Bureaucrats, developer, Administrators
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Board vote code: Difference between revisions
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LOL!!! That's the funniest thing I've read in ages. You think I'm a friend and ally of Erik, and I wanted to help him win the election against Anthere??? I've made no secret of my dislike for Erik. He's arrogant and overbearing. He's done a few things to piss me off in the past and I'm still bearing a grudge. I voted for everyone ''except'' him on the contributing ballot. By contrast I have a great deal of respect for Anthere. | LOL!!! That's the funniest thing I've read in ages. You think I'm a friend and ally of Erik, and I wanted to help him win the election against Anthere??? I've made no secret of my dislike for Erik. He's arrogant and overbearing. He's done a few things to piss me off in the past and I'm still bearing a grudge. I voted for everyone ''except'' him on the contributing ballot. By contrast I have a great deal of respect for Anthere. | ||
:That's your story. It could be a [[cover story]]. He is certainly your ally in [[developer vigilantiism]] (huge [[IP range block]]s affecting whole cities simply to prevent challenge to the [[Sysop Vandal point of view]]) though he is prone to [[libel]] and so far you are not. He is certainly arrogant, overbearing, and self-certain. He's a vile little creep! But he wants the same type of top-down control as [[Daniel Mayer]] does, with these people of no particular consequence making critical decisions about who participates, trying to suppress the [[Wikipedia Red Faction]], and just making ordinary stupid decisions with incoherent unlogic like [[Auntie Angela]] (who ''was'' "elected"). --[[142.177.X.X | :That's your story. It could be a [[cover story]]. He is certainly your ally in [[developer vigilantiism]] (huge [[IP range block]]s affecting whole cities simply to prevent challenge to the [[Sysop Vandal point of view]]) though he is prone to [[libel]] and so far you are not. He is certainly arrogant, overbearing, and self-certain. He's a vile little creep! But he wants the same type of top-down control as [[Daniel Mayer]] does, with these people of no particular consequence making critical decisions about who participates, trying to suppress the [[Wikipedia Red Faction]], and just making ordinary stupid decisions with incoherent unlogic like [[Auntie Angela]] (who ''was'' "elected"). --[[142.177.X.X]] | ||
I had two personal reasons for making the voting system hard for developers to rig: firstly out of distrust for Erik, and secondly because I was entertaining visions of being a candidate myself. It takes a lot of care to design a voting system such that nobody could reasonably claim that even its designer could rig it. | I had two personal reasons for making the voting system hard for developers to rig: firstly out of distrust for Erik, and secondly because I was entertaining visions of being a candidate myself. It takes a lot of care to design a voting system such that nobody could reasonably claim that even its designer could rig it. | ||
:Yes it does. But surely you comprehend that any voting system must be analyzed from a strictly hostile, suspicious point of view with all possible [[Wikimedia corruption|corruption]]s considered. Any slack or benefit of the doubt whatoever and it will be exploited. Really the only test of an evoting system is for one group to fully control its deployment and then totally lose: this happened recently in India to the BJP whose pet voting machine company installed [[e-voting]] all over India, and then Congress Party got elected! That is the only proof of honesty: the clique being entirely locked out. And sorry, the final results prove that the clique was far from locked out. The only person who is actually not a vile [[sysop vandal|vandal]] or [[vile mailing list|spreader of lies]], barely got in, and she's literally the only one on the top six who did. Next time it's the clique all the way. --[[142.177.X.X | :Yes it does. But surely you comprehend that any voting system must be analyzed from a strictly hostile, suspicious point of view with all possible [[Wikimedia corruption|corruption]]s considered. Any slack or benefit of the doubt whatoever and it will be exploited. Really the only test of an evoting system is for one group to fully control its deployment and then totally lose: this happened recently in India to the BJP whose pet voting machine company installed [[e-voting]] all over India, and then Congress Party got elected! That is the only proof of honesty: the clique being entirely locked out. And sorry, the final results prove that the clique was far from locked out. The only person who is actually not a vile [[sysop vandal|vandal]] or [[vile mailing list|spreader of lies]], barely got in, and she's literally the only one on the top six who did. Next time it's the clique all the way. --[[142.177.X.X]] | ||
This is made possible by displaying the encrypted election records. When someone votes, their election record both in plain text and in encrypted form is displayed to them. They may then check to make sure it appears on the dump. If it spontaenously disappears, then they can raise the alarm bells. A developer could rig it so that a different dump is displayed to the general public than to the private key holder, but the private key holder could check for this by requesting copies of the dump downloaded by other people. | This is made possible by displaying the encrypted election records. When someone votes, their election record both in plain text and in encrypted form is displayed to them. They may then check to make sure it appears on the dump. If it spontaenously disappears, then they can raise the alarm bells. A developer could rig it so that a different dump is displayed to the general public than to the private key holder, but the private key holder could check for this by requesting copies of the dump downloaded by other people. | ||
:Only a tiny number of people know how to do this kind of [[audit]]. As with [[vandalbot]] code, there are extreme technical barriers to understanding it - meaning insiders always have an edge. [[E-voting]] is inherently untrustworthy. --[[142.177.X.X | :Only a tiny number of people know how to do this kind of [[audit]]. As with [[vandalbot]] code, there are extreme technical barriers to understanding it - meaning insiders always have an edge. [[E-voting]] is inherently untrustworthy. --[[142.177.X.X]] | ||
::Actually this procedure was quite clearly explained to me by the board vote code. It stated that you may download a copy of this plain text and that encrypted to later on check that the encrypted version is still included in the "dump". As simple as that. As far as I understand computer science I must say that meticulous detail has been has been put into this fine piece of code by Tim Staring --[[User:Juxo|Juxo]] 11:50, 29 Jun 2004 (EEST) | ::Actually this procedure was quite clearly explained to me by the board vote code. It stated that you may download a copy of this plain text and that encrypted to later on check that the encrypted version is still included in the "dump". As simple as that. As far as I understand computer science I must say that meticulous detail has been has been put into this fine piece of code by Tim Staring --[[User:Juxo|Juxo]] 11:50, 29 Jun 2004 (EEST) | ||
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Any paranoid member of the general community can check for disappearing vote records by regularly downloading the entire dump and comparing new dumps and old dumps side by side. Voting records will indeed disappear from the dump due to the election administrator striking out invalid votes, or when someone votes twice. But if such removals are challenged, they can be checked for legitimacy by a third party examining the log. | Any paranoid member of the general community can check for disappearing vote records by regularly downloading the entire dump and comparing new dumps and old dumps side by side. Voting records will indeed disappear from the dump due to the election administrator striking out invalid votes, or when someone votes twice. But if such removals are challenged, they can be checked for legitimacy by a third party examining the log. | ||
:So write up an audit protocol that an ordinary IQ 100 no-programming-skill user can carry out, to determine by spot audits if everything always matches. --[[142.177.X.X | :So write up an audit protocol that an ordinary IQ 100 no-programming-skill user can carry out, to determine by spot audits if everything always matches. --[[142.177.X.X]] | ||
::It already exits --[[User:Juxo|Juxo]] 11:50, 29 Jun 2004 (EEST) | ::It already exits --[[User:Juxo|Juxo]] 11:50, 29 Jun 2004 (EEST) | ||
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Secrecy, that is preventing anyone from discovering who voted for who, is also very important. My original idea was to preserve secrecy except from the private key holder. I later realised that simply leaving the username off the encrypted records would discourage casual snooping by the private key holder. It also makes it harder for a developer to breach secrecy by reading the temporary files input to GPG. I made no effort to prevent a determined private key holder from working out who voted for who, although this may be possible in principle. | Secrecy, that is preventing anyone from discovering who voted for who, is also very important. My original idea was to preserve secrecy except from the private key holder. I later realised that simply leaving the username off the encrypted records would discourage casual snooping by the private key holder. It also makes it harder for a developer to breach secrecy by reading the temporary files input to GPG. I made no effort to prevent a determined private key holder from working out who voted for who, although this may be possible in principle. | ||
:[[w:political privacy]] is another matter entirely - some think it should not exist. Only real communities making decisions of real importance probably need truly and totally secret ballots. This would be lower priority: --[[142.177.X.X | :[[w:political privacy]] is another matter entirely - some think it should not exist. Only real communities making decisions of real importance probably need truly and totally secret ballots. This would be lower priority: --[[142.177.X.X]] | ||
A developer may breach secrecy in several ways, such as installing a packet sniffer, or modifying the voting code such that unencrypted votes are logged. However these methods are detectable, and difficult enough so that casual snooping is impossible. Dectability adds an element of risk for a developer wanting to breach secrecy. Note that for breaches of secrecy to be detected, there must be a vigilant non-corrupt person with root access to the servers. | A developer may breach secrecy in several ways, such as installing a packet sniffer, or modifying the voting code such that unencrypted votes are logged. However these methods are detectable, and difficult enough so that casual snooping is impossible. Dectability adds an element of risk for a developer wanting to breach secrecy. Note that for breaches of secrecy to be detected, there must be a vigilant non-corrupt person with root access to the servers. | ||
:This "vigilant non-corrupt person with root access to the servers" probably does not exist. [[User:Brion]] maybe. He has not participated in [[echo chamber]]s or [[developer vigilantiism]]. But there will not always be such a trusted person in that role. --[[142.177.X.X | :This "vigilant non-corrupt person with root access to the servers" probably does not exist. [[User:Brion]] maybe. He has not participated in [[echo chamber]]s or [[developer vigilantiism]]. But there will not always be such a trusted person in that role. --[[142.177.X.X]] | ||
Wikipedia has a diverse group of developers with root access. Others wishing to use a similar voting system may not be so lucky. In such cases, it may be better to use an external company to provide the web hosting, and to allow only a trusted neutral person access to that machine, or to allow a diverse group of people access, for oversight. -- [[User:Tim Starling|Tim Starling]] 10:44, 27 Jun 2004 (EEST) | Wikipedia has a diverse group of developers with root access. Others wishing to use a similar voting system may not be so lucky. In such cases, it may be better to use an external company to provide the web hosting, and to allow only a trusted neutral person access to that machine, or to allow a diverse group of people access, for oversight. -- [[User:Tim Starling|Tim Starling]] 10:44, 27 Jun 2004 (EEST) | ||
:Well you are thinking correctly but narrowly about the basic problems of the voting protocol. You might have fun over at [http://www.civicactions.org civicactions.org] detailing some of this in the context of the US elections. --[[142.177.X.X | :Well you are thinking correctly but narrowly about the basic problems of the voting protocol. You might have fun over at [http://www.civicactions.org civicactions.org] detailing some of this in the context of the US elections. --[[142.177.X.X]] | ||
:The real problem is of course "who gets to vote" - no matter what their contributions and no matter how correct or eloquent they are, [[trolls]] do not by definition give [[Wikimedia]] money to oppress them, so, they do not vote in this corporate system [[Bomis]] has set up to continue [[Wikimedia corruption]] of the [[GFDL corpus]], and to lie to [[GFDL corpus access provider]]s about what is a [[GFDL violation]]. Since the whole purpose of [[Wikimedia]] is lies, it does not seem that it would necessarily be morally wrong for liars and vote-riggers to run it. - [[obvious troll]]s --[[142.177.X.X | :The real problem is of course "who gets to vote" - no matter what their contributions and no matter how correct or eloquent they are, [[trolls]] do not by definition give [[Wikimedia]] money to oppress them, so, they do not vote in this corporate system [[Bomis]] has set up to continue [[Wikimedia corruption]] of the [[GFDL corpus]], and to lie to [[GFDL corpus access provider]]s about what is a [[GFDL violation]]. Since the whole purpose of [[Wikimedia]] is lies, it does not seem that it would necessarily be morally wrong for liars and vote-riggers to run it. - [[obvious troll]]s --[[142.177.X.X]] | ||
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:''That's your story. It could be a [[cover story]]. He is certainly your ally in [[developer vigilantiism]] (huge [[IP range block]]s affecting whole cities simply to prevent challenge to the [[Sysop Vandal point of view]]) though he is prone to [[libel]] and so far you are not.'' --[[142.177.X.X | :''That's your story. It could be a [[cover story]]. He is certainly your ally in [[developer vigilantiism]] (huge [[IP range block]]s affecting whole cities simply to prevent challenge to the [[Sysop Vandal point of view]]) though he is prone to [[libel]] and so far you are not.'' --[[142.177.X.X]] | ||
Look, Craig, just because two people hate you doesn't mean they are co-conspirators. Erik and I are quite different in most respects, however we share the ability (along with most humans) to spot an asshole when we see one. The reason you are harassed wherever you go is because you actively work to make people angry, not because the people you attack are all part of a vast conspiracy to suppress what you have to say. -- [[User:Tim Starling|Tim Starling]] 05:03, 29 Jun 2004 (EEST) | Look, Craig, just because two people hate you doesn't mean they are co-conspirators. Erik and I are quite different in most respects, however we share the ability (along with most humans) to spot an asshole when we see one. The reason you are harassed wherever you go is because you actively work to make people angry, not because the people you attack are all part of a vast conspiracy to suppress what you have to say. -- [[User:Tim Starling|Tim Starling]] 05:03, 29 Jun 2004 (EEST) | ||