Reply #60: Linus Torvalds, another famous Finnlander somewhat relevant to elections

[Land Shark]

besides Harri Hursti (highly relevant) and yours truly (irrelevant, see constant ridicule by OTOH, above for example)

There is the floodlight of transparency in the open source model. But the motivation of other programmers to check open source programs is that they use the programs themselves, that there is a sufficient community of users available, and they get credit for the fixes. (a more complete description of open source can and should be posted, this is a rough thumbnail at best)

With election programs, the programs are used only a few days a year and only by government election officials. There's a high public interest in finding bugs that may substitute for motivation that is taken away by the lack of widespread use by individuals, but to what extent???

When we get down to brass tacks, let's say that there's a community of hackers out there that enjoy exploiting a particular open source vulnerability. A good faith patriot finds this flaw, and publicizes it along with a proposed fix. A debate ensues in which the community of hackers argues that the fix creates more problems and doesn't solve any problems because the bug is not really a bug. The public is unable to tell who is telling the truth. So, DO WE HAVE COURTS TO DECIDE??

WIth private software, there's rarely if ever a strongly funded community of hackers dedicated to preserving INSECURITY. But with elections, there very well could be a strongly funded community of hackers dedicated to preserving insecuirty. (they may be able to sell election results for a lot of dough, for example). This is a thought-process deserving of a thread if someone else has time. I'm just throwing out some ideas and throwing some back at OTOH, because he loves this sport. Lotsa love, OTOH!!!