text:
What's wrong with Taiwan's current electoral system
A lesson for Taiwan's swing voters about the importance of legislative elections
Many people in Taiwan believe that as long as they have right to vote, then they live in a democratic society. Few people would further examine whether they are actually able to go to the polls under fair rules. Fair rules give election results that protect democracy while unfair rules put it in jeopardy.
This post refers to a published academic paper and to the current ROC Constitution in order to demonstrate to readers some problems with the current electoral system in Taiwan, one which actually gives permanent advantages to the pan-blue coalition in elections for the Legislative Yuan (LY). Unless corrective measures are taken, Taiwan's political institution is heading towards an unhealthy direction, i.e. it either selects a KMT president with a "rubber-stamp" Legislative Yuan -- which allows unchecked KMT executive power -- or ensures a DPP lame duck president who cannot carry out policies s/he wishes to implement.
For Taiwan's Legislative Election results see the links here.
For info on how the 2008 Legislative Yuan electoral districts were determined, read "Central Election Commission reclassifies electoral districts."
Many western countries conduct national census on population every 5 or 10 years (such as the census short form of the US or Canada) and through census it forms the basis for electoral district divisions. However, electoral district divisions in Taiwan are not based on a census, leaving room for problems such as votes of unequal value (over representation and under representation), and gerrymandering.
For how the new LY seat distribution rule was changed in 2008, see Note 1 under the "References" section below.
For data on voter turnout rates, see this link.
After the most recent legislative election in January 2008 in which the KMT won seats by a landslide majority (following the first implementation of the 2005 reforms, see Note 1), no one studied the most important reason behind the DPP's disappointing outcome in details better than a scholar named Daniel C. O'Neill. He presented a paper at the 2009 Midwest Political Science Association Conference in which he carefully observed the effect of electoral rules on the Democratic Progressive Party's performance in the 2004 and 2008 Legislative Elections in Taiwan.
In brief, the description about the DPP's poor performance in the 2008 LY election can be read starting from p.14 of the paper with illustration of table 4 and 5 on the percentages of vote share and seat share by the DPP and the pan-green coalition respectively. A slight drop of approximately 3 to 4 percentage points in vote share (from 43.5% in 2004 to 39.1% in 2008) for the pan-green coalition translates into a huge drop of 21 percentage-point share of legislative seats (from 44.9% in 2004 to 23.9% in 2008.)
On p.19 of the paper, O'Neill observed that in the 2004 LY election held under an SNTV (single non-transferable vote) electoral system, the DPP won 42% of the district seats with 36% of the vote (note: the figures used here are slightly different from the tables mentioned in the immediately preceding paragraph because it excludes the aboriginal districts from calculation per his note 8). In contrast, in 2008 under the MMM (mixed member majoritarian) system , the DPP's district vote share of over 38.7% earned the party fewer than 24% of the legislative seats. In other words, the DPP had a slightly larger vote share in 2008 than in 2004, but it resulted in an approximately 17 percentage-point drop in its share of legislative seats.
The KMT has a strong organizational base dating to the days of its authoritarian one-party rule of the island. Under the new MMM system, this organizational advantage has helped the party to achieve the plurality needed to win district elections. There are other "advantages" -- such as the KMT's asset-rich vote buying tactics and its connection to local criminal factions -- that facilitate KMT dominance in local elections.
For a study of vote buying in Taiwan's elections, see "Weighing a Shadow: Toward a Technique for Estimating the Effects of Vote-buying in Taiwan."
Seat determination in the LY is most troubled by the problem that each vote does not carry the same weight, meaning some districts are over-represented while other districts are under-represented. This is shown in table 6 on p. 22 of O'Neill's paper for the one-seat districts.
For population in each county see this link.
At the over representation extreme, Lienchiang County -- with a population of only 9,786 -- elects one legislator. Kinmen County and Penghu County, with populations of 79,884 and 91,942 respectively, also have one seat each. These low-density population districts -- i.e. offshore islands and east coast of Taiwan's mainland (Taitung County) -- traditionally KMT strongholds -- can elect legislators into the LY. On the other hand, the four one-seat districts with the greatest populations in Taiwan -- Hsinchu County, Yilan County, Hsinchu City, and Keelung City (475,928; 445,811; 395,239 and, 382,109 respectively) -- are examples of underrepresentation. There are also districts with the smallest population among the cities and counties with multiple seat representation, an example is Nantou County District 1 with 240,511 people, just 50.5% of the Hsinchu County district's population but with equal representation.
Historically, in early 19th century England and Wales, we saw the representation problem of the "rotten boroughs" after the industrial revolution moved the cluster of residents into the booming industrial towns, but the Reform Act of 1832 with later Reform Acts and Representation of the People Acts corrected some of the problems.
The six points of the People's Charter from a handbill handed out in the streets of Britain in 1838. Pay special attention to point five.
(From Think History!: Modern Times 1750-1990, by Caroline Beechener, Clive Griffiths, Amanda Jacob, ©2004, Pearson Education)
Now in the 21st century, Taiwan's democracy faces a similar issue of unequal representation. Isn't it time for a national census to determine the electoral districts? Drawing the electoral district borders should not be left until the last moment when strategic party planning for winning votes are hidden agenda for drawing the borders. Isn't it time for an effective delimitation to take place, one that is suitable for Taiwan's democracy to strive, before we even think about any elections and potential candidates and their policies?
The ROC Constitution on presidential recall and impeachment affecting election outcome
The DPP's presidential candidate in 2008, Frank Hsieh, did not even stand a chance against the KMT's Ma Ying-jeou because of the KMT's overwhelming majority in the LY election outcome two months earlier and the ROC Constitution for the impeachment of president practically eliminated Hsieh's chances. If Frank Hsieh had won the presidential election, he would have faced a hostile KMT majority in the LY that could initiate an impeachment shortly after his inauguration.
For details on presidential recall and impeachment read the excerpt in the "References" section below.
This important ROC Constitution governing presidential impeachment factor that had indeed affected the outcome of the 2008 presidential election was not mentioned by any of the foreign press at all. The mainstream media easily attributed Ma's win to Taiwanese welcoming his conciliatory China policy and to his promise to improve the economy. The media failed to observe that, on the contrary, Ma actually won the presidential campaign with the help of the LY election outcome earlier plus Ma's pre-election tactics of pretending to be a "true Taiwanese" -- growing up eating Taiwanese rice and speaking some Taiwanese to voters -- ready to defend Taiwan's interests and promising "no unification" during his term if elected. I believe the low turnout rate in the presidential election in 2008 can be attributed to this factor -- many pan green supporters simply didn't bother to vote because they thought if Hsieh could be impeached by the LY after winning, why should they bother to vote?
Without the backing of a majority in the legislature, a DPP (or pan-green) president will face a hostile LY that blocks any policies that he wishes to execute. (Remember which party's fault it was for not passing the arms purchase bill and for consequently weakening Taiwan's defense capabilities?) And worse, s/he would be facing the constant threat of impeachment by the LY, not to mention how an elected president could carry out his day-to-day duties. He would be spending all his time dealing with a hostile legislature that could initiate countless impeachment proceedings anytime it sees an opportunity (since the 2005 reform package did not set a limit on how many times such proceedings can take place).
The rules for impeachment of the ROC president say that it can only be initiated by the LY -- not by the people through a referendum. So even if half of the electorate in Taiwan wanted Ma to leave office after police mishandled protesters during Chen Yunlin's first visit to Taiwan and for his refusal of immediate foreign assistance during typhoon Morakot, as long as his party members occupied two-thirds of the LY seats, he'd be there to stay.
Do you think it is fair for the KMT party to receive about 56% of the popular votes but gain about 75% of the legislative seats? Do you think it is fair for a president that receives about 58% of the votes to have a 75% rubber-stamping legislative army to back his unchecked policies?
Isn't it time for the electoral system to undergo scrutiny so the supposedly democratic elections will one day become truly democratic?
I would like to offer a tentative electoral system that may be improved further with an objective of achieving a ratio of vote share to seat share to be as near as possible to 1:1. I believe that the indigenous people should be autonomous, and there should be no non-resident foreign representation in the LY.
1. Counties and cities are not to be divided into very small districts; the LY seats should be determined by proration according to the county or the city's population over the total population of Taiwan. And let the total number of legislators be 115 (just to be used for calculations in the following examples)
2. Very dense areas are to be subdivided while very low density areas should be combined as one district.
3. Multiple member first-past-the-post ballot should be implemented, the first number of candidates, in order of highest vote, corresponding to the number of positions to be filled are elected. If there are six vacancies in a district then the first six candidates with the highest vote are elected. A multiple selection ballot where more than one candidate can be voted for in which voters are allowed to cast a vote for as many candidates as there are vacant positions; the candidate(s) with the highest number of votes is elected.
4. Here are a few examples to illustrate the points above.
Changhua county electoral district
1,312,491 / 23,164,457 x 115 = 6.51 rounding off to 7
So the county of Changhua will elect 7 legislators.
Voters in the Changhua county will have a multiple selection ballot where they can select any candidates they wish to represent Changhu in the LY up a maximum of 7.
The first 7 candidates receiving the highest ballots will be elected.
Example 2:
Penghu, Kinmen, Lienchiang combined into 1 electoral district.
200,549 / 23,164,457 x 115 = 0.996 rounding off to 1 (since the population is 96,387 + 94,205 + 10,002 = 200,549)
So these 3 areas combined will elect 1 legislator.
Voters in these 3 areas will have a ballot where they can select only 1 candidate they wish to represent them in the LY.
The candidate receiving the highest ballot will be elected.
Example 3:
New Taipei City will elect 3,876,070 / 23,164,457 x 115 = 19.243 rounding off to 19 legislators.
New Taipei City can be subdivided into three electoral districts. Two of the districts can elect six legislators per district, and the other district can elect seven legislators as long as the division of the district is such that the ratio of the population to the number of legislators in each district is kept nearly the same.
The division of districts in high density areas gives us the incentive that a simple-questionnaire population census every 10 years is crucial to the success of district divisions, and Taiwan should do it for itself, not "China tries to do it for us."
Two factors comprise the main obstacles to our attempt to correct our problematic electoral system. One is the KMT's deliberate ignorance for revamping the electoral system after the 2008 election -- wanting to stay as permanent majority in the LY-- and second is the erroneous belief by politicians around the globe that a new constitution in Taiwan (for the sake of Taiwan's democracy, Taiwan does need a new constitution) is a challenge to the "status quo," thus indirectly restricting the people in Taiwan to voting under a flawed ROC system.
If I have an old car that needs frequent maintenance and change of parts, I may as well dump the old car and buy a new one that works. This is the way I feel about what's wrong with our system after so many attempts to reform the ROC constitution that were initially imposed upon the Taiwanese people and continuously needs reviews and reforms but will never be amended well enough by the non-representative parliament. A parliament in which the KMT always held a majority cannot correctly amend the constitution -- they just go in circles! Our referendum law is but one example.
Voter turnout for LY election must improve
Unless the pan-green wins a majority in the legislative election next year, any talk about a DPP candidate winning the presidential election is futile if the KMT retains its majority in the LY to control the passing of bad laws and delaying the passage of good laws. Voters must realize the importance of exercising their voting rights in the LY election and show a big turnout contrary to past trends. In the past, voter turnout for LY elections has been low -- under 60% -- while voter turnout for the presidential election has been much higher -- no lower than 75%, and peaking at 82.69% in the 2000 presidential election.
Since the KMT-dominated LY will not initiate a review of the rules relating to elections, a review of our referendum rights is at task.
No wonder Taiwan's former president, Lee Teng-hui has the wisdom to call upon scrapping the ROC Constitution. "Lee calls for ROC Constitution to be scrapped"
So, wake up Taiwan! Let's talk about fair rules before we even talk about going into the polls. Without fair rules, how can we uphold democracy?
And, wake up politicians of the world! How can Taiwan's representation be subject to Beijing's approval for international presence (membership) when China's leaders (and therefore its representation) have not even been elected by its own people?
Only democracy can protect Taiwan, and only democracy (not economic engagement) can change China for the better!
1. Note1: Additional Articles of the Constitution of the Republic of China (2005 Reform), Article 4 governs the rules on how LY seats are determined
2. My own observations just after the 2008 LY Election
3. Rules on recall and impeachment of ROC president -- the excerpt here is from a source in this link:
Recall of the State President or the State Vice President shall be initiated upon the proposal of the Legislative Yuan and shall be passed by more than one half of the valid ballots in a vote in which more than one half of the electorate in the free area of the Republic of China participate. The Legislative Yuan shall initiate the recall upon the proposal of no less than one-fourth of all members of the Legislative Yuan, and present the proposal with a clearly stated reason for such a recall to the Procedure Committee to have it included in the agenda to be sent to the YuanSitting. The Yuan Sitting shall, with no discussion required, refer the proposal to the Committee of the Entire Yuan for the latter to finish deliberation within 15 days. Prior to the deliberation by the Committee of the Entire Yuan, the Legislative Yuan shall notify the recalled subject to submit a written defense within seven days before the deliberation. When the Legislative Yuan receives the written defense, it shall distribute the report to each member. Should the recalled subject fail to submit the written defense, the Committee of the Entire Yuan may still continue the deliberation. After the deliberation, the Committee of the Entire Yuan shall submit the proposal to the Yuan Sitting for registered voting. Such a recall of the State President or the State Vice President is passed with no less than two-thirds of all the Legislative Yuan members concurring in the registered voting. The Committee of the Entire Yuan shall promulgate and inform the recalled subject of the voting result.4. Taiwan's current population statistics are based on this link.
For the impeachment of the State President or the State Vice President, the Legislative Yuan must initiate it upon the proposal of more than half of the entire Yuan members; a written proposal with detailed reasons for such an impeachment must be referred to the Procedure Committee later to have it included in the agenda to be sent to the Yuan Sitting. No discussion is required, the Yuan Sitting shall refer the proposal to the Committee of the Entire Yuan for examination, during which the impeached subject may explain on the floor at the invitation of the Legislative Yuan. What follows the examination is an anonymous vote in the Yuan Sitting; should no less than two-thirds of all the Legislative Yuan members concur in the voting, an impeachment case then by resolution shall be submitted to the Grand Justices. Once the case is sustained at the Constitutional Court, the impeached subject shall forthwith resign.
5. Another interesting observation about Taiwan's elections by Jerome Keating: "The hidden face of Taiwan politics"
6. Understanding combined elections
7. Announcement of investigation by the Control Yuan of some "missing documents" by former DPP officials including Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) just one day before he declared his candidacy in the DPP presidential primary, but 1,036 days after Ma took the presidential office. What is Ma's intention?
(Some editing by Tim Maddog)
Labels: census, Central Election Commission, Daniel C. O'Neill, elections, electoral district division, legislative election, presidential election, presidential impeachment, scrap ROC laws


text: "Pray for our troops" reads across a ribbon that's tied around the NOTW logo. Hidden in the stripes of the flag is the scripture: "For the Lord your God is the One who goes with you to fight for you against your enemies to give you victory." Deut 20:4. "Jesus" is found at the end of the ribbon showing it's only through Him we can even pray. It is by Jesus dying for us that we have victory "By His stripes we are healed". Isaiah 53:5

subset: commoncrawl


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Ángel Cabrera (pronounced /ˈɑːnhɛl kəˈbrɛrə/ in English) (born 12 September 1969) is an Argentine professional golfer who plays mainly on the European Tour. He is known affectionately as "El Pato" (The duck) for his waddling gait. He is a former U.S. Open champion and the current Masters champion. He is the first Argentine to win either The Masters or the U.S. Open.
Cabrera was born in Córdoba, Argentina, the son of a changarin (handyman) and a maid who split up when he was three or four, leaving him in the care of his paternal grandmother. He stayed with her until he was 16, when he moved in with his girlfriend, Silvia, 10 years his senior. They had a son, Federico, four years later, followed by another, Ángel, two years later.
When Cabrera was 10 he became a caddy at the Córdoba Country Club, which he says almost became his home. In sixth grade he quit school to take up the job full time. He learned golf playing against other caddies for money. His fierce determination and powerful swing soon caught the eye of members, one of whom, Juan Cruz Molina, a local real estate magnate, bought him his first set of clubs when he was 16.


text:
Rays jump on Sox early in 8-3 victory
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. -- Jeremy Hellickson won his fourth consecutive start, Jose Molina had a two-run homer during a five-run second inning, and the Tampa Bay Rays beat the Chicago White Sox 8-3 on Friday night.
Hellickson (8-3) gave up one run, six hits and struck out nine in seven innings, helping the Rays win for the sixth time in seven games. The right-hander was coming off a strong June when he went 5-1.
Molina hit his two-run drive and the following batter, Kelly Johnson, connected for a solo shot three pitches later off Dylan Axelrod (3-5) to start the second-inning surge that saw the Rays go up 5-0.
Later in the inning, Evan Longoria had an RBI single before Wil Myers ended Axelrod's night with a run-scoring double.
It was Molina's second homer this season and first since April 18.
Axelrod, who has given up 10 homers in 22 1-3 innings over his past five starts, allowed five runs and nine hits in 1 2-3 innings.
Myers' sacrifice fly and a run-scoring single by Luke Scott made it 7-0 in the fourth.
Josh Phegley got his first major league hit, an RBI single in the fifth for the White Sox, who have lost seven of nine. Phegley, who started at catcher, and center fielder Blake Tekotte, recalled from Triple-A Charlotte before the game, were both in the starting lineup.
Gordon Beckham had an RBI single and Phegley added a sacrifice fly in the ninth.
Longoria started at third base for the first time since leaving a game on June 28 after irritating plantar fasciitis in his right foot. He returned Tuesday for the first of three consecutive days as the designated hitter.
Tampa Bay's James Loney singled in the first to extend his hitting streak to a career-best 16 games. He drove in a run by drawing a bases-loaded walk in the fifth.
Axelrod reached for Desmond Jennings' low first-inning liner, which knocked his glove to the ground. The pitcher picked up the ball and threw out the speedy Rays' leadoff man at first.
NOTES: White Sox RHP Jake Peavy, on the DL since June 6 due to a broken rib, threw off a bullpen mound. "Hopefully in the next week or so he'll be able to get a side (session) and be ready to go," Chicago manager Robin Ventura said. Peavy will likely go out on a rehab assignment before rejoining the team. ... Rays RHP Alex Cobb had a bullpen session for the first time since being hit in the right ear by a line drive on June 15. There is no timetable for his return. ... The White Sox designated C Hector Gimenez for assignment. ... SS Alexi Ramirez, who played every inning for the White Sox this season entering the game, was one of several Chicago players pulled after the top of the seventh.


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Nine Questions about Hidden Services
This is an interview with a Tor developer who works on hidden services. Please note that Tor Browser and hidden services are two different things. Tor Browser (downloadable at TorProject.org) allows you to browse, or surf, the web, anonymously. A hidden service is a site you visit or a service you use that uses Tor technology to stay secure and, if the owner wishes, anonymous. The secure messaging app ricochet is an example of a hidden service. Tor developers use the terms "hidden services" and "onion services" interchangeably. 1. What are your priorities for onion services development? Personally I think it's very important to work on the security of hidden services; that's a big priority. The plan for the next generation of onion services includes enhanced security as well as improved performance. We've broken the development down into smaller modules and we're already starting to build the foundation. The whole thing is a pretty insane engineering job.2. What don't people know about onion Services? Until earlier this year, hidden services were a labor of love that Tor developers did in their spare time. Now we have a very small group of developers, but in 2016 we want to move the engineering capacity a bit farther out. There is a lot of enthusiasm within Tor for hidden services but we need funding and more high level developers to build the next generation. 3. What are some of Tor's plans for mitigating attacks? The CMU attack was fundamentally a "guard node" attack; guard nodes are the first hop of a Tor circuit and hence the only part of the network that can see the real IP address of a hidden service. Last July we fixed the attack vector that CMU was using (it was called the RELAY_EARLY confirmation attack) and since then we've been divising improved designs for guard node security. For example, in the past, each onion service would have three guard nodes assigned to it. Since last September, each onion service only uses one guard node—-it exposes itself to fewer relays. This change alone makes an attack against an onion service much less likely. Several of our developers are thinking about how to do better guard node selection. One of us is writing code on this right now. We are modeling how onion services pick guard nodes currently, and we're simulating other ways to do it to see which one exposes itself to fewer relays—the fewer relays you are exposed to, the safer you are. We've also been working on other security things as well. For instance, a series of papers and talks have abused the directory system of hidden services to try to estimate the activity of particular hidden services, or to launch denial-of-service attacks against hidden services.We're going to fix this by making it much harder for the attacker's nodes to become the responsible relay of a hidden service (say, catfacts) and be able to track uptime and usage information. We will use a "distributed random number generator"--many computers teaming up to generate a single, fresh unpredictable random number. Another important thing we're doing is to make it impossible for a directory service to harvest addresses in the new design. If you don't know a hidden service address, then under the new system, you won't find it out just by hosting its HSDir entry. There are also interesting performance things: We want to make .onion services scalable in large infrastructures like Facebook--we want high availability and better load balancing; we want to make it serious.[Load balancing distributes the traffic load of a website to multiple servers so that no one server gets overloaded with all the users. Overloaded servers stop responding and create other problems. An attack that purposely overloads a website to cause it to stop responding is called a Denial of Service (DoS) attack. - Kate] There are also onion services that don't care to stay hidden, like Blockchain or Facebook; we can make those much faster, which is quite exciting. Meanwhile Nick is working on a new encryption design--magic circuit crypto that will make it harder to do active confirmation attacks. [Nick Mathewson is the co-founder of the Tor Project and the chief architect of our software.] Active confirmation attacks are much more powerful than passive attacks, and we can do a better job at defending against them. A particular type of confirmation attack that Nick's new crypto is going to solve is a "tagging attack"—Roger wrote a blog post about them years ago called, "One Cell Is Enough"—it was about how they work and how they are powerful. 4. Do you run an onion service yourself? Yes, I do run onion services; I run an onion services on every box I have. I connect to the PC in my house from anywhere in the world through SSH—I connect to my onion service instead of my house IP. People can see my laptop accessing Tor but don't know who I am or where I go. Also, onion services have a property called NAT-punching; (NAT=Network Address Translation). NAT blocks incoming connections;it builds walls around you. Onion services have NAT punching and can penetrate a firewall. In my university campus, the firewall does not allow incoming connections to my SSH server, but with an onion service the firewall is irrelevant. 5. What is your favorite onion service that a nontechnical person might use? I use ricochet for my peer to peer chatting--It has a very nice UI and works well. 6. Do you think it's safe to run an onion service? It depends on your adversary. I think onion services provide adequate security against most real life adversaries.However, if a serious and highly motivated adversary were after me, I would not rely solely on the security of onion services. If your adversary can wiretap the whole Western Internet, or has a million dollar budget, and you only depend on hidden services for your anonymity then you should probably up your game. You can add more layers of anonymity by buying the servers you host your hidden service on anonymously (e.g. with bitcoin) so that even if they deanonymize you, they can't get your identity from the server. Also studying and actually understanding the Tor protocol and its threat model is essential practice if you are defending against motivated adversaries.7. What onion services don't exist yet that you would like to see? Onion services right now are super-volatile; they may appear for three months and then they disappear. For example, there was a Twitter clone, Tor statusnet; it was quite fun--small but cozy. The guy or girl who was running it couldn't do it any longer. So, goodbye! It would be very nice to have a Twitter clone in onion services. Everyone would be anonymous. Short messages by anonymous people would be an interesting thing. I would like to see apps for mobile phones using onion services more—SnapChat over Tor, Tinder over Tor—using Orbot or whatever. A good search engine for onion services. This volatility comes down to not having a search engine—you could have a great service, but only 500 sketchoids on the Internet might know about it. Right now, hidden services are misty and hard to see, with the fog of war all around. A sophisticated search engine could highlight the nice things and the nice communities; those would get far more traffic and users and would stay up longer. The second question is how you make things. For many people, it's not easy to set up an onion service. You have to open Tor, hack some configuration files, and there's more.We need a system where you double click, and bam, you have an onion service serving your blog. Griffin Boyce is developing a tool for this named Stormy. If we have a good search engine and a way for people to start up onion services easily, we will have a much nicer and more normal Internet in the onion space. 8. What is the biggest misconception about onion services? People don't realize how many use cases there are for onion services or the inventive ways that people are using them already. Only a few onion services ever become well known and usually for the wrong reasons. I think it ties back to the previous discussion--—the onion services we all enjoy have no way of getting to us. Right now, they are marooned on their island of hiddenness. 9. What is the biggest misconception about onion services development? It's a big and complex project—it's building a network inside a network; building a thing inside a thing. But we are a tiny team. We need the resources and person power to do it.
(Interview conducted by Kate Krauss)
nice write up on hidden
nice write up on hidden services :)
Great article! I assume soon
Great article! I assume soon to see at least 100 twitter clones and still no _good_ search engine (to be fair, the current ones are pretty good for what they are)
> to be fair, the current
> to be fair, the current ones are pretty good for what they are
I know just about https://ahmia.fi/
or http://msydqstlz2kzerdg.onion/
Some yes, i am at work and
Some yes, i am at work and cant look for the next hours but there have been at least 3 search engine releases in the last half year on /r/onions. Next to that there is Torch and Not Evil
Not Evil is fantastic:
Not Evil is fantastic: hss3uro2hsxfogfq.onion
MoniTOR is a very good
MoniTOR is a very good search engine that is not so well known but recently passed the million mark of .onions indexed, according to the developer.
Well, not a million .onions,
Well, not a million .onions, but almost 1.5 million PAGES indexed :)
All in all, I think we've indexed about 55,000 onions?
Excellent Narrative ! #Jimbo
Excellent Narrative !
#Jimbo [ In 904 ]
brillant ! hope this means
brillant ! hope this means we get some updated tutorials on the various magic stuff that can be done with hidden services.
Namaste, Great work Kate.
Great work Kate. Thank you for the write up. As it is said 'if you build it, they (programmers) will come."
I, myself will be sure to work on this effective immediately.
Carry on!
Ricochet is sublime.
Ricochet is sublime.
Great content. Thanx so much
Great content. Thanx so much for your work.
something is wrong with
something is wrong with onion service , it is not so secure & safe that it claims it !
most of time, i cannot access at the onion site of my choice.
are the server compromised or is it prohibited from my isp / rogue-state_country ?
i do not know....
Great interview!
Bitsquare.io a decentralized Bitcoin-Fiat (or Bitcoin-Altcoin) exchange is using Tor Hidden Services as base for its P2P network (using a flooding algorithm). It is still under development but should be released in january.
Links to some useful hidden
Links to some useful hidden services.
"Since last September, each
"Since last September, each onion service only uses one guard node—-it exposes itself to fewer relays."
Do you have reference for this? Where can it be checked?
Here is the proposal &
Here is the proposal & ticket that made this happen:
Is having one guard just for
Is having one guard just for the HSes running on post-Sept2014 Tor releases or does the network force it for all hidden services?
The nework forces it for all
The nework forces it for all hidden services by setting the NumEntryGuards consensus parameter to 1.
Any Tor version above 0.2.5.6 understands the NumEntryGuards parameter and switches to 1 guard.
'NumEntryGuards NUM' - where
'NumEntryGuards NUM' - where is the restriction for NUM be in 0...1??? Or you are just joking?! I don't believe network are turned to FORCE clients behavior and tor have some hidden ways to change clients configuration file. Consensus is just a recommendation.
I see in cached consensus
I see in cached consensus that "NumEntryGuards=1".
However, Tor specification still insists that default value is 3:
Am I looking in the wrong spec?
Why all the comments
Why all the comments disappearing?
So in otherwords there is no workaround or stop for guard node intrusion currently?
How prevenlant can we expect this to be?....realsitically as posssible please.
The more I research Tor, the less secure it is in my mind.
You can always buy a vps and
You can always buy a vps and run a published tor bridge relay and just use that bridge as your guard.
There is trouble with
There is trouble with comments because someone is spamming us with comments, and is filling up the database making it hard to spot valid comments and approve them.
I'm not sure what you mean by "guard node intrusion", but in general it's very hard to _completely stop_ guard node attacks in low-latency scenarios. This is because hidden services use long-term connections (that's how the web works) and hence they need to connect to a relay which learns their IP.
This is almost unavoidable with the current architecture of our onion routing. The question then becomes "how can we minimize the number of relays that get to see the IP of the hidden service". If we minimize this number, and assuming we have enough relays on the network, these attacks should be very unlikely. We are working on this these days!
There is trouble with
There is trouble with comments because someone is spamming us with comments, and is filling up the database making it hard to spot valid comments and approve them.
I think that there is also other problems, because there is empty comments with date December 31st, 1969.
I think that this date is "-1".
> The more I research Tor,
> The more I research Tor, the less secure it is in my mind.
Well, don't confuse the issue of safeing this blog against spammers (which the Project has stated is a low priority) with keeping Tor itself and TB and TM safe, which are completely different things. If you read this blog carefully over the next few months, you'll probably begin to understand why things are not nearly as bad as your first impression might have led you to believe.
Tor Project faces many threats from many determined and capable adversaries, but the core software (Tor itself) has many strengths and has proven amazingly resistant to all but a handful of known attacks. When effective attacks have come to light, the Project has almost always been able to fix them quickly. The ones it can't fix easily mostly involve things like PKI and rogue CAs which are too big for Tor Project to address alone, but even here the wider community is more and more determined to force internet vendors to fix these problems.
fter accessing some specific
fter accessing some specific websites you can notice the search bar displays a plus sign green icon, if I click and add this engine to my Tor Browser, would it track and log every time I use the function? The search provider knows the user when the user added its search addons and by later changing the search code and the user dosen't add its new code. From the keywords you have seached by its addons which provides the specific code so the provider may get your important personal informations.
firefox feature. I never
firefox feature. I never knew what that was. now i see, when i click it.
it looks like you can add a search engine to searchplugins in the profile directory (folder). if true, then the new search plugin will be a new xml file, which you can read and edit with text editor.
> the new search plugin
> the new search plugin will be a new xml file, which you can read and edit with text editor.
What worries some users is the possibility that website operators might be able to exploit a vulnerability in FF (which might also be present in TB) to also read and edit, and perhaps to recover a web-surfing log of the current TB instance.
This is probably less likely with Tails, but in the absence of informed comment I worry that it could be problem for TB.
Do the TB devs have any comment?
They definitely won't have
They definitely won't have any comment here (on this unrelated blog post). I suggest asking them in a venue where they're paying attention.
From my cursory look at the thread here, I don't see how adding another search option has anything to do with keeping a websurfing log.
> I don't see how adding
> I don't see how adding another search option has anything to do with keeping a websurfing log.
I've noticed that some websites seem able to fiddle with TB to set their favorite search engine (e.g. the duckduckgo icon appears) and that worries me. (It's not the choice of search engine which worries me, it's the impression that the website can reset at least some TB settings.)
If you can track down
If you can track down details, please open a ticket in trac!
Can I do that anonymously,
Can I do that anonymously, without an email account? What link should I look at? Problem might be moot now that theregister.co.uk seems to be blocking Tor.
Can you file a ticket
Can you file a ticket anonymously? Yes.
https://bugs.torproject.org/ and login as cypherpunks if you like.
Nice interview and good job
Nice interview and good job pointing out the need for some more easy to set up software and especially the blogging part.
If there was a secure and easy to set up onion blogging platform, even without all the bells and whistles, that would be a great step forwards for freedom of speech.
i believe it is as simple as
i believe it is as simple as :
1)get hardware
2)install/load (as example) freebsd in memory (use your notebook etc)
3)fill disk(s) with random data (if you need permanent storage)
4)encrypt full disk(s) with geli
^ one time only steps ^
5)install virtualbox
6)create firewall-vm, tor-vm, blogging.platform-vm
for more details use your brain and enjoy
hard reset and there are only disks with random data...
(just one small problem with geli and freebsd.apple ...)
all steps needed to reboot can/should be scripted.
as you are the only person who knows the passphrase and has the key file for geli nobody but you can reactivate this platform.
FreeBSD is not simple for
FreeBSD is not simple for most people. Also, he wanted a secure blogging platform. FreeBSD does not even have upstream ASLR yet.
And isn't FreeBSD tied to
And isn't FreeBSD tied to NSA? Isn't OpenBSD more secure?
That asked, I support the Diversity Project.
Thanks for the reply asn. I
Thanks for the reply asn. I really hope something comes to a viable fruition. It's disconcerting using Tor even with Tails after reading about these attacks.
The commenter's suggestion on the vps sounds interesting though. Thanks
Assuming you are both
Assuming you are both talking about what I know as VPNs, these can be useful, but when it comes to cybersecurity, there are no magic bullets. You may want to look up NSA/ANT's FEEDTROUGH malware targeting VPNs using commercial devices sold by Juniper, which may well be the "unauthorized code" discussed in this story:
"Unauthorized code" in Juniper firewalls decrypts encrypted VPN traffic
Backdoor in NetScreen firewalls gives attackers admin access, VPN decrypt ability.
Dan Goodin
17 Dec 2015
> An operating system used to manage firewalls sold by Juniper Networks contains unauthorized code that surreptitiously decrypts traffic sent through virtual private networks, officials from the company warned Thursday.
Is there a way to donate
Is there a way to donate directly to the hidden services development team?
If theres one thing the recent terror attacks in paris have shown us, its that the big bad fearsome five eyes are completely impotent to track known terrorists over unencrypted channels much less crack Tor. Hell even the FBI went to a university for help, not the NSA with its multibillion dollar budget and unfettered access to all the worlds communication lines, no, a university whose budget is 1/1000th of that with access to nothing.
click on donate page , voila
click on donate page , voila !
i enjoy they cannot track down a person ; it is not pathetic : a government ' project is done for obtaining a budget not a success _ every enterprise has this policy.
i hope that this little attack has not damaged / corrupted a server/pc or a cable ... it should have been a nightmare if it had been a magnetic attack : oops general kernel panic for all tor users.
> it should have been a
> it should have been a nightmare if it had been a magnetic attack
You mean exploiting stray electromagnetic emanations from operating electronic device? (Countermeasures well outside the ability of the average citizen or small business are sometimes called TEMPEST.)
Is bombing foreign houses
Is bombing foreign houses from air not a terrorists' action? And who sells you pr about five eyes tracking terrorists they are tracking you and only you... and why do you think paris gov in first place decide to participate in air bombing? Isn't it because some paris politicians have been blackmailed by nsa agents? Someone believes info in dbs selfdestructing the moment he/she became politician...
How much money do you think domestic agencies will get tomorrow for spying on locals? Guess who is getting benifits from this accident.
hmm...now the price of the
hmm...now the price of the apartment in paris will decrease like after the 11th at ny.
but who was the target at ny and paris -except this supposed economic trick- ?
it was not hillary (so it happened with her agreement) it is not holland or the mayor of paris (so it happened with their agreement) ...
> Isn't it because some
> Isn't it because some paris politicians have been blackmailed by nsa agents?
Don't know, but USIC agencies such as CIA have for decades used the illegal fruits of NSA targeted surveillance to bribe not just French, German, Pakistani politicians, etc, etc., but also American politicians.
In past decades, US Presidents sometimes decided that using NSA surveillance for political purposes was beyond the pale, but the last President who felt that way may have been Lyndon Johnson. I recall an incident which a occurred a few days before Nixon's electoral victory. NSA brought Johnson intercepts proving that Nixon, with the connivance of the socialite and conservative political operative Anna Chennault (widow of Flying Tigers general Claire Chennault), had been conspiring with the North Vietnamese, a nation with which the US was then in a state of undeclared war, to ensure the defeat of the Democratic candidate. So Johnson had been handed proof that probably could have been used to convict Nixon of treason, a capital crime. Johnson wrote a blistering personal letter to Nixon, but decided it would be improper to disclose the intercepts.
I wish current political leaders understood that good intentions do not justify illegal actions, that one traitorous act (Nixon's) cannot be used to justify another.
Former CIA director: 'We
Former CIA director: 'We kill people based on metadata'
Your link does not learn us
Your link does not learn us nothing more we do know yet since a long time : an ( us ) citizen does not exist in the usa and for the usa.
We are a coin, a billet , a market, a network where every hand, word, fingerprint become a link and all these links are the way (your genuine and private life) to make money ; you create your life and they collect the result ... before you if they know how, who, why ...
Their job is the same than the bank do , the reason is they do want LIKE YOU a very good standing without sharing.
*i will add that i should appreciate that you stop trolling with irrelevant arguments mixing false opinion and hateful propaganda. _ REMEMBER NAZI GERMANY ELIMINATING ALL THE NON-CRIMINAL JEWS? _ lol ,
It's YOU who knows but not
It's YOU who knows but not millions of dumb internet walkers. And how many anti-troll comments you have writen to pr news agencies which told the same things all the time? Don't try to shut up his mouth nobody will try to shut up yours.


text:
Minnehaha County Detox Center Off Probation
SIOUX FALLS - The Minnehaha County Detoxification Center put on probation last year has re-earned state accreditation.
County commission administrative director Ken McFarland tells the Argus Leader that the 16-bed detox center received a 92 percent on its recent state inspection.
The Department of Social Services, which accredits substance abuse programs, placed the facility on probation in October and temporarily prohibited new patients after current and former employees there cited a number of safety problems.
Weeks later, a 48-year-old woman was found unresponsive with a toxic level of rubbing alcohol shortly after being admitted. Her death was ruled a suicide.
McFarland and other county officials were vague about what changes were made.
The center allows people with substance abuse issues to sober up during a 48-hour stay.
Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.


text:
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – MIT's men's tennis team stayed perfect in New England Women's and Men's Athletic Conference play this afternoon with an 8-1 victory over Wheaton College. The No. 28 Engineers won their seventh straight match and improved to 12-3 overall and 4-0 in the NEWMAC. Wheaton fell to 6-6 overall and 0-5 in the conference.
MIT quickly went up 3-0 with a sweep of the doubles matches as the Engineers surrendered just a total of two games in the three matches combined. The Engineers saw their No. 1 team of junior Matthew Skalak (Croton-on-Hudson, N.Y.) and sophomore Edwin Zhang (Falls Church, Va.) win 8-1, as did their No. 2 team of junior Larry Pang (Torrance, Calif.) and freshman Eugene Oh (Alpharetta, Ga.). At No. 3 it was an 8-0 decision in favor of juniors Brian Oldfield (St. Thomas, Virgin Islands) and Tymor Hamamasy (New York, N.Y.).
In the singles portion of the match MIT took all five of its wins in straight sets to quickly decide the outcome. Zhang won at No. 1 in a 6-2, 6-0 decision over senior Neall Oliver (Portland, Maine), with sophomore Curtis Wu (Yorba Linda, Calif.) winning by the same score over sophomore Ned Terrace (Chappaqua, N.Y.) at No. 3. Skalak defeated sophomore Sam Jackson (Darien, Conn.) by a 6-3, 6-1 score, while senior Robert Wheeler (Denton, Texas) won his No. 5 contest in a 6-1, 6-3 decision. Freshman Jeffrey Sperling (Los Angles, Calif.) completed the MIT scoring at No. 6 where he prevailed over freshman Brendon Pickering (Merrimack, Mass.), 6-0, 6-2.
Wheaton scored its point of the match in singles play when sophomore Dan Sharon (Santa Monica, Calif.) came from a set down in his No. 2 match with Oldfield to take a 2-6, 6-4, 10-8 victory.
MIT will meet the U.S. Coast Guard Academy in a battle of NEWMAC undefeated teams that will decided the No. 1 seed in the NEWMAC Tournament on April 23 at 3:30 p.m. in New London, Conn. Wheaton will host Colby-Sawyer College tomorrow at Noon in its final match of the regular season.


text:
This section is to track the discussions on the implementation of "User Context" in KDE. For a more general understanding of context in Nepomuk, check out here for the basics and here for the details.
Though there are numerous definitions of Context out there, we would like to refine the important aspects of context to the aspects of "user context":
In general, the meaning of the word "context" is not defined and talking about the word "context" in discussions is unfruitful. We are Understanding Context Before Using It and use the term "user context" deliberately, understanding it as "activity, location, contacts, and resources relevant to the work the user is doing at the moment".
Typically, Desktop applications and widgets have been available just like normal tools which are in no way more "intelligent" than their physical counterparts (ok, apart from their ability to undo things ;) in that they just do exactly what the users tell them to (of course, bugs don't count here!). Nothing less, nothing more!
They have been heaped with loads of functionality which just adds to the clutter the user is already facing with the growing information-overload. They do nothing more that will help the user to reduce his overload, apart from what he tells them to do. So, something has to be done to tackle this now, when information overload is increasing and things are becoming more mobile!!
Continuing the passion for desktop innovation with KDE, we want to induce in our apps the "intelligence" to adjust themselves to the work the user is currently doing. Hence ....
Dikku is a new user context framework that exposes the current user activity and location to both plasma widgets as well as other applications, thus enabling them to adjust themselves to the user's needs.
Dikku means direction in Tamil; when we get lost we generally establish context of where we are based on direction. Currently when we are lost in information, we could look forward to Dikku for assisting us ;) So, I think the name fits. Any suggestions ?
Activities are a "more casual" term for things that range from organized content like projects (which have deadlines, tasks and resources) to adhoc grouping of apps and widgets for a purpose (like in virtual desktops). Perhaps a little history can help here : Activities in KDE have their existence based on 'virtual desktops', where user forms adhoc grouping of apps and widgets. We are currently planning to extend the concept to cover projects also, where user can just add deadlines, tasks and resources to an existing 'virtual desktop' (visually) and can use it as a project with associated apps, etc
Currently we plan to track the following information in Dikku:
and allow for:
The context framework could be implemented in three phases:
The Architecture of Dikku can be split into three major parts:
1. Data Model - how the information is actually stored. We plan to use existing Nepomuk ontologies here
2. Learning Model - how the system observes the user, understands what he is doing and learns to suggest things to the user and other interested agents (apps and widgets)
3. Interaction Model - how the interested agents adjusts themselves according to the system suggestion; and how the user deals the system and possibly corrects its assumptions to start getting results!
The main component where all three architecture parts come together will be a Dikku-usercontext daemon.
The design decisions taken in this framework are listed in a separate page.
As Nepomuk project has already handled the bulk of work by doing a lot of research in this area, we can just reuse whatever is possible from them (the beauty of open source !)... Check out related Nepomuk links
The PIMO (Personal Information Model) of the user contains the relations between items (resources, things) on the desktop. There we store the relations between a task and related documents, people, topics, etc. Dikku will use these relations to suggest relevant things once a resource is touched by the user.
User interfaces that show "current related things" taken from Dikku should then allow the user to "save" these relations when shown. For example when I look at a mail "bug in dikku", Dikku suggest the mail is related to "Work on KDE" and has the Topic "Dikku project", I can "save" the relation between the task "Work on KDE" and "Dikku project". Saving the relations is not part of Dikku but of nepomuk-kde libs and stored in soprano using the PIMO vocab.
While PIMO cares for relations and topics of things, Dikku knows which things are relevant at the moment and can give suggestions.
Unclear (for LeoSauermann) is the relation between Plasma::Context and Dikku, Aaron Seigo suggested: plasma defines which is the current activity and publishes that information. the rest of the activity nodes remain in Nepomuk. Could we get more on this?
MeNow - describes a variety of aspects of the current status of someone, either online or off, in a way that the data can be easily aggregated or retrieved. Its project page tell more details!
Though we are not aware of any other context framework that ships with the desktop, there are a few projects which give a fair attempt at context-awareness. Some of them (with downloadable code) are listed below:
Application that can be configured to trigger actions based on context, which is detected by hardware observation (usb activity, network)
The "location" and "activity" concept of Marcopolo maps to PIMO's classes pimo:Location and pimo:Topic and pimo:Task / pimo:Project, we use them to represent important locations.
What we learn from Marcopolo:
* We should try to detect if thing (location, task) is in current context * we should allow the user to trigger actions if a certain thing is in context
The group around Mary Czerwinski from Microsoft Research (she is famous in HCI research) did several things in task and context management. Scalable Fabris is one of the older, simple appraoches:
* Scalable Fabric: Flexible task management (pdf)
What we can learn (her abbridged conclusions)
"Windows in a central focus area behave as usual, while windows in the display periphery are scaled down minimized windows. Periphery windows can remain open and live. Task switching is accomplished by a single mouse click. Users prefer this approach to the standard TaskBar. Problem: it should replace the existing task bar."
There is later work by others, LeoSauermann has no time on 29.8.2008 to find it


text:
The following alphabetical list is a comprehensive guide to the words most commonly used by professionals.
(B) is for bad - descriptive terms generally used to criticise wines.
(G) is for good - those that are usually used to praise wines.
ACETIC, the most common volatile acid. Often found in cool-fermented white wines but a fault when present in excess.
AFTERTASTE, strictly the flavour(s) left after the wine is swallowed, although it is often used interchangeably with finish (see below).
AROMA describes a simple, often fruity smell or flavour present in young wine (c f bouquet). Wines with very strong smells are described as AROMATIC.
ASTRINGENT, critical term usually used for white wines, and sometimes for reds, with a high level of tannins. (B)
BALANCED, a wine in which all dimensions - acidity, sweetness, tannins, alcohol - make a harmonious whole (although tasters are indulgent about high tannin levels in young red wines). (G)
BLIND TASTING, an attempt to identify and/or assess wines without knowing their identity. Masked bottles, not blindfolded humans are involved. 'Single blind' means that tasters know roughly what they are tasting but not the identity of individual bottles. 'Double blind' means that they don't know anything about the wines.
BODY, important characteristic of a wine that is determined chiefly by its alcoholic strength, but also by its extract. The more body a wine has the less like water it tastes.
BOTTLE AGE, the mellowing effect of years spent inside a bottle. .
BOUQUET, flowery word used for the much more complex and multi-layered smells or flavours which develop as a result of ageing wine in barrels and bottles c f aroma.
CHEWY, some but not obtrusive tannins.
CLOSED, not very smelly, assumed because of its early stage of maturity.
CONCENTRATED, good extract and/or intense flavour(s). (G)
CORKED, wine that has been spoilt and smells off puttingly mouldy because the cork has been tainted. (very B)
CRISP, perceptible acidity, generally used for white wines. (G)
DRIED OUT, old wine in which the initial fruit has faded leaving a deficit of flavour and extract. (B)
DUMB, not smelly.
EXTRACT, important dimension of a wine, the sum of its solids, including phenolics, sugars, minerals and glycerol.
FINISH, the sensory impact of a wine after it has been swallowed (or spat). Wines can be said to have a long or short finish.
FIRM, with perceptible tannins. (G)
FLABBY, too low in acid. (B)
FLAVOUR. See aroma.
FORWARD, having aged more rapidly than expected.
FRESH, attractively acid (inevitably coupled with the next-but-one term for wines like Beaujolais). (G)
FRUIT is the youthful combination of flavour (aroma) and body that derives from the grapes rather than the wine-making or ageing process.
FRUITY is used either to describe wines with good fruit or, often as white wine marketing speak, as a euphemism for slightly sweet.
FULL, or FULL-BODIED, wine with considerable body.
GREEN, too acid. (B)
HARD, too tannic. (B)
HORIZONTAL TASTING, a comparative tasting of different but related representatives of the same vintage.
HOLLOW, lacking fruit. (B)
HOT, too alcoholic, leaving a burning sensation on the palate. (B)
LEAN, lacking fruit but not acid. (B)
LEGS, see tears.
LENGTH, persistence of the tasting experience on olfactory area and mouth after swallowing. Such a wine may be called LONG. (G)
LIFT(ED), wine with a perceptible but not excessive level of volatility.
LIGHT, or LIGHT BODIED, with relatively little body.
MADERIZED, harmfully exposed to both oxygen and heat. (G for madeira but otherwise B)
MATURE, probably aged to its full potential. (G)
MELLOW, sometimes used in red wine marketing speak as a euphemism for sweet.
MIDDLE PALATE, jargon for the overall impact of a wine in the mouth as in 'There's not much fruit on the middle palate'.
MOUTH FEEL, the physical impact of a wine on the mouth, its texture. Tannins and body surely play a role here.
NOSE can be used as both noun and verb, as in 'It's a bit dumb on the nose' and 'Have you NOSED this one?'
OXIDIZED, harmfully exposed to oxygen. (B)
POWERFUL, high level of alcohol or extract. (G in this competitive day and age)
RICH, with some apparent sweetness; curiously, much more complimentary than 'sweet'. (G)
ROUND, good body and not too much tannin. (G)
SHORT, opposite of long. (B)
SOFT, not much tannin.
SPRITZ(IG), slightly gassy.
SUPPLE, not too tannic. (G)
TANNIC, aggressive tannins. Ripeness and management of tannins is just as important as actual total tannin level. All young red wines destined for ageing are expected to have some tannins, but these should ideally be counterbalanced by fruit. (B, in excess)
TART, very acid. (B)
TCA, short for trichloroanisole, the mouldy-smelling compound most usually associated with cork taint (see CORKED).
TEARS, the colourless streams left on the inside of a wine glass after a relatively alcoholic wine, more than about 13 per cent, has been swirled. They have nothing to do with glycerol.
VERTICAL TASTING, a comparative tasting of different vintages from the same provenance.
VOLATILE, a wine with such a high level of volatile, not particularly stable, acids that it smells almost vinegary. (B)


text:
Updates for TCC trail building course this weekend
Don't miss this event. It is very good, and a lot of fun. Building new trail is a blast, and this course will teach you how to do it right, with both classroom and field instruction.
Remember, you don't have to make the whole event; the key part of the course is Saturday. Come for the weekend if you want to, but if you can only swing one day, don't shy away - just head down on Saturday.
It's not that much farther than heading to Allegany. Google says its an hour and 24 minutes from downtown, which is actually one minute faster than going to ASP.
So close, such good riding!
Don't for get to register at the IMBA website.
Tags: Trail Work