> How difficult is it to hack the electronic voting system the US uses for elections?
"The electronic voting system" doesn't exist. There are multiple types of machines, software, etc. throughout the US. Some of these have proven to have significant vulnerabilities. In addition, the local boards of elections likely have rollup systems which could be compromised as well. "Insider threats" are another possibility-- for example, throw out some portion of the ballots in a precinct that's strongly on one side or another. Voter- and registration fraud are some of the easiest hacks to perform.
> What hacking do you think took place during the election?
It's quite possible that some of each of these occurred somewhere during the election. They've detected some non-citizens who voted, for example.
The net effect of "hacking", and of innocent errors is likely insignificant, given the hard-working and careful volunteers who man the precincts at election time.
Michigan officials say they can not reconcile vote counts in 610 of 1,680 precincts, or 59% of the precincts, in Michigan’s largest county , Wayne County, which Hillary won by a margin of 2 to 1 over Donald Trump because the original vote counts in the poll books do not match the number of votes in the machine printout reports.
Specifically, the number of votes recorded by the voting machines were higher than the number of voters that were logged into to vote in these precincts.
Disagree. Having one or two "legacy" ports decreases the disruption when upgrading, particularly if the user has some oddball peripherals. This is why API's have deprecated functions for a while, allowing users a bit of extra time to upgrade before they're left out in the cold.
Not sure having the government run a standards-making organization is the best idea. From the NIH storing smallpox vials, the NSA hoarding zero-day exploits, the infamous Obamacare website, to the OPM hack, the government might not be the right folks to LEAD the effort. It's not clear that a central organization would be more effective than federations of industry and government players.
Austin may be socially liberal but it is classically conservative. It is conservative to look at new industries with skepticism and pass common-sense regulations that give everyone a level playing field.
And I was replying to the parent who referred to ex-West coast liberals migrating to Austin. If these people expected a "progressive" government like they might find in San Francisco, they were probably disappointed by the actions of the Austin City Council and its support from Austin voters.
More efficient? By what measurement? Certainly not the consumer's time nor the taxpayers' money!
Billion dollar light rail trains that roll empty are not a terribly efficient use of money. Buses are more flexible, but waiting for a bus then having to walk from the bus stop home is apparently an unsatisfactory use of time to many passengers.
A system that connects a passenger with the nearest available driver and doesn't take too much for their part in the transaction would seem to be efficient in time and money for both the passenger and driver. In addition, it provides a source of employment for people who are looking for work and meet the criteria.
Not saying that Uber, Lyft, and other "ride sharing" services are all on the side of the angels, but their success points to a need which they are meeting.
You're post makes a whole lot of assumptions about ridesharing.
1. Uber drivers are compensated sufficiently for their time and expenses (research has shown this isn't true, Uber drivers scrape by just like cabbies)
2. That a consumer's time is more valuable than having public transportation available to everyone (Ridesharing > Buses/bike shares/etc)
3. That expensive rail is one of the only options.
The solution is a mix of buses, bicycle sharing, and electric self-driving cars. How we get there is the tricky part.
Didn't assume either 1, 2, nor 3.
1. Perhaps your definition of "compensated sufficiently" doesn't jibe with those of the thousands of drivers who voluntarily choose to drive for Uber and similar services.
2. SOME consumers consider their time too valuable to take public transportation as you have defined it.
3. I mentioned light rail AND buses in my decidedly non-encyclopedic comment about efficiency of ridesharing. Those are two of the main options currently available in Austin.
Definitely, "the solution is a mix", but the components and proportions of that mix are best left to the consumers, not solely to central planners, whether in governments or in large corporations. Indeed, since the vote, local rideshare companies have sprung up in Austin, perhaps better suited to the needs of Austinites.
Not sure about Germany, but in Austin, Uber wanted their drivers to carry auto insurance, although the company also has its own policy to cover drivers--many personal auto insurance policies explicitly do not cover accidents while the insured party is driving for hire.
With AirBnB the customer is going into the "vendor's" home. With Handy, the vendor is entering the customer's home.
While there have been incidents of bad AirBnB hosts, there has probably been a lot more cases of bad behaviour by the customers, and extensive screening before the transaction would probably be a deal-breaker.
A thief working through Handy could cause loads of problem for them, since they could get into several houses every day.
The 3D printers are being used to make card skimmers. Almost any kind of plastic blank can be used to make mag-stripe credit cards.
The article says:
"Unfortunately, these trends point to more credit card details being out there thanks to 3D printers and the ease of which they enable scammers to build card skimming devices."
Summary: the "sharing economy" is awful because companies such as Uber and AirBnb profit from facilitating the transaction between the consumer and the provider. To quote: "The capital of the lower classes is used as a certificate signalling employment-worthiness, then is used to generate revenue for those who can afford to rent it out in mass to create products for consumers. The profits made are not returned to those who own the capital, but rather to those who own the information technology company which rents the capital."
Of course, this makes it sound like the Uber driver and AirBnb host are slaves of the big corporations.
In reality, drivers can select times when there is greater demand and thus, higher rates. AirBnb hosts can set their own rates, and are subject to market realities. In addition, either is able to sign up with a competitive services, e.g. Lyft or Homeaway.
Slaves isn't the right word because they enter into that contract by will, though perhaps sometimes by necessity.
I'd say that the results for them are poor on the a large scale, but not necessarily noticeable on an individual scale because one of the biggest factors is uncompensated risk. If you don't lose your car while driving for Uber, no problem-- but a big problem if you do, which definitely happens sometimes.
You could also look at the Bitcoin blockchain, e.g. on the blockchain.info web site. There is a new block generated every 10 minutes or so. Some useful fields in the block include the nonce (a 32-bit unsigned) or the block hash. You can set a target time and say that the first block generated on x-date (UTC) will be used. Blockchain.info and some others like it have a free API.
"The electronic voting system" doesn't exist. There are multiple types of machines, software, etc. throughout the US. Some of these have proven to have significant vulnerabilities. In addition, the local boards of elections likely have rollup systems which could be compromised as well. "Insider threats" are another possibility-- for example, throw out some portion of the ballots in a precinct that's strongly on one side or another. Voter- and registration fraud are some of the easiest hacks to perform.
> What hacking do you think took place during the election?
It's quite possible that some of each of these occurred somewhere during the election. They've detected some non-citizens who voted, for example.
The net effect of "hacking", and of innocent errors is likely insignificant, given the hard-working and careful volunteers who man the precincts at election time.