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Open Source, The Patriotic Solution
David Utter
Staff Writer
2008-07-28
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Noted technologist Tim Bray repeated a call for the work of civic processes to use open source software for fulfillment.
 | | Open Source, The Patriotic Solution |  |
If the government plans to do something, like count votes electronically, they should embrace technology that doesn't hide its inner workings from the people it's meant to serve.
Techies should recognize Bray and his qualifications. He helped created the standard for XML and its namespaces; XML serves in numerous applications to define the content of of information, where HTML denotes how such content will be formatted.
Bray commented on Christine Peterson's talk about open source, and her call for no secret software to be used for civic needs. Her remarks at OSCON on the topic stem from the multitude of issues surrounding e-voting software.
If a government wants to rely on such a solution, then people should have a way of verifying whether or not the method of gathering data for that solution truly works. Secret software, according to Bray, "in the public sector is creepy and dangerous, and simply shouldn't be allowed."
Governments are political animals, and favors emanate from them to trusted supporters, software companies among them. Diebold Inc, with its voting systems at the center of a handful of controversies, has been an off and on presence on Capitol Hill according to OpenSecrets.org.
The company has drawn its share of critics over the years, dating back to complaints in 2003 of numerous flaws with its software. This demonstrates why Peterson dislikes the secret software approach:
These flaws had not attracted widespread attention prior to Rubin, few people knew how to access Diebold's source code. As Joe Richardson, a spokesperson for Diebold explained, "We don't feel it's necessary to turn [the source code] over to everyone who asks to see it because it is proprietary."
This lack of access was one of the main objections computer scientists raised about electronic voting. They argued that electronic voting is inherently undemocratic because, when a company's software cannot be viewed by the public, voters have no way to ensure that it works properly-the public must simply accept the company's assurance that touching a button on a computer screen registers as a vote for the correct candidate. As critics have explained, the systems are also highly vulnerable to tampering, malfunctions, and problems with voter-privacy because results are aggregated in centralized databases - databases that can easily be altered.
The call for no secret software faces an uphill battle against entrenched interests. A resolution won't be seen before the November Presidential election, but if it ends in controversy and a close vote, the topic of no secret software will return.
About the Author:
David Utter is a business and technology writer for SecurityProNews and WebProNews.
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