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Diebold election records released in Arizona
Very interesting ruling. The judge ruled that the database is not a program. Well, I'm a professional database administrator. I'd say it is a very fine point, but I agree with the judge overall. The database really doesn't do anything, per se. It's information that's just sitting there. It's like saying your Word document is a program. The database ENGINE, such as SQL Server, does things as people view, enter, edit, or delete information. Even if you're running a program like DTS that moves data in and out of your database, it's the database engine that's executing the DTS package. Very interesting.
Here's the Slashdot caption describing (very briefly) the thread:
"A judge in the case covering the nature of the database used in Diebold Gems software during Pima County, Arizona elections has ruled the DB is not a computer program (pdf). The result is that the Arizona Democratic party will have the chance to review previous elections for transparency and accuracy. ''The Pima County Democratic Party sued the county this year for the electronic databases from past elections. The party requested the databases and passwords be released according to Arizona public-records law. Pima County denied that part of the request, while turning over other records the party asked for. In closing arguments of the four-day trial that began Dec. 4, Pima County argued the databases meet the definition of a computer program, which is protected by state law, said Deputy County Attorney Thomas Denker."
The general definition of a computer program is something that takes input, does something with it (processing), and produces output. A "Hello, World" program takes nothing as input (maybe clicking the icon or typing in the program name could be considered input), builds a string containing the phrase "Hello, World" and passes it to whatever DLLs display it on the monitor. But a database only responds to specific requests, and only when the database engine is running. If I turn off the database service, the files will just sit there and do nothing.
http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/12/21/1340259
There should be some fun arguments in this Slashdot thread!
Here's the Slashdot caption describing (very briefly) the thread:
"A judge in the case covering the nature of the database used in Diebold Gems software during Pima County, Arizona elections has ruled the DB is not a computer program (pdf). The result is that the Arizona Democratic party will have the chance to review previous elections for transparency and accuracy. ''The Pima County Democratic Party sued the county this year for the electronic databases from past elections. The party requested the databases and passwords be released according to Arizona public-records law. Pima County denied that part of the request, while turning over other records the party asked for. In closing arguments of the four-day trial that began Dec. 4, Pima County argued the databases meet the definition of a computer program, which is protected by state law, said Deputy County Attorney Thomas Denker."
The general definition of a computer program is something that takes input, does something with it (processing), and produces output. A "Hello, World" program takes nothing as input (maybe clicking the icon or typing in the program name could be considered input), builds a string containing the phrase "Hello, World" and passes it to whatever DLLs display it on the monitor. But a database only responds to specific requests, and only when the database engine is running. If I turn off the database service, the files will just sit there and do nothing.
http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/12/21/1340259
There should be some fun arguments in this Slashdot thread!
no subject
So what other reason do they have to request that the database contents not be revealed?