The bigger question about M$...
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| JaseP Oct 17, 2011 9:14 AM EDT |
The bigger question about M$ is whether they are going to leverage their deals with the equipment manufacturers to squeeze them to not permit an UEFI safe-boot deactivation or key editor on products. I think the DOJ should start a new case against them. |
| Grishnakh Oct 17, 2011 8:48 PM EDT |
The problem is that's never going to happen, at least not without a revolution or something. Obama is such a corporatist, just like Bush was, that we would never do anything to hurt his corporate buddies. For 2012, it looks like the powers-that-be are already setting up a new corporatist to take over; it doesn't really matter if he actually wins or not, because they control the voting machines, so they can make whoever they want win, as long as it doesn't look too rigged. |
| JaseP Oct 18, 2011 8:49 AM EDT |
OK, Gris,... I think we're getting into tin-foil-hat territory with the voting machine thing. Obamas too low in the polls to win right now... If he did, everyone would be calling "foul." |
| Scott_Ruecker Oct 18, 2011 9:26 AM EDT |
Hi, Sorry to play the heavy, but no Politics or Religion in the LXer Forums guys and gals. I don't want to have to close or delete this thread, but its my job to enforce the LXer TOS. |
| helios Oct 18, 2011 10:11 AM EDT |
Thank you Scotty. I hope this doesn't change into a political argument. Sorry... |
| JaseP Oct 18, 2011 10:14 AM EDT |
Wasn't my intention,... sorry... I was just pointing out the slippery slope of conspiracy theories... |
| Scott_Ruecker Oct 18, 2011 10:22 AM EDT |
I believe you JaseP, I am not worried about you in the slightest. :-) I just have to call it when I see it. I know that restricting subject matter is never fun but if we didn't, it would get out of hand rather quickly. For my part I think that the rule against talking about religion to be a no-brainer, especially in tech related forums like LXer. I do think that FOSS does have obvious sociopolitical implications but I have yet to crystallize my thoughts on it or find an easy way of moderating a forum discussion about it. It just gets to hot too fast. |
| JaseP Oct 18, 2011 10:47 AM EDT |
Agreed. |
| Grishnakh Oct 18, 2011 11:55 AM EDT |
I have to say that's a bit of a fine line, because a lot of the issues we have here are absolutely tied to government policies and laws, so any time you talk about copyrights, software patents, etc., if you say "no political discussion" then basically you can't say anything about copyrights or software patents. I can see why you wouldn't want people veering off into discussions about things like foreign wars, healthcare, Senate rules, etc., which have little to nothing to do with Free software, but when, for instance, the USG passes a new patent "reform" bill, it's absolutely unavoidable, unless you're just going to ban all discussion of software patents. |
| Grishnakh Oct 18, 2011 12:01 PM EDT |
@JaseP: Hopefully this won't get deleted or cross the line, but I agree, if the powers-that-be rigged the election so that an obviously unpopular candidate got elected, people would be calling foul, so they don't do that. Instead, when the election is really close, they can use their powers to push it one way or the other, as possibly happened in 2000 when Diebold basically admitted that they rigged Ohio's election. So, if the PTB's favorite candidate is too unpopular, they go find some other candidate that they can pull the puppet-strings of and push him in the mainstream media all they can. This is where they use most of their power, much more than in the voting booth: they control the media so they determine which candidates we'll know about and talk about, so ones with real grassroots support get ignored (in any party) while the ones the PTB want us to elect (in both main parties) are the ones that get all the media coverage, plus lies and distortions to make us think the right things about these puppets. What's unfortunate is that the Internet age, with all the free blogs (running on Linux!) where people could post their thoughts without MSM censorship, promised to change all of this, but instead, it hasn't; people still listen to the MSM more than anything. |
| JaseP Oct 18, 2011 12:15 PM EDT |
Be clear that we are taking about tech policy, and not politics, per se. I don't believe that election machines have been rigged by corporate interests. Corporate interests prefer the direct methods of using money, media and lobbyists. Those are legal and easy enough, while the former is illegal and a potential mine field. ... Path of least resistance, and all that. |
| Grishnakh Oct 18, 2011 12:30 PM EDT |
@JaseP: You have a point there, and I agree that they certainly use money, media, and lobbyists as their first lines of attack, but I don't see why they wouldn't keep election-machine rigging in their back pocket just in case. It's not like they can get caught: the machines don't keep any records. After all the news over the last 10 years about the problems with election machines (and from a company that makes ATMs!), vote results not matching hand-tallied results in tests, votes being lost, etc., how can you not believe the machines have been rigged in some way? I guess you could fall back to the old maxim "never ascribe to malice that which can be explained by stupidity/incompetence", but again, many of these machines were made by the same company that makes most of the ATMs, and they don't seem to have so many problems with those. It seems to me we need to have the UN come in and run our elections for us, because we obviously can't do it right ourselves. They do this in other 3rd-world countries that can't do their elections right, why not here? |
| Fettoosh Oct 18, 2011 12:34 PM EDT |
Quoting: I don't believe that election machines have been rigged by corporate interests. Rigging is very effective for quick returns/results and most timely than any other. |
| jdixon Oct 18, 2011 12:42 PM EDT |
> It's not like they can get caught: the machines don't keep any records. Most machines do keep a paper record now. > After all the news over the last 10 years about the problems with election machines ... how can you not believe the machines have been rigged in some way? Simple incompetence is a far more likely explanation than rigged machines. Voter fraud is an old school practiced, tried and perfected decades (some would say centuries) ago. As such, it usually takes place long before the votes are tallied. I will agree that the closed nature of most of the voting machines makes rigging an election via the voting machines a far more plausible case than it would have been in the paper ballot days, but I've seen no signs that anyone has tried to do so thus far. > It seems to me we need to have the UN come in and run our elections for us, Have you seriously looked at the UN's track record wrt corruption? The last thing we want is for them to be involved. |
| JaseP Oct 18, 2011 12:47 PM EDT |
Rigging (computerized election) machines might be effective, but it's more effectively done by corrupt local election officials or fringe special interests. To influence a nationwide election, a hacking attack on the machines would have to be wide-spread and systemic. It would involve lots of people. And people have this annoying habit of shooting their mouths off. No... ATMs are a localized attack on an isolated machine, generally. Election fraud usually takes place at the reporting stage, and that's human error. I believe mis-tallies to be anoher example of human error (either the human not reporting how they voted right, not working the machine correctly, or the counting person incorrectly tallying the hand ballots. |
| Grishnakh Oct 18, 2011 1:33 PM EDT |
jdixon wrote:Have you seriously looked at the UN's track record wrt corruption? Have you seriously looked at the US's track record wrt corruption? We make Mexico look good. I don't see how UN involvement could be any worse than what we have now. |
| gus3 Oct 18, 2011 1:37 PM EDT |
Funny, I don't see people sneaking across the border into Mexico. |
| Grishnakh Oct 18, 2011 1:42 PM EDT |
JaseP wrote:To influence a nationwide election, a hacking attack on the machines would have to be wide-spread and systemic What's this stuff about 'hacking"? Why would you need to do that? The voting machines are run by a very, very small number of people, so if they wanted to change the results, they could, without anyone knowing. Remember, these machines are just black boxes run by their manufacturers. So the results that come out are whatever the mfgr wants them to be. There's no cross-checking at all, the source code is not open, there's no verification that the votes input are tallied correctly, only blind trust. It's the very worst example of proprietary software. Quoting:I believe mis-tallies to be anoher example of human error So you trust the faceless corporations who make voting machines more than regular people, who have reported inconsistencies and errors in the machine results, and think we should just trust these machines, so that our election results rest in the hands of a couple of unelected corporations? I'd rather have paper voting and the human error that goes with that, because at least there, there's no centralized control over the results. Different groups of people will make errors (intentional or otherwise), but in different directions, generally canceling each other out, whereas putting lots of elections in the hands of a single corporation with the power to announce the results with zero cross-checking is ripe for abuse. |
| JaseP Oct 18, 2011 1:50 PM EDT |
Hanlon's razor: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon's_razor That pretty much sums up my opinion on that. |
| jdixon Oct 18, 2011 2:33 PM EDT |
> Have you seriously looked at the US's track record wrt corruption? We make Mexico look good. If you really believe that, you have a severe disconnect from reality. |
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