Post
Topic
Board Politics & Society
Re: [BET] Trump or not Trump 2020: RISKS-FORUM Digest
by
nullius
on 07/11/2020, 08:23:33 UTC
... The equipment and software did not malfunction and all ballots were properly tabulated. However, the clerk accidentally did not update the software used to collect voting machine data and report unofficial results.
 
Like many counties in Michigan, Antrim County uses the Dominion Voting Systems election management system and voting machines (ballot tabulators.) The county receives programming support from Election Source. Tabulators are programmed to ...
 
... The software did not cause a misallocation of votes; it was a result of user human error. Even when human error occurs, it is caught during county canvasses. ...

https://www.michigan.gov/sos/0,4670,7-127--544676--,00.html
So it was the Clerk's fault, "human error", and not the software's fault, because the software was not "updated" by the clerk, so the software was wrong, but it wasn't the software's fault..

Funny the software should need "updated" just a day or 2 before the election for it to not be totally incorrect, or, for it not to somehow completely skew all race results unsuspiciously to the left..

Anybody who imagines that voting be important (as I don’t) should dig through the archives of the RISKS Digest for decades of discussion about the RISKS of voting machines, voting machine software, human error, etc., etc.  Voting systems have been a longtime major focus there.  I also expect that RISKS will probably carry discussion of what is now happening in the United States; you may want to contribute, if you have a mind for computer security.  (PrimeNumber7 particularly may like this, if he’s not already a secret subscriber.  Unfortunately, I myself have not followed it for some few years.)

RISKS Digest: Forum on Risks to the Public in Computers and Related Systems:
https://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/

Oh, the RISKS of being catless! 😿

RISKS is an old-school computer security thing, published since 1985 and known to anybody who is serious these matters.  It is sufficiently “notable” that it has a lamentably inadequate Wikipedia page:

It is a moderated forum concerned with the security and safety of computers, software, and technological systems. Security, and risk, here are taken broadly; RISKS is concerned not merely with so-called security holes in software, but with unintended consequences and hazards stemming from the design (or lack thereof) of automated systems. Other recurring subjects include cryptography and the effects of technically ill-considered public policies.

Highlighting is thereby added to subjects that should be of particular interest to denizens of the Bitcoin Forum.  I should catch up, and see what they’ve been saying about cryptocurrency—I would guess, probably tearing up an awful lot of RISKy bad code.  Because idiots want their dancing pigs!

My previous mention of RISKS on this forum:

On the other hand, I could say that people/users can be blame too for this inexplicable continuous hacking & bad news. Why?
Simply because most of them don't want projects that are slow on production. They only think about the "hype" without realizing that there is a proper flow for conducting new features. They passively pushes the developers/coders to do an early releases that have greater chances for bugs and errors. This is a very common thing on some projects here in bctalk  Wink

This is what RISKS-subscriber types used to call “dancing pigs”.  People will not pay for correct, reliable, secure things.  People will not wait for them, either.  They want their dancing pigs, and they want them now!