NonScienceNonsense | CTVotersCount.org

Reminder: Ballot Marking Devices (BMDs) beyond redemption

A new article by Andrew Appel reminds us: Magical thinking about Ballot-Marking-Device contingency plans .

The Center for Democracy and Technology recently published a report, “No Simple Answers: A Primer on Ballot Marking Device Security”, by William T. Adler. Overall, it’s well-informed, clearly presents the problems as of 2022, and it’s definitely worth reading. After explaining the issues and controversies, the report presents recommendations, most of which make a lot of sense, and indeed the states should act upon them. But there’s one key recommendation in which Dr. Adler tries to provide a simple answer, and unfortunately his answer invokes a bit of magical thinking…

This the magical thinking: “election officials should have a contingency plan.” The problem is, when you try to write down such a plan, there’s nothing that actually works! .

Fortunately Connecticut uses Hand Marked Paper Ballots except that it allows the IVS BMD to serve those with disabilities.

A new article by Andrew Appel reminds us: Magical thinking about Ballot-Marking-Device contingency plans <read>

The Center for Democracy and Technology recently published a report, “No Simple Answers: A Primer on Ballot Marking Device Security”, by William T. Adler. Overall, it’s well-informed, clearly presents the problems as of 2022, and it’s definitely worth reading. After explaining the issues and controversies, the report presents recommendations, most of which make a lot of sense, and indeed the states should act upon them. But there’s one key recommendation in which Dr. Adler tries to provide a simple answer, and unfortunately his answer invokes a bit of magical thinking. This seriously compromises the conclusions of his report. By asking but not answering the question of “what should an election official do if there are reports of BMDs printing wrong votes?”, Dr. Adler avoids having to make the inevitable conclusion that BMDs-for-all-voters is a hopelessly flawed, insecurable method of voting. Because the answer to that question is, unfortunately, there’s nothing that election officials could usefully do in that case…

This the magical thinking: “election officials should have a contingency plan.” The problem is, when you try to write down such a plan, there’s nothing that actually works! Suppose the election officials rely on voter reports (or on the rate of spoiled ballots); suppose the “contingency plan” says (for example) says “if x percent of the voters report malfunctioning BMDs, or y percent of voters spoil their ballots, then we will . . .” Then we will what? Remove those BMDs from service in the middle of the day? But then all the votes already cast on those BMDs will have been affected by the hack; that could be thousands of votes. Or what else? Discard all the paper ballots that were cast on those BMDs? Clearly you can’t do that without holding an entirely new election. And what if those x% or y% of voters were fraudulently reporting BMD malfunction or fraudulently spoiling their ballots to trigger the contingency plan? There’s no plan that actually works.

Fortunately Connecticut uses Hand Marked Paper Ballots except that it allows the IVS BMD to serve those with disabilities.

What’s the matter with BMDs?

Free Speech for People recently held a forum on Ballot Marking Devices (BMD)’s: An Examination of the Use and Security of Ballot Marking Devices

I recommend watching at least the 1st panel and;
If you are considering purchasing BMDs for all voters then you owe it to your jurisdiction to watch the whole forum;
If you are a voter and your jurisdiction is considering such a purchase of BMDs, you should also watch the whole thing and let your legislators and election officials know what you think.

Our Editorial:

…How much better to purchase the minimum number of BMDs today, fund research, and replace them every five years or so with improved designs.

Free Speech for People recently held a forum on Ballot Marking Devices (BMD)’s: An Examination of the Use and Security of Ballot Marking Devices <view>

There are several panels, you can see the topics and panelists <here>

Our Editorial:

BMDs for all voters is a very bad idea. They will cost at least double paper ballots filled out by most voters followed by scanning. As the videos show they cannot be trusted, they will not be verified by enough voters, they will not be accurately verified by voters, and for good reason officials will not trust voters who claim the machines did not accurately record their votes.

BMDs for only a few voters with disabilities is a reasonable idea. A better idea. Many voters with disabilities are better served with voter completed paper ballots. Today’s BMDs do not serve or serve well the remaining voters with disabilities. More research and development is needed to produce better methods and equipment so that voters with disabilities can vote independently, privately, and securely.

How much better to purchase the minimum number of BMDs today, fund research, and replace them every five years or so with improved designs.

Block Chain Fantasy…Chained for good!

We told you so. And now it is final, from the Hartford Courant: With $400M Fintech Village apparently dead, West Hartford Town Council prepares to move on;

Aug 2019: West Hartford Scam Playing Out As We Predicted

We told you so. And now it is final, from the Hartford Courant: With $400M Fintech Village apparently dead, West Hartford Town Council prepares to move on; <read>

With the plan to convert the former UConn West Hartford campus into the $400 million Fintech Village tech hub essentially dead, West Hartford is going to take another look at buying the 58-acre parcel in the Bishop’s Corner neighborhood.

The town reached an agreement with Ideanomics, Fintech Village’s parent company, have reached a deal that gives West Hartford the right of first refusal on an sales deal. The town will also examine buying the property.

Ideanomics said earlier this year and repeated in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing Tuesday that its much ballyhooed West Hartford project is a “non-core asset” and that it is looking to divest it

Aug 2019: West Hartford Scam Playing Out As We Predicted <read>

Lessons we likely will NOT learn from Iowa

There is a lot of lessons that could be learned from Iowa. Yet we may not learn them. On the other hand we may learn other lessons. In no particular order:

Bernie and Pete both won…
Change anything in the rules, and the result is likely to have been different…
People tend to tout their favorite reform as a cure for any crisis….

The bottom line: Be careful what you ask for, the cure may be worse than the disease. Its complicated. Don’t let a crisis go to waste, but avoid knee-jerk solutions.

“‘It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.” – Mark Twain

There is a lot of lessons that could be learned from Iowa. Yet we may not learn them. On the other hand we may learn other lessons. As Mark Twain said “‘It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.”

In no particular order:

Bernie and Pete both won. We go crazy over exactly who won by a few votes or delegates. Sometimes it is critical and important, like in a close election where we need to declare a winner. Not in a single primary where one or a couple delegates are hardly likely to make a difference in the end. Pursue every vote, count everything as accurately as possible. Pursue every irregularity and act on that (unfortunately, that often does not happen.) No matter if Bernie won by 0.2% or Mayor Pete did, they both won. It is amazing the Pete came from nowhere and did so well. It is amazing that Bernie, with obstacle after obstacle placed in his way by the DNC and the media, rose to the top.
Change anything in the rules, and the result is likely to have been different.
Did Bernie win the popular vote? No more than Hillary did in 2016. That will likely outrage my democrat and Bernie friends, yet it is true for several reasons that we do not know. First, this is a town by town delegate contest. That is the rules. The turnout at the caucuses varies from district to district far from the population, and far from November. Those that propose the National Popular Vote claim that would cause more people to vote – more Democrats in blue states, more Republicans in red states, yet also more Democrats in red states, more Republicans in blue states – they are correct. Yet,nobody knows what the results of a true popular vote would have been in either case. Second, more in the case of Hillary or Al Gore, than in Iowa – there is very little scrutiny of the exact vote, no audit across the country. Who cares if Hillary won by 3,000,000 votes in CA or 2,500,000 or 200,000 in CT or 250,000. We do not have an accurate popular vote number for 2016 or 2000 or for any other year for that matter. Change the rules and it would matter.
People tend to tout their favorite reform as a cure for any crisis. This week, one reputedly smart state representative claimed that Iowa was a case for paper ballots. I agree we need paper ballots everywhere, yet Iowa had paper ballots. Even better the caucus votes were held in public so there was no question that the ballots were correct and not compromised in the reported vote count. That same representative votes in the General Assembly all the time without paper ballots. They push a button and it lights up a screen. That is a very transparent, publicly verifiable vote, closer to the Iowa caucus than elections in Connecticut, much safer than any secret voting system. Regularly in Connecticut insiders and political operative steal votes via absentee, almost as regularly that is used as a reason to call for more main-in voting.
Many say Iowa is a reason to get rid of caucuses. I agree.
Many say Iowa is a reason for Ranked Choice Voting. Actually the Iowa system is more like Ranked Choice Voting than winner take all. Like Ranked Choice Voting it takes more math and accuracy to determine the results, it makes close votes more likely, not just in the end, but at every round where a close vote can determine the ultimate result in a caucus or a RCV. RCV can take much longer for results to be determined. Errors in single RCV precincts are much more likely to effect the final result than in the Iowa Caucus.
Elections are complex, people don’t know that. It is hard to account for over 1700 precincts. It is hard to manage dozens or hundreds of people and count their votes correctly in a caucus. Its hard to apply the difficult equations to determine deligates accurately, in the environment of a caucus. It is hard to double check all that. Especially hard since there apparently is no training for caucus leaders, many recruited the day before. Hard to get 1700+ of those counts all correct, add them up and double check them. Hard for a candidate to have individuals in every precinct to collect the data, verify the vote counts, verify the formulas and get all that information to the campaign and then for the campaign to redo and double check that information.
May say Connecticut is better off because we have trained election officials. They are mostly correct. Yet, how do you know there are no errors in the results from Connecticut? How many inaccurate results are reported? In how many cases are results reported with more votes than voters signed in? In how many cases are more voters signed in than ballots counted? I do not know the answers exactly, yet there are many in every November election. Many times they do not matter when contests are decided by many votes. Yet in many cases they do matter. A rare example from 2018 where such a situation was uncovered, investigated and ultimately not remedied.
The Iowa app was a badly botched system implementation, with no real backup. Yet a few years ago Connecticut’s Secretary of the State tried to mandate a system where polling place moderators would put in all our results on election night with smart phones – with greatly tired officials who had worked a 17 hour day, with many times the small number of results posted from each caucus. That system was stopped by an uprising from election officials, who should have been part of designing the system. That took a couple of years for them to be heard by the Secretary’s Office who blamed the officials as being against technology. We now have a pretty good system that uses fresh staff with laptops in town hall to enter data using laptops, not smart phones. Yet that system took a couple of years of Novembers to work out all the bugs to work well enough to be mandated to every town.
Connecticut is fine. Until the next thing happens. Then the Secretary of the State will again say it was outside her responsibility as Chief Election Official, ask for more power and laws to prevent that specific problem. All will be well until the next thing happens…
Having paper ballots and checkin lists means we can resolve most issues, yet it will take time. Maybe weeks. Yet we cannot resolve all problems, missing ballots, voter suppression, screw-ups like the one in Stratford above, illegal absentee ballots etc. We need better plans and processes to resolve those issues, including more re-voting.

The bottom line: Be careful what you ask for, the cure may be worse than the disease. Its complicated. Don’t let a crisis go to waste, but avoid knee-jerk solutions.

“‘It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.” – Mark Twain

Beware: The Gospel of Internet Voting

LA Times article features the entrepreneur behind Internet voting pilots vs. Science: The vote-by-phone tech trend is scaring the life out of security experts <read>

With their playbook for pushing government boundaries as a guide, some Silicon Valley investors are nudging election officials toward an innovation that prominent coders and cryptographers warn is downright dangerous for democracy…
As seasoned disruptors of the status quo, tech pioneers have proven persuasive in selling the idea, even as the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine specifically warn against any such experiment…

Tusk is certain participation in elections would surge if the technology were widely permitted, even though studies in some of the few places around the world that have tried the method revealed no big turnout boost

Crusade, Gospel, Genie seem appropriate to describe entrepreneur Tusk. Its a blind disregard for evidence, science, and the scientists, including yours truly, warning of the risks of Internet voting

LA Times article features the entrepreneur behind Internet voting pilots vs. Science: The vote-by-phone tech trend is scaring the life out of security experts <read>

With their playbook for pushing government boundaries as a guide, some Silicon Valley investors are nudging election officials toward an innovation that prominent coders and cryptographers warn is downright dangerous for democracy…
As seasoned disruptors of the status quo, tech pioneers have proven persuasive in selling the idea, even as the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine specifically warn against any such experiment.
The fight over mobile voting pits technologists who warn about the risks of entrusting voting to apps and cellphones against others who see internet voting as the only hope for getting most Americans to consistently participate on election day…
Bradley Tusk is using the same tactics in this personal crusade that he used to advance tech startups. He has bet a significant share of the fortune he built off his equity stake in Uber that the gospel of mobile voting will spread so fast that most Americans will have the option of casting their ballots for president by phone as soon as 2028.
He has already persuaded the state of West Virginia and the City of Denver to start tinkering with voting by phone, and hopes to move quickly from there.
“What we learned at Uber is once the genie is out of the bottle, it can’t be put it back in,”…
Tusk is certain participation in elections would surge if the technology were widely permitted, even though studies in some of the few places around the world that have tried the method revealed no big turnout boost

Crusade, Gospel, Genie seem appropriate to describe Tusk. It is a blind disregard for evidence, science, and the scientists, including yours truly, warning of Internet voting:

The entrepreneur frames the fight as one pitting reformers against special interests invested in a low turnout that makes lawmakers unaccountable and easy to corrupt. He talks of the security concerns as if they are a sideshow. Sure, the scholars raising them are earnest, he said, but their approach to the challenge bewilders him. He likens them to people whose only solution to making a swimming pool safer is to fill it with concrete.That prospect alarms some of the nation’s most prominent election-security thinkers, who see in Tusk a formidable adversary with an intimidating public relations tool kit. They say he and other promoters for the projects are misleading election officials about how secure the systems are.
“There is wide agreement among computer security experts that this is problematic,” said David Dill, a professor emeritus in computer science at Stanford. “It disturbs me that officials are getting enthusiastic about this voting technology without talking to the people who have the expertise to evaluate its security.”
The National Academies report warns that the risks of this and other forms of internet voting are “more significant than the benefits.”

Read the full article for more details behind Tusk’s quest and the warnings from scientists.

Book Review: Bad Blood, Fantasyland, (and Blockchains)

I recently read Bad Blood by John Carreyrou. I could not put it down. Not surprising since it has been on the NYTimes best seller list for months and its the only book I have noticed on Amazon with a full five star rating – with currently just over two-thousand reviews. But for me it was more than that. It brought back memories of a good portion of my career in the eighties and nineties, along with my last fifteen years concerned with electronic voting.

All reminiscent of Kurt Andersen’s book: Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire: A 500-Year History. To me, just like the California Gold Rush, minus the gold.

It details the creation, life, and death of Silicon Valley startup Theranos. Theranos was started by Stamford drop-out Elizabeth Holmes. She had an idea for a blood test that would take only a drop of blood and quickly provide an analysis that conventionally took much more blood and much more time. It was a great idea, yet science said it was impossible and she never was able to develop a solution. What she did develop was a large following of famous board members a huge kitty of venture capitol, two large losing customers. A large, harmful group-delusion. Along the way she created a phony test that likely killed people. All reminiscent of Kurt Andersen’s book: Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire: A 500-Year History. To me, just like the California Gold Rush, minus the gold.

The read brought back memories. As I said earlier this year in testimony on a bill in the Connecticut General Assembly to propose a Task Force to study blockchains to solve an undefined problem with our voter registration system:

I have a 35-year career building, evaluating, purchasing and implementing computer systems and new technology.For 9of those years I was a Director of Strategic Planning for the Travelers Computer Science Division and for 8 years worked for two start-ups, designing, developing, and marketing data communications software to large enterprises and government agencies.I keep up with election technology and security issues, daily exchanging ideas with nationally recognized experts in computer science and computer security.

This is bill represents a classic mistake – a “hot” technology solution in search of an undefined problem. This proposal defines no problem and limits the solution to one over-hyped technology. Better to have the problem clearly defined and then solicit proposals to solve the problem – solutions technical and otherwise.

The way to solve problems is to define the problem, create a team of experts on the subject matter, with technical problem solvers, and experts who have solved similar problems for other states and nations – then let them brainstorm, evaluate and propose effective solutions.

If there is a problem to be solved, it is likely there is a solution – if so, it almost certainly does not depend on blockchains, and likely does not need any “hot” technology.

The amazing thing is people, smart people, keep falling for the same old things. As Carreyrou points out many smart people hired by Theranos had questions from the start. Many quit along the way. Some paid a high price for exposing the company, others dared not take the risk. At least initially Holmes was likely deluded herself.

I worked for a similar, much smaller, startup in 1997. A product that hardly worked – likely all but impossible to create – impossible with the minimal skills of those developing it. I had some doubts the day I walked in the door – I was an expert in the problem and its value, yet I said “maybe they know something I don’t.” I needed a job. Most, if not all of the rest of the fifty or so employees were not so knowledgeable. The founder was as he described it a “serial entrepreneur”. His actual M.O. was taking venture capitol, failing, and saying in the ashes he had discovered a better idea and attracted more venture capitol. I left after eleven sad, ridiculous months. Sad because so many in the company were hurt – fortunately no customers lost much. The boss, said lack of sales was our fault as we needed to find more sophisticated customers who would appreciate the value of our cumbersome product.

Believe me Blockchains are another over-hyped technology with little if any value. Scientists I trust say that <read>. I have studied it enough to agree with them. And based on all my experience the hype smells just like many things I have seen before. The bill is still alive in the General Assembly, lets hope it dies or at least the Task Force sees through the hype.

Its all the same as that Theranos Bad Blood. Just another journey in Fantasyland. Both good reads and cautionary tales.

National Academy of Sciences study: Blockchain may make voting more vulnerable

While the General Assembly contemplates how Blockchain might solve some undefined problem in our voter registration system, we point to a National Academy of Sciences study Securing the Vote, Protecting American Democracy:

The blockchain abstraction, once implemented, provides added points of attack for malicious actors…Furthermore, blockchain protocols generally yield results that are a consensus of the miners/stakeholders. This consensus may not represent the consensus of the voting public. Miners/stakeholders with sufficient power might also cause confusion and uncertainty about the state of a blockchain by raising doubts about whether a consensus has been reached.

While the General Assembly contemplates how Blockchain might solve some undefined problem in our voter registration system, we point to a National Academy of Sciences study Securing the Vote, Protecting American Democracy <view> starting on page 103:

While the notion of using a blockchain as an immutable ballot box may seem promising, blockchain technology does little to solve the fundamental security issues of elections, and indeed, blockchains introduce additional security vulnerabilities. In particular, if malware on a voter’s device alters a vote before it ever reaches a blockchain, the immutability of the blockchain fails to provide the desired integrity, and the voter may never know of the alteration. Blockchains are decentralized, but elections are inherently centralized. Although blockchains can be effective for decentralized applications, public elections are inherently centralized—requiring election administrators define the contents of ballots, identify the list of eligible voters, and establish the duration of voting…

As they point out lists of eligible voters is also a central function, subject to the same limitations to “to solve the fundamental security of elections.

While it is true that blockchains offer observability and immutability, in a centralized election scenario, observability and immutability maybe achieved more simply by other means. Election officials need only, for example, post digitally signed versions of relevant election-related reports for public observation and download. Ballots stored on a blockchain are electronic. While paper ballots are directly verifiable by voters, electronic ballots (i.e., ballots on a blockchain)
can be more difficult to verify. Software is required to examine postings on blockchain. If such software is corrupted, then verifiability may be illusory. Software independence is not, therefore, achieved through posting ballots on a blockchain…

The blockchain abstraction, once implemented, provides added points of attack for malicious actors…Furthermore, blockchain protocols generally yield results that are a consensus of the miners/stakeholders. This consensus may not represent the consensus of the voting public. Miners/stakeholders with sufficient power might also cause confusion and uncertainty about the state of a blockchain by raising doubts about whether a consensus has been reached…

Blockchains do not provide the anonymity often ascribed to them. In the particular context of elections, voters need to be authorized as eligible to vote and as not having cast more than one ballot in the particular election. Blockchains do not offer means for providing the necessary authorization. Blockchains do not provide ballot secrecy.

Four pieces of testimony on five bills, including Blockchain and RCV

On Wednesday the GAE Committee held testimony on another raft if bills.

The bills, and links to my testimony, in priority order: (Take a look at all the testimony <here>, best to look by bill number than date)

On Wednesday the GAE Committee held testimony on another raft if bills.

The bills, and links to my testimony, in priority order: (Take a look at all the testimony <here>, best to look by bill number than date)

H.B.5417 A proposed study to use blockchain to solve some undefined problem in voter registration. I opposed, perhaps the only one in the room who is a computer scientist. In summary, if someone wants to sell you or asks you to invest in blockchain – Run. Run fast and keep your eye on your wallet and passwords! In addition to my own testimony on how to solve problems (i.e. define the problem then look at all cures), I provided an article by a true expert.

H.B.5820 A proposed study to evaluate Ranked Choice Voting. I opposed unless the bill is corrected and the study is broadened. I provided a laundry list of items that should be considered by a Task Force.

S.B.156 and S.B.195 Two proposals to no linger require signatures on absentee ballot applications. Opposed based on Connecticut’s history of absentee ballot votING fraud, by political operatives and insiders. Those signatures are a key component of proving fraud.

H.B.6876 To cut the onerous cost of scanning public records by cell phones and other meetings. Supported, along with every other person supporting Freedom of Information. Opposed by officials who gain revenue from the fees. copying a single document costs $20.

Three Experts on Blockchains

Do you need a public blockchain? The answer is almost certainly no. A blockchain probably doesn’t solve the security problems you think it solves. The security problems it solves are probably not the ones you have. …A false trust in blockchain can itself be a security risk. The inefficiencies, especially in scaling, are probably not worth it. I have looked at many blockchain applications, and all of them could achieve the same security properties without using a blockchain—of course, then they wouldn’t have the cool name.

There are two bills submitted to the General Assembly this year to research Blockchain technology. One to solve a sketchily defined, possible problem with our voter registration system, and another to use Blockchain technology for online voting. We will have more to say about the bills and those specific problems later, but let us start with three experts opinions of Blockchain technology itself.

Bruce Schneier article at Wired There’s No Good Reason to Trust Blockchain Technology <read>

Bruce Schneier is a highly respected security expert from Harvard University often a guest on the PBS Newshour. Private Blockchains are the type used in West Virginia in prototyping a system for electronic voting – a system hidden from public scrutiny and testing, Probably what would be considered for both of those systems in Connecticut. Schneier says:

Private blockchains are completely uninteresting. … In general, they have some external limitation on who can interact with the blockchain and its features. These are not anything new; they’re distributed append-only data structures with a list of individuals authorized to add to it. Consensus protocols have been studied in distributed systems for more than 60 years. Append-only data structures have been similarly well covered. They’re blockchains in name only, and—as far as I can tell—the only reason to operate one is to ride on the blockchain hype…

A public Blockchain is what most cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin use, Schneier says:

Do you need a public blockchain? The answer is almost certainly no. A blockchain probably doesn’t solve the security problems you think it solves. The security problems it solves are probably not the ones you have. (Manipulating audit data is probably not your major security risk.) A false trust in blockchain can itself be a security risk. The inefficiencies, especially in scaling, are probably not worth it. I have looked at many blockchain applications, and all of them could achieve the same security properties without using a blockchain—of course, then they wouldn’t have the cool name.

Vinton Cerf is one of the Fathers of the Internet. Schneier quotes him in a simple summary of Cerf’s views of Blockchains:

Bill Black On The Real News Cryptocurrency Firms Regularly Lose Codes and Money <watch> Less technical but clearly undermines the claim that even for cryptocurrency, Blockchains do not solve every problem and are over hyped.

****Update 4/29/2019 Moody’s agrees with Schneier: Bond Rating Agency Moody’s Warns on Risks of Private Blockchains <read>

Blockchain a technology with great claims, without documented success

Blockchain has been wildly mis-sold, but underneath it is a database with performance and scalability issues and a lot of baggage. Any claim made for blockchain could be made for databases, or simply publishing contractual or transactional data gathered in another form.

A new study finds no actual successes behind claims, also a lack of transparency: Blockchain study finds 0.00% success rate and vendors don’t call back when asked for evidence <read>

Though Blockchain has been touted as the answer to everything, a study of 43 solutions advanced in the international development sector has found exactly no evidence of success…

Blockchain vendors were keen to puff the merits of the technology, but when the three asked for proof of success in the field, it all went very quiet…

Blockchain has been wildly mis-sold, but underneath it is a database with performance and scalability issues and a lot of baggage. Any claim made for blockchain could be made for databases, or simply publishing contractual or transactional data gathered in another form.

Its adoption by non-technical advocates is faith-based, with vendors’ and consultants’ claims being taken at face value…

As with every bubble, whether it’s Tulip Mania or the Californian Gold Rush, most investors lose their shirts while a fortune is being made by associated services – the advisors and marketeers can bank their cash, even if there’s no gold in the river.

Well maybe those advisors and marketeers are successful. As they say “Where are the users’ yachts”.