Mindy November 9, 2000 Tucker or Dan Bartlett Statement by Bush/Cheney Spokesman Ari Fleischer on Palm Beach County: "New information has come to our attention that puts in perspective the results of the vote in Palm Beach County. Palm Beach County is a Pat Buchanan stronghold and that's why Pat Buchanan received 3407 votes there. According to the Florida Department of State, 16,695 voters in Palm Beach County are registered to the Independent Party, the Reform Party, or the American Reform Party, an increase of 110% since the 1996 presidential election. Throughout the rest of Florida, the registration increase for these parties was roughly 38%. In contrast, in neighboring Broward County, only 476 voters are registered to these parties. In addition, in the 1996 presidential election, 14,872 ballots were invalidated for double counting in Palm Beach County, a figure comparable to the number of ballots dismissed this year, considering this year's higher turn out. Given these facts, what happened on Election Night in Palm Beach County - a county whose elections are run by a Democrat - is an understandable event. The Democrats who are politicizing and distorting these routine and predictable events risk doing our democracy a disservice. Throughout this process, it's important that no party to this election act in a precipitous manner or distort an existing voting pattern in an effort to misinform the public. Our nation will be best served by a responsible approach to this recount. This recount will be watched around the world. Its outcome should not only serve as a testament to the strength of our democracy, but also a reflection of how each candidate deals with a matter of the utmost national importance. We remain confident that Governor Bush will win Florida and become the elected President of the United States." Paid for by Bush-Cheney 2000, Inc.
No Subject
--- Does anybody have a stego program along the lines of Peter Wayner's Mimic Functions? I'm looking for something that you can hand a grammar and a set of bits that will produce sentences in the grammar, plus a decoder that can take the sentences and reconstruct the bits. I have a friend who lives in a kleptocratic country where the local bureaucrats have made it clear they'll confiscate the main email node in his town if they catch traffic they recognize as encrypted, and text in some non-popular language may be less obvious than, say, Mandelbrot sets with stego-bits or other artwork. --- I think Texto is what you are looking for, and it is available from the cypherpunks archive in the steganography directory. If you can't find it, drop me a private note and I'll mail it to you... --- Dear Mr./Mrs. Lucifer Hi, we are two students studying in Drexel University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In order to graduate, we need to have a senior project and we decided to write an application using Steganography. We are especially interested in using Context Free Grammar as a basis to develop the application; in other words, we want to conceal secret messages in seemingly innocuous text. We did some research and found out that mimic function may be able to help us. However, we have a hard time figuring out how this mimic function works and how to actually encode our information. After searching on the Web, we found this message and thought that you might be able to help us to finish our project. Can we read the source code and figure out how to do it? We plan to write the whole application in Java and we want to develope some kind of instant message user interface, like AIM, or ICQ. We will definitely be ethical about coding and documenting all the material that we borrow. This is the link that I found the message: http://www.inet-one.com/cypherpunks/dir.96.08.29-96.09.04/msg00044.html Yours Sincerely, Bae-Shi Huang Chris
Re: Democrats are arguing for statistical sampling voting
At 8:55 PM -0500 11/9/00, Declan McCullagh wrote: I suggest that we find one county for each state that we believe to be representative, let them vote, and then extrapolate from their results and assign electors accordingly. Or perhaps one household per state. I volunteer Tim and his cats to to represent California. I know the way Nietzsche would vote, at least. I put a ballot in front of him, consisting of three open cans of cat food: Gore: O O : Buchanan Bush: O He spoiled his ballot by eating out of more than one can, though, so he has now brought in Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Tawana Brawley, and Morris the Cat to argue that he was confused and should be given a "do over." --Tim May -- -:-:-:-:-:-:-: Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, ComSec 3DES: 831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, "Cyphernomicon" | black markets, collapse of governments.
Re: A successful lawsuit means Gore wins!
Do these folks need killing too? At 07:22 PM 11/9/00 , Tim May wrote: Fact is, voting is serious business. Those who show up dazed and confused and punch too many holes in their ballot are an example of social Darwinism. I have no sympathy for stupid people.
Re: A successful lawsuit means Gore wins!
- Original Message - From: "Tim May" [EMAIL PROTECTED] Fact is, voting is serious business. And this election is more serious than most others. The possible exile of Alec Baldwin depends on the votes of a few hundred senile Flordians. Ick.
BSA deploys imaginary pirate software detector vans
--- begin forwarded text Date: Thu, 9 Nov 2000 10:13:26 + To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Fearghas McKay [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: BSA deploys imaginary pirate software detector vans Reply-To: "Usual People List" [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED] List-Subscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/14562.html BSA deploys imaginary pirate software detector vans By: Kieren McCarthy Posted: 08/11/2000 at 10:57 GMT The Business Software Alliance aka The Pirate Busters is growing so frustrated in its hopeless efforts to cut down on software piracy that it has decided propaganda and misinformation is the way forward. Visitors to Glasgow Central Station yesterday were surprised to be confronted by a Ford Transit van with a small radar and rusty Sky satellite dish mounted on top. What was this apparition? Why, the BSA's latest weapon in the war against software-stealing scum. A wise reader asked one of the "consultants" what exactly the dishes were able to do and was informed they could detect PCs running illegal software. When pushed a little further, she admitted the van was "just a dummy" but the BSA still had a fleet of the real things rushing around Scotland detecting and nabbing unsuspecting criminals. Expressing incredulity, things turned nasty and our loyal reader was threatened. He'd "better watch out" because the BSA with its new super software-finding equipment will "get him easily". He quickly ran off and slid into the shadows before he was photographed and his face wired to Interpol and the CIA. Can you believe this? This has to be one of the most insane things we've heard in years. The BSA needs to take a valium and lay down for a bit. ® Related Stories BSA offers £10K bounty to catch software thieves --- end forwarded text -- - R. A. Hettinga mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED] The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation http://www.ibuc.com/ 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'
Re: Reporting weirdness: Hagelin vs. Browne
TCMay writes: On CNN I watched the election results coming in. They always listed four candidates: Bush, Gore, Nader, and Hagelin. The usual format was Bush/Gore on the "crawl" at the bottom of the screen and then a second page with the crawl having Nader/Hagelin. In fact, Browne did better than Buchanan in Florida, and for that matter Phillips did better than Hagelin. I too noticed CNN's bizarre focus on Hagelin over the much higher polling Browne and Phillips. Perhaps Hagelin acquired an aura of respectability at their editorial desk due to his fight with Buchanan for the Reform nomination. Buchanan beat Browne nationwide but Browne won in a number of states, including Florida. However Browne's vote total ended up being lower than in 1996. Ob
RE: Reporting weirdness: Hagelin vs. Browne
-- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED][SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Reply To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, November 09, 2000 3:43 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Reporting weirdness: Hagelin vs. Browne TCMay writes: On CNN I watched the election results coming in. They always listed four candidates: Bush, Gore, Nader, and Hagelin. The usual format was Bush/Gore on the "crawl" at the bottom of the screen and then a second page with the crawl having Nader/Hagelin. In fact, Browne did better than Buchanan in Florida, and for that matter Phillips did better than Hagelin. I too noticed CNN's bizarre focus on Hagelin over the much higher polling Browne and Phillips. Perhaps Hagelin acquired an aura of respectability at their editorial desk due to his fight with Buchanan for the Reform nomination. Buchanan beat Browne nationwide but Browne won in a number of states, including Florida. However Browne's vote total ended up being lower than in 1996. Ob Watching in Massachusetts, I was actually rather impressed at the level which the major media were reporting the minor candidates. Unlike previous years, where it sometimes took days for me to find out how Libertarian candidates did, this year they were reported live along with the others. In Ma, Carla Howell got about 12% in her Senate run, just a little behind the Republican candidate (the rest went to Kennedy). In fact, Libertarian candidates where getting 10-15% of the vote quite consistantly in local races. Peter Trei
Your IFILM registration is confirmed!
Dear cypunks, Welcome to IFILM, the Web's largest film collection and leading entertainment resource. IFILM delivers more than 10,000 Internet films, the latest Industry news and unlimited information about films, filmmaking and the film industry. * Watch, rate and review all of our films! * Check out the daily IFILM Picks! * Read the latest on the new movie releases and box-office hits! * See today's Cool Click or Web Pick! * Take a peek at the new Erotica Showcase! * Prepare yourself for Spike Mike's Sick and Twisted Festival of Animation! * Watch a film on any of our 11 channels: Action, Animation, Comedy, Drama, Sci-fi, Thriller and more! So...what are you looking at? Questions? Let us know! Send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] IFILM (www.ifilm.com): The only place to watch every film on the Web
