Interesting post. You may be interested in the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) which has been looking into issues related to voting machines. See https://www.eff.org/issues/e-voting
Also you might want to read Bruce Schneier's writings on the issue. He is a security guru who has written a lot about voting machines. His big point is that there is no "security through obscurity". Search his blog at http://www.schneier.com/blog Regards, John http://www.wikieducator.org/User:JohnWS http://johnsearth.blogspot.com ________________________________ From: kirby urner <kirby.ur...@gmail.com> To: wikieducator@googlegroups.com Sent: Tue, September 14, 2010 5:54:29 AM Subject: [WikiEducator] prototyping voting machines in democracy-funded schools VOTING MACHINES IN SCHOOLS Those following the many conflict-of-interest stories that have always plagued the voting vista, might appreciate the advisability of having schools serve as "testbeds for democracy" in those systems favoring this form of self-government (not all of them do). The idea is to use both paper ballots and electronic systems of various kinds (optical scanners, touch screens...), with vendors invited to field test, getting some positive visibility for so doing. It's not just the "polling booth" that we care about, but the back end tabulation system and, most important, all the safeguards and cross-checks that make election results auditable, perhaps permanently on record (just like famous sports contests, forever archived to videotape (yes, I know, videotape has a half-life)). Students and faculty will have responsible administrative roles in what amount to realistic simulations, using equipment the vendors hope will someday see the light of day in higher stakes arenas. Not every high school would need to test every make and model. However, a lot the the proposed electronic systems run as open source software on commodity hardware, perhaps with some custom peripherals (a particular kind of touch screen for example). I say "high schools" without meaning to exclude colleges and universities from running similar experiments (many already do). However, I'm particularly interested in moves to revitalize the "teenage wasteland" layer, which by most accounts is where major breakage occurs. GATHERING PUBLIC SECTOR RESOURCES I'm not sure what materials on Wikieducator and other open courseware repositories already contain, as far as technical information regarding the various secret balloting technologies (from paper based tabulation to LCD based). A context for this thread is my having just attended a conference called DjangoCon, here in Portland, Oregon. Django is a free and open source framework for developing web applications, anything that runs through a web browser and likely talks to a back end database. Congressman Wu, chairman of a House subcommittee on Technology and Innovation, gave one of the keynotes. I've been watching this initiative take shape through my Pauling House Campus connections as well. Linus Pauling, x2 Nobel prize winner, launched many of his chemistry studies right here near the foot of Mt. Tabor, an extinct volcano within our city limits. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Tabor,_Portland,_Oregon >From a recent posting to our discussion list: """ PS: getting working voting machines in the high schools is a really good idea. Encourage kids to learn what makes them tick. Have several mock elections every week, on all kinds of student and faculty proposed topics. Look for cheats, discover schemes, do some dry runs for that real world you're about to get into... It's also a good idea because it'll be veeeery interesting to find out what politicians feel the have the political capital to fight against it. What, too expensive? Open source? C'mon! """ I'll post a follow-up link to the Math Forum when it appears, then to more journalism in the blogosphere I might happen across (I'm mostly looking into the Python community these days, i.e. those using the Python programming language, an eclectic group). Here it is already: http://mathforum.org/kb/message.jspa?messageID=7203847&tstart=0 MAKING CYBERSPACE SAFER What's related to this thread, even if you're not looking at prototyping voting infrastructure, is creating a safe intranet. I'm a liberal arts type in espousing free and unfettered access to information, but the flip side is vulnerability to malware, malignant memes, a lot of those crazy ideas a strong education will supply you with antibodies to fight, but a weak one will leave you prey to. Schools need to provide something like a sandbox, relatively free of malicious predators, and this is one reason why adopting Internet policies is so slow.** Here's a recent post somewhat belaboring the obvious in this respect (that newbies are vulnerable, especially if untrained). The lesson extends to those experimenting with democracy though. Rigged voting equipment is malware as well. http://controlroom.blogspot.com/2010/09/internet-is-broken.html The post just before it chronicles Congressman Wu's recent visit to our esoteric little conference (only about 250 attendees). Kirby ** entertaining true story: our local police department in Hillsboro, home of Intel, was feeling really frustrated by how the schools were turning the Internet into something scary and fascist, expected police to show up and make everyone worry about downloading free stuff (pirating), prono, chat rooms -- whatever behaviors. Lots of lurking dangers out there, sure, but what about the stuff that's legally free, like the web browser itself, maybe even the whole operating system. Why weren't the schools teaching more about that. The police were so frustrated they set up a Linux lab in the police station and hired teachers out of their own budget to work with the kids, showing 'em healthy, happy ways to enjoy their heritage, with just the right level of paranoia to steer clear of creeps and perps. I know about all this because I was one of the teachers. This was years ago. Have the schools sufficiently improved? -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "WikiEducator" group. 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