Sequoia Threatens Over Voting Machine Evaluation 221
enodo writes "Voting machine manufacturer Sequoia has sent well-known Princeton professor Ed Felten and his colleague Andrew Appel a letter threatening to sue if New Jersey sends them a machine to evaluate. It's not clear from the letter Sequoia sent whether they intend to sue the professors or the state — presumably that ambiguity was deliberate on Sequoia's part. Put another clipping in your scrapbook of cases of companies invoking 'intellectual property rights' for bogus reasons." Sequoia seems to be claiming that no one can make a "report" regarding their "software" without their permission.
Check, Meet Balance (Score:5, Interesting)
Why do these shifty porkchops think they ought to be exempt? Because it may make their investors nervous?
This is definitely a situation where the bottom line should be drawn by logic, not by dollars.
Ok, I RTFA, but still... (Score:4, Interesting)
...have I got this straight?
Their voting machines are paid for by public dollars, used by the majority of the members of the public, to elect public officials, and they claim evaluation of their software cannot occur without their "permission"?
(Even my 9 year old nephew read this and thought it was "dumb")
History lesson (Score:5, Interesting)
Anyone care to guess when the last armed revolt against government was here in the US and the reasons behind it?
Answer - Battle of Athens, Tenn. 1946. And it was over voting issues...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Athens [wikipedia.org]
Re:Let's call a spade a spade: (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Let's call a spade a spade: (Score:5, Interesting)
Regardless, I don't see how the manufacturer could impose restrictions on the equipment if it has been sold. Leased? Yeah, that'd come with a use restriction because title never was transferred.
Re:Let's call a spade a spade: (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:No permission should be needed (Score:5, Interesting)
I am sure the state of New Jersey can tell Sequoia to accept this investigation or say good-bye to any certification. Sequoia is just making themselves look bad and like they have something to hide.
I agree however New Jersey probably has already paid for the machines. I can't see Sequoia telling the state they can't test them, have them tested scientifically, if they haven't already been paid for. This case can however be used to show other potential buyers just how the company operates.
FalconRe:Ok, I RTFA, but still... (Score:4, Interesting)
Is this stupid? Yes. Is this hostile to the interests of Americans? Yes. Was it voted for by a Congressman you have re-elected since? That I don't know, obviously, but it's something you may want to check on before this election. If you're not planning onvoting for whoever is currently elected, you might also want to find out the views of the opponents, particularly if the region is tech-savvy enough (or even tech-phobic enough) to be suspicious of voting machines. The candidate you're looking at might enjoy playing around with Sequoia's attitude problem as a (minor, to them) campaign issue.
Trivial Workaround (Score:3, Interesting)
Open Source Secure Voting Application (Score:2, Interesting)
So, has it been done yet?
Or is the problem one of it being rather impossible to create a completely secure voting application, however great the code is, however many security specialists have reviewed it?
Re:Sweet. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:handy though (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't think a PR nightmare really applies. This kind of stuff rarely if ever hits mainstream media, and us geeks of Slashdot aren't really the type to buy into proprietary tools in general, let alone ones used for voting.
Re:Ok, I RTFA, but still... (Score:3, Interesting)
Why not just breach the license agreement? (Score:2, Interesting)
I seem to remember that there is a breach of contract defense available when the contract violates public policy. Does NJ recognize this defense? Do the terms of this license agreement rise to the level of a public policy violation as recognized in the courts?
Re:Intellectual property more valuable than physic (Score:-1, Interesting)
Eminent Domain can be used to seize "real property" (real estate, land buildings, etc) but cannot be used to seize "personal property" (vehicles, boats, aircraft, equipment, toys, IP -- yes, IP is considered to be a form of personal property). So sayeth the Constitution of the United States of America.
What the State of NJ could do, however, is tax the holy fuck out of personal property. Since IP is "licensed", not sold, then the ownership of the IP contained by the machines remains personal property of the vendor, however since the machines are residing in NJ.... NJ could, if they were smart and vindictive, levy a specific and enormous tax against the intellectual property inside those machines. Plenty of precedent and case law exists for states levying personal property and use taxes upon out-of-state owners of stuff that is located or operated in their state, as is evidenced by Maine and Florida levying mind-boggling taxes on out-of-state owners of aircraft, boats and construction equipment that happened to spend some amount of time, sometimes as little as 24 hours, on Maine or Florida soil, but typically the amount of time must exceed 30 or 60 days depending on the state.
Is NJ brilliantly evil enough to figure this one out? Well, the evil part, I'd say yes, but I have doubts about the brilliantly part.
Re:Yes. And why does UL do it? (Score:4, Interesting)
I hear they are pretty good a doing hardware/software system audits and design reviews.
Re:handy though (Score:3, Interesting)
in france, where radium was discovered, they used 'cotton swabs' to apply the paint rather than horsehair brushes. cotton swabs had no need to be licked (the horsehair brushes had to be licked ever 2-3 strokes)
analysis of public voting machines will turn up ugly bugs like being able to report 100% of the district voting for one candidate, while 67% voted for the other. there are so many things that can go wrong with voting machine software, not to mention a lot of the machines are shipped by companies with strong political ties, who some argue 'rig' the firmwares results for specific elections. the latter is why I'd bet they don't want random voting machine testing. people finding 'bugs' for you will just cost a little programming work to debug it, the only reason i can see for them to sue, is if they really are rigging the elections for a price.
Re:Here is Sequoia's response from their website.. (Score:1, Interesting)
If there's any confusion let's clear it up now shall we.
The Citizens of the United States no longer have the luxury of fucking around with these lies and propaganda anymore, everything is at stake since these electronic voting machines are the "spark of life" that was needed to begin the negative downward spiral of the destruction of the constitution, the corporate media [wikipedia.org], the judicial, the executive, the senate, the economy and the delivery of the United States directly into the hands of fascism. [wikipedia.org] All you need do is compare the Constitution before this administration to the constitution after this administration to understand what these oath of office breaking criminals are up to.
Who ever marked this as funny might want to understand that "Election Technology Council" [electiontech.org] is made up of the manufactures of these fucked up machines. Which is the same as the fox guarding the hen house. It's very similar to the ACVR [bradblog.com] saying that there's voter fraud. (When in fact there wasn't and isn't) and that also the ACVR [bradblog.com] was only a fucking MAILBOX address, and that the damage they did exists to this very day as propaganda, misinformation, and lies. There's nothing funny here. These electronic vote tabulation devices, broken chain of custody, voter roll purging have cost our veterans their lives.
Furthermore, out in California Secretary of State Debra Bowen's Top-To-Bottom (which truly was independent) review [ca.gov] resulted in every machine being de-certified because they all failed miserably.