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Well the only choice you have is to not play that game. Opposition to valid criticism will take advantage of this and put the quacks front and center. The only

Well the only choice you have is to not play that game. Opposition to valid criticism will take advantage of this and put the quacks front and center. The only choice we have is to ignore the quacks and call out anyone trying to equate us with them.

mindslight 3y ago
In the context of technical discussions about the insecure designs of voting systems based on machines, sure. But how does "not playing the game" work in the context of getting the larger public to care about the real issues, or even just getting election officials to? It seems like the whole dynamic increases the power of election officials to circle the wagons and insist "we're secure, trust us".
- friend_and_foe 3y ago
  Well my point in general is that often, when bringing up contentious topics (and everything is contentious nowadays) you can't let people browbeat or shame you into shutting your mouth. That's what I mean by not playing the game. Don't let them trot out the quacks or otherwise get you to shut up about it and take their side.
  - mindslight 3y ago
    It's not about getting "browbeaten or shamed", but rather whether it makes sense to apply energy to a certain topic at the expense of other topics, and how legitimate criticism gets abused to fuel illegitimate pop culture nonsense. If I were a voting machine researcher or cryptographic voting was my hobby horse, my goal would still be to talk about voting despite the political circus. But rather I'm just a security generalist talking about these things casually. I can choose to spend effort talking about voting, or I can avoid this topic and spend my effort on topics that are more productive.
- autoexec 3y ago
  > But how does "not playing the game" work in the context of getting the larger public to care about the real issues, or even just getting election officials to? On the plus side, there's already a large fraction of the larger public concerned about election safety. They might be worried about a lot of imaginary problems, but they can still be motivated to push back against electronic voting machines which is a win for addressing the real issues. Election officials are already highly incentivized to make elections appear fair and transparent. That too can be leveraged to push back against electronic voting machines. The trick is making sure the people who aren't conspiracy nut jobs aren't afraid to listen to and address the very real concerns with these devices for fear of being lumped in with the crazies on the other team. Insistence/persistence might help, but I think having well reasoned arguments and the support of trusted persons on the "right team" speak up about the issues might help too.
  - mindslight 3y ago
    I'm all for empathizing with where people are coming from and trying to engage with that. But in my experience, people caring about an issue as a political rallying cry doesn't translate to them engaging with a topic to understand its specific details. Rather most people are just looking for someone to parrot back their party line so they can bond as being on the same team, and deviating from that script with any kind of nuanced point just gets you othered. Also 'pushing back against electronic voting machines' isn't really the answer. First, in most places that ship has already sailed. Second, hand counted paper ballots are still quite open to tampering (just not scalable tampering). What we really need is cryptographic voting systems that allow the vote to be independently verified, which would necessarily be implemented with computers, but not in the way those "bad" electronic voting machines work - in other words a whole lot of nuance, especially for people currently getting suckered by snake oil salesmen with wifi drones and the like.

mindslight 3y ago

In the context of technical discussions about the insecure designs of voting systems based on machines, sure. But how does "not playing the game" work in the context of getting the larger public to care about the real issues, or even just getting election officials to? It seems like the whole dynamic increases the power of election officials to circle the wagons and insist "we're secure, trust us".

friend_and_foe 3y ago
Well my point in general is that often, when bringing up contentious topics (and everything is contentious nowadays) you can't let people browbeat or shame you into shutting your mouth. That's what I mean by not playing the game. Don't let them trot out the quacks or otherwise get you to shut up about it and take their side.
- mindslight 3y ago
  It's not about getting "browbeaten or shamed", but rather whether it makes sense to apply energy to a certain topic at the expense of other topics, and how legitimate criticism gets abused to fuel illegitimate pop culture nonsense. If I were a voting machine researcher or cryptographic voting was my hobby horse, my goal would still be to talk about voting despite the political circus. But rather I'm just a security generalist talking about these things casually. I can choose to spend effort talking about voting, or I can avoid this topic and spend my effort on topics that are more productive.
autoexec 3y ago
> But how does "not playing the game" work in the context of getting the larger public to care about the real issues, or even just getting election officials to? On the plus side, there's already a large fraction of the larger public concerned about election safety. They might be worried about a lot of imaginary problems, but they can still be motivated to push back against electronic voting machines which is a win for addressing the real issues. Election officials are already highly incentivized to make elections appear fair and transparent. That too can be leveraged to push back against electronic voting machines. The trick is making sure the people who aren't conspiracy nut jobs aren't afraid to listen to and address the very real concerns with these devices for fear of being lumped in with the crazies on the other team. Insistence/persistence might help, but I think having well reasoned arguments and the support of trusted persons on the "right team" speak up about the issues might help too.
- mindslight 3y ago
  I'm all for empathizing with where people are coming from and trying to engage with that. But in my experience, people caring about an issue as a political rallying cry doesn't translate to them engaging with a topic to understand its specific details. Rather most people are just looking for someone to parrot back their party line so they can bond as being on the same team, and deviating from that script with any kind of nuanced point just gets you othered. Also 'pushing back against electronic voting machines' isn't really the answer. First, in most places that ship has already sailed. Second, hand counted paper ballots are still quite open to tampering (just not scalable tampering). What we really need is cryptographic voting systems that allow the vote to be independently verified, which would necessarily be implemented with computers, but not in the way those "bad" electronic voting machines work - in other words a whole lot of nuance, especially for people currently getting suckered by snake oil salesmen with wifi drones and the like.