"AuTomaTed EleCtiOn"

"What is automated election"

This is the computerization of election process. it's where people used a specialized computer to vote their candidate instead of the usual ballot boxes where people cast their votes by way of writing on the ballot. this process provides much more efficiency and reliability than the conventional way of voting. This method is faster and can give out result of the election in a matter of days instead of the secret balloting where it will take weeks or even months before a result could be presented to the public. Automated election can be hack too.............

THERE are two automated systems being considered for the 2010 elections.

1st – the Optical Mark Recognition (OMR) and Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) systems – were pilot-tested in the elections in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM). Field reports revealed anomalies and loopholes. The Commission on Elections (Comelec) never revealed its official report to the media.

2nd, Open Election System (OES), even if it is better than the first two, as claimed by its proponents, was not pilot tested.

Based on these two points alone, automated elections should be deferred until we are ready for it, otherwise we risk massive problems never before encountered, which can even induce anarchy and instability.

Handwritten ballots

The OMR retains handwritten ballots which are encoded into computers at the precinct level.

The more dangerous is the fully automatic DRE system, as it uses a touch screen. The OES, proposed by the Service Group for National Legislation (Signal), also retains handwritten ballots.

Strangely, the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV) and the National Citizens’ Movement for Free Elections (Namfrel), in a full page ad, endorsed the OMR-DRE, claiming it was a complete success in the ARMM, and arguing that it would solve election cheating – both grave misconceptions. A Namfrel official asked why the group’s name was placed in the ad and if the Namfrel board approved this.

Why would PPCRV root for something so questionable? It is a credible Church group. Is it because the group does not know the technical implications? Because of the anger of people on unstoppable election cheating since time immemorial, many have acquired a misperception that automation would cure our ills when it might just worsen them. They mistakenly equate clean election with automation.

Hackers

Kimball Brace, head of US Election Data Services, a hacking expert, warned that US poll computers “can be hacked.” He added, “History has shown that the first time somebody uses a new piece of voting equipment, that’s the time that they are going to have problems.”

Brace cited blunders in the Florida 2000 presidential election in which Bush won by a “hair.” He said 40 percent of voters would be using paperless touch-screen machines (like our DRE) that ... left the system “vulnerable to hackers.”

Paper trail

A Princeton University computer science professor, Edward Felten, demonstrated in a US Congress session how he could hack into “the machines and switch votes from one candidate to another.” Some US states use an optical scan system trail (like our OMR), which electronically tallies results and allows a paper trail, for double checking in the event of fraud or computer failure.

Filipinos are some of the best computer hackers and virus creators in the world, proven by the “love bug” which destroyed millions of computers worldwide in 48 hours. It was also a Filipino who penetrated the firewall-secured Pentagon website.

Let me play devil’s advocate to a dream of clean elections through automation. We may get rid of some analog election frauds (not assured), but we may create new and bigger digital ones.

Analog, digital fraud

Analog fraud is physical, such as flying voters or rigged ballot boxes or tampered returns. Digital fraud, which can be by far more extensive, means tampered databases, software, or digital election results, and proliferation of viruses.

Field reports in the ARMM reveal tampered OMR ballots, which can no longer be corrected and may be considered invalid. So one can just quickly tamper with or “over-mark” ballots of rivals to render them invalid.

Reports revealed that uneducated voters were coached inside the booth in the DRE, a very dangerous precedent. We are not ready for automation because we have not educated voters yet. What more poll personnel and watchers?

PPCRV argues that limited human intervention will result in clean elections. The very opposite is possible.

Transparency, security

There is an inherent conflict between transparency and security. Once you limit human intervention to achieve security, the system is less transparent and accessible. Once you give access to poll watchers to achieve transparency, you also give access to hackers and compromise security.

Hackers can manipulate the voters list on a massive scale by going into the central database. Knowledge of the software is critical for hackers. Viruses and program bugs can be spread. You suppress one type of cheater and induce more powerful ones.

Logistical nightmare

Nationwide automation is a logistical nightmare. The OES and OMR require computers at 10,000 precincts, needing 10,000 encoders who can still make encoding errors in spite of proper training.

The training program itself is massive in scale. Do we have time? This training should have been done yesterday for the 2010 elections. Computer breakdown or viruses can induce failure of election. Nothing beats analog at this point.

We are not ready for automation. And as Felten and Brace say, automation itself is questionable.

Signal says there is a wide gap between the political and the technical in automated election, which is the ingredient for chaos. Signal says it “harbors serious reservations about the capacity of the Comelec to implement a fully automated election system nationwide for the 2010 elections.”

Even Signal’s OES or the OMR, which are semiautomatic systems, have huge inherent weaknesses. The OES was never piloted. It may take two elections for the hackers to perfect their crime, but they are here right now.

Automation solves problems but induces bigger ones.

the future of mobile technology

The next 3 years…

In the coming years we’re going to see the dramatic evolution of the 3G network into 3GPP or Long Term Evolution (LTE). LTE will have the advantage over WiMAX because it’s anticipated that about 80% of carriers world wide will choose LTE technology over the open developed WiMax, largely for the better network performance.

Vodafone will be starting rolling out LTE on a global scale in 2010, however the service probably won’t achieve wider adoption till about 2012 with businesses taking the lead as the need for workforce mobility heightens and network capacity needs increase.

In the next 4-6 years…

We’re also going to see the development of ad-hoc networks and Multihop relay networks which can be deployed anywhere quickly and with little infrastructure. These networks, like the internet, will alter the route of the data depending on network conditions and change path based on the best transmission mode.

These networks rely on the use of femtocells and picocells. A femtocells and picocells look a bit like a Wi-Fi router but performs the same function in the home or office as cellular base stations that sit in brick buildings at the base of cell towers. Think of the handset as being the network, and when I say ‘handset’ this could be a mobile device, a watch, and earring or an implanted chip in your tooth.
Less power hungry devices in combination with flawless speech recognition will allow mobile devices so small they can reside in your ear or mouth and can be activated by your voice. Tomorrows mobile chips are going to combine multiple radios including Wi-Fi, 3G and WiMAX on a single chip.

I can even see a time when a device could be connected to your brain waves in order to operate it. But that is probably a thought belonging in the following section.

In the next 7-10 years…

This takes us to an important trend that is going to emerge, which is the mobile device as a personal assistant. They will be able to do things for you because you tell it to, or because it thinks it’s a good idea. It will have a customised personality and also be able to learn about how you communicate and change its behaviour based on that knowledge. As outlandish as this sounds, Google already changes the results they deliver to you in Search Engines based on your previous search behaviour.

Your mobile device is going to be responsible for all the current phone features like appointments, address book and music, but the mobile devices of the future are also going to monitor your health, manage and book your travel just by entering a date into a calendar, manage your bank accounts, and even send flowers to a loved one on a special day. The device itself will just be the access point which will log into your personal network which might be hosted at your home but really could be anywhere.

So imagine then, if you will, the unfortunate event that you find yourself in a car accident. Your mobile device, connected to diagnostics in the car, calls the ambulance to let emergency crews know you’ve had a heart attack and been involved in a crash. You arrive at hospital where the physician treating you has access to all your medical history, the administration has access to all your health insurance information and while you’re recovering you access all your favourite ‘get well’ music. As futuristic as it sounds, the technology that supports this scenario is already in development.

When you have a situation where access to this kind of information could hold incredible power over someone, security as well as privacy is going to be a key concern. The technical aspect will probably be resolved with a combination of software (as opposed to complete reliance on the network) and biometrics, so a combined eye scan, voice activation and password. As usual, it will probably take regulations a little longer to resolve some of the social implications of the technology.

Field Trip In suBic

It was Friday, January 29, 2010, I'm so exited and very happy in this day because that day would be our field trip in subic...........zoobic zafari and ocean adventure. I woke up exactly 2:00 in the morning. I hurriedly take a bath, eat my breakfast and wear my clothes. It almost 3:20 am when I go to our bus.

It exactly 4:00 am when we arrived to manila. When we are in manila, it so many time that we stop to urinate and to buy some food or drinks.

And we arrived to subic. When we are in subic we first go to zoobic safari.......in TIGER SAFARI we rode in jeep while feeding a tiger the tiger . We also go to in zoobic park, croco- loco, savannah and many more. I bought souvenir in tiger cafe. We saw may animals like lion, rats, hamsters, snakes, ape, Camels and may more.

After zoobic zafari, we arived in subic ocean adventure.In ocean adventure........first we went to their learning center we learned about their dolphin they have many dolphin there with different species, they have thier name one of them is tonka the biggest one. Tonka is a false killer whale but he is cousin of the dolphin. Next we went to another place in subic ocean adventure, it so hot but i only snub it instead I enjoy watching the show in that place, the acrobat.After the acrobat, the dolphin show their tricks to our. And the sea lion. I also learn how to cook rice using bamboo.

Our field trip is over. We go to our bus and arrived out of subic. While in the bus I'm eating my snacks . There have a time that our bus stop to buy dinner or to urinate. I'm so tired in that night. It almost 1:00 when I'm in our house. And that field trip is the most exiting field trip i had. I hope that we will have a field trip that is most exiting..........