Text 4451, 60 rader
Skriven 2004-12-29 22:52:24 av Matt Bedynek (1:106/1)
   Kommentar till text 4403 av Dale Shipp (1:261/1466.0)
Ärende: Pee-Four
================
Hello Dale.

28 Dec 04 01:16, you wrote to me:

 DS>    Public votes are subject to political pressure.

Pressure?  Since when does anyone here care about that?  Besides, what you are
talking about its real world politics.  This is just a simple hobby.  I
seriously doubt anyone will meet with bodily harm if they vote a certain way.

 DS>    They are also subject to people using the votes after the fact to
 DS>    further some personal political agenda or vendetta.

For instance?

 DS>    It is quite possible to run a fair election with private votes, but
 DS>    in this case it may be too difficult.  Thus I'll yield to any
 DS>    pressure to have the voting done in the echo.

You are comparing oil and water.  Votes for public officals in real life are
kept confidental because its real life.  Perhaps where people might be
concerned about their safety where extorion could be used to influence voting.

 MB>> I do have to ask: how can you verify someone who is basically
 MB>> anonymous?

 DS>   Is there any doubt in your mind that I exist?   Is there any doubt
 DS> in your mind that there are many listed sysops with phone numbers in
 DS> the nodelist who do not exist as active sysops in any definition of
 DS> the word?

Actually I do not know anything.  I have never met you in my life and my
communication with you has been limited to echomail.  Therefore, I cannot say
with any certainty that you a unique individual.  You could say the same thing
about me but there are at least two methods you can use to at least verify I am
someone that lives where I live.  First, you can trace to the IP of my system,
and perhaps do a whois on my domain.  Second, you can do a reverse lookup on my
phone number or at least use that to verify that I live where I say I do.
Should not be hard since I am the only Fidonet sysop in Wharton.  I think
Wharton used to have one Fidonet node back in the early 90s but that was well
before I moved to the area.  And no matter what the outcome of any election
people will question the results so wouldn't it be nice to at least know that
those who voted can be verified to even the smallest degree?  Furthermore, why
don't we let anyone vote?  After all, if you can get a node number and you do
not meet the minimum obligations of running a mailer why should anyone else?

 DS>   According to the policy concerning private nodes, the responsibility
 DS>   for verification of their existence rests on the NC of their net --
 DS>   and they maintain their node number at the sole discretion of that
 DS> NC.

I have nothing against private nodes but I do believe they should be willing to
accept a loss of privileges if they wish to maintain their anonimity.

Matt

e-mail: matt [at] thunderdome.ws | icq: 16568532 | yahoo: mbedynek

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