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Re: [atlarge-discuss] Election Preparation


espresso@e-scape.net wrote:
Hello, all,

Since Sotiris addressed his message to me as well as the group,
I'm taking the liberty of responding.

At 23:10 -0400 2003/04/23, Sotiris Sotiropoulos wrote:

espresso@e-scape.net wrote:

<snip>
To put it simply, the organizers are those willing to take
some degree of personal risk but one doesn't need to take
maximum risks to be a real part of a social movement.
<snip>
What kind of a "maximum" risk is there in associating with the membership and purpose of this organization?! The DNS is already international Judyth... And as for where it hasn't gotten too yet... the US is doing a fine job of ensuring it will someday.

But ooohhhh... yes, many potential "members" of this list may lie awake worrying about the black helicopters that will come to take them away for writing Denise Michel that they didn't like her At-Large deception(s)! And because of that we should let just everyone and his mother's uncle (even if it's an ape) become members with a right to vote and affect our political association?!!?!?!? Hmm, yes, I see your point now! Couldn't be more clear, as clear as an unmuddied lake to be sure...

Anonymity among political equals is a no-no in true
democracy, Judyth.

That rather depends on what you mean. In my opinion --
and I'm certainly not alone in this -- you cannot have
a true political democracy without a secret ballot.
Oddly enough, in places where everyone casts their
ballot while watched by prying eyes, voters tend to
get beaten up or even killed when they vote for the
"wrong" person.
Nobody is pushing for eyes on the ballots here, Judyth.

Voters' lists, on the other hand, are usually not secret.
Not that many years back, the normal practice in Canada
was to post the voters' list for each district on the
telephone poles so everyone could see who was registered;
in fact, we didn't question its necessity in the 50s
and 60s.
Here in Ontario, I remember the same thing bak in the seventies (though I was too young to vote).

But times change and unscrupulous people were
misusing those lists, some to exert political pressure
but others to rob or harrass the voters. Now we each
receive by mail only the page on which our own details
appear or, in the case of the recent provincial election
here in Quebec, only a card confirming our own registration
and indicating which poll to vote at. More personal
privacy and security, at the cost of no longer knowing
which of your neighbours won't bother to vote or how
many votes should be turned in at your polling station.
It's a trade-off most people here find acceptable, though
I'm not entirely convinced it's the only way to go.
Here is something in which I actually agree with you. It's not the way to go, and the trade-off is unacceptable. For those who think it is, it bespeaks of the lowest state(s) of apathy and neglect, both of which reflect negatively in practice. Lose, lose.



In any case, for members of any civic body to have a say and a stake
in the
politics of the group, it is incumbent on members (anywhere on the
planet, I believe) to fulfil certain conditions of entitlement.

In any case, for most of the 30+ years I've been a voter,
there has been no requirement that everyone know your
name and address in order to qualify as a voter, let
alone whom you'll vote for.
True. But yo are a citizen! You are a real person who is a citizen,and that is verifiable.

All that was needed was to
be of legal voting age, a citizen, and a legal resident
of the riding.
"All"? That's quite a bit more than our organization's requirements, wouldn't you say?
<snip>

think that merely registering for membership is hardly the best
qualification for establishing the uniqueness of identity for an
email
address and a name. Since I have called attention to it repeatedly
over
the years (you don't know, but you can look it up in the GA
archives), I
believe my point is as valid now as it ever was.

Sotiris, I've never disagreed with you and you can see in
this list's own archives that I don't think it's real
proof of anything much. In fact, I believe I supported
your idea of a WG to study better means of confirming
identity, though I did suggest that some provision should
be made for *public* use of a pseudonym (say, on the list
or forum) by people who might live in countries where
belonging to a foreign organization is illegal or where
having one's true identity exposed on the Web is likely
to cause unpleasant repercussions.
As I said, the US is working on solving that problem long term by bringing democratic thoughts and ideals to the few remaining repressive societies on the planet. Until then, we cannot be worried about the exception and forego the institution of a rule. Exceptions are not antecedent, they are consequent considerations and it's better to cross each bridge when we come to it. <snip>

Practically speaking, I thnk a freemail email certificate available
from
Thawte free-of-charge would be a pretty good place to start with unique
identity verification qualifications for our group. I have attached my
own to this email. Simple and free to get see:
http://thawte.com/html/COMMUNITY/index.html

Okay, Sotiris, I've just spent 1-1/2 continuous hours at that
site...
Wow! Do you read as slow as you walk, Judyth? 
which ended with "Lost track of sequence...please
start again". It's a nice, clean design with easy-to-use forms,
and (most unusual!) all the list-boxes work properly with a
Mac. However, after going through the whole multi-page process
without much difficulty, I was stymied at the end because I
was using neither MSIE nor Netscape when I started ... or
perhaps it just doesn't like iCab. However, switching to
Netscape (4.6) didn't get me a certificate either, which
leads me to wonder whether other people mightn't have similar
problems, especially working with dial-up rather than
highspeed broadband access.
I'm surprised to hear this. Millions of people have gone before you and succeeded in the (as you describe it) thoroughly engaging task! Are you sure you didn't get a cert? I suggest you go back into your account there and look up the status of any requested certs and see what happens. The certificate is downloaded from the site, it's not sent to you via email.

Secondly, though I agree that the Thawte certificate might
be better than nothing at all (assuming it works better for
everyone else than it did for me), absolutely nothing in
the process would have prevented me from obtaining a
certificate using somebody else's identity. As far as I
can tell, I could use anyone's name and social insurance
(or passport, etc.) number with one of my own e-mail addresses
and receive a certificate -- in fact, it seems I'd have to if
I wanted to provide a certificate for messages emanating
from another e-mail account.
Which is why I said it "would be a pretty good place to start", because we could then be in a position to avail ourselves of the Web of Trust which Thawte has built up over the years, and thereby get identities verified much better than we are now (to put it mildly).. Surely, the little bt of extra effort (and no, or very minimal, expense) should be worth the acquisition of a personal digital certificate?

Their other form of identification certificate, which requires
verification of identity by a notary, would be rather more
confidence-inspiring but in practice, walking into a notary's
office with legitimate-looking documents doesn't mean the
person presenting those documents is the right person, either.
That's why we hear so much these days about including
fingerprints, retinal scans, etc. where identification is
crucial!
So because it's possible there may be fraud, even if we were to go with the Web of Trust, you'd rather leave it wide open for fraud to take place at a whim...? You can't be serious. Surely. That is no argument, my dear woman. 
snip>
BUT, that being said, when we go to vote for our various
representatives in our governments, people don't just assume
we're fraudulent or bought-off voters just because we've
spent our time minding our own business instead of mouthing
off in public or via the Internet. If we're registered
voters, we have the right to vote no matter what anyone
may think we are voting for.

In the real world here in Canada, voters remain generally assured that
there are rigorous safeguards in place to ensure uniqueness and
identity
of their fellow voters, and that fraudulent voting practices are
guarded
against. In the real world here on the Internet, Judyth, the same
assurances do not apply, especially in our group's case. I have every
right and good reason to opine that the current practice is highly
compromisable and therefore necessarily suspect.

I'm not disputing your (or anyone's) rights to want more
certainty in the process. The problem, Sotiris, is what one can
do about it now.
We do what we can, and nobody has presented anything better (if best efforts are what we REALLY want), that the Thawte Web of Trust.
<snip>

The problem I see is that, by your own logic, anyone registered
as a member of this group is automatically suspect unless they
are using a digital certificate, which means almost nobody is
eligible to say whether or not the Thawte certificate should
be required for people to cast their ballots in this election,
and no result from any election conducted by this group could
possibly be legitimate. Where does that leave you?
Waiting for the rest to sign up, I suppose. I don't see why anyone who professes to be concerned with Internet governance issues would have a problem with making a small effort, one which will only help you to learn more about the Internet and to meet a few more people who are involved in something globally digital like the Web of Trust? What could be more relevant, I wonder? OTOH, if you had a valid digital certificate from another certified issuer, you wouldn't have to go to Thawte... Stephen Waters didn't. But, Thawte and its Web of Trust are free, and they're better than anything anone else has proposed to date.

<snip>
Sotiris, as I said, I'm withdrawing from this project so it's
not me you need to convince.
I'm sure somebody will cop up to replace you Judyth, it's a big Internet, so long.

Be Well,

Sotiris Sotiropoulos