@donkey Just shows why it's foolish to invest in an infrastructure built on someone else's proprietary technology (for reasons I explain here: https://davelane.nz/mshostage) - I'm pleased they're making the move now, but they should've been smart enough to realise this could happen at any time. And now it's going to be very expensive and painful to change because they've allowed themselves to succumb to lock-in, not because the #FOSS alternative is painful.

@donkey Sadly for the taxpayers of the world, all of our gov'ts are in the same boat, but they've *always* been paying the 10x more amount... for the past 20ish years. Imagine if that $ had been invested in the local industry instead, and in local enhancement of #FOSS that everyone could've used instead...

@lightweight @donkey I was frothing at the mouth when I found out how much #CorporateWelfare the #NZ government has been giving FarceBook every year to "advertise" to its own citizens. It could have built its own social network system for that sort of money.

@strypey @lightweight agreed - there’s a lot of tension there between “where the people are”, “what we can afford” and the “what is best for democracy”.

@donkey @strypey Sadly, that conflict only exists for people without sufficient technical knowledge and strategic savvy to realise that it's not a "network effect" or technology problem. All could be sorted, as I've told them in the past, for very low cost using openly available software from the global digital #FOSS commons.

@lightweight @strypey yup. At least they seem to have listened regarding the paperless voting.., 😉

@donkey @strypey well, eventually even the gov't spy agency agreed that it was a totally unwarranted risk to take. But there are still people in Local Gov't especially who're committed to foisting online voting upon us because they don't "get" tech stuff (or, perhaps, how crucial it is that voters can trust our democratic institution & those administering it). I've talked to some of them.

@lightweight @strypey Oh no.

@donkey @strypey yes, it's sorta like software patents - as long as anyone has an incentive to push it (IP lawyers and established proprietary bizs for patents. People with an online voting system to sell + people who don't understand the tech problem, i.e. most folks in local govt, in the latter case) there's always a need to stay vigilant. For the record, if you haven't seen it (I've posted it many times)... everyone with an interest in democracy should see this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abQCqIbBBeM

@lightweight I'll see your video criticizing #DigitalVoting (seriously, I'll watch it) and raise you this video by #JoshBenloh which explains ways that digital voting can be not only as secure as paper voting, but more secure:
https://invidio.us/watch?v=zC-rJX0Nmxg
@donkey

@strypey @donkey part way through it... I'm not getting a good feeling about where he's going. I also note that Microsoft recently announced they're getting into the online voting game... and despite their oft promoted love for open source, there's no mention of this https://apnews.com/7e78189c21ce4a7cb7cb73432705c3caI being open source (which, in my opinion, is an automatic fail)...

@lightweight the implementation is not the point. If the cryptography holds up (and this is an area I have no expert knowledge about), the same concepts could be fairly easily implemented in #FreeCode voting systems.
@donkey