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The People's Code

code.gov

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Re: The People's Code

#171

Post by sfsinger »

godelski wrote: post #149
sametmax wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would not improve things. A voting system must be able to be checked by any citizen at any moment. Most of the citizen can't: - understand a complex code. - ensure the machine is running this code, easily, conveniently or quickly. - ensure the machine is not, or will not be hacked, by software or hardware mean. - ensure the program does calculate the votes correctly, with no bug. - do any of this in an autonomou…

Most people can't understand the code in openssl. So we shouldn't use it? Let's just make all cryptography closed source then. The average person doesn't even know what an elliptic function is. The point is that there is a large amount of people that do. They check. Not every citizen needs to check, but it is harder for there to be an error or to hoodwink someone if there are more eyes on the code. Essentially why op…

Good point, @godelski

Re: The People's Code

#172

Post by pachydermic »

diyorgasms wrote: post #163
schmidty wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No effort towards innovation would then go into that sector. Ever again.

I'm not sure if this it's a popular decision, but I don't really think the private sector should be innovating with our electoral system. Integrity is of utmost importance, and voting machines have been proven vulnerable in the past. I don't think the private sector has appropriate motivation to really get voting right.

The question is about who you trust and how you make sure that all the actors are being fair.

Would you feel better if the government designed the machines? A lot of people would probably feel worse.

Right now, you have each state's board of elections making decisions - they get observed by both parties so that they can all sign off on what's happening. Idk. You can never eliminate the possibility of fraud. I just think the likelihood of all of these actors colluding is really low... I mean congress can't even pass a budget.

Re: The People's Code

#173

Post by serge2k »

random_rr wrote: post #121
serge2k wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is a lot of internal resistance to open sourcing code Too fucking bad. Do it or get fired.

I'm sure contractors and government employees also don't want people with this level of vitriol looking over their code and sniping them from afar. :)

I doubt I'd ever look at the code, I'm addressing the idea that we shouldn't open source things be default because someone will get upset about it.

Re: The People's Code

#174

Post by fmorel »

pdkl95 wrote: post #166
dnissley wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looks like the US government makes widescale use of Google analytics, so it's hardly inappropriate: https://analytics.usa.gov/

Pointing out more instances of a problem doesn't make the problem "hardly inappropriate"; it indicates the problem is more widespread.

From https://analytics.usa.gov/#explanation it sounds like it just happens to use Google Analytics at the moment, but could switch in the future.

Re: The People's Code

#175

Post by Aaron1011 »

inimino wrote: post #92
Aaron1011 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Since GitHub is for open-source projects, it also meant that any user could submit a request to modify the code and impact Trump’s website, if the change was approved by the plug-in’s author, a developer in Lisbon named Igor Escobar." That's how it works for any open source project you use, regardless of where it's been hosted. Unless you review the entire codebase (as well as all changes made in new releases), you…

That's not exactly the same as choosing to use something that is hosted on someone else's server, which they could then subsequently modify now that you are using it in a very high-profile project. Of course, judging candidates' by the code quality of their campaign websites is a rather obscure and somewhat useless pastime.

I agree that it's still bad practice. My main objection was to the statement "Since GitHub is for open-source projects, it also meant that any user could submit a request to modify the code and impact Trump’s website". If don't trust the maintainers' judgement in merging PRs, hosting it yourself isn't a solution (short of reviewing the entire project yourself).

Re: The People's Code

#176

Post by pc86 »

pdkl95 wrote: post #164
jonknee wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just a wild guess here, but I bet they're using Google Analytics for the same reason everyone else uses Google Analytics--to see what their audience is looking at. > Also, requiring Javascript in a single page application is a terrible design for this kind of site. Good luck making a single page application without Javascript! It is all in 25 requests and 668KB, not the lightest site, but that's actually less data th…

I know why they want analytics; I'm asking why they are giving out live tracking data to a single private company. This free data is effectively a subsidy. > Good luck making a single page application without Javascript The bad design decision was making it a single page application in the first place. This should be a static site, or very lightweight (and easily cached) framework. > 25 requests and 668KB That's an o…

That's not what subsidy means.

Re: The People's Code

#177

Post by pc86 »

diyorgasms wrote: post #163
schmidty wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No effort towards innovation would then go into that sector. Ever again.

I'm not sure if this it's a popular decision, but I don't really think the private sector should be innovating with our electoral system. Integrity is of utmost importance, and voting machines have been proven vulnerable in the past. I don't think the private sector has appropriate motivation to really get voting right.

Integrity being of the utmost importance is probably the #1 reason why the people put in power by elections should not be in charge of running those elections.

I'm not saying I prefer Diebold, but I certainly prefer it if the only other option is the House/Senate $PARTY Caucus.

Re: The People's Code

#178

Post by jonknee »

pdkl95 wrote: post #164
jonknee wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just a wild guess here, but I bet they're using Google Analytics for the same reason everyone else uses Google Analytics--to see what their audience is looking at. > Also, requiring Javascript in a single page application is a terrible design for this kind of site. Good luck making a single page application without Javascript! It is all in 25 requests and 668KB, not the lightest site, but that's actually less data th…

I know why they want analytics; I'm asking why they are giving out live tracking data to a single private company. This free data is effectively a subsidy. > Good luck making a single page application without Javascript The bad design decision was making it a single page application in the first place. This should be a static site, or very lightweight (and easily cached) framework. > 25 requests and 668KB That's an o…

> I know why they want analytics; I'm asking why they are giving out live tracking data to a single private company. This free data is effectively a subsidy.

How is it a subsidy? They are getting the analytical data they want and are not having to pay anything for it. They could spend tons of time and money to build an analytics system, but that sounds like a waste of tax dollars. You'll also notice that their code is hosted on GitHub, is that a subsidy too?

Re: The People's Code

#179

Post by pc86 »

deathanatos wrote: post #169
schmidty wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No effort towards innovation would then go into that sector. Ever again.

I, as a taxpayer/legislator, can't contract a private company to (for a token fee) write and support a codebase that they will (as part of the contract) open source? The people win, as we get open source and hopefully transparent code. The company wins, as they're paid for their work (as they should be). I fully expect that this would be more expensive than closed source. (I'm not convinced that we should be using el…

We should be using electronic voting to tabulate and aggregate the data, but at the most local level personally I think electronic but with two paper receipts (one to the voter with who they voted for, one to the state w/o) is the best option.

Re: The People's Code

#180

Post by cmurf »

diyorgasms wrote: post #163
schmidty wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No effort towards innovation would then go into that sector. Ever again.

I'm not sure if this it's a popular decision, but I don't really think the private sector should be innovating with our electoral system. Integrity is of utmost importance, and voting machines have been proven vulnerable in the past. I don't think the private sector has appropriate motivation to really get voting right.

The difficulty is the purse strings to pay for election infrastructure comes from politicians. Private firms have funds for product advocacy without advance funding from government, unlike open source solutions. So the entire field is distorted from day 0 when it comes to proprietary vs open source.

A smarter thing to do would be to create a selection pool defined as any registered voter over the age of 75; and from that pool they choose their election technology board. And that board procures the election system based on the budget the legislature gives them. That is, the budget is the budget only, it doesn't say anything about what technology or brand is used, the only attachment is that funds are used for the state election system. If someone over 75 can't understand how our election system works, we're screwed, and in fact we've seen how voting systems have failed, have altered the outcome of elections, and because they had no paper trail, and no meaningful way to do recounts or audits there's no recourse.

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