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Rustlestiltskin

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Posts posted by Rustlestiltskin

  1. About this statement, even hand-counted paper ballots can be "hacked."

     

    The "problem" with US elections in general is that votes must be anonymous. This seemingly simple requirement makes election security almost impossible from a technical perspective, for this reason -- how can Joe Voter verify that his vote was counted correctly, while also making it impossible for anyone holding his ballot to figure out who cast it? This is a difficult problem from a technical perspective (public/private keys, sure, but then how do you create/distribute/secure those for a massive, chaotic population?), but it gets worse from here. Voter intimidation is a real thing throughout history -- imagine union bosses forcing their union members to vote for pro-union candidates (happened), or anti-union capitalists forcing their employees to vote for anti-union candidates (also happened). If Joe Voter can verify his vote after the fact somehow, then someone can force Joe Voter to verify his vote in their presence.

     

    Think about how we've addressed this fundamental problem using paper ballots. You show up to vote, and are handed a paper ballot with a unique ID after verifying that you're eligible to vote. You sign your name in the voter roll, and the unique ID for your ballot is logged as now being a valid ballot. These two pieces of information must be kept separate -- the unique ID for a ballot and to whom it was given -- so that nobody can trace a ballot back to an individual voter. From a security perspective, this still works -- since you signed your name on the voter roll, you or someone pretending to be you can't vote again. Since the ballot ID was logged as being a valid ballot, nobody can just print up new ballots and stuff the ballot box.

     

    However, from a voter verification perspective, this doesn't work -- and intentionally so, because of the voter intimidation reason. Once you drop your ballot in the box and leave the polling location, you can never, ever verify how your vote was counted. Ever. This means nobody else can verify who you voted for, but it also means you can never be sure that your ballot was not switched out.

     

    If this is a deal breaker for someone, then god help them, because that person can never trust any US election going back to the history of the country.

     

    There's an element of trust here, even with strictly paper ballots. Yes, your ballot can be hand counted again and again and again. Yes, it's impossible for paper ballots to be "hacked" easily and quickly at scale, because paper is cumbersome. But you trust that when you drop your ballot in the box, it's going to be secured by non-partisan or bi-partisan election officials, handled securely, and not modified. You can never, ever verify that this is done, so you just have to trust the system.

     

     

    Long story long, even with paper ballots, it's entirely possible for election shenanigans. Voting machines do not create the problem. In some regards they make it worse, and in some regards they can make it better (because recounts and data analysis). If you have 10,000 paper ballots in a room and you send in 10 vote counters to count them, you'll get 10 different results. Paper ballots will get misplaced and then found again, or they'll get lost and never found. It's impossible to ever remove all oddities and mistakes from an election. Therefore, simply pointing out mistakes when they happen is beyond meaningless in making any broad proclamations about the outcome of an election. Simply pointing out that hacking is possible with electronic voting machines is beyond meaningless in making any broad proclamations about the outcome of elections, because it's also possible for paper ballots to be unknowingly modified.

     

    So if you're not making any insinuations about the validity of the election, which I still kinda think you are, and you're truly just saying that "anything on the internet can be hacked," then the response is, OK, so what? It's a meaningless revelation. Anything printed on paper can be changed. So what? Are all elections pointless because paper can be changed, or voting machines can be hacked? Of course not. Absent any actual evidence of widespread issues or fraud, the default position should be to trust that election officials are doing their best to run a fair election, even if mistakes might happen because elections are run by humans, and even if the process can never be 100% secure.

     

     

    :no:

     

    Tell me this is a copy/paste you found somewhere and that you didn’t just type a 744 word reply.

  2. Lol fuck that rot is bad. Sucks you didn’t look the underneath over before buying. Slimpsy, how are you a car guy on a car site and not know your vehicles underside looks like this esp when selling it. Plus, you took it to a shop where the mechanics proceeded to face fuck you into oblivion on the down low. Bruh...
  3. Rocky, you want me to share pics?

     

    I still stand by sub-$2k cars that run and drive should be bought expecting some sort of major repair. Guys are buying Jeeps and Toyota Tacomas (and other vehicles) all day long for thousands more that have major frame rust.

     

    Doesn't exonerate Slimpsy from not disclosing something...but after a week of this discussion I can't reconcile in my mind that Rocky didn't see evidence of serious frame rust when he was doing his own PPI on a $1000 SUV.

     

    Post the pics up. Also, how bad was the rust?

     

    3 pages and still going by he said she said with no pics/evidence of this “ rusted out frame”

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