Resilient
Headline:

Despite Cyberattacks, US Election System ‘Resilient,’ Officials Say

Resilient. What makes a system resilient? Whether you're talking about software or mechanics or government, the answer is the same.

Decentralism. Localism. Minimal contact between layers. Varied mechanisms inside layers.

These qualities are strictly defined and uncontroversial in software and electronics. You want each input to be elastic, capable of bringing in a wide variety of values while rejecting definite errors or sabotage. Each input should be able to sum up or process its incoming values reliably. Each input should then pass on the sum or processed result to the next more central layer. The next layer should also be elastic to non-error incomings, and should process or sum up what it got from the front-panel inputs. Each of these modules can perform its function in all sorts of different ways, using transistors or tubes or relays or while-loops or for-loops or recursion, etc, etc. In fact it's BETTER if you have a variety of internal mechanisms, so you can handle different environmental problems. If transistors are especially fragile in hot weather, you want some tube modules. If short memory makes trouble for recursion, you want some for-loops.

Until the Switchover, the USA election system WAS resilient. It fulfilled all of those requirements. Inputs capable of understanding voter intent, unqualified voters rejected, variety of mechanisms within each module, only the processed sum was passed on to the next layer.

Since the Switchover, Bush/Clinton/Obama have been pushing and pushing and pushing for more standardization. All machines must be the same, all polling places must open and close at the same time, all IDs must be ignored.

Tight coupling, zero variety, error-rejection HARSHLY forbidden.

In other words, Bush/Clinton/Obama have been creating a PERFECTLY NON-RESILIENT AND PERFECTLY HACKABLE system because Bush/Clinton/Obama want to have one nice easy pushbutton to force the Correct Result. Like LIBOR, like ZIRP. A psychopathic tyrant's wet dream.

And while you're testing the pushbutton, it's wonderfully handy to have a scapegoat available. Standard criminal procedure. How did that meth get into my pocket? Some Russian guy put it there. Who smothered my baby in his crib? Some Russian guy.

Labels: Blinded by Stats, switchover

  ¶ 12:30 AM