Diebold Chases Links To Leaked Memos 595
bllfrnch writes "Mary Hodder, over at The Berkeley School of Journalism's bIPlog, reports that electronic voting bigwig Diebold has begun sending cease-and-desist letters to universities whose students are linking to hijacked internal company memos that elucidate the company's level of respect for citizens' right to vote. Particularly shocking is the line: "If voting could really change things, it would be illegal.""
Stupid Quote (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course voting can change things, for example I'm sure the people of Iraq would have loved to vote a new leader when Saddam Hussein was in power, but couldn't. People have died for the right to vote. I think that things like the above quote are very dangerous things to say.
Re:Stupid Quote (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Stupid Quote (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Stupid Quote (Score:5, Insightful)
It's so annoying how people blow these things out of proportion - dude works for a voting machine company and has a sarcastic signature about voting - it's a joke - lighten up - it's like people are looking for things to whine about and then jumping on anything remotely sensational - [grumbles and moves back under bridge]
Absolutely (Score:3, Insightful)
I think the guy just had a sense of humour. It's a shame to think that he must be getting hell for trying to lighten up his job.
Re:Absolutely (Score:3, Insightful)
"I love clients - they make my boat payment."
Frankly, if I saw that behavior, I'd have to wonder about their judgement and would consider if I really wanted to continue to use them. Judgement is crucial - people that don't use it or use it poorly can do immense dam
Re:Stupid Quote (Score:2, Funny)
I thought this was slashdot, not the onion....
Re:Stupid Quote (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Stupid Quote (Score:3, Informative)
It's even more ridiculous when you consider that it's not even an original quote--he attributes it IN THE DAMN SIG to "Revolution Books, New York, New York"
Re:Stupid Quote (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Stupid Quote (Score:3, Funny)
No need to put that in the past tense. I'm sure the people of Iraq would still love the chance to vote for their own leader.
Re:Stupid Quote (Score:2)
If course voting can change things, for example I'm sure the people of Iraq would have loved to vote a new leader when Saddam Hussein was in power, but couldn't.
That's the point though isn't it? Having the right to vote, is what you get after you have won your freedom. Nobody voted Sadaam out of power.
Women died for the right to vote: is there a significant gender bias in candidate voted for? Usually no; does that mean that women's right to vote is unimportant. Of course not.
Although if people are sti
Re:Stupid Quote (Score:2)
So there is a nugget of truth to the quote, however it is an example of reactionary self-defeatism. It presupposes there will always be an evil authoritarian government to protest, and if anyone actually creates something better, it is just as bad.
The undercurrent is that voting is uncool, violent revolution is cool. Or just a provocative statement.
Re:Stupid Quote (Score:2)
If voting changed anything, they'd make it illegal. -Emma Goldman (1869 - 1940)
If people are going to get scared from the sigs people use, this is a scary place indeed.
Re:Stupid Quote (Score:2)
Voting in Iraq could have changed things. But it was illegal.
So in fact the quote is entirely correct in that context. It may be cynical, but there's more depth there than some people may realise.
Re:Stupid Quote (Score:3, Insightful)
Absolutely. Thousands of Iraqis have died for the right to vote--because Americans thought they needed it, and were willing to kill them for it.
Yep, it's a good thing that the United States had democracy forcibly thrust upon it a couple of centuries ago, by an outside power that was mostly interested in access to its natural resources.
Oh.
Voting
Re:Stupid Quote (Score:2, Interesting)
Some would say he wasn't that wrong on that either. Have you personally talked to people from Iraq? I have - and Iraq was a very nice little country back in the 70s. The problems began in the (US backed) war against Iran, and when Saddam later invaded Kuwait (after getting an OK from the US) everything went downhill due to the (US led) bombing back to the stone age.
This latest war, for abso
News Flash... (Score:5, Informative)
It was similiar to what continues on today between North and South Korea, those two countries are at war and have been at war for over 50 years. Yes, 50 years. There was never a declaration of peace between North and South Korea, just a cease fire armistice.
I can't blame you for not knowing. I have the impression that most people aren't really taught such truths in school anymore. These days, for one to actually learn the truth, they have to hunt for it themselves.
Re:News Flash... (Score:5, Insightful)
So, can you define 'a while'...what period of time is this? Are you saying basically, that if you wait out, and welsh on an agreement long enough...everything just transforms to 'ok nevermind, we didn't really mean it'...and you don't have to do it. By that logic, we shouldn't have given the peaceful inspector method as long as we did.
Saddam surrendered Gulf War 1. He agreed to terms. He got a chance to abide by them....and basically did everything he could not to. After awhile, as you say, you get fed up with this, and come down on him. Otherwise, there is no deterrent to other rogue nations. Sometimes, all that is understood is swift, blinding violence and force. Grant it, you want it to be a last resort, but, your words of peace have no teeth if you aren't willing to back them up.
This is not a utopian world, will never be one as long as there are humans. There are by default, some bad seeds out there, and on occasion, you have to show one what the consequences are for bad behavior, otherwise they will run rampant.
bullsh*t re: Iraq (Score:3, Insightful)
From the BBC [bbc.co.uk]
I won't dispute the U.S.'s involvement, we supplied Iraq with weapons to fight Iran, and turned a blind eye at first when Saddam invaded Kuwait. In fact, I hate my country sometimes, often even, but stop misrepresenting the facts.
So the U.S. supported Iraq in attacking Iran, not without reason, but that's no excuse. So then Iraq invades Kuwait, but the U.N. intervened, it wasn't just the U.S.. Kuwait was, rightly, liber
Re:Stupid Quote (Score:4, Insightful)
Any idiot can fight - it takes guts not to be dared into a fight.
Re:Stupid Quote (Score:3, Insightful)
Certainly not factors in the Russian or Saudi oil industries, which have always been completely transparent.
Re:Oh really? (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, it's a good thing everybody agreed on American independence. Imagine how things would have went if some people would have been sympathetic to the king.
Re:that isn't the fault of democracy (Score:5, Interesting)
If you don't belive in marketing and backup by large companies that would be true. Do you have a clue how much money it's needed to run for president? How would average Joe with the solutions to all problems reach out to the millions of people needed to get him elected if he wasn't backed by a large company or a largy party? And when he got elected with the help of thoose, owning everything to them how could he be any better than what's running now?
In the best of worlds your statement would be true but unfortunately are we living in a dump, with too many uneducated people to be able to have democracy.
Don't vote .. (Score:4, Funny)
Shocking? (Score:2, Interesting)
only because it's true
And the corollary quote, with Diebold in mind (Score:5, Funny)
"Those who vote change nothing. Those who count the votes change everything."
Why don't the idiots use the DMCA? (Score:5, Insightful)
Simply send a counter notice stating that the documents do not breach copyright, and put the website back up. This moves the obligation to Diebold to bring suit!
Re:Why don't the idiots use the DMCA? (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course it's easy to provide advice on how to bring this issue into the courtroom when you have no reason to worry about the implications of the law
Re:Why don't the idiots use the DMCA? (Score:5, Informative)
Day Eight, Oct. 28: Amherst and MIT have received cease-desist letters (copy of MIT cease-desist letter). New mirrors are now up at UNC, Duke, Berkeley, NCSU and U Penn.
Diebold has publicly admitted that leaked memos do not meet DMCA standards for copyright infringement. In the Associated Press article, a Diebold representative declares:
Ernest Miller explains that the DMCA requires that documents be authentic; if the documents aren't authentic, it isn't copyright infringement. Our position is that even if the memos are authentic (which we believe they are, or Diebold would be pursuing a libel campaign), they are not copyright infringment as they are covered under DMCA fair use guidelines .Since some of you have been asking, yes, Swarthmore College is still enforcing its policy of cutting off network access to students who link to information about the memos (or the memos themselves). There have been many discussions of this absurd policy -- see, for instance, LawMeme's analysis -- and we appreciate the letters that are being sent to Dean Gross and The Phoenix (e.g. Seth Finkelstein's). We hope that by expanding to other colleges and universities we can broaden the campaign while minimizing the impact of our own institution's refusal to take a stand. (If other educational institutions encounter such policies, this script may be of help.)
irony (Score:4, Insightful)
How biased is that?! (Score:2, Insightful)
> it would be illegal."
This is ridiculous. The guy was using this quote as a signature. Come on!
Re:How biased is that?! (Score:2)
Illegal voteing (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Illegal voteing (Score:3, Insightful)
Email, web pages, newsgroup posts, whatever.
You may think it is funny now, but others might not get your humor one day when your name pops up in a google cache or email archive.
No wonder the Greens never win :) (Score:2)
If you've ever wondered why the Green Party never wins, check this [f-451.net].
LOL. I used the site search [f-451.net]. You can have fun too looking for words like:
hide, investigator, coverup, suppress, alter, payoff, cleanup, forge, deny, lie, misinformation, etc.
More mirrors needed (Score:5, Insightful)
mirroring inside the US (Score:3, Interesting)
BTW, Newsweek carried a piece by Steven Levy about Diebold this week.
!shocking (Score:4, Insightful)
This line belongs to a
This is taken out of context.
Re:!shocking (Score:2)
Re:!shocking (Score:2, Insightful)
But it's just a sig!!! If I was working for a company that was building a voting system, I'd probably be inclined to have something sarcastic along those lines in my sig. Frankly I think there are far more worrying things in the diebold case than someone having a (slightly warped?) sense of humour in the company.
Re:!shocking (Score:3)
And if you worked for me, I'd terminate you for terminating them, and tell you to go buy a sense of humor.
Diniin
mirrors (Score:4, Informative)
http://cultcom.com/mirror.html [cultcom.com]
Distributing the Diebold memo with apt-get (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, the power of apt-get could be used to form a type of ad-hoc distributed network for the distribution of the Diebold memo, without fear of a single server being shutdown making the document disappear. What we did for the Fed was to create a set of apt.sources files which contained the addresses of a bunch of mirror servers which contained the documents of interest. When a user needed to find a document, they would simply issue an apt-get instyall Document command at their workstation, and apt-get would do the rest.
It gets better. When a new revision of the document was released, it was a simple task for the user to perform an apt-get upgrade Document, and the latest version was dragged across from what ever server happened to be available from their apt.sources file. We even spent a couple of weeks hacking dselect to launch OpenOffice when necessary to create a kind of crude distributed document management system. The users loved it! It's the UNIX way!
But anyway, back to the problem at hand. What is needed are a bunch of Debian servers to host the offending Diebold memo which has been leaked, and for people to start adding these to their apt.sources files. That way, Diebold won't be able to shut down any servers, and if they leak new information, it can easily be upgraded with apt-get upgrade Diebold! apt-get just continues to amaze me.
apt-get free speech!!!
Re:Distributing the Diebold memo with apt-get (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Distributing the Diebold memo with apt-get (Score:3, Funny)
Don't think of it so much as a single point of failure. Think of it more as the convenience of a single point of tracking which subversives download things that lead to improper thinking.
Re-inventing the wheel (Score:5, Informative)
How to distribute documents across a whole organisation in an available manner? I could install Usenet News servers and have them do it, or I could waste weeks writing wrappers round apt-get, hacking dselect and tie myself directly to Debian, and spend time installing apt on hundreds of machines.
Or I could just post the document to a newsgroup... DOH!
Out of context (Score:2, Informative)
If voting could really change things, it would be illegal
The actual link was to the following text:
>> Does anyone have the password for the TS Instructions from the ftp site?
>>
>>Thanks
>>Kerry
>>
>>If voting could really change things, it would be illegal.
>>Revolution Books, New York, New York
It looks more like a joke sig than a corporate statement.
Why bother (Score:2)
If you don't need to score the most votes to become the president, why count them at all?
More significantly... (Score:2, Interesting)
Heh... and several million /. readers...
yo.
Diebold (Score:4, Insightful)
Here's how you build a real voting system.
- You get the best brains to really think about the problem. Forget the Diebold cubicle workers, you get someone like Rivest and pals to design the system. They solve the problems of audit trails, accountability, how to trust the machine etc.
- You get a collaboration of the top research institutes and universities to implement the system. Implementation must be done completely in the open. Every party and faction will have a great interest in eyeballing the system, so that no other faction can exploit it. With enough eyes, every bug is shallow.
- You don't design 52 systems, you design one or two. A well designed system will be used and paid for by virtually all the states. Done right it might cost as much as 30 bad systems, but it'll be worth it.
- You maintain the system troughout the year, not just 2 months before each election. You reuse improved versions of the system with each election.
Re:Diebold (Score:3, Informative)
They are evidently good showmen and salespeople.
Now, I've been to demostrations... and I've
Re:Diebold (Score:2)
What's wrong with pencil and paper voting? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's what we use here in the UK.
You go into a little booth with a ballot paper, where you will find a pencil. Mark an X in the box next to the candidate you want, fold up the paper and post it in the ballot box.
It's more auditable and even if the paper, pencils and boxes are manufactured by a company who make no secret of their support for one particular political party, it's difficult to see how it could make any difference.
I'm not trolling - if someone could explain, please do.
Re:What's wrong with pencil and paper voting? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What's wrong with pencil and paper voting? (Score:3, Insightful)
For our non-US readers' edficiation (Score:5, Interesting)
There is no country wide standard of how voting is conducted.
People outside the US may not be aware of this, but local governments (cities, counties and states) are extremely important in our system. US states are pretty much exclusively in charge of setting standards on how voting is conducted. For example, while every state has secret ballots, this is only a widely accepted custom; well into the nineteenth century people voted in some places by testifying publicly at the local courthouse. States typically don't have very stringent standardization. Local municipalities or counties (depending on the part of the country) actually conduct the polling and have a great deal of leeway in how they do it.
Combine this local autonomy with the typically frugal funding of municipal functions compared to what a European would expect, our entrepreurial spirit and our love of technological quick fixes, it's pretty much inevitable that there should be an array of half baked systems out there. The Diebold system in question is only the latest.
I wonder whether this chaos has a kind of protective effect, at least on the national and statewide level. Think about this: barring a knife edge result like the last presidential election, the only way to rig a statewide or presidential election would require undermining a variety of systems in a variety of places, using a variety of methods. The chancs of avoiding detection decrease hyperbolically in the number of exploits attempted.
The real danger with electronic voting is that in our post-Florida mania for a technical quick fix, a de facto electronic voting standard will emerge. This has happened in the past, for example in states adopting the secret ballot. However, electronic voting provides a single point of vulnerability, in which a rogue staffer with sufficient skills could conceivably change the composition of the US government. Americans tend to dismiss the possibility of voting manipulation by corporate interests as class warfare paranoia, but think of the opportunity this presents to certain foreign intelligence agencies.
What we ought to do is something that has never been done in the US: set real standards for polling methods, especially (but not limited to) electronic ones. I think most people here understand what this should include: things like auditabiliy, indepedent security analysis as part of system acceptance, etc. These standards could be implemented by multiple vendors, and for security reasons we would probably want to have at least four or five major players, and set maximums for the percentage of an electorate in a state voting on a particular vendor's machines.
Same with Canada, paper and pencil (Score:3, Insightful)
If voting machines were introduced in Canada the same transparency and independance would have to be maintained. Automatic recounts are stipulated by law in close vote situations, that requires an auditable process. The Diebold machines are not auditable and would not conform to the law.
In all, it would be impossible not to mention insane, to move from a transparent, independa
Re:Diebold (Score:3, Informative)
The best brains have already thought about it, and concluded it cannot currently be done with an acceptible level of fidelity. That is basically the reason the GNU-Free project stopped (yeah, there was a FSF electronic voting project).
They're confirming the validity of the documents (Score:5, Insightful)
"Nope, never seen those before. Guess somebody thinks it's funny to try to discredit a reliable, trustworthy company like us."
Insead, they've chosen "arrgggh, give those back! You can't show people those - they're secret!". Hmm...
There's a 3rd possibility. (Score:2)
I'm sorry, but I've purchased to much herbal viagra to believe everything I read on the Internet...
"Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act" (Score:5, Interesting)
This is House Resolution 2239 which requires a paper trail and bans the use of non-open software.
Here's a story about it: link [indymedia.org]
Mirror, Mirror, On The Wall... (Score:2)
Ok, I'll take back all the bad things I said about Germans over the whole Iraq thing just for this:
From this page [why-war.com] at why-war.com: How to get the files: Note that the location of the documents may change, but this page will always have the current links. In case Diebold takes down this page, bookmark cultcom.com/mirror.html [cultcom.com], a mirror being hosted in Germany of direct links to the memos.
Now, who wants to take bets as to how big of an election fraud it will t
Copy of cease & desist letter (Score:5, Informative)
James Bruce
Vice President for Information Systems
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
77 Massachusetts Avenue
Room 10-219
Cambridge, MA 02139
XXXXXXXX@mit.edu
Re: Copyright Infringement
Dear Mr. Bruce:
We represent Diebold, Incorporated and its wholly owned subsidiaries Diebold Election Systems, Inc., and Diebold Election Systems ULC (collectively "Diebold").
Diebold is the owner of copyrights in certain correspondence and other material relating to its electronic voting machines, which were stolen from a Diebold computer ("Diebold Property").
It has recently come to our clients' attention that you appear to be hosting a web site that contains Diebold Property. The web site you are hosting infringes Diebold's copyrights because the Diebold Property was reproduced, placed on public display, and is being distributed from this web site without Diebold's consent.
The web site and Diebold Property are identified in a chart attached to this letter.
The purpose of this letter is to advise you of our clients' rights and to seek your agreement to the following: (1) to remove and destroy the Diebold Property contained at the web site identified in the attached chart and (2) to destroy any backup copies of the Diebold Property in your possession or under your control.
Please confirm, in writing, that you have complied with the above requests.
To the best of my knowledge and belief the information contained in this notification is accurate as of the time of compilation and, under penalty of perjury, I certify that I am authorized to act on behalf of Diebold.
Our clients reserve their position insofar as costs and damages caused by infringing activity with respect to the Diebold Property. Our clients also reserve their right to seek injunctive relief to prevent further unauthorized use of Diebold Property, including reproduction, distribution, public display, or the creation of derivative works, pending your response to this letter. We suggest you contact your legal advisors to obtain legal advice as to your position.
We await your response within 24 hours.
Very truly yours,
Ralph E. Jocke
INFRINGING MATERIALS POSTED ON:
XXXXXXXXX.net
Re:Copy of cease & desist letter (Score:5, Interesting)
I will promptly remove this document as soon as you send me an official statement stating it is Diebold copyrighted material"
Re:Copy of cease & desist letter (Score:3, Insightful)
The DMCA *does not* allow the ISP or carrier to destroy the items requested to be removed, just to remove them. They cannot destroy them because if the hosted site counterclaims, then the ISP or carrier must put the items back up.
Diebold should be more careful in their requests.
refreshing compared to SCO, though ... (Score:3, Interesting)
I guess I prefer an
Shocking?? (Score:5, Insightful)
Whilst I'm posting, my take on this whole thing: I still cannot understand why on earth the US moved away from the pencil-and-paper, put-an-X-in-the-box system used (AFAIK) by the rest of the world (certainly that's how it works here in the UK.) Simple, cheap, robust, reliable, transparent... why complicate a system that's already a model of simplicity and correctness? Can someone explain to me what the problem is that 'voting machines' (of any sort, including the mechanical punched-card type) are trying to solve, exactly?
I actually worked as a volunteer in a General Election back in 1987 - this included sitting outside the polling station politely asking voters how they voted as they were leaving, aka 'exit polls' done to give the parties an idea of how things are going. Of course people don't have to answer and many didn't. At the count, all the candidates and their agents, pluys local party workers, official observers etc can all stand around watching the ballot boxes coming in, being emptied out, counted & sorted. If there's a close result, the losing candidate has the right (which is often exercised) to call for a recount. Because the bits of paper are all still there it's easy to do this. Organised, mass tampering with ballots is for all practical purposes impossible in this system - there's too much oversight, checks & balances & transparency. Of course, the first-past-the-post electoral system itself sucks, and we should have proportional representation :), but the simple question of how many votes each candidate got is pretty much a solved problem. It's just, y'know, counting, really...
If voting changed anything... it would be illegal (Score:3)
So this person's (perhaps random) e-mail fortune sig has much truth to it? (And dual meanings, on which
So why is voting legal in the States? Perhaps because people cannot change the really important things?
-ponder-
When last has voting really had a profound effect? When last have we voted about issues and not FOR parties? A total swing in the political rulers have not had any noticable effect on the country... hence the opinion that there had been no real need to vote.
More interesting reading HERE [spunk.org].
Gore (Score:5, Interesting)
I am not pro-Gore or anti-Gore or Republician or Democrat. But the quote cracks me up...
No matter if he won or lost, quotes like this now make me understand why he at least wanted a recount.
Davak
What about the buyers? (Score:2, Interesting)
What about homeland security acts? (Score:2)
Such the exposure is the right and duty of real americans?
I hate to ask this question but... (Score:2)
These quotes are amusing and energizing to be sure, but are they accurate?
Re:I hate to ask this question but... (Score:3, Informative)
(originally from The Independent, UK)
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?s t oryID =3529556&thesection=news&thesubsection=wor ld
You won't be surprised by the emails.
"In July, a group of researchers from the Information Security Institute at Johns Hopkins University discovered what they called "stunning flaws".
These included putting the password in the source code, a basic security no-no; manipulating the voter smart card function so one person could cast more than one
The obvious flaw: (Score:4, Interesting)
Sure there are probably flaws with this.
There's one flaw: if you let the voter take a human readable receipt out of the booth, it's no longer a secret ballot, and it becomes possible to bribe, blackmail, or simply pressure someone else into voting the way you want.
If that was the price we had to pay for untamperable elections, I'd willingly pay it; but it's not. Plain old pen-and-paper voting is untamperable within a couple percentage points, which is good enough for me; I don't care too much if someone gets elected by 24% of the voting age public instead of the usual 25%.
Even electronic voting can be made untamperable: now that their website's back up (if it goes down again, check Google's cache) I'd like to post Yet Another Plug for vreceipt.com [vreceipt.com]'s white paper on verifiable voting receipts. Basically you give the voter a receipt which:
Then, as long as nobody is adding votes to the final tally (so yes, we still need honest poll workers to make sure that the number of people walking into booths is the number of votes reported by the computers), the election results will be instantly countable, completely verifiable, and perfectly accurate. The only drawback is that it would require lots of expensive custom printers.
Granted, I don't expect to ever see this system in use; I suspect public-key encryption may be next to Condorcet voting on the list of "stuff too complicated to explain to the politicians"... but just reading about the possibilities puts all the "why is my broken smart card sending out negative numbers?" incompetence at Diebold in perspective.
Chase this, Diebold: (Score:2)
Diebold_suppressing_bbv_chapter-1.pdf [ed2k]
Diebold_suppressing_bbv_chapter-2.pdf [ed2k]
Diebold_suppressing_bbv_chapter-3.pdf [ed2k]
Diebold_suppressing_bbv_chapter-4.pdf [ed2k]
Diebold_suppressing_bbv_chapter-5.pdf [ed2k]
Diebold_suppressing_bbv_chapter-6.pdf [ed2k]
Diebold_suppressing_bbv_chapter-7.pdf [ed2k]
Diebold_suppressing_bbv_chapter-8.pdf [ed2k]
Diebold_suppressing_bbv_chapter-9.pdf [ed2k]
Corrected links (Score:3, Informative)
Principals of voting in a democratic country (Score:3, Insightful)
Aren't there some principals/ground rules about how voting should take place? It seems a pretty fundamental thing, after all. I mean something along the lines of "the process should be observable and observed by ordinary members of the general public".
When I went to vote in some local elections recently (in Europe), you post your vote into a transparent box. The people cross your name off the public electoral role with a pen. There are observers selected from the public at all stages of the process, both at the actual voting and the counting. It would be extremely difficult to rig such an election.
I like it this way. I can trust that system. Knowing what we do about computers and electronic systems, can we ever really trust an electronic vote? My main criticism is that it is not observable, i.e. you can't have a neutral observer who can say, "yes, that persons vote has definately been counted" because they can't actually observe the process.
Let's been voting manual.
Don't you see? (Score:5, Insightful)
If Diebold is claiming copyright infringement, they are admitting that the memos are real!
I hope people don't focus so much on the
Mod parent up. (Score:4, Interesting)
I heard a story once about WWII. --It went like this; when the German death camps were discovered by the Allied forces, one high ranking General, rounded up as many people in his command as possible and marched them through the scene, telling them, "Look at this and do not forget it. People are going to try to deny that this has happened."
You watch. Two years from now, when all the links and documents have been rounded up, there will be people swearing up and down that this Diebold thing is just another loony conspiracy. Just wait. The PR spin will put a rationalized face on it and raise lots of reasonable doubt, etc.
Newsflash: Conspiracies bloody well exist. Those who swear they do not are chumps who think that watching television documentary 'science' shows makes them smart. And amazingly, many of them can also tell you who Joseph Goebbels was as well! (Cuz they learned about it from a television documentary.)
-FL
My favorite line from their files.... (Score:5, Informative)
First off, I'd like to thank Wired News [wired.com] for linking me a couple of days back regarding this, and Why War? [why-war.com] for providing a way for me to get at these files.
Now, then, from a January 2002 memo titled, Nearterm AVTS 4.x roadmap [chroot.net], discussing the classification of a major update as a bugfix:
These are just the sort of people I want in charge of the machines that people vote on in my election. No, really. [/sarcasm]
This Modern World: Something Truly Terrifying (Score:3, Interesting)
How do you like my Halloween Costume? [workingforchange.com]
Letter to my representative in Congress (Score:4, Interesting)
I am a constituent in your district. I am writing to thank you for supporting HR 2339 and to tell you how important this issue is to me. When I saw you had co-sponsored the bill, I was very pleased. I recently moved to this area, and previously had the pleasure of Rep. Nadler of NY as my representative. Your voting record indicates that you are representing us very well.
HR2239 is very important to me for two reasons:
As a citizen, I was ashamed of Florida 2000 and found the whole mess reminiscent of a third world country. We are still paying the price of that election with GWB's policies. I fear that next time we won't even know we have had an election stolen.
As a professional, I have been in the computer security business for over 12 years. I currently lead a global consulting practice specialising in computer security (we are based in NYC). I was very supportive of the analysis conducted by John Hopkins and I was glad to finally see someone discuss this serious issue. In my business I am responsible for securing some of the most sensitive systems such as banks, pharmaceutical R&D etc. I have a lot of experience both in securing and in "testing" systems. In our business we call this "ethical hacking" and we get paid to try to break into systems. I have seen how easy it is to subvert the security of many commercial systems. After reading the Johns Hopkins analysis of the Diebold system I was shocked at the level of risk these systems would introduce. I seriously believe that it is possible not only to compromise them, but to do so en-mass in a way that could subvert an entire presidential election. Even worse, I believe this can be done with subtlety so that it is undetected. This means our very system of democracy is at stake. In a way I wonder whether I should be surprised at the fact that republicans do not worry about this, or whether I should be concerned that they have reasons not to worry.
Your actions in this matter are admirable and of great importance. You have my support.
Sincerely,
diebold memos tarball (Score:3, Informative)
We, The Mirrors, Need Help (Score:5, Interesting)
I expect that BU will receive a DMCA notice in the next day or two, and ask me to remove the memos. Although I would very much like to find this, I simply don't have the resources to get into a legal battle (and it's doubtful BU would stick its neck out for me).
But that's not even necessary. If I could just find two people willing to put up mirrors once my mirror goes down (I've already found one), than their takedown notice will have the net effect of putting another copy of the memos online. This seems to be the best overall strategy for those who can't fight this legally.
If a willing mirror could email me, and let me know what the url of your mirror is, I'd really appreciate it.
chrisn1 [at] bu [dot] edu
I wrote my Senator... (Score:3, Insightful)
Richard Lugar, and received a long reply letter. It spoke of this support for this and that legislation that lead to, essentially, a push for electronic balloting systems with "easy to read and use interfaces", etc. In the long reply to my original message in support of HR 2239, seeking a companion bill in the senate. HR 2239 calls for an ironclad requirement for a hardcopy printout of one's ballot for two purposes: 1)the voter can check their vote and 2) to supply a hardcopy for secure storage in case of recount: the hardcopies would be used in any recount.
Lugar's reply made NO mention of hardcopy printouts, ignoring the primary thrust of my letter to him. All he indicated was that he would consider future enhancements to the law as they came along.
No hardcopy? Then I flat refuse to use the voting machine. I have acquired the necessary absentee ballot request and will be using this for all future elections until a printout is part of the process.
from Dave Farber's [IP] mailing list: (Score:3, Informative)
Date: Tue, 28 Oct 2003 21:24:48 -0800 (PST)
From: Joseph Lorenzo Hall
Subject: Students receiving cease-desists from Diebold...
To: Dave Farber , Declan McCullagh
Hi Dave, Declan,
We could really use your help publicizing this.
Myself, along with students from 20 other universities are starting to
receive cease and desist letters from Diebold Election Systems. A copy
of the cease-and-desist letter received by MIT is here:
http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/~jhall/temp/diebol
The letters are in response to our coordinated electronic civil
disobedience effort to keep a compressed file of internal Diebold
memos alive and force them to do a legal version of "whack a mole."
We have other students with the files lined up ready to take our place
as sites are taken down.
For more on the disobedience effort, See:
http://why-war.com/features/2003/10/diebold
We need help getting the word out and having other institutions/
individuals post mirrors to the files. The Berkeley copies will be
available here (below) until we are forced to take them down or can
convince our University to fight the cease-and-desist actions on fair
use grounds.
http://sims.berkeley.edu/~jhall/nqb/archives/li
http://sims.berkeley.edu/~parkert/misc/list
We are within the bounds of fair use as the memos are highly
newsworthy and seem to implicate illegal activity on behalf of Diebold
Election Systems. A more extensive legal case is available by reading
Wendy Seltzer's response to one of the cease-and-desist letters:
http://www.chillingeffects.org/responses/notice
If you are a student reading this and can host a mirror, send a link
and your institution's name to info@why-war.com
Thanks for your time,
Joe
Joseph Lorenzo Hall http://pobox.com/~joehall/
Graduate Student blog: http://pobox.com/~joehall/nqb/
"If voting could really change things, it would be illegal."
--Excerpt from a Diebold Election Systems internal memo.
http://why-war.com/features/2003/10/diebol
Fuck those fucking fuckers (Score:3, Informative)
More conflicts of interest (Score:4, Informative)
Occasionally, politicians have used their ties to voting machine companies for fraud and illegal activities:
- Former Louisiana State Elections Official Jerry Fowler (D), is currently serving five years in prison for charges related to taking hundreds of thousands of dollars in kickbacks from voting machine scandals.
- Bill McCuen (D), former Arkansas Secretary of State, pled guilty to felony charges that he took bribes, evaded taxes, and accepted kickbacks. Part of the case involved Business Records Corp. (now merged with ES&S) for recording corporate and voter registration records.
Full Story here [gregpalast.com].Re:That's absolutely right (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh wait, that's called communism, socialism...that's what we want right?
You should go back to school. Communism is concerned with collective ownership of land and property, Socialism looks towards equality via state control of the economy. Neither precludes the use of democracy within a society.
You're thinking of a dictatorship which could be of a left (think USSR) or right (eg Chile under Pinochet) persuasion.
--Re:That's absolutely right (Score:2)
"If you don't vote for the lizards, the wrong lizard may get in"
Re:That's absolutely right (Score:5, Insightful)
No, thats called a totalitarian dictatorship Einstein.
Socialism, Fascism and Communism are merely political ideologies, intolerable ideologies yes, but thats all they are.
Socialism doesn't tell people to stop thinking and to starve your population, people that supported it did(Monsters) but the original texts encourages the people to think of freedom and how to make society work better for the majority.
Fascism didn't tell people to kill millions of Jew, Homosexuals, Gypsies and Disabled People, just to think of how to work together, the people that supported Fascism did commit some of the most horrific crimes humanity has ever encountered but what they preeched originally was togetherness what they did was disgusting.
I hate the Nazis as a rule and the Soviets only slightly less, but I also hate ignorant wankers from any nation that seem to think that sticking a label like "Fascist" or "Socialist" on anything they don't like and claiming a moral high ground by beating to death a strawman sent from the un-edited nightmares of Anne Coulter is pathetic.
The exception to this is Rick from The Young Ones.
Re:That's absolutely right (Score:3, Informative)
The American Guide to political theory: Socialism = Communism and the both = Stalinism.
They're actually all different; you're thinking of Stalinism. Stalin called himself a communist but it was just a way to make his opponents look bad to "the people", he didn't actually mean it.
TWW
Re:That's absolutely right (Score:3, Insightful)
I can't actually think of more than a couple of countries that actually tried communism, Russia is the big one and it forced Stalinism on lots of others. The reason that they all failed is that, in your words, "IT DOESN'T FUCKING WORK?"
I wasn't supporting communism, mearly pointing out that it isn't the same as what it turns into. In the same way that the ide
Re:"If voting could really change things" (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:"If voting could really change things" (Score:2)
Re:"If voting could really change things" (Score:2)
I'm sure some low level brokerage employees would find it amusing to make fun of small investors at the bottom of their internal email messages. Do you think that would be tolerated? If it were, and the messages were leaked, do you think that Eliot Spitzer wouldn't seize upon that in the press?
Re:"If voting could really change things" (Score:3, Insightful)
"Trust comes on foot and leaves on horseback"
Since Diebold will rely heavily on image and trust to sell products, this might set them back a few dollars...
Re:civil disobedience (Score:5, Insightful)
A law made by "the people" is made to represent the best interest of "the people" in general. It should be fair and in proportion, and that should be the basis for obedience to that law. Making theft illegal is in everone's best interests, because it should protect your posessions.
When a law is out of proportion, unjust, or in any other case plain wrong, it is no longer in the best interest of the people in general, and thus should be void. "The people" ignore (break) the law, because they in general do not agree with it.
The ability for the public to act this way should prevent government agents from making laws for their own benefit (corruption). The public has a means of protecting their public interest.
If the voting system is corrupted, it's in the publics best interest to expose this. I'm not aware of who leaked the memos in the first place, but linking to material available on the web should not be punished IMHO.
I think it's utterly wrong to place responsibility of the counting of votes in the hands of a commercial enterprise, not if they don't give full and in-depth insight in the process, and allow auditing at every level at any time. Not because I'm an open source zealot or "liberal", but because I trust a commercial enterprise as far as I can throw them, and that's not very far...
Re:I used one and I am HORRIFIED (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm glad that someone made that point. People often forget that voting is just as much a responsibility as it is a right. It is not something you should do haphazardly.