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Rick Santorum's Fake Donation Meter

ricksantorum.com

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Re: Rick Santorum's Fake Donation Meter

#61

Post by Jach »

artursapek wrote: post #49
thebigshane wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There doesn't appear to be anything in this code to calibrate to the actual average donation rate. In fact it's not tied to any real amounts or rates at all. It's just a function of the current datetime. UPDATE: They took the donation page down... Forbidden You don't have permission to access /stillneedhelp/ on this server.

That was a fast response. Does someone on HN work for Santorum?

My guess is the same barely-competent webmaster who wrote the JS noticed a huge traffic spike in that directory, and disabled the index but not the cause of the spike. But we'll see... (Ed: downvotes make me think you were right. :)

Re: Rick Santorum's Fake Donation Meter

#62

Post by citricsquid »

barrkel wrote: post #27

I don't think there's anything wrong, in principle, with this approach, so long as the simulated rate is calibrated frequently to the actual average donation rate. Having it all wired up properly would require a whole lot of infrastructure, particularly for donation mechanisms that aren't online and aren't all tied in to a single system.

This is how I do it on my personal website (http://samryan.co.uk/). It makes no sense for me to put together a real automatically updating counter so every couple of days I check the real growth rate and adjust it manually. It obviously looks shady on a politicians website and I think doing it with something like donations where it's tied to a real world action is a bit... silly and they should have disclosed that it was an ESTIMATE however I don't think it is as heinous as other people suggested. It's only an issue if the donations don't exist.

Re: Rick Santorum's Fake Donation Meter

#63

Post by Animus7 »

thebigshane wrote: post #37
barrkel wrote: post #27

I don't think there's anything wrong, in principle, with this approach, so long as the simulated rate is calibrated frequently to the actual average donation rate. Having it all wired up properly would require a whole lot of infrastructure, particularly for donation mechanisms that aren't online and aren't all tied in to a single system.

There doesn't appear to be anything in this code to calibrate to the actual average donation rate. In fact it's not tied to any real amounts or rates at all. It's just a function of the current datetime. UPDATE: They took the donation page down... Forbidden You don't have permission to access /stillneedhelp/ on this server.

Well, theoretically they could just have a guy manually pushing new rate values to reflect reality.

But that's a big theoretically. This is almost certainly malice.

And it would almost certainly have gone unchecked if the developer had only hidden the BS generator script on the server side.

But as others have pointed out, that's probably asking too much given the state of this code and given that the main page 403's but they left the BS script serving.

Re: Rick Santorum's Fake Donation Meter

#65

Post by ChuckMcM »

What? You mean a politician was using a simulation and presenting it as definitive? I'm shocked I tell you, shocked!

(with apologies to Captain Renault :-)

You could just read the quarterly reports he files with the FEC if you actually wanted to know how much he was bringing in. I suppose you could get him in hot water as an ethics violation for campaign reporting but outrage? A bit over the top I think. There are billboards that had a running total of the California state deficit, does anyone think they were repeatedly reading some sort of get_balance() api at the state treasury and putting it up? No, its a prop, a gimmick, an illustrative tool, and nothing more.

Re: Rick Santorum's Fake Donation Meter

#66

Post by [deleted] »

evolve2k wrote: post #44

It fascinates me that Americans might see this as acceptable or even that it is regarded as most likely to be totally legal and hence acceptable in nature. In Australia I would be very confident that this type of falsified campaign disclosure would be illegal or at least fall foul of a whole range of parliamentary and governmental standards.

[deleted]

Re: Rick Santorum's Fake Donation Meter

#67

Post by JohnQPasserby »

evolve2k wrote: post #44

It fascinates me that Americans might see this as acceptable or even that it is regarded as most likely to be totally legal and hence acceptable in nature. In Australia I would be very confident that this type of falsified campaign disclosure would be illegal or at least fall foul of a whole range of parliamentary and governmental standards.

Nothing about Rick Santorum is acceptable, the idea that he was even considered for the position probably violates most of the Bill of Rights.

Fake counters are pretty far down my list of grievances.

Re: Rick Santorum's Fake Donation Meter

#68

Post by stevewilhelm »

Osiris wrote: post #6

I find it most disturbing that they are polluting the global namespace with all those variables and functions. Don't JavaScript developers these days understand how to properly scope their JavaScript?

Was just looking at namespace best practices today for a utility library I was implementing. Is there a defacto standard?

Re: Rick Santorum's Fake Donation Meter

#70

Post by sjs »

Deestan wrote: post #53
Osiris wrote: post #6

I find it most disturbing that they are polluting the global namespace with all those variables and functions. Don't JavaScript developers these days understand how to properly scope their JavaScript?

As long as it's "single page bound" JS like this, I honestly don't think it matters one bit. Reusable components and utility libraries is something different, of course.

It's still incredibly error prone and just bad practice. It's a telltale sign of a bad developer because a good dev would instinctively just use var without thinking about it. Good devs may make a mistake here or there but this is clearly well beyond a forgotten var keyword.
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