[governance] Charter status update

[Qusai Al-Shatti]

Hi Avri and everyone:
I have no problem with the privacy issues that you mentioned. I join jeremy in expressing my trust in Avri judgement as an honest broker and organizer of the voting process on the caucus charter.

Thanks Avri for all your efforts

Qusai Al-Shatti

 --- Message Header --- 

The following message was sent by Avri Doria <avri at acm.org> on Sun, 20 Aug 2006 15:06:48 -0400.

 --- Original Message --- 

> Hi,
> 
> I am back from my research trip and back to trying to get the charter  
> approved.
> 
> I now have voting software working on igcaucus.org.  Anyone who is  
> interested in the details of this software is welcome to read the  
> manual available at: http://www.igcaucus.org/eVote.pdf.  The voting  
> software is open source and is provided by Marilyn Davis, Ph.D. at  
> http://www.deliberate.com/ .
> 
> In order to use this software, I will be setting up a new mailing  
> list called IGC-voters at igcaucus.org (it wasn't possible to link it to  
> the actual governance mailing list).
> This list will be made up of those who were both:
> - subscribed to the governance list as of 060724
> - subscribed to the governance list with a individual name attached  
> to the subscription.
> 
> Ironically, there is a issue with attaching personal names to the IGC- 
> voters list.  Since it need to use an older version of mailman (1.13)  
> it is not capable of including the subscriber's name, only the email  
> address.
> 
> There is also a privacy issue with the software.  As listed in every  
> ballot:
> 
> > Warnings: Although eVote will not reveal your vote to the other
> > members of the voting community, the system administrator of the
> > computer that stores your vote can quite easily see the voting
> > records of individuals. Also, there is the possibility that your
> > ballot can be seen by a "snooper", someone who intercepts your
> > ballot in transit.
> >
> > The integrity of the poll, i.e., the accuracy of the count, is
> > susceptible to being tampered with by the system administrator
> > of the computer running the eVote(R)/Clerk software.
> >
> > Both the privacy of your vote and the integrity of the poll are
> > susceptible to attack at your own computer.
> >
> 
> This means that the administrator of igcaucus.org - me - has the  
> ability to look at individual voting records and to tamper with the  
> results.   I promise not to do this, and to only look at logs as  
> necessary for system administration.  But it is up to the  
> participants of the IGC whether they trust me to actually not do look  
> or tamper with votes.  Of course if in the end we opt for non secret  
> votes, this won't be an issue.  But if we decide to go for secret  
> votes I will be bound by a promise to not look at and to not tamper  
> with any of the IGC votes.  If the IGC cannot accept this personal  
> guarantee, then I will ask help in finding free and open software  
> that does not have this vulnerability.
> 
> There are several interesting pluses to this software.  One of its  
> strongest features is that it allows anyone who is subscribed to the  
> list to initiate a poll or a petition.  I think that over time the  
> IGC could actually take advantage of this capability.  Setting up a  
> vote is easy (once all the software and the lists are up and running)  
> and it is easy to make any poll open or closed, to use a yes/no  
> format or a rating 1-n format.  It is also possible to set up  
> petitions as well as polls.  It is a very rich package.  It is also  
> possible, I understand from my reading to work in multiple  
> languages.  I have not tried this yet and don't intent to for the  
> charter, but do think it would be an interesting capability to take  
> advantage of later.  I would also note that the Marilyn, the author  
> of the program is very helpful, so as we progress in our usage of  
> advanced features, we will be able get assistance if needed.
> 
> So, unless there are objections from the caucus, i intend to populate  
> the the IGC-voter's list as mentioned above.  As I subscribe people,  
> they will receive a welcome message.  Since this list is being create  
> as an opt-out list, I apologize in advance for anyone who is  
> subscribed who does not wish to be.  And of course I invite them to  
> unsubscribe.  If you know already that you do NOT wish to be  
> subscribed to the IGC-voters list, please let me know off list.  I  
> will let this list know when I have finished the subscription effort  
> so that anyone who has not received the welcome message and who  
> believes they should have, can let me know before the vote starts.
> 
> Also, since there have been no comments on the charter for the last  
> several weeks, I will take 1.6 as the charter for the vote.  I will  
> create the ballot in the next few days and post it for a brief sanity  
> review.
> 
> If all goes well, I expect to initiate the charter vote by 27 August  
> to last until 12 September.  But I have been optimistic before.
> 
> thanks
> a.
> ____________________________________________________________
> You received this message as a subscriber on the list:
>      governance at lists.cpsr.org
> To be removed from the list, send any message to:
>      governance-unsubscribe at lists.cpsr.org
> 
> For all list information and functions, see:
>      http://lists.cpsr.org/lists/info/governance
> 
Hi,
> 
> I am back from my research trip and back to trying to get the charter  
> approved.
> 
> I now have voting software working on igcaucus.org.  Anyone who is  
> interested in the details of this software is welcome to read the  
> manual available at: http://www.igcaucus.org/eVote.pdf.  The voting  
> software is open source and is provided by Marilyn Davis, Ph.D. at  
> http://www.deliberate.com/ .
> 
> In order to use this software, I will be setting up a new mailing  
> list called IGC-voters at igcaucus.org (it wasn't possible to link it to  
> the actual governance mailing list).
> This list will be made up of those who were both:
> - subscribed to the governance list as of 060724
> - subscribed to the governance list with a individual name attached  
> to the subscription.
> 
> Ironically, there is a issue with attaching personal names to the IGC- 
> voters list.  Since it need to use an older version of mailman (1.13)  
> it is not capable of including the subscriber's name, only the email  
> address.
> 
> There is also a privacy issue with the software.  As listed in every  
> ballot:
> 
> > Warnings: Although eVote will not reveal your vote to the other
> > members of the voting community, the system administrator of the
> > computer that stores your vote can quite easily see the voting
> > records of individuals. Also, there is the possibility that your
> > ballot can be seen by a "snooper", someone who intercepts your
> > ballot in transit.
> >
> > The integrity of the poll, i.e., the accuracy of the count, is
> > susceptible to being tampered with by the system administrator
> > of the computer running the eVote(R)/Clerk software.
> >
> > Both the privacy of your vote and the integrity of the poll are
> > susceptible to attack at your own computer.
> >
> 
> This means that the administrator of igcaucus.org - me - has the  
> ability to look at individual voting records and to tamper with the  
> results.   I promise not to do this, and to only look at logs as  
> necessary for system administration.  But it is up to the  
> participants of the IGC whether they trust me to actually not do look  
> or tamper with votes.  Of course if in the end we opt for non secret  
> votes, this won't be an issue.  But if we decide to go for secret  
> votes I will be bound by a promise to not look at and to not tamper  
> with any of the IGC votes.  If the IGC cannot accept this personal  
> guarantee, then I will ask help in finding free and open software  
> that does not have this vulnerability.
> 
> There are several interesting pluses to this software.  One of its  
> strongest features is that it allows anyone who is subscribed to the  
> list to initiate a poll or a petition.  I think that over time the  
> IGC could actually take advantage of this capability.  Setting up a  
> vote is easy (once all the software and the lists are up and running)  
> and it is easy to make any poll open or closed, to use a yes/no  
> format or a rating 1-n format.  It is also possible to set up  
> petitions as well as polls.  It is a very rich package.  It is also  
> possible, I understand from my reading to work in multiple  
> languages.  I have not tried this yet and don't intent to for the  
> charter, but do think it would be an interesting capability to take  
> advantage of later.  I would also note that the Marilyn, the author  
> of the program is very helpful, so as we progress in our usage of  
> advanced features, we will be able get assistance if needed.
> 
> So, unless there are objections from the caucus, i intend to populate  
> the the IGC-voter's list as mentioned above.  As I subscribe people,  
> they will receive a welcome message.  Since this list is being create  
> as an opt-out list, I apologize in advance for anyone who is  
> subscribed who does not wish to be.  And of course I invite them to  
> unsubscribe.  If you know already that you do NOT wish to be  
> subscribed to the IGC-voters list, please let me know off list.  I  
> will let this list know when I have finished the subscription effort  
> so that anyone who has not received the welcome message and who  
> believes they should have, can let me know before the vote starts.
> 
> Also, since there have been no comments on the charter for the last  
> several weeks, I will take 1.6 as the charter for the vote.  I will  
> create the ballot in the next few days and post it for a brief sanity  
> review.
> 
> If all goes well, I expect to initiate the charter vote by 27 August  
> to last until 12 September.  But I have been optimistic before.
> 
> thanks
> a.
> ____________________________________________________________
> You received this message as a subscriber on the list:
>      governance at lists.cpsr.org
> To be removed from the list, send any message to:
>      governance-unsubscribe at lists.cpsr.org
> 
> For all list information and functions, see:
>      http://lists.cpsr.org/lists/info/governance
> 

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