RE: [ga] Re: Proposal for list rules/actions

[Patrick Greenwell <patrick@stealthgeeks.net>]

On Tue, 25 Jan 2000, William X. Walsh wrote:

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> On 25-Jan-2000 Patrick Greenwell wrote:
> > Finally, if positions are going to be collected, and action is taken
> > based on the expression of those positions, let's call them what they
> > are: VOTES and not "opinion polls." 
> 
> How would you decide who was eligible to vote?

How was it decided who was eligible to participate in the "opinion poll"
which the Chair is using as the basis for the wholesale adoption of
Harald's proposal? With the bragging of at least one individual that they
voted multiple times, why was this "opinion poll" used in an attempt to
validate anything other than the fact that the poll happened?

The question of who is eligible to vote should have been the *first*
question throughout the ICANN process rather than an afterthought or a
question oft avoided, and this list is no exception. How can ANYONE claim
a course of action based on  "consensus", an "opinion poll", or a "vote"
to be valid without some objective, fraud-resistant framework for
conducting and gauging the results of any such mechanism? It would have
been far preferrable, and a great deal more honest in my mind for Roberto
to simply have said:
"lacking a framework for objective, fraud-resistant voting, I'm putting
Harald's proposal in place because we simply can't get anything done
without it." Instead, there is pointing to the unquestionably fradulent
results of an "opinion poll" as supporting evidence for the action. 

And to answer your question, I have repeatedly expressed the
need for such a mechanism prior to engaging in decision-making,
and previously offered a fairly detailed proposal in this regard on this
list some time ago which I will be happy to resend you a copy of if you
would like. This isn't rocket science. 

To summarize and simplify I'd use the method which I believe ISOC employs:
mail some sort of authentication code to voters which they would use to
vote with. I'd go one step further and require the members *home* address,
along with offering a privacy guarantee that the information would not be
used for any other purpose, divulged in any way, etc. Costs could be
greatly reduced by requiring members to send staff a stamped envelope
with sufficient postage.  I'd also combine this with a one-time validity
check of identity if a reasonable doubt is raised by a list member or
when multiple individuals list the same address. 

Implementing such a system isn't going to completely eliminate fraud.
Completely eliminating fraud would almost certainly require physical
presence for identification verification, consume vast amounts of
resources, and still would be near impossible to ensure
"absolutely." 

What it *will* do is make it much more difficult, costly and
time-consuming to perpetrate, limiting the potential scope of damage any
bad actor(s) may cause. 

Requiring a voters home address helps to avoid a situation where one
individual claims to be numerous individuals and that the single address
for all these individuals is a business address. A dedicated fraud may be
successful claim to be 3 or 4 people, but they aren't going to be able to
effectively claim to be 95,000. 

> Do we let the multiple personality posting as INEGroup "staff" have a
> vote for each of his aliases? 

Under this proposal, the multiple personalities would be immediately
called into question, requiring a resonable amount of effort on the part
of the individual behind the INEG fraud in order to forge convincing
enough personal and mailing address identification. Currently, as no such
effort is necessary, it is effortless and completely free for the 
individual in question to pretend to be as many representatives as they
wish from an organization with 95,000+ non-existent members run out of
supposed office location that is in reality an extended-stay hotel near
Dallas. I believe that you will find that if you make perpetrating such
frauds cost in time, money, and effort you'll effectively eliminate, or at
least greatly reduce such occurances. 

> And not to attack Kent in any fashion, but he has also point out that he has
> dummy aliases on this list to counter effects of others who may be doing 
> this.  

Same verfication process applies. I would imagine that Kent has kept his
other addresses quiet, and as such doubt that their veracity would be
called into question. So Kent would undoubtedly be able to impersonate 
some number of individuals fairly easily. In a situation such as this,
about all that can be done is to trust the honesty and integrity of the
individual in question not to abuse the system in such a fashion. 
 
> I have a problem with letting the GA decide anything by a direct vote at this
> stage.

Then the GA is a dictatorship, where the will of the list-members
is irrelevant due to the inability to establish and/or by simply ignoring
the need to establish a fraud-resistant voting system. This renders
the GA completely unable to build a foundation based on any sort of any
legitimate consensus or vote-based decision-making. 

Thus, every claim that the GA is nothing more than an undemocratic puppet
list and sham is completely correct and valid, the claim that the GA list
will never be anything more than this is a self-fulfilling prophecy, and
the disruptive have effectively won.

 

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                               Patrick Greenwell                          
                       Earth is a single point of failure.
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