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.
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!
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!
Illegal voteing (Score:5, Insightful)
More mirrors needed (Score:5, Insightful)
!shocking (Score:4, Insightful)
This line belongs to a
This is taken out of context.
Re:Stupid Quote (Score:5, Insightful)
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]
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.
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...
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: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:"If voting could really change things" (Score:3, Insightful)
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: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.
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.
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...
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.
However.. (Score:1, Insightful)
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:"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...
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.
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.
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 lawsuit. The only way to insure that this information remains available and something is done about it is to have the information available in as many places as possible so that it is impossible to bury it. Are you providing a mirror?
earth2willi.com [earth2willi.com] music, games, forums
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
Re:That's absolutely right (Score:1, Insightful)
Obviously the meaning of this phrase has escaped you. (You got all distracted by his use of the word "dictatorship" and missed the message.) What is proletariat? It certainly is not the "elites". Hint: you and I are both likely members of the proletariat. It means a society dominated by the working (read: common) classes, and not dominated by the elites (read: heads of industry).
It would help your knee-jerk opinions if you would actually try to look past your dogma and understand what both sides are actually arguing about. Then you can form an intelligent opinion. (Whether it be pro or anti communism.)
As it is you spout typical run of the mill ill-informed dogma.
Re:Stupid Quote (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What's wrong with pencil and paper voting? (Score:3, Insightful)
I suppose that if the new machines provide faster results it's worth it but I don't know what the hurry is all about. It's not like having to wait a couple of extra hours is going to make any difference.
Re:What's wrong with pencil and paper voting? (Score:3, Insightful)
I used one and I am HORRIFIED (Score:2, Insightful)
My wife works the polls every year and the card punch system is MUCH better in my view. I am a liberal democrate and I hate the way the last election went, but I hated hearing Democrates complaining about the card punch system.
As a voter you simple have to be responsable for your OWN ballet. How can I be responsible for my ballet when it simply spills into a flash rom some where?
Freenet (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:I hate to ask this question but... (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
Re:Stupid Quote (Score:4, Insightful)
Any idiot can fight - it takes guts not to be dared into a fight.
Re:Stupid Quote (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
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, liberated, but many Iraqi soldiers were unjustly killed while retreating thanks to Bush senior. (go google for that)
This latest war, for absolutely no reason
Perhaps, but at least Saddam's regime is dead and hopefully a more peaceful one will take its place. I seriously doubt Bush Jr.'s sincerity, and no weapons were found. But to be fair, there was evidence of weapons programs, but not nearly enough to justify war. Bush Jr.'s motivation was obviously something else, whether it was money, revenge, freeing Iraq of Saddam, I won't speculate, but I generally hold a very low opinion of politicians.
What's my point? Is the U.S. innocent? No, obviously not - and there's no excuse. But are you full of shit? Hell yes. The U.S. is not solely responsible for the troubles in Iraq, and neither is the rest of the world blameless.
Playing these ridiculous "blame America" games is going to get you nowhere.
Some would say he wasn't that wrong on that either.
Are you serious? I think you need to rethink that after learning a little more about him.
Re:Why don't the idiots use the DMCA? (Score:2, Insightful)
Many of these people have the resources to pay for a lawyer. Many lawyers would object so strogly to such an abuse of the law that they would take the case on pro-bone. If they took it to court, they would have to prove that the memos were genuine, as well as the fact that they were suffering harm by the memos being posted (other than harm done to their reputation), and that it was not in the public interest that this information is released.
Hell, if it came down to it, you could represent yourself. Or start a legal defence fund.
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 by an informed electorate is very important in a democratic society. Also, the regime in Iraq was responsible for some truly appalling actions. But...these two points taken together do not lead to the inevitable conclusion that invading a nation and installing a new government is an excercise in populist democracy.
Re:Stupid Quote (Score:3, Insightful)
Certainly not factors in the Russian or Saudi oil industries, which have always been completely transparent.
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.
Re:Well, it happens to be true. (Score:2, Insightful)
Yeah, that's why Enron was forced into bankruptcy instead of being bailed out by the Bush administration. Enron was helped out by the Clinton administration back in the 90's, but got no help from the Bushies. It doesn't matter if their R's or D's. What matters is their character and integrity. Clinton had neither. Bush has both in abundance.
Re:Distributing the Diebold memo with apt-get (Score:2, Insightful)
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 damage to you.
Cheers,
Greg
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.
Re:Shocking?? (Score:2, Insightful)
Here is a passage from the beginning of my Sample Ballot for a November 4th election in Santa Clara County, which is primarily San Jose, California and surrounding communities. San Jose is near San Francisco.
--------------
ENGLISH - The first half of this pamplet is printed in English and the last half of the pamphet is printed in Spanish.
SPANISH - La primera mitad de este folleto esta escrita en ingles y la segunda midtad es su traduccion al espanol.
Federal law requires Santa Clara County to provide election materials in Spanish as well as in English. Persons who wish to receive voter information in alternate languages may call:
ENGLISH/ESPANOL (Spanish)
ENGLISH/VIET NGU (Vietnamese)
ENGLISH/some characters that look like some flavor of Chinese
ENGLISH/TAGALOG (Philippino)
and the phone number.
----------------
In my county, anyway, all ballot materials are printed in five languages. In this election, there would have to be at least a hundred different ballots printed and distributed. There are different water districts, sanitation districts, city councils, hospital districts, and school districts. Many of these districts overlap in different areas. Right now, they only have to print up Sample Ballots, which only list and describe the choices that are for a particular voting area.
In the punch card days, all candidates and measures had their own number on a punch card, so only one punch card type was used for all election areas. If you punched out a number you were not allowed, or punched too many times, that section of your vote would be invalid. In these brave, new, untrackable touch screen system days, I'll see only the choices for my local area. No chance of a procedural error on my part.
I readily see the need for more complicated methods of voting.
The reasons why Diebold and the others don't want paper hasn't been discussed outside of fraud issues. A likely reason is that if you have a paper trail, any competent voting official would insist that they also have a vetted means of counting votes using that paper trail. It would in, in essence, force the official to have two complete sets of vote counting machinery. With a touch screen/paper setup, the obvious way to go about it would be to have a sophicated paper vote counting setup, and a simple, cheap touchscreen just capable enough of producing a paper ballot. The simplest, cheapest paper ballot generating touchscreen setup probably costs the same as the hardware that Diebold uses for its totally electronic approach.
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, independant, auditable system to an inpenetrable, dependant, unauditiable one. I do not understand how these voting machines pass muster in the U.S.
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 idea of the Olympics is miles from the acuallity of drugged-up atheletes competing for multi-million dollar marketing contracts.
Communism simply can't work with real people, unless perhaps its a community of a dozen people or so. But that says no more about the ideals of communism than the "color" laws of 1950's Alabama tell you about the ideals of the US Constitution.
You'd think that the stench of 150 million corpses would serve as a convincing argument. I guess I just don't have the "intellectual" view on these things.
Paradoxally, it does and you don't.
TWW