[gameprogrammer] Re: OTP: saving democracy?
- From: grant hallman <unilogic@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: gameprogrammer@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 01 May 2010 03:22:07 -0400
At 09:38 AM 4/30/2010 -0500, you wrote:
Wow, that does sound like a case where a little hacktivism could go a long
way.
In the US we would just file a a complaint with the federal election
commission and most likely file a suit in state and possibly federal
court. Since what they are doing is pretty blatantly a violation of
the constitution and the voting rights act it would be a slam dunk to
stop the action. We are actively fighting the use of electronic voting
machines but even those have to be used at a polling place under the
observation of an control of election judges.
After meeting the town clerk and staff today, i get the impression the lay
people making decisions have no idea what the risks are. I asked our local
MP (like your Congressman) and our provincial rep (MPP, like your state
assemblyman) what i thought was a simple question: what law in Canada
guarantes my right to a verifiable and secret ballot? The surprising
answer: None. It is assumed as a common-law principle. Someone is asleep at
the leglislative switch.
We can, and may, file in court, but that is always expensive, and not as
clearcut as you might find in the US. This travesty (e-voting) was
specifically enabled for municipal elections in the Province of Ontario by
the Ontario Municipa Elections Act:
https://ssl.ola.org/f5-w-687474703a2f2f6c616f696e747261$$/intranet/index.php?option=com_jintegrate&view=jintegrate&Itemid=354&load_url=http%3A%2F%2Flisprd6ap%2Fweb%2Fbills%2Fbills_detail.do%3Flocale%3Den%26Intranet%3Dtrue%26BillID%3D2256
They just forgot to set minimum specs. There is also federal legislation:
http://www.elections.ca/content.asp?section=faq&document=faqvoting&textonly=false#voting21
and
http://www.mah.gov.on.ca/AssetFactory.aspx?did=7269
What are the applicable laws in Canada? Oh crap, I just looked up your
constitution it has only existed since 1982?
Since 1867 Canada was chartered under the BNA (British North America Act),
an Act of the British Parliament. That charter was repatriated into Canada
in 1982, and we also have a Bill of Rights, with loopholes for Quebec,
whose separatists ...well, never mind.
And, the first clause in your bill of rights grants the government the
power to restrict all the other rights. That power is *implied* in the
US constitution, but not stated. That is a huge difference. It means
that your town council may have a legal right to do as they are doing.
They have the legal right per provincial law (as amended in 1996), except
they are not meeting the common-law expectations for verifiability and privacy.
OTOH, I wish we had section 15:
"15. (1) Every individual is equal before and under the law and has
the right to the equal protection and equal benefit of the law without
discrimination and, in particular, without discrimination based on
race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age or mental
or physical disability.
(2) Subsection (1) does not preclude any law, program or activity that
has as its object the amelioration of conditions of disadvantaged
individuals or groups including those that are disadvantaged because
of race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age or
mental or physical disability."
In our constitution. But, I would like to get rid of the list that
starts "race...." and just make it apply to anyone who shares whose
genome shares something like 80% of the average human genome.
That would include chimps (95%) and, i'm pretty sure, lemurs. OTOH it would
explain a lot about politics ;-)
That way
we could not discriminate on any of the things on the list or on the
basis of any kind of genetic difference.
I see that your bill of rights had the advantage of being written
after watching the mistakes and corrections made by countries like the
US, the whole British Common Wealth, and the rest of the world. I like
it a lot.
We're kind of happy with it :)
But, while section 3 grants the right to vote for parliament, is there
anything that grants the right to vote for town council?
Municipal affairs fall into provincial jurisdiction.
It looks to
me like your sections 2, 3, 7, and 8 give you a good basis for filing
a suit against that law and a good basis for a defense for carrying
out hacktivism against it. I really like that freedom of conscience
clause. My wife and I looked into immigrating to Canada during W's
second term. But, I never read your constitution.
You'd feel like you were living in a particularly safe, polite part of the
US. You'd need a touque, 4 snow tires, and bug repellent, and to be a
"real" Canajun, you have to be able to make love in a canoe without
tipping. Also our money denominations are different colors, and we used to
have a $2 bill, but replaced it and the $1 bill with pretty coins. Oh, and
you wouldn't need health insurance, that's a given. Hey, i noticed there's
100 acres of hardwood bush for sale just down the road, likely around $120k
or so...
But, here is the question that bothers me the most. If this is worth
fighting for, why isn't it worth taking a risk for? It is your country
and your town. I'm OK with your asking for help to find problems with
the system. But, someone in Canada has to stand up and lead the
charge. If I hack the voting machines used in local elections I could
face prosecution and imprisonment. There are no laws that shield me
from that.
I think you have whistle-blower protection in US that we don't have here. I
don't want to lead any charges, but i will if that's the only way to stop
this. I'd obviously like to do it as legally safely as i can, just pointing
out weaknesses and letting others elsewhere have all the fun.
OTOH, if I find out how to hack it and I publish that
information, that is covered under the right to free speech. Not to
mention that the extradition treaties between the US and Canada are
pretty damn tight. If I break a Canadian law in the US I'd be better
off heading for Central America than sitting in a Federal Jail trying
to fight extradition.
I don't think Canadian law could touch you as a US cit for things you do in
the US, even if doing them in Canada would break Canadian law. One of the
ways the law has not caught up with the internet. I believe that is simply
"ultra vires". I'm not sure, and i'm not a lawyer.
I hope people step up to help you. But, you need to take the legal
burden on your self. Or, you need to find the equivalent of the ACL in
Canada that will do it for you.
Or i need to find hackers in Russia or the Carribean.
Anyway, while this is off topic for this list. Feel free to post links
to where the technical specs for the system can be found.
Thanks, i appreciate the loan of the soapbox.
You might
want to set up mailing list using either the free service I use or on
a commercial server out side of Canada and move discussion there.
I will set up a Y! group, as soon as i get my computer fixed. Last 3 days
it loses all personal settings on reboot, plus all Firefox bookmarks and
Word settings. I have a techie doing a house call on Monday.
Meanwhile, here's the link to the company doing the election:
www.ontarioville.isivote.com
Try using the following password, it should still allow vote for councilors:
9972-8546
First thing you'll see is an OCR-code that has to be entered manually, to
prevent rolling all the combos. Does it actually do that? An 8-digit PIN
has 100,000,000 permutations, locally there are about 19,000 registered
voters, each gets a PIN. That means a possible 5000 invalid PINs for every
valid one.
Unless we treat this as research for a game scenario it is too off
topic to keep the discussion here. OTOH, if people want to keep it
here let me know. If there are a lot of yeahs and no nays then I guess
it can stay here.
I will move it as soon as i get the Y! group set up, and thanks for your
interest and support.
regards - grant
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