Apologies for the lack of quoting y'all, can't at the moment, I'll try to paraphrase fairly. Professor Rat said something like, why is this article important to cypherpunks, besides in a know-thy-enemy way. I think the Georgia situation will further spiral out of control as time goes on, getting wilder and wilder. It wouldn't surprise me if at some point WL or DDoSecrets or who knows else, publishes the swiped Dominion Democracy Suite 5.5-A or something like that. So I'm hoping my article prepares cypherpunks for such an event, because most likely, of all that may happen due to the breach of Coffee County 5.5-A, the biggest thing will be disinfo that includes elements of the swiped source code, already happened at CPAC [1]. The (so far, far right partisan restricted) leak of State (well, Dominion Voting Systems, but what's the diff) governance source code strikes me as a matter of cypherpunks interest ... I have a strong sense there's more on the way between now and Election Day 2024. Professor Rat and Karl went back and forth a little about the importance or not of representative voting/consensus methods. Without delving into it in great detail, I will say I basically oppose representative governance (and hierarchy governance like fascism or monarchy), and think direct voting/consensus should primarily be limited to very small groups (e.g., "Can the three of us come to consensus about what we want for dinner tonight?"). There are other paths, e.g. stigmergy. But how to get from here to there. I wrote a single installment on whistleblower Reality Winner so far for the _Texas Observer_. Due to their (well publicized) financial restructuring, my next installments are in slow-mo. But one of them will most def be about grassroots activism to not only protect/secure, but also to evolve voting. So for example, in Texas where I'm from, there are almost never referendums on the ballot -- only in rare cases of amending the state constitution. So Texans can only vote for representatives/politicians. But here in Seattle we have referendums all the time (i.e. many of the red state people, much of the country, don't even know what referendums are). Just a few election cycles ago, Seattleites voted directly on an *idea* rather than personalities ... namely, whether soda should or shouldn't be taxed to fund pre-k education and other social services. Forget the specifics or whether for/against that particular example/tax, just the idea of voting directly on a proposition is something that could be spread throughout the country to (hopefully) reduce the apathy and celebpolitician-worship of John Q Public. Other way to evolve democracy could be, you know, you can vote with a ballot, but you can also "vote" with your actions, such as Food Not Bombs or torching a slaughterhouse. So I plan to delve into just that kind of stuff in a future installment. If anybody has links for me about it, options, paths, DIY anarchist-y tech, that I might be able to squeeze in, don't hesitate to send for me to review. :-Doug Links: ------ [1] https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2023-03-30/election-machines-cpac