Microsoft Moves To Change NY State Election Law 222
myspace-cn sends us to Bo Lipari's blog where it is revealed that Microsoft has moved forcefully into New York State with proposed changes to NY state election law drafted by Microsoft attorneys. A document has been circulating (PDF) among the legislators for a while now. The proposed changes would gut the source-code escrow and review provisions in current law that were hard-fought-for and passed in New York in 2005. Microsoft is siding with the makers of voting machines that run on Windows — the company doesn't want its code inspected by outsiders. From the article: "Now the software giant has gone a step further, not just saying 'we won't comply with your law' but actively trying to change state law to serve their corporate interests... Adding insult to injury, these changes are being slipped into a bill that may be voted on Monday or Tuesday, June 18 or 19."
Un. Bee. Leev. A. Bull. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Un. Bee. Leev. A. Bull. (Score:4, Insightful)
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Why can't we charge them with attempted electoral fraud, just for trying to hide the code?
Wrong (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Wrong (Score:4, Insightful)
Companies lobby all the time to get laws changed in their favor. This is just "business as usual."
The real cure is electoral reform, including campaign financing. As long as "lawmakers" (I use the term liberally) can be tempted by companies with deep pockets and the hope of a seat on the board of directors after the bums are thrown out, this will just keep happening.
This is a symptom, not the disease itself.
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Re:Wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
"Could you name one issue where current law diverges from majority opinion, backed by some recent survey?"
Totally irrelevant to the issue at hand, which is that companies have more "access" to legislators than the electorate does.
Electoral laws need reform.
But since you asked - the current war in Iraq. Current law funds it - current public opinion is that the invasion was a mistake and to get out.
Another one - the deficit. Current law says its okay to run huge deficits, and to keep raising the legal deficit ceiling. public opinion is WTF [ttp]
The debt ceiling was raised just over a year ago. It's going to have to be raised again in the VERY near future.
Ten trillion or bust? More like Ten trillion AND bust!
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I'd say it's completely relevant -- if the law currently already does what "the people" want, what's the "value-add" of more stringent campaign financing rules?
But since you asked - the current war in Iraq. Current law funds it - current public opinion is that the invasion was a mistake and to get out.
No, it isn't. The Democrats control both houses and would have already done this if t
Re:Wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
No, that's a balance of power issue. Pulling the troops won't hurt the Democrats in the next elections -- not as a whole, anyway -- but Bush will veto any bill that contains a deadline, and Congress doesn't have a veto-proof majority on the topic. What ends up happening (theoretically) is that the troops eventually don't get supplies, and due to that the Democrats get hurt. The president simply has the upper hand on this issue, regardless of the feeling of the populace or the majority party in Congress.
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Maybe I'm missing something, but it looks exactly the opposite to me. Congress supplies funding for the troops, Bush vetoes the funding. After the usual delay in running a new bill through the legislative system, Congress should pass the exact same bill funding the troops. Bush yet again vetoes funding for the troops. After yet another delay, it's "UhOh we need money for the troops ReallySoonNow" and congress makes a big production "Rushing" to push the e
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"Could you name one issue where current law diverges from majority opinion, backed by some recent survey?"
Totally irrelevant to the issue at hand, which is that companies have more "access" to legislators than the electorate does.
(to supply context)
But since you asked - the current war in Iraq. Current law funds it - current public opinion is that the invasion was a mistake and to get out.
Your reply:
No, it isn't. The Democrats control both houses and would have already done this if they didn't think it would get them kicked out of office at the next election.
A bit of a non-sequiter? He says that legislators don't represent citizens and cites public disapproval of the continuing war in Iraq. You claim that he's wrong because some group of legislators support the war. I think you just made his point.
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While I agree with the sentiment, I think that statement is somewhere between overbroad and naive. Put yourself in the shoes of an elected official (in any level of government) and see if you can answer the Pop Quiz "Whose call would you take?"
(a) Brad and Angelina call to make an appointment to discuss an issue of importance.
(b) A non-profit public interest group calls to advocate t
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Recently a 14 year old girl was charged with producing and possessing child pornography for taking and sending a topless picture of herself to her 14 year old boyfriend.
Now, no one thinks she should be doing this... but likewise I think the majority of people in this country can agree that not only wasn't she producing child pornography, but that she's also not a sex offender, as she would be automatically classified if she's convicted of the child pornography charg
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Music Piracy.
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Re:Wrong (Score:4, Insightful)
Currently we can see some of the evolution of a bill into law, but much of the direct personal responsibility is masked by committee changes. A lawmaker would be far, far more careful if he knew everyone (media, citizens, etc) could see exactly what changes he made, and when.
The "when" is important, for instance, a change of a bill a day before being voted on should be a major red flag.
Re:Wrong (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:Wrong (Score:5, Informative)
I have the impression there's a name [transparency.org] for that.
BTW, I think Slashdot and Transparency Intl. should collaborate more closely. Just a thought.
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And a very significant part of the electoral process is haveing a voting system you can count on. From the proposed changes to the law, it looks like MS would like to make voting software from "off the shelf" Windows components. Why would they push for a differentiation between primarly-for-voteing or not, unless they were not going to be building this 100% custom? Do we really want our voting software to be compatible with home PCs? Do we want that software even based o
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Companies lobby all the time to get laws changed in their favor. This is just "business as usual."
So what? This doesn't change whether particular law change lobbying is ethical or not. In this case it is clearly unethical; openness in every aspect of the voting process is needed for obvious reasons, despite M$' self-serving attempt to obscure that.
Or to put it another way: Why does getting paid to do something automatically make it ethical and right?
The "I was only doing my job" excuse went out at N
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I think you might have just triggered Godwin's Law there. On to the next article...
I was aware of that possible interpretation when I wrote it. However I decided to include it anyway as it's relevant; the archetypal example of "just doing my job". Besides, you've just reopened the thread...
---
Like trademarks, and for much the same reason, copyright should be lost if a product line becomes generic.
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No, the real cure is not having the government spend most of our money. When the U.S. government is the worlds biggest consumer, then it is inevitable that corporations will lobby the U.S. government to continue to sell the government product.
Just like the drug trade, when the stakes are as high as they are, you are not going to stop corruption. We have been fighting a 30 billion dollar a year war on drugs, and it hasn't done anything to preven
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When are you American going to say enough is enough and cut down this crap? The US political system is a disaster and designed for corruption and this you think is the best? It's one of the worst political systems I have ever seen.
But I guess, you all feel fine and still think that USA is greatest thing since sliced bread. It is not, I have lived and worked in 6 different 1st world countries and USA is by far the worst.
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My post has nothing to do with the article and everything with the OPs comment that the USA is a hellhole [by comparison to the other first world nations he's been to].
My point was that just like ANY country, there are faults to be found. If anyone think
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Wait you like Vista? So that makes what? 3 people now.
And yes it should be illegal. So should many other things that companies do like downsizing in the name of profit.
That is why we should have stuck with paper ballot (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft shouldn't be in the voting business (Score:5, Insightful)
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Look north of Westchester County and NY favors the republicans, though that has been changing slowly over the last few years.
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The only thing that works is a verifiable paper trail, so arguing about open vs. closed source on voting machines is totally moot.
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Testing with source code or inspection doesn't work either.
It works better than closed source.
The only thing that works is a verifiable paper trail, so arguing about open vs. closed source on voting machines is totally moot.
Nonsense. This is a false dichotomy, beloved of marketing parasites everywhere.
To take just one example closed code could randomly not provide or make inaccessible options so the voter is not even aware their vote is being biased. Even something as simple as changing the colo
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Answer: You don't.
Re:Microsoft shouldn't be in the voting business (Score:4, Insightful)
There's a reason so many Computer Scientists oppose eVoting, we think we could steal an election if we tried... and that's just a wee bit too easy.
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Even so, there's a margin of error for mechanical voting machines that's a fair bit larger than the margin of victory in many elections. Though the electoral college limits this somewhat.
Re:Microsoft shouldn't be in the voting business (Score:5, Insightful)
rent-a-center, or Rent a Senator? (Score:5, Interesting)
Can someone explain why it is that politicians are allowed to "slip" completely unrelated items into bills that must be voted on all-or-nothing? They do this all the time, tacking on things that only a small minority want, onto a bill that is important and that everyone is going to pass because the main item is needed by most/all.
One reason I could see is if they believed that congress moved too slow to be able to vote on everything unless things were bundled like this. That's a sad excuse still.
The other reason I could see is that there may be too many cases where it was impossible to get a majority vote on any single issue without puting something into the pot for several different interests to help the bill pass.
Anyway, what is this process by which they can just tack on other unrelated provisions? And who gets to say what gets added? Just pay off a senator and it's in basically?
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Amendments are reuired to meet germaneness rules [house.gov]. However, if you try hard enough, you can make almost anything sound germane to a specific bill. For example, if you are working on the state budget, you could attach almost anything since the costs associated with it affect the budget. Highway bill - anything related to oil and gas and automotive industry. Heck, even air travel since widespread construction may change the number of people flying. If you are changing the deadline for election paperwork,
What I don't understand (Score:2)
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The problem isn't amendments. For example, you might introduce a bill that addresses repairs of Interstate 80 from Chicago to Nebraska. After you introduce the bills, a Senator from Iowa points out that a part of it dealing with repairs around Des Moines doesn't work for some reason. (Maybe emergency repairs on I-35 would interfere.) The bill gets amended to deal with that problem.
Without the amendment, the entire bill would have to be redrafted, go back into committee and be debated (again) on the flo
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In practical application though they create a bill that 65%-70% would agree with and then see how many things they can stick on to make their constituents happy or those that give them funding.
Some would argue that items should pass on their own merit. But then how are you ever going to get a $315 million bridge built to an isla
Re:rent-a-center, or Rent a Senator? (Score:5, Informative)
Slashdotters may remember software patent proponents in Europe tried attaching a rider to an agriculture and fisheries bill a few years back allowing them. Because you know, software patents are SO relevant to fish stocks and pig farmers.
These damn things should be outlawed. The supposed benefits are far outweighed by those that think nothing of abusing the good intention of riders ("think of the children!" "it's to fight terrorists!")
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You may remember that Bill Clinton closed the federal government several times. It was because of riders like this.
Oh, and riders will never be outlawed. They are seen as a "bird in the hand" for the Legislative Branch. There may come a time when they need riders to get rid of an unpopular President.
I would, however, like t
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Kent Brockman said it best: (Score:2)
-- Kent Brockman
Fine.. (Score:2)
Just use avionics (or gambling :) ) standards! (Score:3, Insightful)
Or, (google for the story) apparently writing the e-voting bill was really easy i
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microsoft for president! (Score:4, Funny)
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how convenient (Score:5, Insightful)
* Microsoft wants their code closed in order to protect lock-in.
* Those in power take bribes from Microsoft and the voting machine manufacturers, and moreover, they want to be able to hand their offices to friends and supporters when their own terms are up.
Summary: things are happening that appear to be motivated by agendas antithetical to democracy.
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>>* Voting machine manufacturers want their code closed so that they can take bribes for deciding the winner.
Not really. Mark Twain once remarked that two men can keep a secret only if one of them is dead. The government can't keep the political firings of US Attorneys' General secret. Why do you think that could keep bribing for election wins secret? HP can't violate the privacy of their own board members without everyone in the world reading about it.
Secrets as big as "9-11"
Used car salesman (Score:5, Insightful)
When the used car salesman if performing gymnastics to guide your eyes away from some aspect of the car, that's where you'd BETTER look if you don't want to be ripped off.
What we have here is a salesman who is desperate to keep us from examining the source of the OS.
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This is a great comparison. However, remember that Microsoft's code is proprietary and is how they make their living.
Which is irrelevant to the whether the source is visible or not.
M$ has done a great job the last few decades of obscuring that simple fact to keep their anti-competitive lockin.
The law could mandate that all delivered software come with the source and it wouldn't change the industry much other than substantially decrease the current non-accountability of software vendors and increase
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Oh, of course there's a chance that some Taiwanese com
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This is a great comparison. However, remember that Microsoft's code is proprietary and is how they make their living. They wouldn't want someone looking at their code more than an author would want someone reading a book that's still in progress.
Great analogy! It would even make sense if the author could keep people from reading the words he used to write the book when he distributes it.
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Their code would remain proprietary under the New York law, it would simply be escrowed with the state and subject to review (not publication).
In terms of an author, it's more like the publisher insisting on a copy of the manuscript before sending an advance check.
ATM failures (Score:2, Insightful)
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How much software do ATM machines buy?
Corporatism (Score:4, Insightful)
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I'm shooting from the hip alright.
Contact your NY state representative... (Score:5, Informative)
"Take Action Now - It's urgent that you call your State Senator and Assembly representatives on Monday, June 18, at their Albany offices, and tell them they must not weaken New York State's escrow and review requirements. Remind them that the Legislature passed a strong law 2 years ago - they must not give in to pressure by voting machine vendors to undermine those protections.
Find your Assembly member's contact information here:
http://www.assembly.state.ny.us/mem/ [state.ny.us]
(Not sure who your Assembly member is? Click here to search by Zip Code)
Find your State Senator's contact information here:
http://www.senate.state.ny.us/senatehomepage.nsf/
(Not sure who your State Senator is? Click here to search by Zip Code)"
Quick solution (Score:2)
"This voting machine was infected with a virus. Who knows if they're altering the votes? MUAHAHAHAHAH!
P.S. Thank you for choosing Microsoft products
That'll teach 'em. The voters i mean >:D
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The uproar would cause e-voting to be outlawed for good.
On second thought... maybe almost nobody would notice at all, and the few who noticed it woule think it was an ad for a new movie.
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Ok then, it's Duncan Hunter in 2008!
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I don't know you, who is this? Prank caller, prank caller!
Power needs control (Score:2)
If the foundation of democracy cannot be tested by the people, the whole system is lacking a solid base to build on. I'd be very wary to weaken this kind of basic foundation of democracy. The building on top might collapse if the base is weak.
Why an OS? (Score:4, Insightful)
I mean, what does a voting machine needs to do? Read a keyboard (or touch screen), write to a display device, print a receipt/results, read and write to a RAM card (to get the candidates and put the results).
So why do you need a whole goddammed operating system to do that? Are programmers becoming sufficiently incompetent to be unable to do those basic I/O tasks from scratch???
What's so difficult in booting from ROM? Set stack pointers, memory access registers, jump to start of POST routine and go.
It's not very hard at all.
So why do you need schwindoze (or schlinux) to do all those basic things????
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No doubt a full-fledged OS is not necessary. I assume that the situation is that some companies are lazy and are basically putting some DB software on top of MS Windows. (Wasn't there something in one of the Diebold stories about the votes being tallied in Excell or in an Access database?)
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So why do you need schwindoze (or schlinux) to do all those basic things????
Because it's a lot cheaper to buy (or download) an off-the-shelf OS than get someone to write the code you are talking about.
I agree (Score:2)
It will be Illegal to test as well (Score:2)
Are we certain that this is credible? (Score:2)
I for one (Score:2)
Okay, How about "blatant bribery" and "corruption" (Score:2)
I don't care if other companies do the same thing: corruption is corruption - no matter who does it, not matter what you call it.
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Because Microsoft isn't a citizen, and corporations don't have the same rights to representation as citizens. Or shouldn't have. In these plutocratic times they actually appear to have more representation than citizens, but that's not the way it should be. Not if you want to pretend you live in a democracy.
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Re:Life, liberty, and the pursuit of blogs. (Score:5, Funny)
Microsoft v. Wal*Mart!
GE v. Disney!
Halliburton v. Exxon-Mobile!
This sunday, sunday, SUNDAY, watch white collar workers get red in the face and a bad case of the Mondays! Marketers place ads all OVEr each other's faces! Accountants will be adding up plenty of lumps!
And for the finale, Steve Ballmer v. Eisner! Hold on to your seats, because somebody is gonna get CEOwned!
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Which is why I think we should return to traditional paper ballots, honestly. The field of computer security is simply too new and too fast paced to trust with the foundation of our democracy: elections.
At the very least, I feel that any software used in the election process should have its source viewable by the public. It doesn't necessarily have to be free/open source (though I think it w
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The PDF is fine! Basically MS is saying that we will not release our source code to you for the underlying OS. They still want the APP to have the source code released. Apple would do the same with OSX if it was the underlying OS for the APP to run on. I am not sure how legal the current law is. It states that if a vendor creates an app that runs on any os, the app and the os have to have an audit review and the source code released. IANAL, but I think this would create an issue with the vendors submitting
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The issue is that the underlying OS has the ability to modify the results of any application it runs. Say, for example, Gates decides to run for President. Balmer could easily have the input coded to skew the results in Bill's favor in very subtle ways that only a thorough examination of the underlying system code would expose.
Utter tripe. A simple examination and verification of the (limited and known) possible inputs and outputs would provide confirmation of correct operation.
If you have a calculator
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If you have a calculator that's only designed to do a dozen different sums, it's *trivial* to prove whether or not it is doing those sums correctly, or whether some sort of environment effect is affecting the results.
if(app == voting_app)
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if(app == voting_app) ..if(date == second_tues_in_november) ....if(vote_time > too_soon) ......if(selected!=our_guy) ........if(random_cheat(cheat_factor)) ..........selected=our_guy
C:\>date %ELECTION_DATE%
C:\>voting_app.exe
Again, as I said, with a very limited set if possible inputs and outputs (like you would have, say, in an election), it is trivial to determine if the environment is a factor.
Set the machine date appropriately (in fact, run the test for every day in the year), feed in a m
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C:\>date %ELECTION_DATE%
C:\>voting_app.exe
Again, as I said, with a very limited set if possible inputs and outputs (like you would have, say, in an election), it is trivial to determine if the environment is a factor.
It can be detected, but not trivially if the cheating is subtle. Coding the cheat to occur randomly and only if a certain period of time has elapsed since the previous vote was entered would make it very difficult to detect. In most elections in the US the difference between the leading c
Re:Hahaha... these Americans... (Score:4, Informative)
Not Gates, Ballmer.
I'd say if Microsoft gets away with this, there's a damn good chance McCain'll be your next President.
http://www.thedailybackground.com/2007/05/30/mcca
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Or, more simply, you demand an exact copy of the build system from the vendor, build
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Then the US has never been a democracy. It wouldn't surprise me to find that Denmark isn't either, but I don't know enough about its political system to know for sure.