[IP] Re: BOUND TO CAUSE COMMENTS djf 50 Percent of Sequoia VotingMachines Flawed

[David Farber <dave@farber.net>]

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From: jsq@internetperils.com [jsq@internetperils.com] On Behalf Of John S. Quarterman [jsq@quarterman.org]
Sent: Thursday, July 17, 2008 12:18 AM
To: Joseph Lorenzo Hall
Cc: John S. Quarterman; David Farber
Subject: Re: [IP] Re: BOUND TO CAUSE COMMENTS djf 50 Percent of Sequoia VotingMachines Flawed

For IP:

Yes, I'm aware of the context, and of that conference.
It's like saying in 1993, "implementing distributed hypertext
with backlinks is really hard, and computer scientists have
been working on it a long time."  Tim Berners-Lee came up
with the correct solution: stop trying to implement backlinks.

If e-voting is so hard, and is demonstrably broken (as I think you
can find many conference papers that demonstrate), then the correct
solution is *to stop using it!*

This is not a solution that will be addressed at a conference of
people trying to fix e-voting.  It is a political problem that
needs a political solution.

I ask again: how can we make this an issue in the current
presidential campaign?

-jsq

> The debate on IP is almost entirely devoid of context and parts are
> not grounded in fact.  There has been a concerted effort in recent
> years to "fix" e-voting in the US.  It's not a simple problem.
> Efforts of groups like the NSF CyberTrust ACCURATE center (
> http://accurate-voting.org/ ) and the CalTech/MIT project (
> http://www.votingtechnologyproject.org/ ) have shown that "easy"
> solutions are naïve and/or extremely narrow in application.  Frankly,
> if you think you can do better, join the struggle and contribute.  You
> might start by attending EVT'08, co-located with USENIX Security (
> http://www.usenix.org/event/evt08/ ) and in its third year.  best, Joe



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