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For me, this serves as a stark reminder to invest in barriers to oppression. * General education (ideally, not state mandated) * General self defense (fitness

For me, this serves as a stark reminder to invest in barriers to oppression. * General education (ideally, not state mandated) * General self defense (fitness, martial arts, firearms training) * Technological counter measures - TOR, crypto, crypto currency, and IMO we should be pushing for electronic voting systems (not shitty ones, but truly great ones) * *Edit: By great ones, I mean ones that allow us to validate our vote was both counted and correct after the fact. There are crypto voting systems that do not allow anyone (including the government) to know if you voted or what your vote is (identifying you), but still allows tallying and validation.

guyomes 6y ago
> we should be pushing for electronic voting systems (not shitty ones, but truly great ones) Experts in electronic voting systems are discouraging the use of this technology for high stake elections, even with state-of-the-art schemes: https://www.belenios.org/faq.html https://www.belenios.org/faq.html
- maerF0x0 6y ago
  Right, by "pushing for" I mean we should be taking the academic discussion into the engineering realm to make it a reality. AFAIK there is no existing off the shelf product that satisfies the requirements. One example that is working on such a thing is: https://voting.works/ https://voting.works/
csomar 6y ago
I don't think the problem with Belarus is the lack of these but rather of external forces. Russia thinks that Belarus belongs to its control; and a democratic system will most certainly be US-friendly. This is hardly a citizen revolt against dictatorship and is one of the several proxy-war these two guys (US/Russia) are playing worldwide.
- Taek 6y ago
  It's a lot harder to kidnap citizens when they are armed and surrounded by other armed citizens, especially if all of those citizens have substantial firearms training. I endorse bringing guns to peaceful protests in a state where unmarked officials are kidnapping people in broad daylight. That is exactly the sort of reason that the right to bear arms is planted deep within our constitutional rights.
  - volkse 6y ago
    It completely boggles my mind that comments like these don’t get any pushback on HN. This insinuation that every citizen should own firearms just in case the state goes rouge is militant, irresponsible, and hilariously naive. A bunch of armchair freedom fighters who have no idea of the consequences of war think that their shiny “tactical” AR15 is going to stop a tank.. Let me ask you a direct question. Are you advocating for a full on civil war in Belarus in the middle of Europe? If a Belorussian read your comment, got a gun and killed a bunch of policemen/government supporters/Russians would you be content? Don’t take this as a personal attack. I just think comments like yours are irresponsible given that the people of Belarus themselves chose the path of nonviolent resistance and protest - maybe they don’t want their country to end up like Ukraine or Syria. What is worse, is that if someone insinuated on this site that for example people in the US should buy guns and start shooting policemen when they think that the police are oppressing them all kinds of voices would drum up and shut that down. I guess inciting violence in one of those “shithole countries” is ok, but god forbid if that kind of stuff happens in your own country.
    - dctoedt 6y ago
      > A bunch of armchair freedom fighters who have no idea of the consequences of war think that their shiny “tactical” AR15 is going to stop a tank. This presupposes that the military will go along with firing on their fellow citizens. That was the case in Syria, but it's far from clear that American troops would do likewise — recent polling suggests that the U.S. military is getting tired of the current regime, er, administration. [0] [0] https://www.militarytimes.com/news/pentagon-congress/2020/08/31/as-trumps-popularity-slips-in-latest-military-times-poll-more-troops-say-theyll-vote-for-biden/ https://www.militarytimes.com/news/pentagon-congress/2020/08...
- hippich 6y ago
  It is true that Russia has a lot of control over Belarus, but it is revolt against dictator. There is no talks about ceasing partnership with Russia simply because the country is too relying on Russia's market. The idea that people want to get rid of dictator to get away from the Russia is what is pushed by Belarus state propaganda media precisely to push Russia to support dictator.
  - Kalium 6y ago
    If you're a Russian autocrat, you're probably terrified of a "color revolution" challenging your control over what you view as Russian territory. If people there get to make their own choices, they might do what the Baltic states did and align with the West. The very idea of democracy threatens the power structure.
gruez 6y ago
>* General self defense (fitness, martial arts, firearms training) The first two are relatively non-controversial, but also won't do much against security forces with tear gas and rubber bullets. I suspect the last would be controversial in the US as gun control/ownership is a very polarized issue.
- Taek 6y ago
  Martial arts goes a lot further than I think most people realize. You gain pain tolerance, bodily self control, and a greatly increased awareness of your vitals and physical limits. In the protests where you see people covering tear gas canisters with cones or hurling them back, more likely than not those are martial artists or other athletes who train regularly. Your ability to act decisively and correctly in a scary environment greatly improves.
bonzini 6y ago
> There are crypto voting systems that do not allow anyone (including the government) to know if you voted or what your vote is (identifying you), but still allows tallying and validation. Are they safe against "rubber hose cryptanalysis"? Such as forcing you to verify your vote while I can see you?
- mindslight 6y ago
  No cryptographic system can be resistant to this by itself, but the attack can be trivially defeated by keeping the existing concept of polling stations and having people cast their cryptographically-verifiable votes there.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- runarberg 6y ago
  I’m not an expert, but couldn’t you keep a link between your public key and your vote while the election is open. Allow subsequent votes that will nullify votes associated with your public key. And when the polls close, this link gets deleted. This way you can be intimidated to vote and verify a certain way, then after your intimidator leaves you alone, you simply cast another vote. And after the deadline passes any record that you personally casted a ballot have been erased. Maybe as a further safeguard keep traditional in-person polling open, wherein showing up to you automatically nullify you previous crypto vote, and only your paper ballot counts.
  - rtkwe 6y ago
    There's still the problem that you can still coerce and verify then use surveillance and the fear of surveillance to keep people from changing their vote. Random rechecks the day the polls close would keep a lot of people from risking changing their vote after the initial check-in. Even beyond any theoretical security measures one huge benefit of in person voting is it limits the available attack. With IPV to steal an election you have to find a way to either physically bring enough people to enough polling places to swing the election or corrupt the poll watcher system and steal it in the counting phase. With electronic voting anyone in the world has a chance to attack you. Anything that requires Joe/Jane Citizen to reliably or securely operate their computer is kind of doomed for a long time IMO.

guyomes 6y ago

> we should be pushing for electronic voting systems (not shitty ones, but truly great ones) Experts in electronic voting systems are discouraging the use of this technology for high stake elections, even with state-of-the-art schemes: https://www.belenios.org/faq.html https://www.belenios.org/faq.html

maerF0x0 6y ago
Right, by "pushing for" I mean we should be taking the academic discussion into the engineering realm to make it a reality. AFAIK there is no existing off the shelf product that satisfies the requirements. One example that is working on such a thing is: https://voting.works/ https://voting.works/

csomar 6y ago

I don't think the problem with Belarus is the lack of these but rather of external forces. Russia thinks that Belarus belongs to its control; and a democratic system will most certainly be US-friendly. This is hardly a citizen revolt against dictatorship and is one of the several proxy-war these two guys (US/Russia) are playing worldwide.

Taek 6y ago
It's a lot harder to kidnap citizens when they are armed and surrounded by other armed citizens, especially if all of those citizens have substantial firearms training. I endorse bringing guns to peaceful protests in a state where unmarked officials are kidnapping people in broad daylight. That is exactly the sort of reason that the right to bear arms is planted deep within our constitutional rights.
- volkse 6y ago
  It completely boggles my mind that comments like these don’t get any pushback on HN. This insinuation that every citizen should own firearms just in case the state goes rouge is militant, irresponsible, and hilariously naive. A bunch of armchair freedom fighters who have no idea of the consequences of war think that their shiny “tactical” AR15 is going to stop a tank.. Let me ask you a direct question. Are you advocating for a full on civil war in Belarus in the middle of Europe? If a Belorussian read your comment, got a gun and killed a bunch of policemen/government supporters/Russians would you be content? Don’t take this as a personal attack. I just think comments like yours are irresponsible given that the people of Belarus themselves chose the path of nonviolent resistance and protest - maybe they don’t want their country to end up like Ukraine or Syria. What is worse, is that if someone insinuated on this site that for example people in the US should buy guns and start shooting policemen when they think that the police are oppressing them all kinds of voices would drum up and shut that down. I guess inciting violence in one of those “shithole countries” is ok, but god forbid if that kind of stuff happens in your own country.
  - dctoedt 6y ago
    > A bunch of armchair freedom fighters who have no idea of the consequences of war think that their shiny “tactical” AR15 is going to stop a tank. This presupposes that the military will go along with firing on their fellow citizens. That was the case in Syria, but it's far from clear that American troops would do likewise — recent polling suggests that the U.S. military is getting tired of the current regime, er, administration. [0] [0] https://www.militarytimes.com/news/pentagon-congress/2020/08/31/as-trumps-popularity-slips-in-latest-military-times-poll-more-troops-say-theyll-vote-for-biden/ https://www.militarytimes.com/news/pentagon-congress/2020/08...
hippich 6y ago
It is true that Russia has a lot of control over Belarus, but it is revolt against dictator. There is no talks about ceasing partnership with Russia simply because the country is too relying on Russia's market. The idea that people want to get rid of dictator to get away from the Russia is what is pushed by Belarus state propaganda media precisely to push Russia to support dictator.
- Kalium 6y ago
  If you're a Russian autocrat, you're probably terrified of a "color revolution" challenging your control over what you view as Russian territory. If people there get to make their own choices, they might do what the Baltic states did and align with the West. The very idea of democracy threatens the power structure.

gruez 6y ago

>* General self defense (fitness, martial arts, firearms training) The first two are relatively non-controversial, but also won't do much against security forces with tear gas and rubber bullets. I suspect the last would be controversial in the US as gun control/ownership is a very polarized issue.

Taek 6y ago
Martial arts goes a lot further than I think most people realize. You gain pain tolerance, bodily self control, and a greatly increased awareness of your vitals and physical limits. In the protests where you see people covering tear gas canisters with cones or hurling them back, more likely than not those are martial artists or other athletes who train regularly. Your ability to act decisively and correctly in a scary environment greatly improves.

bonzini 6y ago

> There are crypto voting systems that do not allow anyone (including the government) to know if you voted or what your vote is (identifying you), but still allows tallying and validation. Are they safe against "rubber hose cryptanalysis"? Such as forcing you to verify your vote while I can see you?

mindslight 6y ago
No cryptographic system can be resistant to this by itself, but the attack can be trivially defeated by keeping the existing concept of polling stations and having people cast their cryptographically-verifiable votes there.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
runarberg 6y ago
I’m not an expert, but couldn’t you keep a link between your public key and your vote while the election is open. Allow subsequent votes that will nullify votes associated with your public key. And when the polls close, this link gets deleted. This way you can be intimidated to vote and verify a certain way, then after your intimidator leaves you alone, you simply cast another vote. And after the deadline passes any record that you personally casted a ballot have been erased. Maybe as a further safeguard keep traditional in-person polling open, wherein showing up to you automatically nullify you previous crypto vote, and only your paper ballot counts.
- rtkwe 6y ago
  There's still the problem that you can still coerce and verify then use surveillance and the fear of surveillance to keep people from changing their vote. Random rechecks the day the polls close would keep a lot of people from risking changing their vote after the initial check-in. Even beyond any theoretical security measures one huge benefit of in person voting is it limits the available attack. With IPV to steal an election you have to find a way to either physically bring enough people to enough polling places to swing the election or corrupt the poll watcher system and steal it in the counting phase. With electronic voting anyone in the world has a chance to attack you. Anything that requires Joe/Jane Citizen to reliably or securely operate their computer is kind of doomed for a long time IMO.