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.""
mirrors (Score:4, Informative)
http://cultcom.com/mirror.html [cultcom.com]
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.
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:Stupid Quote (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Distributing the Diebold memo with apt-get (Score:3, Informative)
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!
Re:Diebold (Score:3, Informative)
They are evidently good showmen and salespeople.
Now, I've been to demostrations... and I've created demostrations. But to "fake it" sounds like lying to me. How good can a voting system be if it's based on untruths?
Of course, how good can a company be that leaves confidental, image-soiling messages open enough that somebody could snatch them up? If they can't keep their message board private, I would doubt they are going to care much about your privacy of your vote.
Davak
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
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]
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: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).
Re:Stupid Quote (Score:2, Informative)
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.)
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:Stupid Quote (Score:2, Informative)
The descent of Iraq since the 70's are more a factor of oil economics that the evilness of the US.
The Iraqis were getting rich in the seventies (particularly the early 70's) because oil prices were sky high. (Remember the embargos)
While Saudi Arabia invested billions in developing oil fields, Iraq built statues of Saddam, grand public works projects and palaces. Factor in the huge impact of corruption and nepotism in government & commerce and you have a recipie for trouble.
As oil prices have fallen due to increased supply from the Saudis and Russians, Iraq suffered because it failed to expand it's oil infrastructure.
You can continue to mischaracterize the facts surrounding the 1991 war and the Iran-Iraq war, but I'd strongly recommend that you do some reading first.
Re:Stupid Quote (Score:1, Informative)
the US sold weapons and WMDs? That's interesting since the nuclear reactor they had which the Israeli's destroyed in 1979 was sold to them by what country? France is the correct answer. What leader helped. Answer - Mssr. Chirac, then mayor of Paris I believe.
Now check this little link:
http://projects.sipri.se/armstrade/atirq_data.h
Hmmm - who are the top 3 arms traders of the Saddam era to Iraq - USSR, France, and China. What a shock. The US far down at #12.
And last I checked, the UN imposed economic sanctions, as Saddam repeatedly violated the agreement that ended the first gulf war.
Finally, can you explain in a few paragraphs the geopolitical pressures of the region from the late 70's into the late 80's? Care to explain the effect of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan on the situation? The effect of the Iranian revolution (which the US certainly had a hand in causing by their previous support of the Shah)
I don't disagree that many wrong choices by the US had negative effects in the region - but pretending that it was all the because the US is evil, and that everything else happened in a vacuum where all the other players were nice and friendly and only wanted flowers is ignorant BS at best. Funny you shits didn't care about our horrific decision to leave the Shiites and Marsh people out to die in the past (by you shits, I mean you monkeys who are suddenly brilliant foreign policy hacks; yet I often find you don't know little facts like the entire Kosovo bombing campaign, which the US led without any UN permission). Funny that you don't even mention the Kurds and their dilemma - which is one of the more important dynamics in the area considering it involves Iraq, Turkey, and the former Soviet 'republics'.
In short Kdan, you don't really seem to know much more than the cliff notes, for dummies, version of events over there. When you can give an actual consolidated view of the region, accounting for all major players, and give an legitimate alternative of how the US could have acted ( and not some political candidate BS of "I'd get everyone to work with us") then I'll take you a bit more seriously.
Corrected links (Score:3, Informative)
Re:And the corollary quote, with Diebold in mind (Score:2, Informative)
diebold memos tarball (Score:3, Informative)
WMD (Score:1, Informative)
Maybe you shold open your eyes and read this [cbsnews.com] article among others.
Re:I hate to ask this question but... (Score:3, Informative)
(originally from The Independent, UK)
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?s
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 vote; and other loopholes that could theoretically allow voters' ballot choices to be altered without their knowledge, either on the spot or by remote access. "
The question you should be asking is "Do you have any proof that the US votes have not been doctored?"
It's amazing the crap that the US is using. It's far worse than paper voting.
If you get any decent crypto+security architect to design something you'd be able to have a electronic voting system that's auditable.
You could just have the votes at each station be fed to say 3 machines to be counted - 2 of them run by the 2 parties (heck if the other parties want to run their own machines fine - protocol would be open), and 1 run by the people in charge of the Elections. You could throw in another for the Int'l observers. At every predetermined and preagreed interval, there is a checkpoint and all the machines are to backup their data, and a comparison is done (this is if you don't want to do a comparison after every vote - to maintain voter/voting anonymity).
Each voter after voting would receive a confirmation receipt showing who he voted for (human readable)+ ser no + date etc + nonce + digitally signed (e.g. pgp), with a code for the voter to later verify online who he voted for (the voter not being easily identifiable by the code). The voter can go to a preferred party at anytime to verify the receipt's signature and the vote record - either online or onsite.
With this the total number of votes on all machines has to be the same, the votes have to be the same, if there are any differences, the machines will be checked, and if any party is caught messing around good luck to them. The machine run by the Electoral commission takes precedence, but if it differs from all the other machines which are in agreement then things could be different.
Sure there are probably flaws with this. But compare my half baked off the cuff idea with what Diebold has taken 4 years to do.
Also look at how the US mainstream media regards this issue. I'd have thought something like this would be of critical importance.
Then maybe everyone thinks the elections in the US are a joke so it's not a big deal? Heck even the UN/int'l observers don't bother observing them, unlike elections in some 3rd world countries.
Diebold Memos Disclose Florida 2000 E-Voting Fraud (Score:1, Informative)
"DELAND, Fla., Nov. 11 - Something very strange happened on election night to Deborah Tannenbaum, a Democratic Party official in Volusia County. At 10 p.m., she called the county elections department and learned that Al Gore was leading George W. Bush 83,000 votes to 62,000. But when she checked the county's Web site for an update half an hour later, she found a startling development: Gore's count had dropped by 16,000 votes, while an obscure Socialist candidate had picked up 10,000--all because of a single precinct with only 600 voters."
- Washington Post Sunday , November 12, 2000 ; Page A22
Yes. Something very strange happened in Volusia County on election night November 2000, the night that first Gore won Florida, then Bush, and then as everybody can so well remember there was a tie.
Something strange indeed. But what exactly? In the above report ( click for full version), written days after the election, hotshot Washington Post reporter Dana Milbank goes on to attribute the strange 16,022 negative vote tally from Volusia's precinct 216 to an apparently innocent cause.
".... faulty 'memory cards' in the machines caused the 16,000-vote disappearance on election night. The glitch was soon fixed," he wrote.
But thanks to recent investigations into Black Box Voting by Washington State writer Bev Harris we now know this explanation is not correct. In fact it is not even in the ballpark.
According to recently discovered internal Diebold Election Systems memos, Global Election Systems' (which was later purchased by Diebold) own technical staff were also stumped by the events in Volusia County/
In Chapter 11 of her new book "Black Box Voting In the 21st Century" released early today in
"If you strip away the partisan rancor over the 2000 election, you are left with the undeniable fact that a presidential candidate conceded the election to his opponent based on [results from] a second card that mysteriously appears, subtracts 16,022 votes, then just as mysteriously disappears."
Working in parallel with Ms Harris Scoop has also been inquiring into the events on election night in Volusia county. Much of the material that follows is similar to that which appears in Chapter 11 of her book.
The starting point in this shocking discovery about election 2000 came in a series of internal Diebold ES technical support memos.
The following is an abbreviated version of the exchange concerning the peculiar events in Volusia county. For the purposes of research the exchange is included in full as an Appendix to this report (APPENDIX TWO). The discussion took place in early 2001 as an audit was underway in Volusia county into the events.
**********
(NOTE: The names below each extract link to the full text of the emails in the appendices below.)
I need some answers! Our department is being audited by the County. I have been waiting for someone to give me an explanation as to why Precinct 216 gave Al Gore a minus 16022 when it was uploaded. Will someone please explain this so that I have the information to give the auditor instead of standing here "looking dumb".
Lana Hires - Volusia County Florida - January 17, 2001 8:07 AM
My understanding is that the card was not corrupt after (or before) upload. They fixed the problem by clearing the precinct and re-uploading the same card. So neither of these explainations washes. That's not to say I have any idea what actually happened, its just not either of those...
The problem is its going to be very hard to collect enough data to really know what happened. The card isn't corrupt so we can't post-mortem it (its not mort).
Ken Clark - Diebold ES R&D Manager - Ja
Re:What's wrong with pencil and paper voting? (Score:1, Informative)
Sure, you see that every time there is a nationwide vote over here in good old Germany. It takes a about half an hour until the first reliable estimates are in, and the final result usually isn't available until the next morning! And that with only around 80 million votes to count. That's really damn slow, especially compared to the lightning speed at which the last presidential election in the US has been counted...
Mirror, mirror on the wall... (Score:2, Informative)
Despite a "cease and desist" link on both sites, I've heard nothing from Diebold so far. The only conclusion one can draw from that is that Diebold knows it can't get any further than DMCA notices and simply doesn't bother about non-DMCA'able sites.
Re:bullsh*t re: Iraq (Score:2, Informative)
According to World Bank figures, Iraq's total economic output grew from $3.6 billion in 1970 to $47.6 billion in 1980, thanks to that decade's oil boom. Iraq was a leader in the Arab world in health, education and culture, with a thriving middle class.
But during the 1980s, as Saddam waged a devastating war with Iran, growth stalled and debt soared as Iraq bought weapons. When sanctions were imposed after his 1990 invasion of Kuwait, the economy collapsed, with a gross domestic product of just $27.9 billion in 2001.
http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/news/spe
Bad Practice (Score:2, Informative)
Not to mention BitTorrent [cscott.net] and eMule [ed2k] links.
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].