Comment Televoting — Urgh... (Score 1) 18
I'm very sorry... Slashdot interviews tend to summon interesting people, with real answers to tough questions. This one, however, is quite disappointing. The answer for a half-technical questions should not be "go look at the nice video our marketing chaps did", but a explanation of the process, as thorough as possible. And if his answers are all like the one where he says, "mail-in voting is fucked-up as well, but people tend to accept it"... It is a clear no-go. If he is pushing the technical-social part to change a perceived shortcoming, he would have (IMO) the moral obligation to oppose mail-in voting, as it dillutes security and trust.
I am a (small) academic myself. His viewpoints, saying "I'm not here to fix the political part, just to research on the social issues" is short-sighted at best. And it lacks in what is often criticized about the academics: An obsession with our line of work, without caring for how it interfaces with reality. The same happens with many who research on the mathematical side of e-voting. It might be all sound and good as long as you don't factor in humans. Put humans in the equation, and we end up clearly better with good ol' paper voting.