Back in October, Encinitas Undercover revealed that Encinitas' Peak Democracy site was chock full o' fictional TV and movie characters. Now, the Coast News reports further:
The Coast News filed a public records request seeking the physical addresses used by the users when they registered with the site, as well as the IP addresses of the computers used to register the accounts. The city took several weeks to fulfill the requests after vetting it through its legal team.Sadly, the city continues to insist that this thoroughly discredited software will be the primary means of gathering public input for the all-important Housing Element Update, which will have serious impacts on high-density development and traffic jams along our already crowded El Camino Real and Encinitas Boulevard corridors. As Council Member Lisa Shaffer wrote in her September 25 newsletter:
Two of the four addresses were the home addresses of current Councilwoman Lisa Shaffer and former Councilman Jerome Stocks, both of whom said they had no idea who was using their addresses and that they were not involved with the posts.
Stocks said he would “take any and all legal remedies” against whoever used his address, but was also critical of the eTown Hall system.
“This just underscores some of the issues I have with the system,” Stocks said. “How do you really know who is posting on the site if you can just make up a name and use someone else’s address?”
The other two addresses were to local residents who said they did not participate in the forum.
The IP addresses traced back to the County of San Diego’s public library system, though it is the universal IP address for the entire system, meaning the people could have made that post from any of the county’s libraries.
Furthermore, input will be received via eTownHall, not on cards or paper maps with dots or orally while sitting around tables. Everyone will be able to see displays and ask questions of staff, and then, either at the community meeting or whenever they choose, they can go to eTownHall and record their input. All the input from everyone will be captured and available to any and all who want to see it.Sure, everyone will be able to see all the input. But we'll have no idea how much of the input is from fake accounts created to push special interests' agendas. With millions of dollars in upzoning windfalls at stake, it would be ridiculously easy for any developer to hire a few high school kids to create dozens of fake accounts to create the appearance of public support.
If Stocks feels this way why did he and $100,000 plus Stack and Pack Czar Pedr Norby orchestrate the sham dot exercise that like Peak Democracy had no controls on input?
ReplyDeleteTaking it a step further, Kranz has refused to disclose how the city housing element update came up with the map that was secretly distributed by Stock's crony Mike Andreen-
hmmm- looks like the map being used for the housing element update is the same sham dot map created by Stocks and Norby- without any controls.
Is Stocks worth quoting, or his revisionist history an attempt to repair his image?
I love it!!
ReplyDeleteExactly. All the Anon comments should be disregarded. Only verifiable addresses
ReplyDeleteI'm not a computer wizard but I don't understand how Lisa and Jerome could now know that their computers were being used this way. Can someone explain?
ReplyDeleteShould have said could NOT know.
ReplyDeleteSome how sneaky $tock$ has his big nose in city business. This is one guy you should NEVER trust. Who is he going to sue? Maybe himself? He's the laughing stock of this city and now he gets caught yet again.
ReplyDeleteI could write a letter to city hall and sign anyone's name to it. I could create an email account in an instant and pretend to be someone I'm not. Either situation has happened in different contexts to try to sway opinions, although I don't think it's happened in Encinitas. The HE eTownhall has some protections but nothing is bullet proof.
ReplyDeleteWhat I suspect is that many people here fear that the majority of resident opinions will not track with the opinions expressed here and those of the small number of people who normally attend council meetings. So to head off that happening they are trying to call the whole effort a fraud. Better to disenfranchise other people's opinions then risk having theirs in the minority.
What better place to do this than this blog where most of us post anonymously and is run by someone whose whole Internet existence is anonymous.
OMG! etown hall is suppose to determine the majority opinion? That's not even what the council says.
Delete1:39- You seem to know things. How could someone get into Lisa and Jerome's computers and post these fictions names?
ReplyDeleteIt's not clear from the Coast News article but I assume that when it said "Two of the four addresses were the home addresses ... Shaffer ... Stocks ..." that somebody merely created an account in their names with their home addresses. If neither of them had already created an account then there would be no way to tell that the IP address associated with each account wasn't theirs.
DeleteThe article goes on to say that "The IP addresses traced back to the County of San Diego's public library system, though it is the universal IP address for the entire system ...". It's not clear if all four accounts had the exact same IP address which would be a red flag in the eTownhall project.
For clarification, most of us don't have a permanent IP address. When we sign on to our Internet provider, we get assigned one of their bundle of addresses on a temporary basis. Since we are only going out surfing the Internet, no one needs to know where to look for us unlike this blog which has several IP addresses (74.125.230.234 & 235, 236) associated with "encinitasundercover.blogspot.com". You usually have to pay extra to have a permanent IP address. While you usually hang on to the same IP address for a while, it will get recycled and you will end up with a different IP address eventually. That means that only the Internet provider could tell what computer had which address at any given time.
The fact that the article tracked the IP address down to the county library system means that the all the computers in every library use a common gateway to get to the Internet. I suspect that this is a separate Internet gateway from the County's internal network gateway. Why was there only a single IP address? Most user networks these days use a firewall that only requires one or a handful of public Internet IP addresses while allowing the internal IP addresses to be assigned by the user. There is a group of IP addresses that are defined to not be used over the Internet. The firewall keeps track between the inside and outside IP addresses.
I'm sure that was more than you wanted to know.
Yes. Good info.
DeleteClearly, some duffus with nothing better to do went to the library and filled out the form to setup a handle on PD. They keyed in the name of a fictional character, and the physical address of a public figure. Repeat that process three times, post a few things under the aliases, then send a note to WC, and hey presto.
It's a lot of work to demonstrate something that was intuitive to anyone who knows just a little about technology who went through the registration process for PD.
It proves only that if you are willing to waste a few hours, you can distort the feedback slightly. Then again, you could do the same thing with less effort by using a fake name during public comments, use spoofed email addresses to write to council, or use a fake name to sign in at a public input meeting for the housing element.
PD is no better nor worse from an authentication perspective than any of the above methods in use for years.
Ostensibly, our council wanted Peak to broaden input on city issues. They said the people who consistently show up at council meetings and speak out on various issues don't necessarily represent the majority. It's ironic that the route to council candidacy includes showing up at council meetings and speaking out on the issues.
DeleteThe stated purpose of Peak was to get broader input. While Peak was under consideration, a prankster registered as two or three of our council members and gave input in a city up north that was already using Peak. The point was to show how easy it is to breach Peak and distort its results.
The prankster who recently registered and gave input on our Peak system as Stocks and Shaffer was making the same point. Unless whoever is compiling the input validates the ID of every post, there's no way to know if it's legitimate, a prank or deliberate distortion to achieve a purpose. That's why Peak is weak.
Standing up to speak at a council meeting under a false ID is near impossible without being busted. It's nothing like goofing on or distorting input on Peak. That's much, much easier.
This has the stink of the KLCC all over it.
ReplyDeleteYou are an obsessive paranoid, and you blame everything on your delusional villain.
Delete"Sniff, sniff", then why do I still smell it??
DeleteWhile I'm definitely not in the KLCC crowd, 3:54 PM appears to be stuck in a rut. "This has the stink of the KLCC all over it."? Really? You need to get out more. Don't be just a one trick pony.
Delete9:32- shouldn't you be mourning the loss of another eucalyptus on the 101??
Delete2:58 PM
DeleteYes, I mourn the loss of any trees but I know that the eucalyptus trees are getting up there in age and they have a nasty habit of dropping branches or falling over altogether. I also want to restore the full canopy on 101 and in the process are willing to prune or remove trees that aren't going to make it.
So what does this have to do with the thread of this blog post. Does your ability to pull random things out of your butt make you sound clever or insightful? Is the KLCC meme the only thing you know?
Keep it crappy....
DeleteBarth, Shaffer and Kranz - the Three Stooges. And $tock$ crying foul??? Methinks he protests too much.
ReplyDelete"It proves only that if you are willing to waste a few hours, you can distort the feedback slightly."
ReplyDeleteNo . What it proves is any property owner or neighborhood can stack the deck for the public input process and game the system for well under $1,000. Not bad considering the millions of dollars at stake.
Considering the City Council should delete all the anonymous posts on the PD and only consider verifiable comments from known residents.
It is my personal opinion that the council has already decided which direction to take this city. The Peak Democracy system is a mechanism to garner input from people who think their opinions really matter and will be heard. Think again! This is a ploy and the money that was spent on this is wasteful.
ReplyDeleteIn the end, the council is going to do what the council will do. Like it or not.
And, YES, get rid of the Communications person that was hired. That is an absolute waste of money.
On with the show.
What other mechanism would you suggest that would enable council members to get input from a wide variety of local residents?
DeleteIt is true that political gadflies often represent minority opinions. It's understandable that politicians would want a broader perspective.
So, how do you propose they go about doing this?
What wide variety of local residents? The participation rate, even if you include Disney characters, is infinitesimal.
DeleteAnd what evidence is there that Peak Democracy users are any more representative of the community than gadflies or people who e-mail the council?
6:25 AM
DeleteSo if we can't create the perfect method then we shouldn't do anything. Also, if residents aren't active already then their opinions don't count?
What evidence is there that PD hasn't broaden community input? So far all I've seen is unsubstantiated claims of widespread fraud or council indifference to any PD result before the fact.
Whether or not they were successful, the city has attempted to limit spoofing in the HE version of PD. I doubt it will be perfect but if the majority of respondents are genuine then that will be enough. Who knows, maybe the majority of comments echo what is being said here. If so, will you still claim that we should ignore the PD results?
9:24 gets it right.
DeleteI'm afraid 6:24 is right.
ReplyDeleteIt's about power. Council members endure a lot of crap so they can exercise power. They want to do what they want to do. What the majority of residents want doesn't matter.
Residents can be heard only through ballot initiatives, lawsuits and massive organized protests like the density bonus uprising.
6:24 is right. We can all argue till the cows come home whose address is valid and whose is not. PD was a relatively cheap way to make most of the people - whether they participated or not - think that the city really wanted to consider their opinions, period. PD = the opiate of the masses.
ReplyDeleteSo you're trying to put PD on par with religion? Aren't we reaching a little far for a metaphor.
DeleteNo....
DeletePD has no value and should be dumped as soon as possible to save tax payers money.
ReplyDeleteDump the communications position as well. A small city of 60k does not need a communications position. Can not the department heads communicate info to the public?
We needed the $200k a year to help pay for the park which costs about $1,000,000 to keep.
Oh, so now the salary (+ benies) is up to $200,000. Is this person getting monster raises the rest of us don't know about. Why not kick it up $250,000. Saying a quarter million always sounds scarry.
DeleteThe comms position is a spin position, which the City (not city) needs as long as it continues to deceive the public on fill-in-the-blank.
ReplyDeleteSo when do the new salary increases kick in for the city employees? Will it be retroactive to 2010?
ReplyDeleteThis city needs to review employee viability and salary issues, along with the outrageous pension accumulation. This is what happens when there is no oversight and people with vested self-interest are given free reign to determine their compensations. The gears are being stripped from civic responsibility.
DeleteThis is why we have Muir who retired at 50 making over $175,000 a year forever for working an easy job to begin with.
ReplyDeleteWTF- Taxpayers need to wake up.
How much of that $175,000 (using your numbers...I haven't verified) do you think Encinitas taxpayers are paying? Are the taxpayers paying that entire amount? If not, what percentage and/or dollar amount of it are they paying on a yearly basis? Can you please describe the mechanism by which taxpayers are paying these benefits?
DeleteBack to the question of how to get a better sense of opinions that represent most of the people in the city, a group of volunteers with academic backgrounds in testing and evaluation to go over MIG surveys from the General Plan Update, and rewrite them using professional standards to control bias. This group of professionals could decide how the data would be evaluated, and protocols could be prepared and put into place so that the data could be treated ethically and professionally.
ReplyDeleteEvery household in Encinitas could be mailed a survey with a return envelope, so that those who wish to participate at least have an equal chance. I predict that this data would closely correlate with other surveys done over the years before the Planning Department changed the answers!
Residents would continue to say that they love the community character and neighborhoods where they live, and that they don't want to change anything!