I don't think Jeremy was arguing that "killing free enterprise" is a reason not to do something; it's the reason given by the people who oppose scrutiny in this area. This is a common political tactic, if you oppose something, you pick something in the argument that's off-topic or even irrelevant and then thrash it. So in this case if people are asking for open source voting software, the rebuttal that comes back is: "you're killing free enterprise" and the argument stops dead. You can't win an argument like this because they can't and won't address the underlying reason for the call for open source (ie. integrity in voting systems). If you ask for VVPATs, you can't rebutt it with an argument that misdirects into an esoteric debate about open source. You can only rebutt by speaking to the issue. So they have to come up with a reason why they don't want VVPATs and it might be a good reason or a lame reason. And this is what you want: proper debate. When you are dealing with something political you need to go right to the heart of the matter and not get emotional or try to load up the issue with other things. In this case, it seems to me that open source is one way to achieve a certain result, but the "way" is not the issue, the "result" is. You have to argue about the "result". Geoff Vass -----Original Message----- From: Paul Wouters [mailto:paul@xxxxxxxxx] Sent: Monday, 27 September 2004 20:56 To: Jeremy Epstein Cc: bugtraq@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: RE: Diebold Global Election Management System (GEMS) Backdoor On Thu, 23 Sep 2004, Jeremy Epstein wrote: > (1) I agree that source code should be inspected by someone truly > independent and competent, and that the standards for approving voting > machines should be stronger. However, that's NOT the same as open source. > And I'd strongly discourage folks from calling for open source, as it plays > directly into the hands of folks like Diebold, who claim that the people > (like me) who want Voter Verified Paper Audit Trails (VVPATs) are really > trying to kill free enterprise. Free enterprise is not the issue here. Audit trails are. If it means that somewhere someone cannot make a profit, then so be it. Unless you declare democracy dead, and instate the Corporate Republic. The 'free market' should not be a main consideration in voting security. If you cannot relay that message to your government, then either you or your government is not the right one for its task.
Attachment:
smime.p7s
Description: S/MIME cryptographic signature