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LIVE NOW: Glenn Greenwald, Assange, and Kim Dot Com in NZ

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Re: LIVE NOW: Glenn Greenwald, Assange, and Kim Dot Com in NZ

#111

Post by jacquesm »

sjwright wrote: post #107
jacquesm wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Australia is behind the times in this respect. Voting is a right, not an obligation and non-participation is a form of protest against the system as a whole rather than a forced choice between multiple options none of which you may agree with.

Did you read the parent? You don't have to vote in Australia. You just have to show up and not vote -- or alternatively accept a trivial fine. (I personally think mandatory voting is a crappy system, but less crappy than all the alternatives. Much like capitalism.)

Having to show up means there is a compulsion in effect, whether or not you have to make a choice is between you and the piece of paper (otherwise you are violating another principle of a good voting system: that it is secret what you voted).

The situation (quoted from the WP page) is precisely this:

"Compulsory for federal and state elections for citizens 18 years of age and above. The requirement is for the person to enroll, attend a polling station and have their name marked off the electoral roll as attending, receive a ballot paper and take it to an individual voting booth, mark it, fold the ballot paper and place it in the ballot box."

So your participation in the election process is mandatory.

I'd wager the vast majority of the people so compelled to show up at the polling stations will actually vote. This should be easily testable. The proof would be that in Australia the total number of votes as a percentage of the population is high compared to other countries that do not have mandatory participation and that the number of blank or defaced ballots slightly higher than it would be in a country without compulsory voting (those would be the people actually using their vote as a protest vote).

edit:

http://www.idea.int/vt/countryview.cfm?CountryCode=AU (Australia)

http://www.idea.int/vt/countryview.cfm?id=216 (Thailand)

http://www.idea.int/vt/countryview.cfm?id=164 (Netherlands)

http://www.idea.int/vt/countryview.cfm?id=231 (USA)

Seem to solidly confirm my suspicion.

Re: LIVE NOW: Glenn Greenwald, Assange, and Kim Dot Com in NZ

#112

Post by etiam »

roel_v wrote: post #99
etiam wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the information. This is uncomfortably close to the way I imagine a glitch from something like a FOXACID exploit might look, and youtube is a known exploitable service. Maybe I need to get someone more skilled than myself have a close look at this machine. Knowledgeable people here, would you please comment if there's reason to rule out concerns about this.

No "knowledgeable people" can rule out anything. You must consider any machine that is connected to any network compromised, if you have anything "sensitive" on there. You have to define for yourself what "sensitive" means. (not even being facetious here)

This is a fair point, but I find that in practice I usually need something more like a probability assessment to act on, or better information about mechanisms.

Disambiguating information such as 'the flash component reloading normally occurs under condition X and Y, you guys may have been compromised but you'll have to decide if that's more plausible than X or Y' or technical constraints like 'to pull off exploit delivery that way an attacker would have to P, Q and R. If they did it should leave traces in S which you could try to check by doing T' would be a real help.

I'm certainly not disagreeing in theory with taking a pessimistic view on the security of any networked machine, but unfortunately that's way too restrictive as basis for action in most situations.

Re: LIVE NOW: Glenn Greenwald, Assange, and Kim Dot Com in NZ

#113

Post by EdwardDiego »

nickdotmulder wrote: post #74

It doesn't seem like New Zealanders are taking this very seriously, even mocking: http://tvnz.co.nz/seven-sharp/kim-dotcom-s-bombshell-revelat...

Bear in mind that Mike Hosking, one of the hosts of Seven Sharp, is a major backer of current Prime Minister John Key.

Re: LIVE NOW: Glenn Greenwald, Assange, and Kim Dot Com in NZ

#114

Post by ama729 »

jacquesm wrote: post #111
sjwright wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you read the parent? You don't have to vote in Australia. You just have to show up and not vote -- or alternatively accept a trivial fine. (I personally think mandatory voting is a crappy system, but less crappy than all the alternatives. Much like capitalism.)

Having to show up means there is a compulsion in effect, whether or not you have to make a choice is between you and the piece of paper (otherwise you are violating another principle of a good voting system: that it is secret what you voted). The situation (quoted from the WP page) is precisely this: "Compulsory for federal and state elections for citizens 18 years of age and above. The requirement is for the person…

You forget that mandatory voting also mean that minorities and other "difficult" groups also don't have to make excuses as to why they are voting and also that everything is done to make them votes (since it's mandatory). An employer can't refuse a employee to go voting for example.

Re: LIVE NOW: Glenn Greenwald, Assange, and Kim Dot Com in NZ

#115

Post by martiuk »

aw3c2 wrote: post #27

This feels like the typical Kimble self-advertising event. Disgusting.

KDC is pretty much the anti-hero in this whole saga. While I don't really respect him as a person, I also don't believe it was fair/correct for what happened to him and I'm glad he's helping the cause against dragnet/mass surveillance.

Re: LIVE NOW: Glenn Greenwald, Assange, and Kim Dot Com in NZ

#116

Post by jacquesm »

ama729 wrote: post #114
jacquesm wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having to show up means there is a compulsion in effect, whether or not you have to make a choice is between you and the piece of paper (otherwise you are violating another principle of a good voting system: that it is secret what you voted). The situation (quoted from the WP page) is precisely this: "Compulsory for federal and state elections for citizens 18 years of age and above. The requirement is for the person…

You forget that mandatory voting also mean that minorities and other "difficult" groups also don't have to make excuses as to why they are voting and also that everything is done to make them votes (since it's mandatory). An employer can't refuse a employee to go voting for example.

Minorities or 'difficult groups' (whatever they are) have a right to vote, so they can exercise it if they want to. No excuse needed! This is about being compelled to participate, not about wanting to go and needing an excuse. You never need an excuse, there is an election in progress and you exercise your rights.

Do you have examples of places where employers can interfere so easily with the right to vote?

Are polling stations in those places only open during business hours?

Are the rights of citizens in those places subject to the whims of employers?

That would make for an interesting situation.

I'm not aware of any place where a company could stop its employees from voting if it wanted to do so, but that's an interesting perspective. I don't really understand what voting being mandatory or optional has to do with that though.

Re: LIVE NOW: Glenn Greenwald, Assange, and Kim Dot Com in NZ

#117

Post by prawn »

jacquesm wrote: post #68
thaumaturgy wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK. You can refuse to take back anything you said -- which I didn't ask for, btw -- but it will still have nothing to do with what I said.

Apologies for being unclear, I was mostly responding to the bit that states that I'm being 'a bit unfair' to KDC. I think it is very fair and that he's simply a bad puppy. If he accidentally does something useful while he's pursuing his selfish goals then great, but that's not his first and foremost interest, most probably merely a convenient vehicle for his ambitions.

KDC reminds me a bit of Clive Palmer.

Re: LIVE NOW: Glenn Greenwald, Assange, and Kim Dot Com in NZ

#118

Post by RobAley »

tim333 wrote: post #97
tomp wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> While I find Dotcom to be a epitome of a shill, I doubt Greenwald or Snowden would back this particular claim if they truly believed it was false. Can I just ask you, what's the claim? I cannot watch the video at this time (I'm at work)...

I think this stuff: - The Kim Dotcom "big reveal" is out - and has almost immediately been dismissed as a fake. - The "reveal" is an email which purports to show Prime Minister John Key involved in a plan to get the internet entrepreneur into New Zealand so he could be extradited to the United States. http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objecti...

As far as I can see at the moment it's just been dismissed as a fake by the people who allegedly sent/received it, and they would deny it, regardless. That does put Dotcom on the back foot and with a burden of proof, but it's not yet game over.

Re: LIVE NOW: Glenn Greenwald, Assange, and Kim Dot Com in NZ

#119

Post by jacquesm »

prawn wrote: post #117
jacquesm wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apologies for being unclear, I was mostly responding to the bit that states that I'm being 'a bit unfair' to KDC. I think it is very fair and that he's simply a bad puppy. If he accidentally does something useful while he's pursuing his selfish goals then great, but that's not his first and foremost interest, most probably merely a convenient vehicle for his ambitions.

KDC reminds me a bit of Clive Palmer.

How so?

(Palmer seems to be a very much honorable businessman to me.)

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