Are you guys dropping OxyContin or WHAT?

[Bill Bored]

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x444406

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=203&topic_id=444406&mesg_id=444521

[Divernan]

1. A lot depends on WHO posts it.

I watch with amusement the posts of one DU idol who would get 15 recommendations in 30 minutes for Greatest Page if he posted his zip code.

You are right - this is a significant thread - sorry it got ignored. Try again.

[elehhhhna]

8. you are a naughty person

rof
lmao

[Bill Bored]

2. FDA Strengthens Warnings for OxyContin

http://www.fda.gov/cder/drug/infopage/oxycontin/

Do not take when evaluating threats to voting systems or operating heavy machinery.

[Robbien]

3. Every day there are so many Election Reform threads in the "Greatest"

list. I've noticed that I no longer click through to read any of them. One gets the impression that almost every Election Reform thread gets a lot of recommendations whether it is important or not, so why bother clicking through.

Piling on recommendations don't help the cause and may hurt it. Just my opinion.

[Bill Bored]

4. Opinion noted, but the only way to know if anyone's reading the stuff

is to see if it's kicked or nominated.

On edit: I agree that some of this stuff is not really that important.
Being able to rig one machine at a time is bad, but it's nothing new. The biggest threat of e-voting is the ability to do it en masse, and this is almost never reported. Why?

[TwilightZone]

5. Try providing a little more information next time.

Otherwise, your post looks like just another rant and will largely be ignored.

[Bill Bored]

6. Hey, I said it was the worst security flaw ever! What do you want? :)

That was sort of the point. Everyone posts something about what THEY think is the WORST e-voting security flaw ever discovered. But usually, it's a theory about hacking a single voting machine.

But vendors and elections officials already have the capability through the use of Ballot Definition Programming to rig an entire county, or more. And that's often under the control of as little as one person or a vendor. This makes it the WORST security flaw ever! (But I'll try to come up with a better thread title next time if you think that will help.)

[OnTheOtherHand]

7. well, I parsed it a bit differently

This outfit OVF reported on "the worst ever security flaw found in Diebold TS," which it said "may be the worst security flaw we have seen in touch screen voting machines." Both those statements could be true, if we consider the "machines" in isolation. OVF never said that they had discovered the worst e-voting security flaw ever. I did a bit of an eye-roll at the title, but still, I thought it was an interesting piece. Certainly I didn't fault Wilms and meldroc for posting it. I don't know meldroc, but I know Wilms a bit, and it never crossed my mind that he was singling this out as Worst Problem Ever. Wilms has some of the best substantive judgment on the board, and he is a mensch.

It's a whole different eye-roll how many people recommended the OVF articles -- ya gotta think that some folks did it based on little more than the titles. Seems like "Diebold" in a title is worth an extra 5-10 recs. Meanwhile, a thread on ongoing voter purges languishes with 3 recs so far. Have people decided that voter suppression doesn't really matter? Umm, I'm not going to jump to that conclusion, although I do sort of worry about it.

For people who are willing to start and end with "e-voting is e-vil," it really doesn't matter what the worst e-voting security flaw is. For people who are trying to set triage priorities, it matters a lot. Both sorts of people come here, and we're not going to change all of one kind into the other. I'm a triage guy, myself. (By the way, the distinction I'm making here isn't between people who oppose all e-voting and people who don't. Even people who oppose all e-voting may, or may not, be concerned about setting priorities.)

[TwilightZone]

9. More information

Your post assumes that everyone saw the story you mentioned and that everyone has the same information that you do.

Apparently, that wasn't the case, so I think it met the same fate as the umpteen "do you believe what was just on CNN?!?" posts that have no further information.

[Bill Bored]

10. No need to argue at this point.

When the OP was posted, the transcript of the show was not yet available, and I hadn't even seen it. I heard it was on though. Then after nearly 24 hours of the transcript being posted, it still seemed like there was no interest. Now there is, so the point is moot.

We can drop this OxyContin thread now and let the original one live out its days. (I thought dropping the OxyContin sounded better than just drinking the Kool-Aid though. That reminds me -- I'm getting thirsty!)