Fact or Fiction?
I am often amazed at some of the things I see and read on the Internet. I do not believe, in general, that people are stupid. I do believe, that as a general rule, people will report information based off of their world view. I think that “truth” is what lies between different stories. Each person will see the “truth” that fits into their view of events.
An example of this was shown in an episode of Matlock. In this particular episode a witness was on the stand as Matlock was questioning them about a murder. The witness was sure they saw a woman who was the murder. During questioning someone in the courtroom made a small fuss, that caught everyone’s attention, and then quickly left the courtroom. Matlock asked the witness if that was a man or woman that left the courtroom. The witness said it was a woman. Matlock brought the person back into the courtroom and after removing the head covering that looks like a woman hat it was in fact a man. Matlock did this to prove that the killer may have been a man not a woman. I highly doubt that this would happen in real life, but it does make a point that what someone believes is the truth comes from their presuppositions.
I am not saying that this is wrong, just that this is a fact of human nature and we need to be sensitive to this issue. I believe that some people will take advantage of others just to further their own selfish goals. I think these people can do this because they find others who want to believe in something and give them what they want no matter what the real facts are. Giving something to someone, that wants it, not only makes that person feel good; it leaves them open to the giver to start to influence that person. This influence can grow over time, and that I see as an ethical issue. It is unethical to create this influence just to get what you want out of that person later on.
Just recently G News reported “Watermark on Ballots Reveals Alleged Massive Voter Fraud in 2020 Election” (https://gnews.org/545074/). I am not stating one way or another my view here. What I want to look at is can technology actually do what this article is stating. This article opens with a statement that ballots were printed with “an invisible, unbreakable code watermark and registered on a Quantum Blockchain System”. To this point I have not been able to find if this quantum blockchain system exists. I was only able to find a paper about quantum blockchains that was published in the Journal of Quantum Computing Vol1, no.2, 2019 (file:///C:/Users/DaveD/AppData/Local/Temp/Quantum%20Blockchain%20A%20Decentralized,%20Encrypted%20and%20Distributed%20Database%20Based%20on%20Quantum%20Mechanics.pdf), but this does not mean this system exists or does not exist. I do not have the background to talk much about this subject. However, there are some basic points of this that can be addressed. The assumption that all ballots can have an invisible watermark, is a problem in itself. In an NPR article of November 6, 2016 it was stated that there is no federal ballot design authority and that ballots are designed by a combination of local election officials and their printers (https://www.npr.org/2016/11/06/500678100/the-art-of-the-vote-who-designs-the-ballots-we-cast). This fact alone calls into question the reliability of the facts stated in this story.
In the middle of the of this article there was a link “Trump Win Validated by Quantum Blockchain System Recount of Votes” that directs to the page “Trump Win Validated by Quantum Blockchain System Recount of Votes” (https://beforeitsnews.com/politics/2020/11/trump-win-validated-by-quantum-blockchain-system-recount-of-votes-3217468.html). This article starts out the same as the G News article, however, this article contains a fact that cannot even exist. It states “In addition to the watermark these official ballots also contained ink made of corn, which created an electronic radiation circuit ID that could trace the location of that ballot through GPS transmission. In other words, they could trace if the ballot was filled out by the person named on the ballot.” The first thing to note is that to have an electronic radiation circuit ID there would have to be a means to store that data. Paper cannot store electronic data that is just a fact of life. Second to store electronic data their has to be some electronics somewhere. I am not saying this cannot be done, but if it was done there would have to be some sort of chip on the ballot. This again could only be done nation wide if there was a nation-wide ballot maker which is not true as seen by the NPR article.
If you have ever heard of Def Con you know that it is a very large annual event of hackers and security professionals. One of the best talks I have seen from Def Con came from Def Con 22. It was called “Weaponizing Your Pets: The War Kitteh and the Denial of Service Dog” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMNSvHswljM). This was my first, although passing by explanation, of how GPS works. In this talk Gene Bransfield talked about what it took to get GPS to work. That was the first time I heard you needed three satellites for GPS to work. Of course, my first thought was GPS uses Triangulation. I soon found out that was not right, it uses Trilateration. For a good explanation of this please look at: https://gisgeography.com/trilateration-triangulation-gps/. Basically, all these references are to show that there is no way a ballot can do this type of tracking. To use GPS there would have to be a small computer and a ballot cannot do that. Yet there seem to be people that are trying to convince others that this science fiction idea is real.
It is no good to society to prey on other people’s feelings. Presenting these facts, as if they are real, does no good for anyone. What would be good is if we, as a society, finally realize and accept, that no one person has the complete story. That the real store lies between all the stories and more importantly; we may not have the complete truth. That does not mean we do not have some of the truth. Likewise, others may have just as much of the truth as well. We have to be able to see that none of us is perfect so we all have a presupposition where all our views start at.