Difference between revisions of "Talk:2030: Voting Software"

Explain xkcd: It's 'cause you're dumb.
Jump to: navigation, search
Line 15: Line 15:
  
 
:::There's a logical fallacy here. To compare airplaneS and elevatorS to a voting system program is comparing plural to singular. There would be significant opportunity to break/modify a single instance of those objects, although without the relative anonymity of electronic access involved. Once a computer system is infiltrated, the break-in can be replicated to all instances of that program relatively instantaneously, assuming communication pathways are available.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.75.130|162.158.75.130]] 19:12, 8 August 2018 (UTC)
 
:::There's a logical fallacy here. To compare airplaneS and elevatorS to a voting system program is comparing plural to singular. There would be significant opportunity to break/modify a single instance of those objects, although without the relative anonymity of electronic access involved. Once a computer system is infiltrated, the break-in can be replicated to all instances of that program relatively instantaneously, assuming communication pathways are available.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.75.130|162.158.75.130]] 19:12, 8 August 2018 (UTC)
 +
 +
A blockchain node doesn't technically need to be connected to the internet in order to function. It needs to have some method for receiving messages from other nodes on the blockchain network, and most blockchain nodes of them do indeed get these messages via the internet, but you (for example) some bitcoin nodes get updates about new blocks and new transactions from the Blockstream satellite. An internet connection is therefore not intrinsically necessary for a blockchain to work, it's just the most convenient way to do it.

Revision as of 19:27, 8 August 2018

I think this comic is referencing this twitter thread and the controversy behind it. 172.69.190.4 17:59, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

Is he saying it's weird that we're so sophisticated in other areas of computer science but so far behind in voting technology, or is he making fun of the idea that electronic voting is somehow inherently unsafe?--108.162.216.106 18:10, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

  No he is saying computer science is a mess and we should not trust it with voting(he is not making fun of the idea of it being unsafe, he is pressing on the point of it being unsafe[saying that all experts agree on that])18:18, 8 August 2018 (UTC)
  I think he's commenting on how in most fields, the experts are very sure that they do their job well, and all the angles have been tried and tested, but in computer science the experts are more certain than anyone that there is absolutely no way for a person to actually build a complex software system with no flaws or vulnerabilities, even if they controlled every aspect of the system. in practice of course they control very little of the system and understand even less of it. 172.68.34.88 18:22, 8 August 2018 (UTC)
   He's saying that software development is a terribly buggy process, most likely because the majority of software out there can have bugs without very dire real-world consequences (unlike aircraft or elevators).
Not to mention the fact that there are incredibly smart people with great interest in undoing the work that software developers do, whereas that isn't at all the case with airplanes or elevators. 108.162.219.214 18:29, 8 August 2018 (UTC)
Plus there's the general issue that the public as a whole takes the view that "Computers are majykal" (misspelling deliberate) and therefore somehow automatically safe & infallible, despite experts trying very hard to disillusion people about...pretty much all of that. Compare that to the common assumptions about aircraft and elevators--people need the safety verified, instead of assuming it like they do with computers. Werhdnt (talk) 19:08, 8 August 2018 (UTC)
There's a logical fallacy here. To compare airplaneS and elevatorS to a voting system program is comparing plural to singular. There would be significant opportunity to break/modify a single instance of those objects, although without the relative anonymity of electronic access involved. Once a computer system is infiltrated, the break-in can be replicated to all instances of that program relatively instantaneously, assuming communication pathways are available.162.158.75.130 19:12, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

A blockchain node doesn't technically need to be connected to the internet in order to function. It needs to have some method for receiving messages from other nodes on the blockchain network, and most blockchain nodes of them do indeed get these messages via the internet, but you (for example) some bitcoin nodes get updates about new blocks and new transactions from the Blockstream satellite. An internet connection is therefore not intrinsically necessary for a blockchain to work, it's just the most convenient way to do it.