here we go again, Tribaland,

delusions of grandeur

usually i don't meddle wit religious & tribal arguments bt i'll break ma rules here.
Yorubas ar front runners abi not lagos here we dey wey lagosians can't even reply common english except u speak yoruba? Wit dem jagons & grammartical inundoes. Guy nor let me blow grammar here o, i dey vex.
80% of educated ppl in lag ar foreigners believe it or not.
De part i agree dey ar forerunners is corruption. Yes o. OBJ use coffin tif cash, 1st in history. Bankole refuse to enter plane cos dem wan search am. Ur man win election frm prison.
Ur educated senator don't kw diff btw overhead & capital expenditure. @ 260 in ume, i still didn't get admited into a quack yoruba sch cos i nor be mgbati mgbati (tnk God sef, i wonder de kinda queer eng i'd hv tagged along).
Yoruba woman refurbished CAR (motor) wit N500, 000,000.00 if am not mistaken. OBJ sell bakasi to cameroun.
Guy leave ethnicity outa here & be constructive instead. Tumelah!

Ifebazz:

usually i don't meddle wit religious & tribal arguments bt i'll break ma rules here.
Yorubas ar front runners abi not lagos here we dey wey lagosians can't even reply common[b] english except u speak yoruba? Wit dem jagons & grammartical inundoes. Guy nor let me blow grammar here o, i dey vex. [/b]
80% of educated ppl in lag ar foreigners believe it or not.
De part i agree dey ar forerunners is corruption. Yes o. OBJ use coffin tif cash, 1st in history. Bankole refuse to enter plane cos dem wan search am. your man win election frm prison.
your educated senator don't kw diff btw overhead & capital expenditure. @ 260 in ume, i still didn't get admited into a quack yoruba sch cos i nor be mgbati mgbati (tnk God sef, i wonder de kinda queer eng i'd hv tagged along).
Yoruba woman refurbished CAR (motor) wit N500, 000,000.00 if am not mistaken.  OBJ sell bakasi to cameroun.
Guy leave ethnicity outa here & be constructive instead. Tumelah!

GUY, you need to work on your own grammar too.

Illiterate calling another man Illiterate . Hypocrites.

emmatok:

GUY, you need to work on your own grammar too.

Illiterate calling another man Illiterate . Hypocrites.

abeg,help me tell am cos i cant even pick a single word from jargons wey the guy type.

we just like to dey decieve ourselves for this country , i tire ooo
These team members are the guyz that shop and looted this shit. I very much guess the company got registered when they were awarded this contract to INSTALL THIS OPEN SOURCE APP NOT DEVELOPED BY THEM , I checked them site http://www.openvr.org/ They sharply built this shit up during this ROBBERY with them and JEGGA. What other products have they developed? What other pages can u see working on the site ? SHIT! Nigerians will sha never open eye, I guess they have one kind PLAN B which is the reason this Thread pops up. Shai, C'MON everybody, are we still in the Prehistorical Age ni (Game -- Empire Earth) ? The whole Electronic Vote, did it work ? Did they elctronically count the vote? This data capturing ? u think they use it? am very damn sure its the PAPPER rubbish register that they used to compile the voters list, I kuku didnt register and didnt Vote. Immediately i see and observed how the whole election thing will run , i was sad .
Well, let me just no talk much,

Good job for u guyz anywayz, atleast, u must have technically done some Holla Hoops along side with this Software Integration for INEC

segsalerty:

we just like to dey decieve ourselves for this country , i tire ooo
These team members are the guyz that shop and looted this poo. I very much guess the company got registered when they were awarded this contract to INSTALL THIS OPEN SOURCE APP NOT DEVELOPED BY THEM , I checked them site http://www.openvr.org/ They sharply built this poo up during this ROBBERY with them and JEGGA. What other products have they developed? What other pages can u see working on the site ? poo! Nigerians will sha never open eye, I guess they have one kind PLAN B which is the reason this Thread pops up. Shai, C'MON everybody, are we still in the Prehistorical Age ni (Game -- Empire Earth) ? The whole Electronic Vote, did it work ? Did they elctronically count the vote? This data capturing ? u think they use it? am very damn sure its the PAPPER rubbish register that they used to compile the voters list, I kuku didnt register and didnt Vote. Immediately i see and observed how the whole election thing will run , i was sad .
Well, let me just no talk much,

Good job for u guyz anywayz, atleast, u must have technically done some Holla Hoops along side with this Software Integration for INEC

bro ure speaking like someone with a hangover from adulterated alcoholic bevs. Sleep on joor! And when u come out of ur self-induced locoism, U should edit ya post. How did u even manage to run a p.C? No offence oh!

i thot as much, thats why theres issues here and there,

OpenVR simply edited an open source software. The source codes are on the internet for free. You IT morons just think software development and deployment is rocket science.

LeoMax:

OpenVR simply edited an open source software. The source codes are on the internet for free. You IT morons just think software development and deployment is rocket science.

My Guy,

Open source software is free , but how many IT guys can develop them.

Some so called IT gurus don't even know how to use FEDORA or UBUNTU OS.

Acutex:

bro ure speaking like someone with a hangover from adulterated alcoholic bevs. Sleep on joor! And when u come out of your self-induced locoism, U should edit ya post. How did u even manage to run a p.C? No offence oh!

imagine this response but no p. i already said mind and intelligent ones will find meaning in it.
look at the time i poted the msg. i was already asleep whn i read the thread. okay?

I don't trust INEC for anything well we go survive for this country e go better

To start with, this "software" was touted to be open source but it aint. 2ndly, about multiple registratns, yhu rily cant blame the software. .The Distributed Database Management System should've been the right choice NOT just a DBMS. The database used to store users data WAS STORED LOCALLY on the PC used and therefore there was no way of checking if a particular user had registered elsewhere before. There shoulda been a central db system whereby before registering a voter, it checks the database to see if it matches any known record collated from other centers and if such exists, then such user won't be registered again.

segsalerty:

imagine this response but no p. i already said mind and intelligent ones will find meaning in it.
look at the time i poted the msg. i was already asleep whn i read the thread. okay?

noted bro, I just suggested that u should go back to sleep, Ur post was kinda incoherent, though.

Slyr0x:

To start with, this "software" was touted to be open source but it aint. 2ndly, about multiple registratns, yhu rily cant blame the software. .The Distributed Database Management System should've been the right choice NOT just a DBMS. The database used to store users data WAS STORED LOCALLY on the PC used and therefore there was no way of checking if a particular user had registered elsewhere before. There shoulda been a central db system whereby before registering a voter, it checks the database to see if it matches any known record collated from other centers and if such exists, then such user won't be registered again.

As an ARO 1, I had the opportunity to fiddle around the software for about 3 weeks. I must point out your observations are not at all correct. The OpenVR software had an AFIS (don't recall the full meaning now) that was suppose to run a check in the database for multiple registrations. The software also had other less known features (I mean publicized by the press or known across the general public) like the ability to import backups from other DDC machines.

From what I know with what happened in my state is that all the backups from all the DDC machines used were transferred to the INEC headquarters of the state. The backups were then imported into a central machine (usually for the REC/under his control) and voter's register for each Polling Unit printed.

The issue here is that voter registers were printed on a state level. And I think INEC really tried for doing that.

The reason why there can be no federal/central database as you point out is more of a Cost Benefit thing. What are the chances of multiple voters going across states to vote with only 4 to 5 hours of voting time per day (12.30pm to 4.00pm),

To continue, I must appreciate the fact that the designers behind the OpenVR software really had their work cut out for them. I was in a remote village (was posted to Jigawa, exact village was about 4 hours from my place of posting) and even in such remote place, the OpenVR was updated (patched) about 3 times or so.  This shows they were working behind the scenes even during the exercise working to improve the software, reduce bugs and other stuffs. They also made adjustments to the software during the fingerprint scanner sage (it was a software not hardware issue) and then also during the black-catridge-shortage sage too.

I am a present NYSC corper so had first hand experience with these things. I'm also kinda I.T. savy. I don't have any affliation with the OpenVR nor anything to gain from them so all I'm saying is true.

You guys should feel free to ask questions about the OpenVR or Voter's Registration or Voting exercise as I see a lot of misinformation out there.

God Bless,

Iolo:


From what I know with what happened in my state is that all the backups from all the DDC machines used were transferred to the INEC headquarters of the state. The backups were then imported into a central machine (usually for the REC/under his control) and voter's register for each Polling Unit printed.

The issue here is that voter registers were printed on a state level. And I think INEC really tried for doing that.

The reason why there can be no federal/central database as you point out is more of a Cost Benefit thing. What are the chances of multiple voters going across states to vote with only 4 to 5 hours of voting time per day (12.30pm to 4.00pm),

How effective was this process? 'Cos there was actually this news i read in Punch Newspaper about a woman (who claimed to be an evangelist) registering close to like 50+ times within the same state(lagos). .The best thing to have done was to have an on-the-spot system whereby a user's biometric details needs to be checked against the database(a central one this time around) before proceeding with the registration. .I mean with all the money allocated to the process, going the "traditional" way shouldn't have been an option. Of which anything could've happened to the backups while in transit.

Slyr0x:

How effective was this process? 'Cos there was actually this news i read in Punch Newspaper about a woman (who claimed to be an evangelist) registering close to like 50+ times within the same state(lagos). .The best thing to have done was to have an on-the-spot system whereby a user's biometric details needs to be checked against the database(a central one this time around) before proceeding with the registration. .I mean with all the money allocated to the process, going the "traditional" way shouldn't have been an option. Of which anything could've happened to the backups while in transit.

Again, from what I know the segregate approach went quite well given the circumstance, topology of Nigeria, availability of infrastructure and countless other factors.

Truely, I've considered the whole central database thing with my brother and a few friends. One problem however exists - guaranteeing the reliability of the connection (most likely intranet linking to the database) that would be used. In the field you really can't guarantee such things what happens when it gets cloudy (assuming it's a satellite connection) or for some reason the link to a central backup fails - you'll disenfrancise potential voters within the few minutes/hours/days the link is down. I do not know of any mass registration situation or any country that uses an on-the-spot verifying central database - I haven't researched this though.

I should also point out that a satellite system would be far more expensive than INEC proposed (was given).


GSM service providers are also not an option as in my registration unit for example, reception was erratic (they still deserve props for even remembering those pple there).


Ok so about the woman who claims to have registered 50+ times. I think that's really not the issue. The truth is that you can register a million times and collect a million voter registration cards. But if you are to go by INEC ethics (the correct procedure for the registration exercise and indeed voting - i'll link both later) said woman should not be able to vote in more than 1 polling unit. Because it's supposed that all other 49 registration attempts would be deleted when backups where compiled.

The second issue I'd address is the security of backups in transit. I think it carries less chances of theft or external intrusion compared to say ballot papers. What are the chances of knowing that car/bus/or anything is carrying backup harddrives for INEC. And even when the backups are tampered with, existing copies still remain on the DDC machine. I should also point out that we were required to backup in a harddisk that was assigned to the RACO (like supervisor in charge of all the units in a ward). I'm supposing that it's the backups of these supervisors that were carried down to the state INEc office (less backup devices in transit).

I initially thought INEC given too much money but consider that INEC bought Generators for all the wards (I'm not sure what KVA now but portable, key-starters not less than 2KVA) I saw something similar for 150k. Then they also bought boats, and a hilux vehicle for all the LGAs in nigeria (that's 770+ hilux vehicles, I don't know how many boats).


Healthy debate,

Yeah, Those guys did a great job but same time i will like them to explain to me the main reason OBJ finger print was not accepted for many trying before later registered for one way or the other. Yes they try, they did good job to show that we can do a thing like that but they really need to develop very well to meet up with world finger print standard. I have a friend that voted for 20 times yet the machine allow him to do so. why?

Iolo:


The second issue I'd address is the security of backups in transit. I think it carries less chances of theft or external intrusion compared to say ballot papers. What are the chances of knowing that car/bus/or anything is carrying backup harddrives for INEC. And even when the backups are tampered with, existing copies still remain on the DDC machine. I should also point out that we were required to backup in a harddisk that was assigned to the RACO (like supervisor in charge of all the units in a ward). I'm supposing that it's the backups of these supervisors that were carried down to the state INEc office (less backup devices in transit).

Healthy debate,

Yeah. .iGet yo point. .Buh no such form of "security" can be compared to a "point-of-entry" one. .By ths, i mean why not tackle the problem at its point of entry (this case during registration) instead of allowing the problem into the system. .then performing the "cleansing" afterwards.

Its like leaving yo gate open, yo main door open and having security men/gadgets live in yo living room. .There's bound to be a defect somewhere.

So i still insist a check-against-the-central-db approach be used.

Yeah healthy debate indeed. nD thanks for the enlightenment too. .

Slyr0x:

Yeah. .iGet yo point. .Buh no such form of "security" can be compared to a "point-of-entry" one. .By ths, i mean why not tackle the problem at its point of entry (this case during registration) instead of allowing the problem into the system. .then performing the "cleansing" afterwards.

Yes I totally agree. Such system would be best for reasons you've pointed out. Yet it hasn't been developed in a scale that Nigeria would demand for it's registration exercise.

Upright750:

Yeah, Those guys did a great job but same time i will like them to explain to me the main reason OBJ finger print was not accepted for many trying before later registered for one way or the other. Yes they try, they did good job to show that we can do a thing like that but they really need to develop very well to meet up with world finger print standard. I have a friend that voted for 20 times yet the machine allow him to do so. why?

Hi,

In answering your question - Yes, it was possible your friend registered on a particular system for 20+ times. If I'm going to explain I'd say that many of his attempts were registered when ARO1's were mostly skipping fingers to avoid delays of the fingerprint scan. Skipping means you are registering each finger (or the entire hand either left or right or both) as invalid for scanning due to non-viability, or the absence of digits. When the problem and time consuming nature of the fingerscanning process became too much most people were just skipping. We registered people during this period but had to re-register them afterwards.

Even in the bush where I was I heard it was announced on radio for everyone who hadn't done the fingerprint to go back and have it done. We were supposed to retrieve voters cards without fingerprints before issuing another to those who came back, and this we did.

Most likely your friend did registrations with & without fingerprints (it's the fingerprints, OpenVR uses to scan and detect multiple registration attempts) leading to the 20+ times. And again I'm assuming it was all at the same Registration/Polling Unit if not it's a non-issue, read my previous posts.

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I'm going to try to explain the whole fingerprint issue as best as I can. And it's not what you read in the papers.

INEC originally wanted the fingerprint scanners to deliver high-resolution images (high-resolution finger print) of each finger to the OpenVR database. This is the way the OpenVR software was initially configured. The fingerprint scanners were developed by I think it's the 1st, 2nd, or 3nd largest company in the fingerprint industry. And I guess to ensure similar quality and reduce problems (compatibility with the software, troubleshooting etc.) INEC had all the DDC suppliers (Zinox, Avante, Haier - don't know if there were any others) use the same fingerprint scanner from the same manufacturer.

And for what happened I don't think there's just one party to blame.

1. I feel INEC didn't conduct a wide enough survey to determine the amount of time it would take to scan each finger using the high resolution setting and possibly didn't consider other factors I'd soon point out.

2. I should also point out that the fingerprint scanners (as is everything we use these days) were not optimized for black people. (I will tell you the difference).

3. It's possible the OpenVR software wasn't well optimized to take advantage of the process of choosing high-resolution images. I still don't know what rules the software used in accepting high-resolution photos. And it kept on rejecting images that looked alright on the screen. It's probably technical stuff but the algorithm used in accepting the images could have been improved. The OpenVR people probably just did copy and paste (sine it's open source and you really can't blame them) into their software.

If you don't yet understand where I'm going it's more or less like what happens in computers. You could have two computers with 1GB RAM, same processor. Install Windows OS on A, and Mac OS on B. Due to many reasons in the efficiency of the software, MAC OS boots faster than Windows. So MAC OS makes better use of system resources than Windows. It's possible the OpenVR software (exact module in charge of processing the fingerprints) wasn't optimized for this process.

4. High-resolution imaging is tough in Nigeria. A lot of people (mostly in the rural areas) carry dirty fingers about and many actually have funny fingers - it's either the finger is toooo strong or there's many cuts due to the hardship of life. Again this I think bores down to the (not being optimized for Africans issue).

I'm guessing white people usually have really soft hands and I noticed the finger print scanners (under high-resolution setting) performed much faster with our own people having soft fingers.

5. INEC gave us spirit to periodically clean the fingerprint scanner and if need be cleanse the persons fingers before putting on the scanner. As you continue to register people a lot of residue (mostly oil from the fingers, and left over imprints) remain on the scanner. A lot of people were not doing this.

Again, I have just given you what my general thinking about the issue is. There's really no way to determine what exactly was the cause until a proper investigation is carried out.

But if I'm going to choose I'd say the fault was from the software not well-optimizing the fingerprinting process under a high-resolution setting. Again I don't don't know where the OpenVR guys got that particular module from and if it's the best in its class.


When the lines were getting too long, and as at then time, average time per person was like 45 mins to more than an hour (the software just refused to fingerprint some people indefinitely) INEC had to reduce the quality of pictures taken.

In doing this, there's other problems to think of.

A lot of people think of fingerprinting as a one-off thing. Just capture any image of someone's finger and there's no chance of it being similar to someone else's own (don't know the exact statistics). The fingerprint scanners had an option to set them (from the OpenVR software) to take high-resolution, medium rez and low rez photos. I'm going to assume that that statistic works and is applicable only when it's on high-resolution.

Nevertheless, INEC had to order it's IT agents around the country to reduce this setting from high to low to reduce long queues and make the exercise faster and less cumbersome (as well as accomodate the people the software wouldn't even accept at all).

This meant that the Open VR software was capturing low-rez images of each finger. Under this setting, the software was messing up (probably because the images were set to low in the first place). The AFIS supposed to catch multiple registrants started mixing up different people (saying A had registered twice but bringing up B's picture and information as the double - was why I said it used only fingerprinting to check and confirm).

This means that it's possible for someone to register multiple times. The AFIS part of OpenVR still caught multiple registrants, but chances of it being at 100% efficiency were drastically reduced.

Now, during the voting process, when the voter's lists came out. Some people had two or three entries, we were instructed to cancel out any one (using photo) with more than one entry. Thus ensuring the person could vote only once. Some P.O's (presiding officer) did this, others did not.

That's the story.

@Iolo Are you telling me that OBJ fingers was dirty, evil or too strong that made the finger print scanner not to accept his finger? i need your urgent answer if you can.

Upright750:

@Iolo Are you telling me that OBJ fingers was dirty, evil or too strong that made the finger print scanner not to accept his finger? i need your urgent answer if you can.

Lol, that's really not what I meant. It's a combination of all those things, and most importantly the fact that the OpenVR software probably wasn't as optimized as it should have been to accept high-resolution images. I still saw/heard of a lot of people with soft hands, clean hands (basically omo butter chicks) that had their prints rejected, and I'm assuming most people in Lagos and other urban areas won't fall into the dirty, strong finger category - that's more likely to happen in the interior villages with farmers and such.

And I concluded - kind of- that the blame as I felt was on the software end not hardware (fingerprint scanner in this case).

Really i can't believe the ignorance of some people on this thread, we just believe nothing good can ever come out of Nigeria and i say to thee please try change your mindset, see i wasn't part of the development team but was kindda close and believe me this guys slave day and night to make this thing work, i'm into software development and really understand what it means when you are working on a project day in day out to prove a point to a lot doubting thomases out there who think nothing good can ever come out of this country, whether you believe it or not, it is open source, was made free , was made by Nigerians and i think we all ought to be proud of them. They were working day and night even during the registration process just to make sure the registration is succesfull releasing series of patches and on e stupid asshole that does not know the difference between a method and class is saying Jackshit all because you have a keyboard and internet access to go with it, a poor man will always criticise a rich man, ignorance !!!

thumbzup

kaion:

Really i can't believe the ignorance of some people on this thread, we just believe nothing good can ever come out of Nigeria and i say to thee please try change your mindset, see i wasn't part of the development team but was kindda close and believe me this guys slave day and night to make this thing work, i'm into software development and really understand what it means when you are working on a project day in day out to prove a point to a lot doubting thomases out there who think nothing good can ever come out of this country, whether you believe it or not, it is open source, was made free , was made by Nigerians and i think we all ought to be proud of them. They were working day and night even during the registration process just to make sure the registration is succesfull releasing series of patches and on e silly asshole that does not know the difference between a method and class is saying Jackshit all because you have a keyboard and internet access to go with it, a poor man will always criticise a rich man, ignorance !!!

Point ! U too chop from the money !
Naija ,
Them do well well sha !

i didn't tell you i chop out of any money and my statement is just the fact that a lot of people know nothing but still criticize those who know something, I just want us all to change the mindset that nothing good comes out of Nigeria, I want a better future for my kids i not an environment where every body believes nothing can work !!!

Good job! There is room for improvement. Now, why the talk about ethnic blah blah blah . . . ? Does it have anything to do if the software? Is their ethnic group responsible for the knowledge & expertize needed to develop the software?
According to my understanding, I dont think it does.

Moved back to programming section. WTF?

Hmmn, interesting comments about OpenVR. There were, admittedly, some rough edges but, as with every other software solution, there is room for improvement. Thanks for your feedback

The OpenVR software is likely an open source by Google. It does not take more than a few research to find out. Or weren't you worried by the fact that the team of less than 10 achieved a feat that takes a team of 100 many months of planning and development to produce.