Text Messages Used To Monitor Elections

InternetVoting writes "The upcoming historic Nigerian elections are going to be defended by an army of observers armed, not with guns, but with text messages. Every one of the observers will be outfitted with a cell phone to report vote tampering. The volunteers are a part of the Network of Mobile Election Monitors, and they use freeware to do what they do. From the article: 'NMEM is using a free system called Frontline SMS, developed by programmer Ken Banks, to keep track of all of the texts. Originally developed for conservationists to keep in touch with communities in National Parks in South Africa, the system allows mass-messaging to mobile phones and crucially the ability to reply to a central computer. It has already been used in countries such as Zimbabwe as a way of bypassing broadcast restrictions and distributing information to rural communities.'"

Additional information

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

This is the number to call if you'd like to report a fraud during the Nigerian election : 1-888-GO-419

You'll soon get called back by voting official Dr. Adewale Johnson, who incidentally also has a lot of money locked up in a bank account and needs your help.

Working well

[The Bungi]

In fact I just got this on my inbox:

DEAR,

HAVING CONSULTED WITH MY COLLEAGUES AND BASED ON THE INFORMATION GATHERED FROM THE NIGERIAN ELECTORAL COMISSION, I HAVE THE PRIVILEGE TO REQUEST FOR YOUR ASSISTANCE TO MONITOR THE ELECTION. IN RETURNS, WE SHALL TRANSFER THE SUM OF $47,500,000.00 (FORTY SEVEN MILLION, FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND UNITED STATES DOLLARS) INTO YOUR ACCOUNTS. THE ABOVE SUM RESULTED FROM AN OVER-INVOICED CONTRACT, EXECUTED COMMISSIONED AND PAID FOR ABOUT FIVE YEARS (5) AGO BY A FOREIGN TEXTING CONTRACTOR. THIS ACTION WAS HOWEVER INTENTIONAL AND SINCE THEN THE FUND HAS BEEN IN A SUSPENSE ACCOUNT AT THE CENTRAL BANK OF NIGERIA APEX BANK.

PLEASE REPLY URGENTLY IN GOD.

BEST REGARDS

Doing it all wrong

[MichaelSmith]

Its too simple. You guys don't know what you are talking about. Doing it all with one computer and an SMS modem? You can't future proof it that way. I want to see some mention of CORBA and SOAP. How can you have a system without middleware? I keep searching for contractors using your keywords and nobody is coming up.

Can you use dot NET? Everybody uses that these days. And what if I want to use it when I am already on the phone. Can't it have a WAP interface as well? Listen, I don't give a shit that the thing works. I want to sell a thousand copies of this thing and nobody is going to pay a million bucks for something which doesn't use a single cutting edge technology.

And don't get me started on your engineering practices. Last month this POS stopped working and you attached it to a different power circuit and a came right up. You can't make any money off maintenance that way. You need to network at least three computers with 12 daemons which have to start in a specific order, and have it crash from running out of memory at least once a week. Fault calls are where the real money is made. Lets see some forward thinking thanks.

Excellent!

[jez9999]

Hopefully, this technology can take Nigeria a step closer to being as free, open, and peaceful as Zimbabwe.

I know...

[number1scatterbrain]

Can we hack the Nigerian election and get W elected President of Nigeria?