[LINK] [UK] Call for e-voting to be scrapped amid security fears

[Craig Sanders]

On Wed, Jun 27, 2007 at 09:34:19AM +1000, Craig Sanders wrote:
> On Wed, Jun 27, 2007 at 08:10:09AM +0930, Janet Hawtin wrote:
> > Can you test it on voting re surveys in shopping centres or for big
> > brother or jjj at football events?
> 
> it's not really intended for junk like that.

also, a few hundred (or even a few thousand) people at a shopping centre
aren't even going to come close to simulating the kind of load you get
in an election. a miniscule load like that is barely going to impact on
any reasonably modern server hardware.


e.g. in australia there are, what, about 10 million voters (at a
guess)? that's 10 million voters all trying to vote within a roughly
10 hour period, with (also at a guess) at least 3 or 4 back-and-forth
"transactions" per vote.

that's a million voters per hour (actually more, because it wont be
spread evenly, they'll be clumped mostly during the middle of the
period and at the end when people realise "shit, i better go vote
before it closes").  3 or 4 million transactions per hour. perhaps
50000 transactions per minute, or almost 1000 per second. that's a very
significant load on any server.


NOTE: all numbers are pure guesswork, intended only to illustrate the point.
the point is valid, the numbers are completely bogus.


craig

-- 
craig sanders <cas at taz.net.au>

Cocaine isn't habit forming.  I should know -- I've been using it for years.
		-- Tallulah Bankhead