But, but, the Wikipedia article also mentions (credible) claims that it was staged. So not a different event, but fake nonetheless.

Just this point should be enough to stop people speculating about on-line voting. The rest of your post is absolutely right, but it takes some technical understanding to see the problem and how difficult it is to solve. The guy with a gun ... everyone can understand that. What I don't understand is why this is even being discussed in the first place!

Absolutely right! (Mod parent up)

I've said this before in this thread, but I'll say it again ('cause I think it's important)

Voting at home is inherently insecure and not secret. The risk of simple shoulder-surfing or bribes/extortions as the parent suggests should be enough to dismiss such ideas out of hand.

I cannot see how on-line voting can possibly stand up against the demand for a secret ballot.

If everyone is allowed to vote in their own home then there is no way to guaranty that the ballot is secret. How can you make sure that no one is shoulder-surfing? Or worse, shoulder-surfing with a big stick? With home (on-line) voting bribing and/or threatening voters becomes trivial and we don't want that!

On-line voting sounds like fun, but it doesn't work.

Modders: This quote is all that's needed in this thread. It gets to the crux of the matter and it amazes me that anyone would over look it. Any discussion of remote voting should end here.

The police have apparently given up so it's up to us conspiracy theorists to solve the problem (yet again)!

First of all this is clearly a cover-up involving both the parliament security forces and the police. The computer was discovered over a year ago, but nobody was the wiser until now when the story was leaked. Nobody was questioned and the investigation seems to have dead-ended immediately. Also, the security cameras near the room in question were "unfortunately out of order" at the time.

Keep in mind also that the office where the computer was found was being shared by the Movement and the Independence Party. The former are known around here as the friends of Wikileaks while the latter are known in Iceland as simply "The Party". They are the single most powerful entity in Iceland and have in the last 50 years or so controlled both parliament and government as well as having strong influences over the police and judiciary (and the parliament security forces). During the cold war party membership could guaranty work while not being a member could loose you your job. It's also a documented fact that the Independence Party had a very effective local espionage network during the cold war and I doubt they just stopped such a successful operation when the Berlin wall fell.

Finally the daily Morgunbladid is run by one David Oddsson who is the godfather of the Independence Party; what he says goes. Wrongfully accusing someone to divert the attention away from the Party is just his MO, but because Morgunbladid is widely read it will probably work.

Put the pieces together and we see that this was a botched Party spying operation covered up by the police and parliament security. ... as conspiracy theorys go this one's actually not that unlikely!

... and he's not getting any less crazy!

The Icelandic government is truly a hotbet of corruption and intrigue - only nobody outside Iceland needs to care! If this is espionage (and I doubt it) then it's purely an inside-(Iceland)-job. Amateurish as well, just leaving the computer there. I'm surprised this got to /. - it's hardly making waves in Iceland.

(disclaimer: oceanographer with only fleeting interest in global warming)

True, but I would like to elaborate. Some of the early climate models predicted the Gulf Stream to shut down* and naturally one of the objectives for building better models was to confirm or disprove these predictions. I don't think any of the newest IPCC models show the Gulf Stream shutting down but there are indications that it may slow down in the future. Not enough to off set the underlying warming though.

So it seems we don't have to fear rapid changes because of a sudden shut down. Last thing I heard about this predicted shut down was that it was being classified as "low probability, high impact event". The impact would indeed be high, but it seems the probability becomes less and less the better the models become.

*) I'm being very imprecise. What I mean is that the North Atlantic Current (an extension of the Gulf Stream) was predicted to slow down or that the northern branch would become weaker (from Ireland towards Norway) and the southern branch stronger (from Ireland towards Spain). Worst case scenario the northern branch would turn off.

Ok that's just not nice - yuck! Bad ASUS!