The One Thing blackboxvoting.org Has Overlooked

The simplest and most important fact about computers — COMPUTERS ARE TURING COMPLETE

Because of that, we can not know what program runs on a given computer (without disassembling this computer to atoms).

The only possible source of an answer to this question is the computer itself, which in turn can be programmed to give ANY ANSWERS (due to its Turing completeness). A system program+computer can present itself to an observer as anything arbitrarily far from the real internal state of the system.

That's enough for any amount of fraud to be completely undetectable. NO AMOUNT OF REGULATIONS CAN CHANGE IT!!! A program can always be invisibly replaced/altered.

The law defines the elections as a particular process. Computers arbitrarily change this process — this is not legal (in a very literal sense of «legal»). Computers make the regulations inapplicable and the entire electoral process unregulated — lawless!

The computers should be banned from the vote counting process regardless of the actual fraudulent activity of any parties.

The Final Note On The Elections



Synopsis: There are no elections in USA.

It is not a hyperbole and it is not a political nor ethical statement. I am talking specifically about the procedure of elections as an information process. By using a «voting» machine you do not give your vote to any of candidates, you give your vote to whomever controls the machine. Giving your vote away is NOT electing.

In case you are concerned about data security or voter fraud issues: those concerns are irrelevant, the computerized procedure in use does not endanger the elections, it ELIMINATES them from existence. From the InfoSec perspective the information process that has taken place of the elections (be it hacked or not) is NOT the elections — not even a surrogate! — it is something else, that, most importantly, has nothing to do with your vote.
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Why The InfoSec Discourse Is Entirely Composed Of Fallacies?



The deepest root of all the misunderstandings that constitute the InfoSec discourse nowadays is that the normal people («security experts» included) do not understand what is software, and its fundamental difference from the physical world we live in.

The entire realm of software is purely artificial.

Not only programs and functions, not only bugs and security holes, but also all the notions and intentions, all phenomena in the realm of software, even those perceived as «natural», are created by a man.

There are no natural laws that a program must follow and obey. While your computer does follow all the laws of physics, your programs do not at all. This very distinction makes a computer useful for us. The purpose and the only purpose of your computer's existence is to create a virtual TABULA RASA world, the world devoid of any laws, the world completely disconnected from the physical reality, the world that you are supposed to populate with laws of your own creation.

In other words, a computer can produce any output from any input — this is the definition and the characteristic property of a computer. This is what they always forget, and I stress ALWAYS.

REMEMBER THAT! If you want to improve your «safety», «cyber security», whatever. Every time you assume any expectation to a program of someone else's creation. Remember that! Every time you are disappointed: I gave this stupid machine a perfect input! Remember what a computer is: a machine that produces any output from any input — no restrictions at all. If you remember it well, first you will stop acting surprised when you wonder into a trap, second you will become more challenging prey, third you will stop believing InfoSec selling stories.

The Root Of All Evil



For a million years you are being trained to reason about the physical world as perceived by your sensors. You evolved to search for patterns and assume animal agency by default (simply because the cost of the mistake is lower with this assumption). Then came computer programs… they are invisible for your sensors, they do not follow any patterns, they can make computers appear animate, they can disguise as a reasonable actor, or fool your senses otherwise. And on top of it all they do not obey the laws of physic, the laws that your brain perceive as unbreakable for any agent in the visible world. This is a disaster for your neolithic brain.
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Fingers vs Fingerprints



It turned out that my "Authentication vs Identification" article was not sufficiently conclusive in the sense that some hardcore biometrics fans still nurture a non-trivial and well justified objection. So I need to address and destroy it, in order to close the topic. My opponents' argument is:

Your analysis narrows the both sides of the problem to a knowledge/ownership claim. Even if you are right, the conclusion is only applicable to the authentication by means of a knowledge token, whereas all the rest relations between the user and the token (suitable for authentication purposes) are set aside. There is one particularly important relation (the one fundamental for the entire biometrics field): «the user is» or other way around «the token is a part of the user» — this relation implies inalienability which makes the token safe for authentication purposes.

It is true. Completely true. It is undeniably true! In the physical realm.
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Authentication vs Identification



Once again I have to return to the topic of strict antagonism between the authentication and the identification, meaning these very processes and the tokens involved as well. Before I indulge into boring you with tedious decomposition of entities you used to perceive as atomic, I present you a synthetic illustration of the difference in question. A bad guy tries to get a false-negative outcome of identification, and a false-positive outcome of authentication. This is not explanatory, yet very indicative, I hope it gives you an idea of the magnitude of the difference, and we are going to dig into this now.
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