Why does the US provide all critical electronic design knowledge to the world?

[Njk]

Perhaps the problem is actually rooted more deeply.

Konrad Lorenz, a zoologist who lived in Germany during the Nazi time wrote in one of his books that regardless of the political system, it's exactly the same type of people who wants to be a top dog.

When I was a kid, my parents convinced me to join the ski club. It was not about a weekend recreation, it was a sport, all round the year activity. The club operated a kind of summer camp at the Black Sea resort, and in summers we were sent to there for intensive training. The club fee was nominal, so there were a training days and a working days, when we were doing an agriculture work at the local collective farm, usually in the field. It was considered a part of endurance training, because the soil there is baked by the sun and it's really hard to dig it with a hand tools. So it required motivation. That was the main problem. It's hard, sometimes it hurts because it's sport and all the enormous efforts with the only purpose to prepare for the competition, when the winner will have a good day while the looser will have a bad day. Essentially, it's all about how to arrange a bad day for someone. There were many boys who were enthusiastic in doing so. But something inside you must resonate with that, otherwise, no inspiration. So my sport career was short. Still have no idea why so many people liking to be in the huge crowd, accepting the risk of dying in stampede, willing to pay the ticket price to watch a competitive game and to play apes together. That only benefits those in the box office.

Later, with the military, I took responsibility for the small team, call it a motley crew, because of its multi-ethnic composition. There were three guys from Western Ukraine, one Latvian, one Belorussian, one mixed blood Gipsy from Karelia and me the only Russian. From time to time, I reminded them that it'll be better to obey my orders with no hesitation because I'm not happy to issue an orders and always thinking about how to issue a bare minimum amount. So if they will not comply then I'll be replaced with another commander, who's of different attitude (a lot of examples around) and they will have much more work to do. It's like in prison. No of us wanted to be here. Usually, that worked well except for one individual who was just stupid and preferred to play rebel regardless of the circumstances. Bit that was more of personal feud. There is always at least one such guy in any team. It's interesting the Gipsy guy had served one real prison term prior to the draft (and one more after the discharge, AFAIK), but he was my best friend there. Probably because he was also not happy with the social system and tried to fool it, he just took wrong approach. Anyway the barrack is a perfect place to watch the human social behavior. It was amazing to see how a humble scared boy quickly develops or reveals his dictatorship nature when he's given the right to tell others what to do. Frequently, it was hard to predict.

So if the Galactic Gremlins are going to do the great cleanup here, one possible plan would be to help people to construct several huge stadiums in Cyprus. This island has a warm climate and is of enough area to accommodate a crowds comprising all billions of human population. Let them all to voluntarily flock there to watch a free sport show. And then a limited number of nuclear explosions above will finish the species. A minority that survived by missing the show is likely less social and competitive and therefore less harmful.

[radiolistener]

No, you do not have to vote for someone. You spoil your ballot / vote for no one. So you show clearly you are not happy with the system and do not accept the result.

I don't think so. By merely participating in the elections, a person shows their agreement with the outcome, regardless of whom they voted for. In fact, this is exactly why the elite needs elections - to legitimize the power of their appointee.

Perhaps that’s why ballots with votes are thrown into a bin, symbolizing that the voter is throwing their own vote into the trash bin.

[Simon]

You can't change a system by not taking part. You also ignore the facts that you are being told when they don't suit you.

In the UK, if you don't vote no one cares, you have proved nothing to anyone other than the fact that you don't care. The percentage of winning votes is not calculated based on those that are eligible to vote but based on the total number of people intelligent enough to understand how this voting things works and to go and have their say.
If you spoil your ballot this is counted. So if 1000 people vote 600 for one side and 400 for the other the winner got 60%. If 590 people for one side, 400 for the other and 10 spoil their ballets then the winner got 59% and the other side 40%, this adds up to 99%, the other 1% is spoilt ballots. And indeed if the number reaches 1% is becomes an official statistic and the winner is 1% down on where they may have been.
Now if 40% spoil their ballot and the two parties get 31% and 29% who wins?.

In the UK there are at least 5 parties, so it can take less votes for a vote for no one to actually win. Then what? You say that spoiling your ballot does nothing, you don't even understand basic maths it seems.

[bd139]

....... we should be voting on individual issues and not parties. That means you don't have to accept either of the absolutist positions which are always nuanced.

The Greeks tried that and found it to be totally unwieldy. The citizens end up having to familiarise themselves with every issue in order to make an educated choice. Also, it leads to voter fatigue so the turn-out drops off steeply.

That's why (almost?) all modern democracies are representative democracies, whereby we elect our preferred representative and they do all the grunt work on our behalf.

That’s totally unscientific. You can’t compare a culture that old with any model today.

[bd139]

No, you do not have to vote for someone. You spoil your ballot / vote for no one. So you show clearly you are not happy with the system and do not accept the result.

I don't think so. By merely participating in the elections, a person shows their agreement with the outcome, regardless of whom they voted for. In fact, this is exactly why the elite needs elections - to legitimize the power of their appointee.

Perhaps that’s why ballots with votes are thrown into a bin, symbolizing that the voter is throwing their own vote into the trash bin.

Symbolism through sacrifice solves nothing other than teaching yourself you’re an idiot quicker than the next person.

[bd139]

Now there is a good point in there, under the crack smoke, which is that we should be voting on individual issues and not parties. That means you don't have to accept either of the absolutist positions which are always nuanced. But you can't expect objectivity from a society that can't even spell it.

And that is what caused the brexit. Allowing the population to vote on a single issue. 

I think it is a bit to simplistic to assume that having the population vote on every single issue would work any better than what we have now. The time it would take to make a well informed decision on a given issue, would mean that for all the issues that need voting on, you won't be able to do anything else. So votes will be cast with the heart instead of the brain, and that will get us nowhere either.

We have to do with what we got, until some very clever group of people comes with the ultimate solution based on a benevolent dictator. One that knows what is really good for us. Don't see it happening in my remaining lifetime though.

No it was us. And a number of conservative politicians heavily buying out advertising space based on our findings. And that lot at Cambridge Analytica.

You humans were merely a passive tool for which to achieve the desired outcome.

Lots of people got rich. Not me as I dumped all my stock holding on ethical grounds and fucked off out of there.

Large groups of educated people tend to produce sensible outcomes. It’ll be fine. If we fix education.

[themadhippy]

That's why (almost?) all modern democracies are representative democracies, whereby we elect our preferred representative and they do all the grunt work on our behalf.

maybe another of the greeks ideas would work better,get rid of elected politicians and  replace them with a team selected by random,bit like how jury service in the uk works.

[TimFox]

For those who dream of Utopia, here is an AI-based account of the classic "A Ticket to Tranai" by Robert Sheckley (1955).
https://wordcloud.app/books/a-ticket-to-tranai-by-robert-sheckley#:~:text=About%20this%20book&text=The%20story%20follows%20the%20protagonist,adds%20depth%20to%20the%20storyline.
A badly formatted pirate version:  https://www.e-reading.club/chapter.php/149381/8/robert-sheckley-citizen-in-space.html

[SteveThackery]

I don't spend as much time on the forum as I did a few years ago but before you delude yourself that you speak for "the rest of us" be assured you don't speak for me.

Honestly, I didn’t presume to speak for anyone other than me, and I don't understand why you believe I was doing so. I was making the argument that the thread topic is a legitimate thing to discuss, and if anyone objects to the topic, not clicking on it is the brain-dead-obvious solution for him/her.

What sort of person repeatedly clicks on a thread they find objectionable? Isn't that a bit weird? There are loads of threads I don't click on, because they don't interest me. I definitely do not join those discussions and complain about how uninteresting they are!

I remain steadfast in my view: if you don't like a particular thread FOR ANY REASON, then just DON'T CLICK ON IT.  If you click on it anyway, and find yourself unhappy, then you know what to do, right? I can't believe this needs explaining.

[vk6zgo]

I think this picture well explains the process of election

Which of those types of animals is an endangered species?

[Andy Chee]

....... we should be voting on individual issues and not parties. That means you don't have to accept either of the absolutist positions which are always nuanced.

The Greeks tried that and found it to be totally unwieldy. The citizens end up having to familiarise themselves with every issue in order to make an educated choice. Also, it leads to voter fatigue so the turn-out drops off steeply.

That's why (almost?) all modern democracies are representative democracies, whereby we elect our preferred representative and they do all the grunt work on our behalf.

That’s totally unscientific. You can’t compare a culture that old with any model today.

Based on the scientific premise that human brains have not biologically evolved over the last 3000 years, I beg to differ.

Yes, culturally as a group we may differ from our ancestors, but our individual instincts for preservation of self are the same as Neanderthals.

I believe it was Richard Dawkins who coined the term ‘selfish gene’.

It’s important to distinguish the individual from the group (and vice versa). Ostensibly, voting appears to be an individual action. But make no mistake, that individual is most definitely influenced by the group.

[pcprogrammer]

Large groups of educated people tend to produce sensible outcomes. It’ll be fine. If we fix education.

And based on what I see in the news and other media, human kind is failing at that big time. 

To me it seems that what is taught, is that if you shout the loudest you will be heard. Does not matter what you shout, as long as you are the loudest.

Watch TV commercial and you can feel your IQ points drop by the minute. 

[BU508A]

Watch TV commercial and you can feel your IQ points drop by the minute. 

Because they are targeting your amygdala and / or the area around the hippocampus / amygdala region to switch off your frontal cortex.
 

[SteveThackery]

That’s totally unscientific. You can’t compare a culture that old with any model today.

In the UK Parliament, MPs vote on legislation typically multiple times a week when Parliament is in session. During a typical sitting week, MPs may vote on legislation or other matters two to three times a day when major bills or issues are being debated. Votes are held after debates on legislation at various stages, including second readings, committee stages, report stages, and third readings. Overall, while the number of votes varies, MPs are typically called to vote dozens of times each month when Parliament is in session.

Do you seriously think we can dump the MPs (the "representatives") and engage the 47 million individual registered voters to take on that workload? In addition to their day jobs? And it's not just voting - individuals must inform themselves on each subject sufficiently, mostly by listening to and partaking in the debates. It's just not feasible.

We do, very rarely for this reason, adopt a direct democracy model known in the UK as a referendum. The last one was for Brexit - a single issue which took up the entire political agenda for months before the vote, which suffered blatant lies by both sides of the debate, and still resulted in most voters being woefully uninformed as they entered the voting booth.

Setting up online voting, with all the appropriate security checks, for 47 million people will be a big job, but doable. It will pale into insignificance compared with the task of managing those voters through the process, continuously, in addition to their day jobs.

[Simon]

Setting up online voting, with all the appropriate security checks, for 47 million people will be a big job, but doable. It will pale into insignificance compared with the task of managing those voters through the process, continuously, in addition to their day jobs.

It's not about the technical feasibility. If we had online voting how long before conspiracy theories start about the votes being tampered with ? how long before we have riots because people are still dumb whilst voting on issues if they do at all.

Our current system is literally paper based for a reason. In the UK when you cast your vote you do so in a room with several people present. That box is never left unatended or with one person only. From my experience in the smallest polling station there are 4 official people before you count anyone else.

Those boxes are sealed and multiple people take them to be counted. The seals examined in the presence of the candidates or their representatives before opening.

Then every paper is counted to make sure that they are all there according to the checklist of papers handed out. This is called the verification any many particularly the new kids on the block from the media think that this is it. No this is not it, we have at this stage only counted each piece of paper whilst unfolding it and putting it in a pile with the papers all the same way up to make it easier. This is all done in the presence of multiple observers from any party wishing to be there and they all are.

When this has been done for all the boxes the count can start. Again this proceeds under the observation of the candidates and their representatives. If the outcome is close, the candidate that came second may well ask for a recount. And so it all starts again in the presence of everyone until every side agrees that it has been done.

Then the result is announced. The whole thing is open and transparent in a way that even the average unintelligent person could agree is free from tampering. You just can't do that with a computer system.

[vk6zgo]

That’s totally unscientific. You can’t compare a culture that old with any model today.

In the UK Parliament, MPs vote on legislation typically multiple times a week when Parliament is in session. During a typical sitting week, MPs may vote on legislation or other matters two to three times a day when major bills or issues are being debated. Votes are held after debates on legislation at various stages, including second readings, committee stages, report stages, and third readings. Overall, while the number of votes varies, MPs are typically called to vote dozens of times each month when Parliament is in session.

Do you seriously think we can dump the MPs (the "representatives") and engage the 47 million individual registered voters to take on that workload? In addition to their day jobs? And it's not just voting - individuals must inform themselves on each subject sufficiently, mostly by listening to and partaking in the debates. It's just not feasible.

We do, very rarely for this reason, adopt a direct democracy model known in the UK as a referendum. The last one was for Brexit - a single issue which took up the entire political agenda for months before the vote, which suffered blatant lies by both sides of the debate, and still resulted in most voters being woefully uninformed as they entered the voting booth.

Setting up online voting, with all the appropriate security checks, for 47 million people will be a big job, but doable. It will pale into insignificance compared with the task of managing those voters through the process, continuously, in addition to their day jobs.

The silly thing about your Brexit referendum is that it still used voluntary voting.

Australia has compulsory voting, the concept of which freaks out people from other countries, but my argument with voluntary voting isn't about normal elections, where if you make a mistake, you can fix it at the next one.

You cannot do that as easily with a referendum on a radical & fairly permanent change to how a country interacts with its neighbours, which seems a bit too important to leave to those who will bother to turn up to the polling booth, instead of the football or the pub.
It is not just for four years, but potentially forever.

[SteveThackery]

You cannot do that as easily with a referendum on a radical & fairly permanent change to how a country interacts with its neighbours, which seems a bit too important to leave to those who will bother to turn up to the polling booth, instead of the football or the pub.
It is not just for four years, but potentially forever.

That's why I said direct democracy - everybody votes on everything - can never work in reality. Brexit was far too complicated an issue for the average voter to inform themselves adequately on, especially in the torrent of lies and misinformation being thrown about by all sides, as well as making time to go to work and have a life. Brexit should never have been put to a referendum - it was a terrible decision to do so.

[bd139]

That’s totally unscientific. You can’t compare a culture that old with any model today.

In the UK Parliament, MPs vote on legislation typically multiple times a week when Parliament is in session. During a typical sitting week, MPs may vote on legislation or other matters two to three times a day when major bills or issues are being debated. Votes are held after debates on legislation at various stages, including second readings, committee stages, report stages, and third readings. Overall, while the number of votes varies, MPs are typically called to vote dozens of times each month when Parliament is in session.

Do you seriously think we can dump the MPs (the "representatives") and engage the 47 million individual registered voters to take on that workload? In addition to their day jobs? And it's not just voting - individuals must inform themselves on each subject sufficiently, mostly by listening to and partaking in the debates. It's just not feasible.

We do, very rarely for this reason, adopt a direct democracy model known in the UK as a referendum. The last one was for Brexit - a single issue which took up the entire political agenda for months before the vote, which suffered blatant lies by both sides of the debate, and still resulted in most voters being woefully uninformed as they entered the voting booth.

Setting up online voting, with all the appropriate security checks, for 47 million people will be a big job, but doable. It will pale into insignificance compared with the task of managing those voters through the process, continuously, in addition to their day jobs.

It's not rocket science.

I literally helped build a company that does that.

[tom66]

The consequences of a failure of electronic voting (especially in terms of security) are tremendous compared to most other computer security issues.  Let's say a foreign adversary wanted to tamper with UK elections.  And let's say their candidate won, is that candidate going to support any investigation into tampering in the vote?  Of course not.

Most computer security specialists are agreed that there is no safe way to do internet-based voting that would be understandable by the majority of the population.  It is possible to come up with all sorts of chain-of-trust methods where e.g. Alice and Bob sum their keys together and hand them over to Clive who counts the result but when your average member of the electorate isn't clued up on what a private key is - and crucially, how important it is that the key remains totally secret - failures will occur. Remember the average voter probably puts a post-it note on their monitor with a password or hint on it. 

Paper voting is the only secure way - it's impractical to tamper with the ballot in any measurable way given the number of people who would need to look the other way - all the counting can be done in public - and it's impossible to tamper remotely.

[Andy Chee]

Most computer security specialists are agreed that there is no safe way to do internet-based voting that would be understandable by the majority of the population. 

Sure there is.  Vote online, print the ballot on paper, send the ballot by snail mail post to the ballot counting centre.  If your paper ballot fails to arrive, your online vote is voided.  If duplicate paper ballots arrive, your online vote is voided.

But I agree with the general sentiment, that online voting alone is a recipe for conspiracy theories.  Paper ballot counting is easily observed by anyone, no IT security training required.

[tom66]

Most computer security specialists are agreed that there is no safe way to do internet-based voting that would be understandable by the majority of the population. 

Sure there is.  Vote online, print the ballot on paper, send the ballot by snail mail post to the ballot counting centre.  If your paper ballot fails to arrive, your online vote is voided.  If duplicate paper ballots arrive, your online vote is voided.

But I agree with the general sentiment, that online voting alone is a recipe for conspiracy theories.  Paper ballot counting is easily observed by anyone, no IT security training required.

OK, but what would be the advantage of something like that?  You might as well just have mail-in ballots and just dispense with the online part.

Also, what happens when the vote online and vote on paper disagree?  You might be able to influence an election by compromising the online part of the vote, forcing election officials to discard votes for some p eople.  In some races, that could swing the vote in favour of a preferred candidate, if you targeted areas known to e.g. vote red or blue preferably. 

There's also the risk of a DDoS attack... on election day it would not take much to take down government infrastructure, which is usually run on a shoestring budget. 

[bd139]

The consequences of a failure of electronic voting (especially in terms of security) are tremendous compared to most other computer security issues.  Let's say a foreign adversary wanted to tamper with UK elections.  And let's say their candidate won, is that candidate going to support any investigation into tampering in the vote?  Of course not.

Most computer security specialists are agreed that there is no safe way to do internet-based voting that would be understandable by the majority of the population.  It is possible to come up with all sorts of chain-of-trust methods where e.g. Alice and Bob sum their keys together and hand them over to Clive who counts the result but when your average member of the electorate isn't clued up on what a private key is - and crucially, how important it is that the key remains totally secret - failures will occur. Remember the average voter probably puts a post-it note on their monitor with a password or hint on it. 

Paper voting is the only secure way - it's impractical to tamper with the ballot in any measurable way given the number of people who would need to look the other way - all the counting can be done in public - and it's impossible to tamper remotely.

As a computer security expert, this is complete bollocks.

There plenty of non-repudiation based models around this.

As for ballot tampering, in areas with proportional representation, discarding or intentionally miscounting entire wards of ballots is common.

[SteveThackery]

It's not rocket science.

I literally helped build a company that does that.

You literally set up a company that does online voting, you mean. I already said it was doable. That is not the issue. Educating and engaging the electorate to vote several times a week (or even once every 30 years) is the issue.

[SteveThackery]

As for ballot tampering, in areas with proportional representation, discarding or intentionally miscounting entire wards of ballots is common.

That's one hell of a statement. To have any credibility you'd have to say which country you are referring to, and what you mean by "common".

I think you misspoke in haste.

[tom66]

The consequences of a failure of electronic voting (especially in terms of security) are tremendous compared to most other computer security issues.  Let's say a foreign adversary wanted to tamper with UK elections.  And let's say their candidate won, is that candidate going to support any investigation into tampering in the vote?  Of course not.

Most computer security specialists are agreed that there is no safe way to do internet-based voting that would be understandable by the majority of the population.  It is possible to come up with all sorts of chain-of-trust methods where e.g. Alice and Bob sum their keys together and hand them over to Clive who counts the result but when your average member of the electorate isn't clued up on what a private key is - and crucially, how important it is that the key remains totally secret - failures will occur. Remember the average voter probably puts a post-it note on their monitor with a password or hint on it. 

Paper voting is the only secure way - it's impractical to tamper with the ballot in any measurable way given the number of people who would need to look the other way - all the counting can be done in public - and it's impossible to tamper remotely.

As a computer security expert, this is complete bollocks.

There plenty of non-repudiation based models around this.

As for ballot tampering, in areas with proportional representation, discarding or intentionally miscounting entire wards of ballots is common.

Well, I am familiar with computer security though I work on the embedded side more.  Please cite resources that claim you can provide secure elections over the internet.  Numerous experts in the field have concluded that there is no safe way to do country-scale balloting this way.

Just one example - https://www.aaas.org/epi-center/internet-online-voting

Remember the key characteristics of a voting system.  It must be:

• secure - cannot be tampered with by a third party
• verifiable - the chain of trust must be clear, it must be possible to see that a vote has not been tampered with
• secret - no ballot can be associated with any voter (to prevent bribery or coercion)
• understandable - an average-intelligence person must be able to vote without complex processes being involved

So far, no system has managed to achieve all four objectives.

Remember, any voting system will be subject to attack by adversaries with incredible resources, nation-state level.