Subject: GA-DIGEST V1 #1630
From: [email-masked] (GA-DIGEST)
To: [email-masked]

GA-DIGEST          Wednesday, March 12 2003          Volume 01 : Number 1630

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Tue, 11 Mar 2003 23:00:41 -0800
From: Jeff Williams <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: [ga] Re: A Question for the Candidates

Barbara and all former DNSO GA members,

Barbara Simons wrote:

> Dear Jeff,
>
> I'm going to respond to a couple of key points below.  Then I'm afraid that
> I'll have to stop this conversation, because I am overwhelmed with other
> work that I must get done this week.

  So do most people.  I know I do.

>
>
> Regards,
> Barbara
>
> On 3/10/03 9:10 PM, "Jeff Williams" <[email-masked]> wrote:
>
> >> As a Board member, I would attempt to be responsive to all stakeholders and
> >> users, most certainly including members of the public.  Obviously, a single
> >> individual cannot communicate with thousands of stakeholders.
> >
> > Why do you believe that a single individual cannot communicate with
> > thousands of stakeholders?  I do it almost every day.  This very post
> > is going to 10's of thousands of stakeholders for example.
>
> Of course I would do my best to keep people informed of the issues and my
> positions, and the Internet is an excellent tool for doing that. I was
> thinking more of a two-way dialog.

Your positions should be those of the folks you are supposed to represent.
E-Mail is an excellent tool for two-way communication to be sure.
So is VoIP, and internet video conferencing, which I use every day.

>  I could not interact on an individual
> basis with large numbers of people.

  Why not?  Are you not doing so in this very post?

>
>
> > Well  you could have your own poll at a minimum.  See for instance:
> > http://www.vote.com/  Over 51,511,000 Votes Cast!  And that is just
> > one example.  I can of course provide many more if called upon to do so.
>
> I don't know if I would have the resources to conduct an Internet vote.

  Yes you do.  So does ICANN if it wished to avail itself of such.
So than, would you support or do you support doing so if available
and no or little cost?

>

> If
> there turns out to be a way of doing so that does not cost anything and is
> relatively easy to implement, then I might consider holding such a vote if
> there are critical issues on which I would want public input.  I can't see
> holding routine votes, but if it turns out to be straightforward and if
> there is the interest, I might consider it.

  Ok thank you for this reveling position.

>
>
> > THe ACM is a very good organization.  I did notice however that
> > the democratic principal of one man one vote doesn't seem to be
> > well represented in the ACM via the internet.  Do you now, and
> > have you always supported that basic democratic principal?
> > I also recall that You came out recently strongly opposed to
> > EVOTING.  Are you still opposed?  If so, can you perhaps
> > explain why Evoteing (Safely and securely done) is a growing
> > and desired extension or use of the internet for stakeholders/users
> > and your opposition recently?
>
> I have always supported the principle of one person one vote.  But I have
> recently been very involved with fighting against computerized voting
> machines that have no backup.

  Yes I am very aware of that battle, as you know of course.  I agreed
with you on it for similar reasons.  However evoting is here, and here to stay
as well as gaining acceptance.  Indeed some forms are not safe to use
presently, others are difficult to implement.  But most well thought out
evoting systems are quite safe, pretty simple to implement, and moderate
in terms of cost vs return.

> In other words, there is no way to verify
> that your vote is recorded as you think it should be.

  Not true as you recently found out. Barbara.  This answer is very troubling
in your pledge as it indicates that you say you support what you are not willing
to support actualizing...

> The outcome of an
> election can be influenced by machine malfunction, software bugs, or insider
> malfeasance.

  IN some systems, this is very true.  Same is true of paper ballots and any
other form of voting system.  The infamous "Butterfly Ballot" not withstanding.
Yet several good evoting systems are far beeter, more secure and safe,
and far less susceptible to machine malfunction that the old and still used
lever based or punch card based voting machines.

>  This is a very very dangerous situation.  Anyone who cares
> about preserving our democracy should check out
> http://verify.stanford.edu/evote.html.

  Read it.  Mostly scare tactics and being panned fairly broadly on some aspects.

>
>
> I believe that Internet voting may work for obtaining feedback or even for
> elections that are not as critical as national political elections, eg
> Boards of Directors of corporations.

  Good.  That is essentially what I have been asking you..

>  But Internet voting can be subverted
> more easily even than computerized voting.

  True.  But many current systems that have been used now for going on
6 years, have shown to be much less acceptable to tampering or subversion.

>  So I would argue against
> Internet voting for any election that really mattered.  I realize that that
> creates problems in terms of establishing any kind of democratically elected
> ICANN Board members, and I don't know how to deal with that.

  You deal with it by accepting that you view is either dated or not
based in sound technological and factual basis.  Than you step up
to the challenge.  If you are unable to do that, than perhaps
you are unable to really change and help clean up the ICANN Mess
as a potential BoD member.  ???

Regards,

- --
Jeffrey A. Williams
Spokesman for INEGroup LLA. - (Over 129k members/stakeholders strong!)
================================================================
CEO/DIR. Internet Network Eng. SR. Eng. Network data security
Information Network Eng. Group. INEG. INC.
E-Mail [email-masked]
Contact Number: 214-244-4827 or 214-244-3801

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Date: Tue, 11 Mar 2003 22:13:34 -0800
From: Barbara Simons <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: [ga] Re: A Question for the Candidates

As I said earlier, I do not have the time to engage in further dialog.  I
have only one comment to make, which is that computerized voting systems
without voter verified paper ballots represent the greatest threat to our
democracy that I've seen in my lifetime.  While is may be true that most
email voting systems are simple to implement (I would not agree with Jeff's
comment that they are moderate in cost vs return - in fact, they tend to be
quite pricey), I strongly disagree with the statement that they are quite
safe.

The bottom line is that computerized voting systems that do not have voter
verified ballots make no sense.  There is absolutely no way of knowing if
your vote is appropriately counted, and there is NO BACKUP.  Think of what
it means to do a recount in this environment. You ask the computer what its
counts are, and it responds "the same as what I told you last time, dummmy,"
unless it is grossly broken.

This means that elections can be subverted by buggy software, hackers, or
insiders, and no one will be able to prove that this has been done.  At
least with butterfly ballots (incidentally, the Democrat who approved them
was a Republican before the election and reverted to being a Republican
after the election) we all could see what was happening.  While it's a nasty
business to observe an election being stolen without being able to stop it,
it's even worse if it is stolen and no one knows for sure.

ICANN is important, but the computerized voting issue is far more important,
as far as I'm concerned.

Jeff's comment that http://verify.stanford.edu/evote.html contains "scare
tactics and being panned fairly broadly on some aspect" is absurd.  The
webpage was created by David Dill, a Stanford computer science professor who
has no financial interest in any e-voting system and who is concerned only
with trying to preserve democracy.  I urge anyone who is reading this email
to check out the website.

I believe that computerized voting machines without appropriate backup
represent an enormous threat to democracy in any country in which they are
employed to elect governments.

Regards,
Barbara

On 3/11/03 11:00 PM, "Jeff Williams" <[email-masked]> wrote:

>> I have always supported the principle of one person one vote.  But I have
>> recently been very involved with fighting against computerized voting
>> machines that have no backup.
> 
> Yes I am very aware of that battle, as you know of course.  I agreed
> with you on it for similar reasons.  However evoting is here, and here to stay
> as well as gaining acceptance.  Indeed some forms are not safe to use
> presently, others are difficult to implement.  But most well thought out
> evoting systems are quite safe, pretty simple to implement, and moderate
> in terms of cost vs return.
> 
>> In other words, there is no way to verify
>> that your vote is recorded as you think it should be.
> 
> Not true as you recently found out. Barbara.  This answer is very troubling
> in your pledge as it indicates that you say you support what you are not
> willing
> to support actualizing...

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------------------------------

Date: Wed, 12 Mar 2003 10:44:20 +0100
From: [email-masked]
Subject: RE: The telephone network and the internet (RE: [ga] ALAC comment s on proposed Bylaws modifications)

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jeff Williams [mailto:[email-masked]]
> Sent: Wednesday, 12 March 2003 7:08
> To: [email-masked]
> Cc: [email-masked]; [email-masked]
> Subject: Re: The telephone network and the internet (RE: [ga] ALAC
> comment s on proposed Bylaws modifications)
> 
> > >
> > > How many free downloadable recommendations
> > > do ITU member organizations get?
> >
> > Sector Members have full access to all the information on 
> the ITU's web
> > site.
> 
>   That did not answer my question, Richard.  Do those members have
> unlimited FREE access or not?  If so, please delineate.

Sector Members get an account and a password that allows them to (1) access
all working documents on the ITU web site and (2) access Recommendations on
the ITU web site.  Access includes the ability to download.

> >
> > >  Do associate members get
> > > any extra free recommendations?
> >
> > Associates have access to the information for the Study 
> Group of which they
> > are members.
> 
>   Again this is not an answer to my question Richard.  Is 
> such access free
> or not to associate members?

Yes, for working documents of the Study Group.

>  Are all such recommendations free to
> associate members?

Associates do not have free unlimited access to published Recommendations.
They have access to the final approved version, because this is part of the
working documents, but not to the formally published version.

Like anybody else, any Associate can download up to 3 Recommendations per
year for free.  The restriction on number of free downloads per year is
based on the E-Mail address to which the free download is sent.

Best,
Richard 
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------------------------------

Date: Wed, 12 Mar 2003 04:17:07 -0800
From: Jeff Williams <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: [ga] Re: A Question for the Candidates

Barbara and all former DNSO GA members,

  Dialog, as you pointed out yourself in an earlier post on this thread
is important for any potential ICANN BOD member.  As you know,
such dialog has often been very lacking in the present ICANN
BoD members, as well as with ICANN Staff members with the
stakeholders/users.

  However I am puzzled that if you don't have time for such
dialog, than why you sent this post, and why would you in your
earlier post on this thread, acknowledge that such dialog/communication
is important Barbara?

( Further comments below Barbara's )

Barbara Simons wrote:

> As I said earlier, I do not have the time to engage in further dialog.  I
> have only one comment to make, which is that computerized voting systems
> without voter verified paper ballots represent the greatest threat to our
> democracy that I've seen in my lifetime.  While is may be true that most
> email voting systems are simple to implement (I would not agree with Jeff's
> comment that they are moderate in cost vs return - in fact, they tend to be
> quite pricey), I strongly disagree with the statement that they are quite
> safe.

  Vote.com has offered to provide the service for ICANN for free.
We [INEGroup] have also offered our voting system to ICANN
for cost of implementation.  That's really cheap!

>
>
> The bottom line is that computerized voting systems that do not have voter
> verified ballots make no sense.

  Very much agreed here.  Verification of ballots is not that difficult
to achieve and has been done in several systems currently in use.

>  There is absolutely no way of knowing if
> your vote is appropriately counted, and there is NO BACKUP.

  Can you prove that?  I can prove the contrary...  Are you able to
except that challenge?  If not, than I would have to say that you are
simply opposed for other yet to be known reasons to evoting.  Yet
it is here, growing, and shall be more widely used.

>  Think of what
> it means to do a recount in this environment.

  Not a problem with several systems presently being used.

> You ask the computer what its
> counts are, and it responds "the same as what I told you last time, dummmy,"
> unless it is grossly broken.

  What!!??  ROFLMAO!  This is pure silliness here Barbara.  I also think
you know it is, or I hope you do anyway.  Rolling tally's is a mathematical
computation algorithm built into most good evoting systems.

>
>
> This means that elections can be subverted by buggy software, hackers, or
> insiders, and no one will be able to prove that this has been done.

  Buggy software, yes in some instances, Hackers, also yes this too is
possible, but with good systems very improbable.  Insiders, sure, this too
is possible.  But there has to be some oversight during said elections.

>  At
> least with butterfly ballots (incidentally, the Democrat who approved them
> was a Republican before the election and reverted to being a Republican
> after the election) we all could see what was happening.

  Oh we could?  What happened to the 18,000 ballots in the two northern
counties in Fl.?  No one to this day knows.  And in Dade county, what
about those ballots that were discarded before being reviewed or even
originally available for counting?

>  While it's a nasty
> business to observe an election being stolen without being able to stop it,
> it's even worse if it is stolen and no one knows for sure.

  I agree completely with you here.  And that is much less likely with
good evoting systems.  ANd that is why in Florida, that several types
of evoting is being implemented to replace the butterfly balloting system
because it is SO much more reliable.

>
>
> ICANN is important, but the computerized voting issue is far more important,
> as far as I'm concerned.

  Both as far as electing ICANN BOD members are intertwined and must
be dealt with unless ICANN chooses to become less relevant to Internet
governance than it has degraded to already...  This will be the challenge
to the new BoD members to step up to, or face becoming illegitimate.

>
>
> Jeff's comment that http://verify.stanford.edu/evote.html contains "scare
> tactics and being panned fairly broadly on some aspect" is absurd.

  Oh?  How so?  It was panned in several publications as you well know.

>  The
> webpage was created by David Dill, a Stanford computer science professor who
> has no financial interest in any e-voting system and who is concerned only
> with trying to preserve democracy.  I urge anyone who is reading this email
> to check out the website.

  Yes you and I exchanged some ideas with David as I think you recall.
He does however have another agenda, as you also know.  He of course
is entitled to his opinion.  Other experts, including myself have a somewhat
different opinion.  I agree that "DRE" and touch screen voting machines
are a very weak and insecure evoting system.  Other evoting systems
are much different and better as David well knows...

>
>
> I believe that computerized voting machines without appropriate backup
> represent an enormous threat to democracy in any country in which they are
> employed to elect governments.

  Very strong blanket statement here Barbara.  To bad it is a bad position
to take as it is broadly unsupported.

>
>
> Regards,
> Barbara
>
> On 3/11/03 11:00 PM, "Jeff Williams" <[email-masked]> wrote:
>
> >> I have always supported the principle of one person one vote.  But I have
> >> recently been very involved with fighting against computerized voting
> >> machines that have no backup.
> >
> > Yes I am very aware of that battle, as you know of course.  I agreed
> > with you on it for similar reasons.  However evoting is here, and here to stay
> > as well as gaining acceptance.  Indeed some forms are not safe to use
> > presently, others are difficult to implement.  But most well thought out
> > evoting systems are quite safe, pretty simple to implement, and moderate
> > in terms of cost vs return.
> >
> >> In other words, there is no way to verify
> >> that your vote is recorded as you think it should be.
> >
> > Not true as you recently found out. Barbara.  This answer is very troubling
> > in your pledge as it indicates that you say you support what you are not
> > willing
> > to support actualizing...

Regards,

- --
Jeffrey A. Williams
Spokesman for INEGroup LLA. - (Over 129k members/stakeholders strong!)
================================================================
CEO/DIR. Internet Network Eng. SR. Eng. Network data security
Information Network Eng. Group. INEG. INC.
E-Mail [email-masked]
Contact Number: 214-244-4827 or 214-244-3801

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------------------------------

Date: Wed, 12 Mar 2003 11:29:22 +0100
From: "J-F C. (Jefsey)  Morfin" <[email-masked]>
Subject: [ga] WG-ITU-I

- --=======35485777=======
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Dear all,
I suggest that time has come - after the ERC, the ITU-T proposition, the 
cyberspace US policy disclosure, the Marrakech meeting, the Geneva ccTLD 
meeting, the WSIS, the "national digital sovereignty affirmation" drift vs 
the "States digital sovereignty respect", Richard Hill's contributions, 
etc. - to start working on the future of the relations of the internet 
governance with the ITU.

There are many matters to consider as it will most probably lead us to 
redefine who we are because we will not only refer to the ICANN part of the 
governance as we do for 5 years, but also, starting with ITU, to other 
bodies such as IAB/IETF, W3C, ISOC, MINC, WIPO, WTO, UNESCO, NatAids, 
Edifact, States, consumer organizations, etc. as ICANN did though the ERC 
effort.

I suggest that to carry that work we create an open cross constituency 
dedicated interest group. The mission of that group would be to define and 
structure a general proposition within the WSIS framework for an I Sector 
(Internet) in the ITU. Its members, its possible organization, its various 
economical model, its role, its organization rules, its testing tools, its 
relations with the R and T sectors and with ICANN, its consumer 
representation, its internal mutual private/social interests protection 
mechanisms, its representation of the civil society as proposed by the UN 
General Secretary and partly implemented through the WSIS preparatory work, 
its multilingual support, its standardization process, its societal best 
practices, its fight against the digital divide, its modelization of the 
e-network society, its support to innovation, its management of the 
technical operations and evolution of the network (IANA, IPv6, parallel 
roots, concerted TLD creation, ENUM), etc.

jfc
france@large 

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Date: Wed, 12 Mar 2003 04:24:58 -0800
From: Jeff Williams <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: The telephone network and the internet (RE: [ga] ALAC comment s on proposed Bylaws modifications)

Richard and all,

[email-masked] wrote:

> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Jeff Williams [mailto:[email-masked]]
> > Sent: Wednesday, 12 March 2003 7:08
> > To: [email-masked]
> > Cc: [email-masked]; [email-masked]
> > Subject: Re: The telephone network and the internet (RE: [ga] ALAC
> > comment s on proposed Bylaws modifications)
> >
> > > >
> > > > How many free downloadable recommendations
> > > > do ITU member organizations get?
> > >
> > > Sector Members have full access to all the information on
> > the ITU's web
> > > site.
> >
> >   That did not answer my question, Richard.  Do those members have
> > unlimited FREE access or not?  If so, please delineate.
>
> Sector Members get an account and a password that allows them to (1) access
> all working documents on the ITU web site and (2) access Recommendations on
> the ITU web site.  Access includes the ability to download.

  Gee, they sure don't get much for that huge membership fee do they?
I can only say that Old P.T.Barnham had it right, "there is sucker
borne every minuet"...

>
>
> > >
> > > >  Do associate members get
> > > > any extra free recommendations?
> > >
> > > Associates have access to the information for the Study
> > Group of which they
> > > are members.
> >
> >   Again this is not an answer to my question Richard.  Is
> > such access free
> > or not to associate members?
>
> Yes, for working documents of the Study Group.

  Ok great than!  Still pretty stingy though...

>
>
> >  Are all such recommendations free to
> > associate members?
>
> Associates do not have free unlimited access to published Recommendations.
> They have access to the final approved version, because this is part of the
> working documents, but not to the formally published version.

  Well now this seems to be a bit extreme...

>
>
> Like anybody else, any Associate can download up to 3 Recommendations per
> year for free.  The restriction on number of free downloads per year is
> based on the E-Mail address to which the free download is sent.

  Ok thank you for the clarification finally, Richard.  Was that all that
difficult to do Richard?  In any event here too it seems that an associate
member doesn't get much for his money...

>
>
> Best,
> Richard

Regards,
- --
Jeffrey A. Williams
Spokesman for INEGroup LLA. - (Over 129k members/stakeholders strong!)
================================================================
CEO/DIR. Internet Network Eng. SR. Eng. Network data security
Information Network Eng. Group. INEG. INC.
E-Mail [email-masked]
Contact Number: 214-244-4827 or 214-244-3801

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Date: Wed, 12 Mar 2003 09:20:46 -0800
From: Barbara Simons <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: [ga] Re: A Question for the Candidates

Sigh....  I'm sure that others on this list understand what it means to have
a life in which one has other responsibilities in addition to ICANN related
dialog.  In addition to this thread, there have been multiple conference
calls relating to the election, and believe it or not, there are other
issues in this world that are important.  Indeed, some are even more
important than ICANN.

I have one correction to make to my previous posting.  When I was talking
about voting costs below, I mistakenly referred to email voting.  My remarks
were intended for computerized voting.  As I said in another posting, Santa
Clara County, which is the home of Silicon Valley, is about to spend $20
million to purchase computerized voting machines with NO voter verifiable
paper ballots.  This is a lot of money in normal times, and it's a huge
amount of money when state and local governments are being starved by a
combination of economic hard times and a federal government that is
redirecting funding from social needs to tax cuts and military expenditures.

I don't know how to respond to Jeff's comments, since they ignore the basic
issue, which is there is absolutely no way to know what is going on inside
of a computer.  Even if the voting companies allowed us to see their
software, which they don't, computer scientists are well aware of the
difficulties of finding bugs or trap doors in software - which is the
primary reason why there is so much buggy software floating around.

But even if there were a miracle and we were given the software by these
companies that are running our elections and even if we could verify that it
does precisely what it is supposed to do, we would have no way of knowing
that the software running in the machine is identical to the software that
has been verified. 

I don't care what kind of voting and tabulation algorithm one claims to use.
The bottom line is that there is no way of knowing what the machines are
doing.  That is why hundreds of computer scientists, including some of the
most prominent members of our profession, have signed David Dill's petition
on computerized voting.  If folks on this list are interested in signing
(David is also taking signatures from non-computer scientists, including
attorneys), you can find a link to the petition at David's website at
http://verify.stanford.edu/evote.html.

The only solution that we have come up with that provides the protection one
must have to prevent the incorrect reporting or outright theft of an
election (and is not too complicated for the voter or election official to
deal with) is a voter verified paper ballot.  The ballot should be printed
out behind a window, the voter given the opportunity to read and verify that
the ballot accurately represents the person's vote, and then the ballot
should be automatically deposited (so that the voter can observe this) into
a ballot box.

The paper ballots then become the definitive count.  Given the existence of
such ballots, it doesn't matter how buggy the computer code is nor if
someone attempts to steal the election.

Another benefit of the system I've just described is that it makes it very
difficult to sell votes, since there is no "certificate" that the voter can
show to prove that he or she voted as paid.  This is also true of
computerized voting machines with no ballots, but it is not true of machines
that allow the voter to handle the ballot.  In this later case, the first
voter can mark the ballot but not deposit it.  He or she then takes the
marked ballot out to the person who is purchasing votes and gets paid.  The
next voter is given the previously marked ballot, creates a new marked
ballot and deposits the old one.  The new marked ballot is then proof for
payment, etc.  (If you don't follow this example, think about how you would
steal an election if you were paying for votes).

This is truly my final posting on this thread.

Regards,
Barbara

On 3/12/03 4:17 AM, "Jeff Williams" <[email-masked]> wrote:

> However I am puzzled that if you don't have time for such
> dialog, than why you sent this post, and why would you in your
> earlier post on this thread, acknowledge that such dialog/communication
> is important Barbara?
> 
> ( Further comments below Barbara's )
> 
> Barbara Simons wrote:
> 
>> As I said earlier, I do not have the time to engage in further dialog.  I
>> have only one comment to make, which is that computerized voting systems
>> without voter verified paper ballots represent the greatest threat to our
>> democracy that I've seen in my lifetime.  While is may be true that most
>> email voting systems are simple to implement (I would not agree with Jeff's
>> comment that they are moderate in cost vs return - in fact, they tend to be
>> quite pricey), I strongly disagree with the statement that they are quite
>> safe.
> 
> Vote.com has offered to provide the service for ICANN for free.
> We [INEGroup] have also offered our voting system to ICANN
> for cost of implementation.  That's really cheap!
> 
>> 
>> 
>> The bottom line is that computerized voting systems that do not have voter
>> verified ballots make no sense.
> 
> Very much agreed here.  Verification of ballots is not that difficult
> to achieve and has been done in several systems currently in use.
> 
>>  There is absolutely no way of knowing if
>> your vote is appropriately counted, and there is NO BACKUP.
> 
> Can you prove that?  I can prove the contrary...  Are you able to
> except that challenge?  If not, than I would have to say that you are
> simply opposed for other yet to be known reasons to evoting.  Yet
> it is here, growing, and shall be more widely used.
> 
>>  Think of what
>> it means to do a recount in this environment.
> 
> Not a problem with several systems presently being used.
> 
>> You ask the computer what its
>> counts are, and it responds "the same as what I told you last time, dummmy,"
>> unless it is grossly broken.
> 
> What!!??  ROFLMAO!  This is pure silliness here Barbara.  I also think
> you know it is, or I hope you do anyway.  Rolling tally's is a mathematical
> computation algorithm built into most good evoting systems.
> 
>> 
>> 
>> This means that elections can be subverted by buggy software, hackers, or
>> insiders, and no one will be able to prove that this has been done.
> 
> Buggy software, yes in some instances, Hackers, also yes this too is
> possible, but with good systems very improbable.  Insiders, sure, this too
> is possible.  But there has to be some oversight during said elections.
> 
>>  At
>> least with butterfly ballots (incidentally, the Democrat who approved them
>> was a Republican before the election and reverted to being a Republican
>> after the election) we all could see what was happening.
> 
> Oh we could?  What happened to the 18,000 ballots in the two northern
> counties in Fl.?  No one to this day knows.  And in Dade county, what
> about those ballots that were discarded before being reviewed or even
> originally available for counting?
> 
>>  While it's a nasty
>> business to observe an election being stolen without being able to stop it,
>> it's even worse if it is stolen and no one knows for sure.
> 
> I agree completely with you here.  And that is much less likely with
> good evoting systems.  ANd that is why in Florida, that several types
> of evoting is being implemented to replace the butterfly balloting system
> because it is SO much more reliable.
> 
>> 
>> 
>> ICANN is important, but the computerized voting issue is far more important,
>> as far as I'm concerned.
> 
> Both as far as electing ICANN BOD members are intertwined and must
> be dealt with unless ICANN chooses to become less relevant to Internet
> governance than it has degraded to already...  This will be the challenge
> to the new BoD members to step up to, or face becoming illegitimate.
> 
>> 
>> 
>> Jeff's comment that http://verify.stanford.edu/evote.html contains "scare
>> tactics and being panned fairly broadly on some aspect" is absurd.
> 
> Oh?  How so?  It was panned in several publications as you well know.
> 
>>  The
>> webpage was created by David Dill, a Stanford computer science professor who
>> has no financial interest in any e-voting system and who is concerned only
>> with trying to preserve democracy.  I urge anyone who is reading this email
>> to check out the website.
> 
> Yes you and I exchanged some ideas with David as I think you recall.
> He does however have another agenda, as you also know.  He of course
> is entitled to his opinion.  Other experts, including myself have a somewhat
> different opinion.  I agree that "DRE" and touch screen voting machines
> are a very weak and insecure evoting system.  Other evoting systems
> are much different and better as David well knows...
> 
>> 
>> 
>> I believe that computerized voting machines without appropriate backup
>> represent an enormous threat to democracy in any country in which they are
>> employed to elect governments.
> 
> Very strong blanket statement here Barbara.  To bad it is a bad position
> to take as it is broadly unsupported.

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Date: Wed, 12 Mar 2003 15:34:31 -0500
From: "John Berryhill Ph.D. J.D." <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: [ga] Re: A Question for the Candidates

For the purpose of board elections, every publically-traded company in the
United States manages to conduct elections which involve the voting of
millions of shares of stock owned by people all over the world, and they
manage to do so without tremendous difficulty because the concerns in such
board elections are not the same as those of political elections in Santa
Clara County.

The idea that a corporation cannot have a simple distributed voting mechanism
for electing board members flies in the face of the reality of corporate
elections which are conducted all of the time without any significant
problems whatsoever.  There is no need to reinvent the wheel here.

Do multinational corporations conduct large scale elections?  Yes.  All of
the time.  And without incident.

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Date: Wed, 12 Mar 2003 14:20:05 -0800
From: Barbara Simons <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: [ga] Re: A Question for the Candidates

I agree that corporate elections take place on a regular basis with little
to no difficulty.  Frequently, they have paper ballots, and they are rarely
contentious.  If there were a high stakes election with large numbers of
supporters on both sides and a significant number of votes that were cast
via computer with no paper ballot backup, then you might start seeing some
real dissension.  Under the scenario that I describe, there would be no way
for the winners to prove that they won fair and square, if indeed they did,
and there would be no way for the losers to convince themselves that they
had actually lost - especially in a close election.

However, I am much more concerned about governmental elections where the
stakes frequently are high and people could well be motivated to attempt to
steal the election.  As I mentioned, the Senatorial race in Georgia in 2002
resulted in a major upset that contradicted both opinion and exit polls.
The entire state used computerized voting machines with no backup.
Consequently, there is no way of knowing whether or not that election was
stolen.  

Please read the material on David Dill's webpage, especially the FAQ, which
is not long and can be found at http://verify.stanford.edu/EVOTE/faq.html.

Regards,
Barbara  

On 3/12/03 12:34 PM, "John Berryhill Ph.D. J.D." <[email-masked]>
wrote:

> 
> For the purpose of board elections, every publically-traded company in the
> United States manages to conduct elections which involve the voting of
> millions of shares of stock owned by people all over the world, and they
> manage to do so without tremendous difficulty because the concerns in such
> board elections are not the same as those of political elections in Santa
> Clara County.
> 
> The idea that a corporation cannot have a simple distributed voting mechanism
> for electing board members flies in the face of the reality of corporate
> elections which are conducted all of the time without any significant
> problems whatsoever.  There is no need to reinvent the wheel here.
> 
> Do multinational corporations conduct large scale elections?  Yes.  All of
> the time.  And without incident.

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Date: Wed, 12 Mar 2003 16:43:21 -0800
From: Jeff Williams <[email-masked]>
Subject: Re: [ga] Re: A Question for the Candidates

Barbara and all former DNSO GA members or other interested parties,

Barbara Simons wrote:

> Sigh....  I'm sure that others on this list understand what it means to have
> a life in which one has other responsibilities in addition to ICANN related
> dialog.

  Indeed I am also glad that others do as well.  I know I sure do.

>  In addition to this thread, there have been multiple conference
> calls relating to the election, and believe it or not, there are other
> issues in this world that are important.  Indeed, some are even more
> important than ICANN.

  Very much agreed.  However if one manages one's time well one
can involve themselves effectively in many different areas.  Most
of us have to as a matter of job or professional responsibilities.

>
>
> I have one correction to make to my previous posting.  When I was talking
> about voting costs below, I mistakenly referred to email voting.  My remarks
> were intended for computerized voting.  As I said in another posting, Santa
> Clara County, which is the home of Silicon Valley, is about to spend $20
> million to purchase computerized voting machines with NO voter verifiable
> paper ballots.

  Paper ballots are too easily forged and therefore are not always good
examples for verification these days...  Hence this part of your argument
is weak...

>  This is a lot of money in normal times, and it's a huge
> amount of money when state and local governments are being starved by a
> combination of economic hard times and a federal government that is
> redirecting funding from social needs to tax cuts and military expenditures.

  $20m US is not allot of money even given the tax cuts, military expenditures
and economic down turn of the past 3 years.  Allot of private funding is
available for good causes, business ventures, ect...

>
>
> I don't know how to respond to Jeff's comments, since they ignore the basic
> issue, which is there is absolutely no way to know what is going on inside
> of a computer.

  Sure there is Barbara.  That is one reason logging capabilities were
developed for some 20+ years ago for computer systems.

>  Even if the voting companies allowed us to see their
> software, which they don't, computer scientists are well aware of the
> difficulties of finding bugs or trap doors in software - which is the
> primary reason why there is so much buggy software floating around.

  I have seen many source codes for evoting systems, although in most
instances I had to sign a nondisclosure non circumvent agreement.
IN fact the real danger and security problems occur when source
code for an existing evoting system is made public, as than hackers
can much more easily circumvent the that software in it's
operation and while in operation or use...

>
>
> But even if there were a miracle and we were given the software by these
> companies that are running our elections and even if we could verify that it
> does precisely what it is supposed to do, we would have no way of knowing
> that the software running in the machine is identical to the software that
> has been verified.

  Also not so either here as well.  With proper and available logging
processes built into the evoting software and/or monitoring by
humans, we can know precisely what you are seemingly concerned
about.

>
>
> I don't care what kind of voting and tabulation algorithm one claims to use.
> The bottom line is that there is no way of knowing what the machines are
> doing.

  Again, incorrect.  See my brief above comments.

>  That is why hundreds of computer scientists, including some of the
> most prominent members of our profession, have signed David Dill's petition
> on computerized voting.

  David is right up to a point true.  With DRE touch screen systems
there are design problems with those type systems.  But that is as
far as it goes.  So to his specifics on that TYPE of evoting system
I agree with him.

>  If folks on this list are interested in signing
> (David is also taking signatures from non-computer scientists, including
> attorneys), you can find a link to the petition at David's website at
> http://verify.stanford.edu/evote.html.
>
> The only solution that we have come up with that provides the protection one
> must have to prevent the incorrect reporting or outright theft of an
> election (and is not too complicated for the voter or election official to
> deal with) is a voter verified paper ballot.  The ballot should be printed
> out behind a window, the voter given the opportunity to read and verify that
> the ballot accurately represents the person's vote, and then the ballot
> should be automatically deposited (so that the voter can observe this) into
> a ballot box.

  How do we know, like in Florida that those ballot after being deposited
in the ballot box are the very same ballots that are later counted?  The
answer is we don't know that.

>
>
> The paper ballots then become the definitive count.

  No they don't.  See again my above comments and review the
investigation in Florida that was made quite public.

>  Given the existence of
> such ballots, it doesn't matter how buggy the computer code is nor if
> someone attempts to steal the election.

  Elections are often tampered with, and rarely stolen.  This happened
in 1960 as I recall.  But Nixon did not protest as the margin was too
slim to be sure...  And those were paper ballots...

>
>
> Another benefit of the system I've just described is that it makes it very
> difficult to sell votes, since there is no "certificate" that the voter can
> show to prove that he or she voted as paid.  This is also true of
> computerized voting machines with no ballots, but it is not true of machines
> that allow the voter to handle the ballot.

  Also incorrect.  Dead people have been registered to vote for as long
as I can remember, for example.

>  In this later case, the first
> voter can mark the ballot but not deposit it.  He or she then takes the
> marked ballot out to the person who is purchasing votes and gets paid.  The
> next voter is given the previously marked ballot, creates a new marked
> ballot and deposits the old one.  The new marked ballot is then proof for
> payment, etc.  (If you don't follow this example, think about how you would
> steal an election if you were paying for votes).
>
> This is truly my final posting on this thread.
>
> Regards,
> Barbara
>
> On 3/12/03 4:17 AM, "Jeff Williams" <[email-masked]> wrote:
>
> > However I am puzzled that if you don't have time for such
> > dialog, than why you sent this post, and why would you in your
> > earlier post on this thread, acknowledge that such dialog/communication
> > is important Barbara?
> >
> > ( Further comments below Barbara's )
> >
> > Barbara Simons wrote:
> >
> >> As I said earlier, I do not have the time to engage in further dialog.  I
> >> have only one comment to make, which is that computerized voting systems
> >> without voter verified paper ballots represent the greatest threat to our
> >> democracy that I've seen in my lifetime.  While is may be true that most
> >> email voting systems are simple to implement (I would not agree with Jeff's
> >> comment that they are moderate in cost vs return - in fact, they tend to be
> >> quite pricey), I strongly disagree with the statement that they are quite
> >> safe.
> >
> > Vote.com has offered to provide the service for ICANN for free.
> > We [INEGroup] have also offered our voting system to ICANN
> > for cost of implementation.  That's really cheap!
> >
> >>
> >>
> >> The bottom line is that computerized voting systems that do not have voter
> >> verified ballots make no sense.
> >
> > Very much agreed here.  Verification of ballots is not that difficult
> > to achieve and has been done in several systems currently in use.
> >
> >>  There is absolutely no way of knowing if
> >> your vote is appropriately counted, and there is NO BACKUP.
> >
> > Can you prove that?  I can prove the contrary...  Are you able to
> > except that challenge?  If not, than I would have to say that you are
> > simply opposed for other yet to be known reasons to evoting.  Yet
> > it is here, growing, and shall be more widely used.
> >
> >>  Think of what
> >> it means to do a recount in this environment.
> >
> > Not a problem with several systems presently being used.
> >
> >> You ask the computer what its
> >> counts are, and it responds "the same as what I told you last time, dummmy,"
> >> unless it is grossly broken.
> >
> > What!!??  ROFLMAO!  This is pure silliness here Barbara.  I also think
> > you know it is, or I hope you do anyway.  Rolling tally's is a mathematical
> > computation algorithm built into most good evoting systems.
> >
> >>
> >>
> >> This means that elections can be subverted by buggy software, hackers, or
> >> insiders, and no one will be able to prove that this has been done.
> >
> > Buggy software, yes in some instances, Hackers, also yes this too is
> > possible, but with good systems very improbable.  Insiders, sure, this too
> > is possible.  But there has to be some oversight during said elections.
> >
> >>  At
> >> least with butterfly ballots (incidentally, the Democrat who approved them
> >> was a Republican before the election and reverted to being a Republican
> >> after the election) we all could see what was happening.
> >
> > Oh we could?  What happened to the 18,000 ballots in the two northern
> > counties in Fl.?  No one to this day knows.  And in Dade county, what
> > about those ballots that were discarded before being reviewed or even
> > originally available for counting?
> >
> >>  While it's a nasty
> >> business to observe an election being stolen without being able to stop it,
> >> it's even worse if it is stolen and no one knows for sure.
> >
> > I agree completely with you here.  And that is much less likely with
> > good evoting systems.  ANd that is why in Florida, that several types
> > of evoting is being implemented to replace the butterfly balloting system
> > because it is SO much more reliable.
> >
> >>
> >>
> >> ICANN is important, but the computerized voting issue is far more important,
> >> as far as I'm concerned.
> >
> > Both as far as electing ICANN BOD members are intertwined and must
> > be dealt with unless ICANN chooses to become less relevant to Internet
> > governance than it has degraded to already...  This will be the challenge
> > to the new BoD members to step up to, or face becoming illegitimate.
> >
> >>
> >>
> >> Jeff's comment that http://verify.stanford.edu/evote.html contains "scare
> >> tactics and being panned fairly broadly on some aspect" is absurd.
> >
> > Oh?  How so?  It was panned in several publications as you well know.
> >
> >>  The
> >> webpage was created by David Dill, a Stanford computer science professor who
> >> has no financial interest in any e-voting system and who is concerned only
> >> with trying to preserve democracy.  I urge anyone who is reading this email
> >> to check out the website.
> >
> > Yes you and I exchanged some ideas with David as I think you recall.
> > He does however have another agenda, as you also know.  He of course
> > is entitled to his opinion.  Other experts, including myself have a somewhat
> > different opinion.  I agree that "DRE" and touch screen voting machines
> > are a very weak and insecure evoting system.  Other evoting systems
> > are much different and better as David well knows...
> >
> >>
> >>
> >> I believe that computerized voting machines without appropriate backup
> >> represent an enormous threat to democracy in any country in which they are
> >> employed to elect governments.
> >
> > Very strong blanket statement here Barbara.  To bad it is a bad position
> > to take as it is broadly unsupported.
>
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Regards,

- --
Jeffrey A. Williams
Spokesman for INEGroup LLA. - (Over 129k members/stakeholders strong!)
================================================================
CEO/DIR. Internet Network Eng. SR. Eng. Network data security
Information Network Eng. Group. INEG. INC.
E-Mail [email-masked]
Contact Number: 214-244-4827 or 214-244-3801

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End of GA-DIGEST V1 #1630
*************************