[WAY Off Topic] black box voting

[Dustin Decker]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: kclug-bounces at kclug.org [mailto:kclug-bounces at kclug.org] On Behalf
> Of David Nicol
> Sent: Friday, November 12, 2004 5:06 PM
> To: kclug
> Subject: black box voting
> 
> This is a series of articles.  Note that the one immediately below I'm
> quite suspicious of, but I got the link from someone I quite trust the
> the third story seems to at least partially back it up so I'm leaving
> it in.
> 
>    IE.
> http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=us&q=Avi+Rubin&btnG=Search+News
> 
> I'm pretty suspicious of accusations until there's some real proof one
> way or another, it's too easy for people who poured their heart and
> soul into the election to *want* there to be foul play.  Regardless it
> is a real possibility and the Diebold voting machines sound awful.
> 
> Lets see how it all plays out and keep and open mind until the end.

Pretty fascinating stuff - yet I too am quite suspicious.  I can't help but
think if the source code were genuinely available, someone with the
credentials described would have placed it in the hands of someone such as
Bruce Schneier for further examination, not just his students.  I expect
Bruce would be willing to give it the once over.

To be frank, I didn't bother reading the entire post beyond the encryption
key.  Why?  Because this whole thing (true or not, and with the rift between
the various groups of folks on either side widening) is merely a _symptom_
of a greater concern.  

When I have trouble sleeping at night, G*d only knows what I'll select from
my library in hopes of lulling myself into the ether... most recently, I
turned to "Great Debates in American History", Volume II, Foreign Relations
Part 1 - Circa 1913.  In it, we find a copy of President George Washington's
Farewell Address of 1796.  While I obviously won't quote it in its entirety
here, I will share his remarkable insight into our present predicament - as
he appears to have been _keenly aware_ we would one day find ourselves here.
[I.E. click delete now if uninterested, it's kinda long.]

	"The unity of government which constitutes you one people is also
now dear to you.  It is justly so, for it is a main pillar in the edifice of
your real independence, the support of your tranquility at home, your peace
abroad, of you safety, of your prosperity, of that very liberty which you so
highly prize.  But as it is easy to foresee that from different causes and
from different quarters much pains will be taken, many artifices employed,
to weaken in your minds the conviction of this truth; as this is the point
in your political fortress against which the batteries of internal and
external enemies will be most constantly and actively (though often covertly
and insidiously) directed, it is of infinite moment that you should properly
estimate the immense value of your national union to your collective and
individual happiness; that you should cherish a cordial, habitual, and
immovable attachment to it; accustoming your selves to think and speak of it
as of the palladium of your political safety and prosperity, watching for
its preservation with jealous anxiety; discountenancing whatever may suggest
even a suspicion that it can in any event be abandoned; and indignantly
frowning upon the first dawning of every attempt to alienate any portion of
our country from the rest, or to enfeeble the sacred ties which now link
together the various parts."

Obviously, English was a different animal in that day and although it is
postulated that Alexander Hamilton may have actually authored this address,
I tend to find Washington a more believable source for several reasons.  (If
interested in _those_ contact me off list.)  At any rate, read it again if
you must (I certainly had to) to ensure it sinks in.  On to my pull-outs...

	"To the efficacy and permanency of your Union a government for the
whole is indispensable.  No alliances, however strict, between the parts,
can be an adequate substitute; they must inevitably experience the
infractions and interruptions which alliances, in all times, have
experienced.  Sensible of this momentous truth, you have improved upon your
first essay by the adoption of a Constitution of government better
calculated than your former for an intimate union, and for the efficacious
management of your common concerns.  This government, the offspring of our
own choice, uninfluenced and unawed, adopted upon full investigation and
mature deliberation, completely free in its principles, in the distribution
of its powers, uniting security with energy, and containing within itself a
provision for its own amendment, has a just claim to your confidence and
your support.  Respect for its authority, compliance with its laws,
acquiescence in its measures, are duties enjoined by the fundamental maxims
of true liberty.  The basis of our political systems is the right of the
people to make and to alter the constitutions of government.  But the
Constitution, which at any time exists, until changed by an explicit and
authentic act of the whole people, is sacredly obligatory upon all.  The
very idea of the power and the right of the people to establish a government
presupposes the duty of every individual to obey the established government.
	All obstructions to the execution of the laws, all combinations and
associations, under whatever plausible character, with the real design to
direct, control, counteract, or awe the regular deliberation and action of
the constituted authorities, are destructive of this fundamental principle,
and of fatal tendency.  They serve to organize faction, to give it an
artificial and extraordinary force, to put in the place of the delegated
will of the nation the will of a party, often a small, but artful and
enterprising minority of the community; and, according to the alternate
triumphs of different parties, to make the public administration the mirror
of the ill-concerted and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the
organ of consistent and wholesome plans, digested by common councils, and
modified by mutual interests.
	However combinations or associations of the above description may
now and then answer popular ends, they are likely, in the course of time and
things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and
unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people, and to
usurp for themselves the reins of government; destroying afterward the very
engines which have lifted them to unjust domination."

Washington understood fully well at that time that the very freedoms of our
government would in fact give rise to their possibility of demise,
particularly if unchecked.  Which raised the question in my mind, "Why on
earth would we allow things to go unchecked?"  The quick and dirty answer
appeared at first to me to be "complacency", considering the fact that most
aren't willing to pay much more than lip-service to any topic which:
a.) Takes more than 15 seconds to shout - or - 
b.) Won't fit onto a bumper sticker

Later in the same address, Washington has this to say, which to some extent
I think supports my view.

	"I have already intimated to you the danger of parties in the State,
with particular reference to the founding of them on geographical
discrimination.  Let me now take a more comprehensive view, and warn you, in
the most solemn manner, against the baneful effects of the spirit of party,
generally.
	This spirit, unfortunately, is inseparable from our nature, having
its root in the strongest passions of the human mind.  It exists under
different shapes, in all governments, more or less stifled, controlled, or
repressed.  But in those of the popular form it is seen in its greatest
rankness, and is truly their worst enemy.
	The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by
the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissensions, which in different ages
and countries, has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a
frightful despotism.  But this leads, at length, to a more formal and
permanent despotism.  The disorders and miseries, which result, gradually
incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power
of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction,
more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to
the purposes of his own elevation on the ruins of public liberty."

I think, to a large degree, this is what has occurred with the passing of
time.  This isn't to say I think George W. Bush is that "individual"... I
expect there have been a few such individuals along the way, each enjoying
the "individual" roll mentioned at the head of their own respective
factions.  The problem in present day is that, with our declining interest
in exercising our own minds, high speed [and centralized] media, and being
(it would seem) unable to think for ourselves, the smaller factions begin to
collapse and congeal into ever larger "herds" if you will.  It allows one
faction to influence, and take advantage of, the population of another...
another which frequently refers to its members as a "flock" or as "sheep".
(And the "sheep" refer to themselves in similar fashion.)  I don't know
about the rest of us, but I for one have always been under the opinion that
sheep, as a species, are just plain stupid!

Thus, we are pretty much where we've always been since the beginning - in a
class society.  Currently, I see three classes.  The majority are the sheep.
A step above them you have the wolves... which from time to time will devour
some sheep.  I haven't a fraction to suggest in numbering the wolves, but
high on a hill, you have the 1% - I refer to them as hunters.  Armed with an
impressive arsenal, they can kill wolf and sheep indiscriminately.

I guess the question becomes, which class are you interested in
participating in?  Frankly, none of them seem all that appealing to me... 

Dustin