Images: The the Dirty Double Half-Dozen

[Norgarth]

[Norgarth]

[robkelk]

Spotted on Cmdr_Hadfield's Twitter feed. Image is resisting embedding... so I'll just say that it's a merging of two memes.

[Norgarth]

[nemonowan]

Don't be. They had this in my country once, it tasted like a common McFlurry with some pieces of cardboard in it.




Nobody would gain from secretely, untraceably altering a few million individualized tax returns. And since they are individualized and feedbak is returned on them, any alteration that causes a significant effect would be trivial to discover.
On the other hand, some very powerful groups would gain a lot from secretely, untraceably altering a few million anonymized votes. And since they are anonymized, even alterations with very significant effects would only be detectable by esoteric statistical analysis that would inevitably be contested, disputed and most likely dismissed in the name of "keeping the trust in the system".

[hazard]

I would not necessarily trust an electronic tax filing either, especially without a paper backup on both ends.

With online voting? Such a paper backup is impossible.

[Labster]

I just filed my taxes online -- at least the state taxes, on the state website. No paper backups anywhere, I'm not afraid. Why? They have the information anyway, and it's all auditable.

Elections are a different problem. If everyone's votes were public -- or at least public enough to be shared with the government and stored with your identity attached -- then it would be almost the same problem. But because of secret ballots, this means that you have to be right the first time. If the wrong person voted, you can't find out how that person voted. If you deny someone a ballot, you can't just give it to them the next day and have it count. Secrecy is a hard problem as is encryption -- especially when it's about real power. If Russia votes in its candidate for Dancing with the Stars, honestly, who cares? It matters if they elect Dana Rorhabacher to US Congress, though.

The "almost" part was about how a person could be pressured to change their vote after the fact. A court ruling could recover all the documents about how much money you spent. But elections are fundamentally about state of mind -- how can you audit if someone really did vote that way? There are ways, just drawing a contrast as it's not a concern with taxes.

[aku]

Let this serve as my "I am still here" ping.



Source https://bbs.boingboing.net/t/u-s-passpor.../175809/15.

[Norgarth]

[Norgarth]

[Norgarth]

[hazard]

Wonder if this is at Mrs. Jansen's place?

(A Dutch comedian, André van Duin, sang a song about a horse in a hallway some... what, 20, 30 years ago now? Closer to 30 I think)

[Mamorien]

Wonder if this is at Mrs. Jansen's place?

(A Dutch comedian, André van Duin, sang a song about a horse in a hallway some... what, 20, 30 years ago now? Closer to 30 I think)

See, I'm an heathen Amerihern, and my first thought was of the "Horse in the Hospital" routine.

no one knows what the horse is going to do next, least of all the horse. He’s never been in a hospital before, he’s as confused as you are.

[DHBirr]

In a 1970 TV special, Swing Out, Sweet Land, starring John Wayne (and lots of others, often in roles parodying their usual reputations) touring through America's history, a running gag involved people remarking, "How he got that horse on the second floor, I'll never know."  What brought that line to the characters' minds, I'll never know ... but it was the first thing I thought of when I saw the horse-in-the-hallway image.

[Norgarth]

[Norgarth]

[Norgarth]

The first one was shared by Shatner himself, the second was Hammil's response 8P

[Norgarth]

[Norgarth]

[robkelk]

xkcd marks (most of) Ontario's move to Stage 3 of pandemic-response return to normal with the COVID Risk Chart!



(Mouseover text: "First prize is a free ticket to the kissing booth.")

[Norgarth]

[Norgarth]

[classicdrogn]

[robkelk]

Okay, that makes me more comfortable with posting political cartoons here.

Source. Read the comments.

[Norgarth]