mister_ghost

http://www.reddit.com/user/mister_ghost

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mister_ghost49 karma

Do we really believe that this

"because we want our children," "in this nation," "to know," "the only limit," "your achievements," "your dreams," "willingness to work for them."

Is just as likely as this?

"willingness to work for them." "because we want our children," "the only limit," "your achievements," "in this nation," "to know," "your dreams,"

I agree the speech was almost certainly plagiarized, but this math isn't sound.

mister_ghost18 karma

It's a reasonable direction to go, but as of now, not really.

It's not hard for 1000 blockchain keys with one Votecoin each to vote. Trivially easy, actually. The problem is distribution. You need the keys (accounts) to not be traceable to any individual. What that means is that I give you your key with one Votecoin attached. But if you lose it, it's gone. There's no way for me to cancel your old key, because I don't know which one it is.

It's like if we just mailed out ballots to every registered voter 6 weeks in advance. Lost in the mail? Break in? Too bad. No ballot, no vote. Two ballots, two votes.

Then there's the issue of actually voting. The blockchain itself is secure as hell. Software interfacing with it, not so much. At some point, unless you want to do the math by hand, you're going to have to enter your secret key into some computer somewhere. That software is a point of exposure.

A more secure crypto voting system, in my mind:

I go to a terminal and enter my vote. I also type in a secret phrase, like "ILIKEFISHSTICKS" or "spsjcjns95;". That terminal submits my vote. It prints a slip for me that says

  1. How I voted

  2. How I voted, encrypted by the polling station's private key (garbled text, but can be decoded by anyone)

  3. What my secret phrase was

  4. What my public key is (QR code)

  5. What my private key is (QR code)

Then everyone gets to see the list of votes. In the list is:

a) How the person voted

b) What their public key is

c) Their secret phrase, encrypted by their public key

That means:

  • I, and only I, can figure out which vote in the list is mine, because only I know my public key (this is a bit weird but not unheard of)

  • I know no one else has the same vote in the list, because I can check the secret phrase. Only I know my private key, so only I can check it.

  • If my vote is wrong, I can prove it, since the only way I can get (2) is if it comes from the polling station.

It's vulnerable to fake votes, but that's true of ballot boxes as well. And it has the ability for me to look and see if my vote was counted while remaining anonymous.

mister_ghost6 karma

I'm curious about the trajectory of individual curses through history: what's the typical path from "ordinary word" to "inappropriate in polite company" to "quaint, old timey phrase that might startle your grandparents"? Does offensiveness usually ramp up quite quickly and then taper off over decades?

What's the normal lifespan for a curse, and are there any curses notable for breaking the mold (either very short-lived or very long lived)?

mister_ghost2 karma

I believe some Jewish traditions forbid saying the name of God, which is sort of similar.

mister_ghost1 karma

I imagine if anything "poor" will be treated as a slur, but maybe that's because "vulgar" and "offensive" are very intertwined right now.

My guess is either words related to violence are next, or it will be words related to unintelligence. But guessing might be a sucker's game here.