On Wed, 5 May 2004, Bryan O'Donoghue wrote:
> Flying is not a State service, nor the right of each competent minded citizen
> of this Republic.
>> Aer Lingus is semi-State and flying on it, is not a civil right, if it were,
> going to Spain on Aer Lingus would be free and every aspect of the service
> would have to be accountable to the citizen.
The fun one can have with bogus analogies...
Firstly, before Aer Lingus ever got the plane, the manufacturer went
through extensive certification of it's design, including control
software, with the various regulatory bodies in charge of
certification. Before the aeroplane ever got into service, the
manufacturer were held accountable to the citizen (well JAA, CAA,
etc, on our behalf) as to the soundness of its design, and the
procedures for maintenance.
Once Aer Lingus have the aeroplane, they are held accountable for its
maintenance, the mechanics who work on the plane must be qualified,
the work shop in general must be qualified (iirc), the parts used are
all very carefully[1] tracked and certified, schedules of maintenance
must be rigourously kept for each aeroplane. etc..
All done in the name of Joe Bloggs.
If even just a wee bit of the regulatory mandated rigor of the
aviation industry were applied to these e-voting thingies, then its
introduction would be far less of a concern.
1. in theory at least, however there is, or was anyway, a problem
with fraudulently certified parts.
regards,
--
Paul Jakma paul at clubi.iepaul at jakma.org Key ID: 64A2FF6A
warning: do not ever send email to spam at dishone.st
Fortune:
A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming is
not worth knowing.
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