This is fairly low effort, and it doesn't even take much effort to find flaws with Python.
Readit Newsaoowii commented on Python 3.8 Makes me Sad Again ilya-sher.org/2020/08/16/... · Posted by u/ilyash
aoowii commented on USPS Files Patent for a Blockchain-Based Voting System heraldsheets.com/us-posta... · Posted by u/seigando
You can read a some of my comments in this thread addressing various concerns. That said, I would still agree. At least for the next 5-10 years (until we have Starlink-level internet and advances in cryptography/UX), electronic voting systems are not feasible.
The nice thing about blockchains is you can avoid DDoS by only allowing people who are "authorized" to "talk to" the blockchain. This can be done by ensuring that "Right to Vote" tokens are only sent to those who would otherwise be participating in the election, and ensuring they can only submit one vote, and one transaction, by sending that token to a specific burn account. This way, with 300 million voters, you would have a cap of 300 million votes. No one else could "submit" a vote, because they wouldn't have permission to on the blockchain network.
This is how blockchains avoid DDoS attacks already, but open and public blockchains have the problem that anyone can buy their native currencies, and with enough money can spam the network. With a "permissioned" system for elections, this risk would be mitigated.
EDIT: I would appreciate if the downvoters engaged with me or explained their reason for downvoting.
It's worth working on to be sure. Another thing I think is worth working on is educating people on what blockchain actually is (which it seems you are doing). I think paper voting works primarily because people know and trust how the votes are counted and how they get to the counters, for the most part. But personally I barely understand transistors and flip flops let alone blockchain and that makes me slightly worried about how it might be possible to exploit them.
aoowii commented on USPS Files Patent for a Blockchain-Based Voting System heraldsheets.com/us-posta... · Posted by u/seigando
Am I the only one still against network-based, and to a lesser extent electronic-based, voting?
It's near impossible to rig or suppress a physical election without a lot of effort, but one person can DDoS an entire network and no one can vote and the whole election needs to be scrapped.
Not even the strongest cryptographic or software systems are free from exploits (especially over time) and there's no way to be sure the open source code for the system is the same code actually being served on the system.
A lot of software has died by its own hubris by assuming their systems are secure and then a single 17 year old on 4chan finds a bug and ruins it all. You can't afford for that to happen in an election. Forget hackers, some skilled social engineering gets you the votes of thousands, but you cannot do that in person so easily.
I'm sure the problems have been discussed extensively but other niche problems include lack of availability for rural areas (which has been a huge problem even with paper voting). I think the only reliable voting system at scale is in person.
aoowii commented on Trump says he is considering pardon for Edward Snowden reuters.com/article/us-us... · Posted by u/elliekelly
The response to this news on HN has been very disappointing. By contrast, there was a lively apolitical discussion[0] back in 2015 about the effort to bring Snowden back to the US. On the other hand, people now seem more concerned about the motivations of Trump. If it's the right thing to do, who cares about the motivation behind it or the person enacting it? This reminds me a little of the response to Trump's efforts to end the War in Afghanistan. I realize I'm not talking about individuals, but it's maddening to see communities that had almost universally supported both things for many years seemingly let political biases get in the way of doing the right thing.
I agree with you in principle, but how can you have an apolitical discussion on a topic that is fundamentally and inseparably political? It's a conversation on treason, presidential decisions, exile, intelligence organisations... It's always been political. Hypothetically the president might want to pardon Snowden and then change his mind when he is in the country, then yes I'd like to discuss his motivations. And people have been burned by this man before so I can't blame their biases.
aoowii commented on Trump says he is considering pardon for Edward Snowden reuters.com/article/us-us... · Posted by u/elliekelly
You've addressed the President's possible motivations. But, do you think Snowden should be pardoned? Just curious. (It's a tough call. I've not decided my own position on the matter.)
What the NSA is doing is wrong and edward should be pardoned, but he has said himself he is fine with a fair trial in court (fair is the key word here). So even if you are undecided on the pardoning you have to agree he should be given trial in the US unless for some weird reason you love the NSA that much.
aoowii commented on Entropy explained, with sheep (2016) aatishb.com/entropy/... · Posted by u/mlejva
Order as humans understand it is different from physical order. We see order as an array of ascending numbers or a house of cards. The universe sees order more like a state of 'useful' energy, where it's possible to extract it, and seemingly became ordered by putting energy in. This is why I think the information theory definition of entropy is a bit misleading.
I like to see it as a radioactive atom, which starts as a useful structure with potential energy that has an inherent timer until this energy is lost due to the universe wanting to return to equilibrium. So it's statistically extremely unlikely to get the atom back to its original energetic state by nature, but not because because it's literally impossible, it's just impossible to do this without putting energy back in and that's not something that happens naturally.
A reversal of entropy is entirely possible, it's just called doing work. Of course, we don't have the knowledge necessary to reverse each individual atom in the melting process of an ice cube, but one day we might. It's theoretically possible with enough work. Of course, there will always be a loss of energy, but i'm pretty sure that's an entirely different thermodynamic law.
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Unfortunately this isn't how computer storahe works. This is why the military have acid baths for their disk drives.
Untrue, even on flash-based storage full deletion is possible.
Here's an answer I pulled from reddit:
If you are appropriately using TRIM the data will be obliterated when 'garbage collection' occurs -- forensics will not be able to recover deleted data. This is going to be largely dependent on your OS and Hardware, but if you confirm TRIM is working correctly in your setup, shortly after you permanently delete something (not recycle bin or trash) it will be gone for good.
The answer is that simple.
Supporting data: http://forensic.belkasoft.com/en/why-ssd-destroy-court-evide... http://digitalforensicsmagazine.com/blogs/?p=271 http://www.mcgoverngreene.com/advoedges/AE_pdfs/2011_pdfs/AE... http://www.forensicswiki.org/wiki/Solid_State_Drive_(SSD)_Fo...
There's also this as a less reliable added measure:
http://cmrr.ucsd.edu/people/Hughes/SecureErase.shtml
The main takeaway is that people vastly exaggerate how recoverable disks are, making any effort at all will stop 99.9% of hackers trying to recover data.
This is victim blaming and only reinforces the status quo. The way things are isn't the way things have to be. We can change the rules if we work together. Or we can give up and blame the victims.
I think it's more pragmatic advice than anything, even if all these websites deleted your data properly there'd be snapshots and pictures and backups around forever.