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http://www.rssboard.org/rss-specificationmojoPortal Blog Moduleen-US120noThailand Technology Development Center Set to Use Blockchain in VotingBangkok Post reported on January 2 that The National Electronics and Computer Technology Center (NECTEC) in Thailand has introduced Blockchain for e-voting.

NECTEC is a statutory governmental organization that operates under the supervision of the National Science and Technology Development Agency and the Ministry of Science and Technology. The organization is in charge of the developing calculations, electronics, IT and telecommunications. It will be developed consistent with Thai people gradually trained in technology. According to NECTEC, once 5G is fully implemented in Thailand, all voting procedure will be conducted through this new technology. Chalee Vorakulpipat, the head of the cybersecurity laboratory at NECTEC told the Bangkok Post that NECTEC had developed Blockchain technology for e-voting, and it could be applied at national, provincial or even smaller levels. The mission is to reduce frauds and maintain data integrity. He further added that “in order for our system to be efficient, we need controllers, voters, and candidates. Prior to the election, the controller can verify the voter’s identity and the candidate’s qualifications. Voters will be able to vote by the email verified by a smartphone.”

While Blockchain-based voting mechanism has enough potential to make elections faster, cheaper and more secure, it will take time to ensure that each voter has access to mobile internet connection. According to Vorakulpipat, Blockchain-based voting can be developed in a shorter time, provided it is applied in a closed environment. For example, Thais living abroad could go to their embassy and vote there through this mechanism. He also said that “the system can be applied in smaller elections at organizations like universities, provinces, and committees.”

Other countries have also taken steps towards using Blockchain in the voting process. In the 2018 federal mid-term elections in the U.S., the secretary of state of West Virginia reported that Blockchain technology has been successfully implemented in the voting process. This system had been activated for the residents of West Virginia living abroad. Both Zug, Switzerland and Tsukuba, Japan, used Blockchain-based voting in the municipal elections. In the city of Tsukuba, the election was limited to some programs. Voters could select which of the 13 proposed initiatives they want to support and vote for, including developing a new cancer diagnosis technology, constructing objects for outdoor sports, and creating sound navigation in the city. Earlier, South Korea had also announced that it intended to use Blockchain technology in the voting system.

The idea of using Blockchain technology in elections is valuable enough to be considered as more than just a simple trial. Using this technology will eliminate fraud in elections and will allow citizens to be able to vote comfortably anywhere in the world. With Blockchain it can be assured that all the votes have been counted and that the results are completely transparent. Those who participated in this kind of voting in West Virginia were identified using biometric tools such as fingerprints. Each vote forms part of a chain of votes, the voters’ identity remains completely anonymous while you can easily follow the information about the results of the election. According to the founder of Votem, “we are two years away from holding elections totally based on Blockchain in the U.S., and as governments change, the role of Blockchain in these elections will become stronger.”

Different companies could use tokens to grant employees voting rights. For instance, the more coins an employee has, the more valuable his/her vote will be. It will encourage good behavior and performance on the part of employees. Currently, companies such as Ethereum use this mechanism to provide more transparency as well as distributing power appropriately.

Upon the demise of net neutrality, each telecom companies devised their own way of blocking and throttling contents and data of the consumers. Based on the latest conducted research from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and Northeastern
University, the increase in consumer’s mobile data throttling by major US telecom companies have been alarming. They found out that four leading US carriers are throttling mobile videos especially YouTube and Netflix.

Americans have enjoyed using the internet, most of the times, for communication, broadcasting and advertising, leisure, online shopping, binge watching and much more. But as soon as Ajit Pai became appointed as the FCC chairman by the Trump administration, the use of internet and wireless communication has never been the same.

The federal agency’s decision to repeal net neutrality unleashed broadband and wireless providers from the chains that prohibit them from blocking and throttling of the user’s contents. The rollback of net neutrality enables key telecom firms to restrict or give access to consumers who can or cannot pay for certain websites. This also provides consumers with lesser choices for a resource in favor the consumers themselves.

A wireless carrier such as T-Mobile typically offers “unlimited data plans.“ However, the said plan actually throttles the consumer’s video after reaching a specific data amount. As a matter of fact, a majority of the plans limit mobile device video streaming to barely 480p by default. What good is an “unlimited data plan” if there is a data cap?

This could partly help alleviate congestion and better manage network traffic. BUT, it also gives telecom firms the excuse not to update or upgrade their network infrastructure except for the necessity to do so.

The researchers used the Wehe app and asked 100,000 people to sign up to gather data in a year’s time. Study author, David Choffnes noted that the telecom’s throttling practices not only apply to YouTube but also to Netflix, NBC Sports app, and Amazon’s Prime Video App.

Wehe app has been used to variegate data from AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon. Starting January to May, Verizon has 11,100 throttling incidences, AT&T with 8,398, Sprint recorded 339, and T-Mobile had roughly 3,900. The number of incidences is based on the scope of the networks, but the figures don’t lie. It is evident that Verizon got the most number of throttling incidence compared to the other carriers. Now that 5G connection has been introduced, how will this further affect the consumers’ way of using their devices for connection?

Electronic Frontier Foundation Tech Policy Director Jeremy Gillula said, “As we saw with Verizon throttling the Santa Clara County Fire Department, ISPs are happy to use words like ‘unlimited’ and ‘no throttling’ in their public statements, but then give themselves the right to throttle certain traffic by burying some esoteric language in the fine print.”

States cannot be blamed if they forged they own net neutrality law to protect their people. Adversaries including Big Telecom, the FCC, and the Trump government itself is obviously not a dire fan of an open internet. Their lobbyists are playing dirty by calling senior citizens through robocalls which provide misleading information about SB 822.

With the several issues arising regarding net neutrality, there is a platform that still believes in an open internet. That is why Decenternet makes an effort to provide users with boundless access to the decentralized and centralized websites. In this way, consumers have the liberty to openly communicate online. They would not have to worry that contents will be blocked or throttled since the Decenternet platform does not discriminate but rather treat them equally.

Moreover, Decenternet developed Anuvys OS, the first blockchain operating system that could process a minimum of 10 million transactions that only takes a second. It addresses all issues concerning data security and privacy. Just by using the Osiris-D browser which is built in the Anuvys Operating System, users will be highly compensated through its Spyce mining activity.