Re[2]: [ga] Polling the list continually

["William X. Walsh" <william@userfriendly.com>]

Hello Joop,

Saturday, November 11, 2000, 5:39:14 PM, you wrote:

> At 16:15 11/11/00 -0800, William X. Walsh wrote:

>>> I think this is a good idea and if Marilyn would wish to make this polling
>>> option available each time such a "consensus" thread occurs,  I would be
>>> happy to entrust her an administrator account on the Polling Booth.
>>> It takes 10 minutes to put such a poll up. The tally is automatic and the
>>> results can be set to be visible in real time.
>>
>>And is incredibly insecure.
>>

> Without passwords it is insecure, true. But cheating can be detected.
> In previous open polls no cheating was observed.
> In case of an unlikely result, the list can always fall back on an mail-in
> consensus gathering exercise.
> If the GA members want security they can enroll and login with a personal
> password.

With passwords, it is still insecure.

Cheating cannot be detected, Joop.  I can name a dozen ways for
someone to get multiple votes without your ever being able to detect
it.  If you think a cookie, IP logs, etc, make it secure, go talk to
the pay-per-click advertising programs and ask them how much fraud
they get from people who click their own ads 100 times or more a day.

They can't detect it in action, they have to depend on the percentages
to tell them.  If a certain percentages of clicks from a given site do
not result in sales, over a broad sampling, then it is a safe
assumption that something is amiss with that site and the traffic it
is supposedly sending.

Your system is no more secure.  And I can prove it, as you know.

-- 
Best regards,
 William                            mailto:william@userfriendly.com


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