Diebold Folds In DMCA E-Voting Lawsuit 153
sunbird writes "Diebold has filed a responsive pleading (PDF) in the lawsuit brought by the Electronic Frontier Foundation to challenge Diebold's practice of using the DMCA to suppress discussion of the critical flaws with electronic voting. Diebold states that it has "decided to withdraw its existing DMCA notifications and not to issue any further ones . . . ." Other recent developments include: this transcript of the court hearing on EFF's application for a preliminary injunction and Dennis Kucinich's linking to Diebold memos from his webpage at the U.S. House of Representatives. Stay tuned- the judge has scheduled a status conference for this Monday in the case."
hooray! (Score:1)
Re:hooray! (Score:5, Insightful)
If the judge allows dismissal, the EFF misses a slam dunk chance to nibble away at corporate abuse (ie, the DMCA stands, Diebold gets away with saying "Oops, we really didn't mean to stifle free speech. We promise not to do it again *crossing fingers*" While OGP will probably be relieved that they won't have to go to the time and expense of trial, we're just postponing the inevitable courtroom clash between individual freedom and corporate manipulation of federal law.
Re:hooray! (Score:3, Insightful)
I was wrong - this is a win (sort of)! Too bad we had to file suit to generate this response though...
Re:hooray! (Score:1)
Actually, the way I read that part of the document suggested that this was not an abandonment of any claim on Diebold's part, but rather a disclaimer, in effect stating that the concessions are not an admission of "irreparable harm" to the plaintiffs. (IANAL blah blah)
it's a win, a very big win (Score:5, Interesting)
I think maybe you are confusing this with IBM's countersuit against SCO. In this case, there was no precident that could be set either way. (AFAIK, IANAL)
What happened at the hearing was that the judge made it clear that he was going to provide declarative relief in favor of the plaintiff, although not an injunction on the question of the fair use of all 13,000 emails. It isn't always as crystal clear from the hearing what the judge will do, but check out this comment from the Judge:
You can see how he's not going to go for an injunction if you read the whole hearing transcript. [eff.org]
One very importaint thing, it became clear that because of precidents set in the Scientology case, if Diebold had sued, the court was going to have to go through all the emails and decide on a case-by-case basis which of them are subject to fair-use protections and which aren't because they contain no public-interest material or contain an overwhelming abundance of "how-to/how-not-to" information with commercial value. From a technical perspective, of course, we have already seen how some of the source code with respect to weak encryption has some of the most importaint public-interest information. There is no way any judge would be savvy enough to catch that on the first go-round, and so this would have been a real money-loser for the good guys.
So, I am very glad this didn't go to trial.
Re:hooray! [a bit too early to say] (Score:4, Interesting)
If the judge allows dismissal [...]
Yes -- and I was just now trying to puzzle out just where the two recent papers leave this case (transcript of hearing for an injunction, and Diebold's new document, see links in the main article).
Hopefully somebody with better insight into the procedure here will say more, but first it looks to me as if the parties had been waiting for the judge to decide, after a hearing, whether to grant an injunction against Diebold. (Was I the only one that found the hearing transcript obviously garbled in places, and the dialogue hard to decipher? I wonder how the judge manages to make use of such scrambled text?!)
It looked as if Diebold tried to pre-empt the next step, and the upcoming decision, by filing the paper with its concessions -- as if Diebold privately reckoned after the hearing that it would likely be on the losing side.
It looks as if the ball is now at least partly with EFF on what step to try next. The Diebold paper attempts to deal with the possibility that EFF might try to find a basis on which to persist in the suit for its 'test case' value, in spite of Diebold's concessions. Clearly Diebold hopes that its concessions took away enough of the 'sting' of injury caused by its DMCA activities, to leave the plaintiffs with nothing more to sue about, and to 'kill' the case before there is an adjudication that would likely make life harder in future for Diebold and other potential DMCA claimants.
I would guess EFF is now busy in legal conference and research to see if the case really is effectively dead beyond recall. (Go EFF!) Maybe we can still hope they will identify a way to take the case forward to an adjudication that could be of value, as a precedent to limit the scope for mischievous abuse of the DMCA in future. But I suppose it is possible no way will be found.
Re:hooray! [a bit too early to say] (Score:2)
"hey, ok, we give up because it's futile and we so respect free discourse blah blah... but since we're doing so, we really don't want the EFF to make a test case out of this (because that would be bad for us next time this happens, and for anyone else who wants to abuse the DMCA in the future). So, if the EFF would like to continue this, even though we've so kindly given up, we recommend a court-ordered mediation as the next step to reso
Corporate? (Score:2, Insightful)
But one of the larger abusers of the DMCA like this is the Cthurch of Scientology and they're not a corp .. oh .. never mind, I haven't caffievolved yet this morning.
Re:hooray! (Score:5, Interesting)
Screw the EFF case, the one that really matters is whether we get fair votes or not.
Down in Florida they showed just what the GOP is capable of, forget the recount. Before the poll even took place the Republicans disqualified over 150,000 voters, mostly black on bogus grounds. One man was disqualified because of a conviction in 2007!
The 'scrub' list was compilled by a GOP connected firm, despite the fact that their bid was $2.5 million rather than the $57 thousand one of the other companies bid. The list was compiled by matching the first four letters of the voters name, the date of birth and the race of the voter. This is how the poll was fixed, a white voter would not lose their vote because of a black convict still in jail in Texas.
There were also tricks played with the voting machines, not just the mechanical chad ridden ones. The optical scanners can be configured to reject a ballot if an error is detected or to silently consume it. The error can be voter error or machine error.
Well guess what? In the white areas the GOP configured the machines to give the voter another try if there was a problem. In the black areas the exact same machine was configured to silently eat the ballot. That is why the rates of miscounts were so much higher in the black areas (12%) than the white areas (1%). Easy when you know how.
Click on my sig and read the Pallast article which gives the blow by blow account. And before you squeak "bias" - the inquiry vindicated every one of the NAACP allegations. Only by that time Katherine Harris and the GOP had got away with it.
Re:hooray! (Score:2)
I'm Canadian (married to an American) and I'm still ashamed.
Re:hooray! (Score:2)
And on what do you base the scurrilous allegations? To the contrary, a number of news organizations (e.g., CNN) did their own recounts and said that Bush would have won anyway. Would you be as venomous if it had gone the other way? No, it would have been just "right wing ranting" and the electoral college would be a "cherished Constitutional tradition."
Fact is, Terry McAuliffe put all of his 2002 eggs in the basket of defeating Jeb Bush to prove the GOP "stole" the election. What happened? He got his
Re:hooray! (Score:1)
Diebold: Our ATM's catch Viri, Our Voting machines don't work, but our 52 week report looks nice, so you can trust us.
I'm half tempted to put to gether a voiting worm and a cash worm, the voting worm would change all votes to the "Communist ballot" and the cash worm would make every single Windows XP based DieBold atm spew money for no apperant reason.
Re:hooray! (Score:5, Funny)
That should increase voter turnout.
Like we say in Chicago (Score:2)
DMCA - how can i abuse thee, let me count the ways (Score:5, Insightful)
Talk about a poorly crafted piece of legislation. There are so many ways to abuse this ridiculous thing. It really needs to be amended to get rid of all of these legal like mechanisms that do not involve the courts. You should have to get a judge to issue an injunction to take material offline, not just say "You have to do it".
Diebold's defense that the plantiffs "did not suffer irreparable harm" because Diebold didn't actually sue them is outrageous. The threat to sue, especially by a party with deep pockets vs a small party definitely causes a chilling effect on free speech. If Diebold had not intention to sue, why did they ask for the material to be removed?
Re:DMCA - how can i abuse thee, let me count the w (Score:4, Insightful)
Good Faith... RIAA/MPAA.. truly a disconnect. Nasty
Re:DMCA - how can i abuse thee, let me count the w (Score:1)
Re:DMCA - how can i abuse thee, let me count the w (Score:5, Insightful)
"Hatch said the big studios and major record labels need the exemption because of "market realities...The bill authorizes appropriations to ensure that all Department of Justice units that investigate intellectual property crimes have the support of at least one agent specifically trained in the investigation of such crimes," he said last week."
Why isn't the DOJ doing this? I'm sure that the DOJ and the FBI have models in place for persuing internet fraud and cracking cases (yes I know this is not the best comparison theft vis a vis copyright infringement), so until the DOJ gets Copyright agents, the RIAA/MPAA is acting as an affiliate of the government and conducting searches without due process.
Anyway, this is my take on it
-B
Re:DMCA - how can i abuse thee, let me count the w (Score:2)
Re:DMCA - how can i abuse thee, let me count the w (Score:2)
Re:DMCA - how can i abuse thee, let me count the w (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:DMCA - how can i abuse thee, let me count the w (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:DMCA - how can i abuse thee, let me count the w (Score:2)
It can't be quite that simple. Otherwise there would be no way that SCO could continue to make their Linux distribution available. We appear to have a "copyright law" which whilst q
Who'd have thought reason would prevail? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Who'd have thought reason would prevail? (Score:5, Insightful)
Prior to entry into the voting-machine market, Diebold's primary presence in computing has been in manufacturing ATMs. A brief consideration (disclaimer: I didn't research this and won't be held responsible if it turns out to be dead wrong) suggests that these are, by design, pretty much turnkey systems in which a large amount of the security is provided by an extremely limited user interface. There aren't a lot of branches in the ATM flowchart, and the necessary local configuration is probably minimal.
Now compare this to the requirements of a voting system. Because ballots vary greatly from one precinct to the next, each voting machine must store considerably more local configuration. With this comes a much more complex UI and many more opportunities for security to be compromised. If this is a first foray into a system this complex, it may be a simple underestimation of the requirements. When one considers that the operation of the Diebold voting machine as discussed in the Johns Hopkins paper is not unlike that of an ATM, it's easy to see where someone may have seen elections as just another nail to hit with their particular hammer. Little did they know that the demands are so different.
Re:Who'd have thought reason would prevail? (Score:4, Informative)
The local configuration may be minimal but it may be enough to rig the vote.
What we need to do is to make sure that the configurations of the machines are identical. The trick used in Florida was to program the machines differently in white and black areas. In the black areas the machines were set to silently disqualify any ballot that had a problem of any kind anywhere. In the white areas the machines were set to give an error when there was a problem and the voter could try again.
That is the reason why the error rate was 12% in the black areas and 1% in the white. It was not as the GOP shills tried to claim that the voters were stupid, the machines had been rigged. These facts were all corroborated in the enquiry.
Re:Who'd have thought reason would prevail? (Score:2)
Re:Who'd have thought reason would prevail? (Score:2)
The allegation that Jeb Bush and Harris fixed the poll was confirmed by the commission. The guy who was unearthing this was Pallast. The US press would not publish him but the UK guardian, the BBC and the international press did. The US press only reported the story in July 2001 after the commission confirmed the evidence and Bush had been installed.
See the link in my sig for t
Re:Who'd have thought reason would prevail? (Score:3, Informative)
Bull. Did you even read the commission report [usccr.gov]? From the Executive Summary [usccr.gov]:
The report does not find that the highest officials of the state conspired to disenfranchise voters. Moreover, even if it was foreseeable that certain actions by officials led to voter disenfranchisement, this alone does not mean that intentional discrimination occurred. Instead, the report concludes that officials ignored the mounting evidenc
Re:Who'd have thought reason would prevail? (Score:3, Informative)
Again, you are misinformed and are obviosly basing your argument on factless partisan rhetoric. Harris and Bush had nothing to do with the selection of DBT/ChoicePoint. DBT/ChoicePoint was hired in 1997 (before Bush and Harris were even
Re:Who'd have thought reason would prevail? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Who'd have thought reason would prevail? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Who'd have thought reason would prevail? (Score:3, Informative)
And a factless report by a group of partisan Democrats does prove it?
BTW the dissent disputes the findings by rejecting all the testimony and facts found as 'anecdotal' they provide no contradictory claims, nor do they dispute the evidence in detail, they dispute the claim that the returning officer and governor had responsibility, which is odd when you look who was responsible for compiling the list at the c
Re:Who'd have thought reason would prevail? (Score:3, Informative)
75% of the people who testified had their voting rights restored. If there were over 100,000 legitimate voters who couldn't vote, why couldnt the USCCR find a single one of them? The only person they found that could not vote had in fact been convicted of a crime.
But Harris and Bush succeeded in keeping over a hundred thousand voters off the rolls, most of whom were illegally and illegitimately denied t
Re:Who'd have thought reason would prevail? (Score:2)
For the same reason you can't see your own partisan bias. Both he and you are partisan each advancing his own point of view by pointing to facts that support your own party while compeletely ignoring all other facts.
Re:Who'd have thought reason would prevail? (Score:2)
workindev, by pointing this out is not behaving in a partisan manner at all, they are merely getting the facts straight.
Both may have their biases, as you and I do, but one is being fair and the other is trying to bash the Republicans wit
Re:Who'd have thought reason would prevail? (Score:2)
The GOP sent out an alert asking people to post responses. They have a group of activists who are paid to surf the Web at minimum wage and report any political speech by dissidents.
Someone should tell Rove to be a bit more carefull, not all the people he has working there are Republicans :-)
Re:Who'd have thought reason would prevail? (Score:3, Funny)
>tally the votes and ensure it is done
>accurately and impartially.
>open public discussions
The process you're talking about sounds like democracy.
Re:Who'd have thought reason would prevail? (Score:3, Funny)
More precisely, it sounds like a *healthy* democracy, as opposed to what we currently have.
Re:Who'd have thought reason would prevail? (Score:3, Insightful)
By hand.
But if you really must use machines, if it really is more important that it be done quickly than it be done right, then every aspect of the machines' operation must be absolutely open to public scrutiny at every stage of the process. Corporations' rights to make profits are subordinate to individuals' rights to democracy.
Re:Who'd have thought reason would prevail? (Score:3, Insightful)
>
>By hand.
My two words would be PAPER TRAIL.
Re:Who'd have thought reason would prevail? (Score:2)
By hand.
But if you really must use machines, if it really is more important that it be done quickly than it be done right,
Counting ballots by hand is not exactly slow and scales well. Given that many elections in the US do not take effect until months afterwards time is hardly a problem.
then every aspect of the machines' operation must be absolutely open to public scrutiny at every stage of
Re:Who'd have thought reason would prevail? (Score:5, Insightful)
Wow! (Score:1)
This is a very, very positive news!
(And some journalists say that only bad news are good news
Maresi
Diebold folds? (Score:3, Funny)
Origami, shmorigami.. (Score:2)
If by 'folded into origami statues of liberty' you mean 'being used as toilet paper by people whose origami skills begin and and end with making paper planes' then, yes.
Re:Diebold folds? (Score:2, Funny)
Hey, I can dream, can't I?
Same stale joke (Score:1, Redundant)
Would anyone like to take any bets on how long it takes until the current administration "discovers" "evidence" that the EFF is channeling funds to "terrorists"?
In all seriousness, I'm glad to see this. If other legal fronts on the voting war go well, who knows, I might end up at the polls next November instead of scrawling in my entries via absentee ballot.
GO DAVE WEEKLY! (Score:5, Informative)
Most people don't do anything. David Weekly did.
He stepped up, fought back against Diebold, and brought justice -- not just for himself (he's the founder of the California Community Colocation Project [communitycolo.net], so the ISP takedown notices directly affected him), not just for the four college kids attacked by Diebold, but for all of us here and for everybody with a stake in the perceived integrity of the American vote.
That's some damn fine work, David. Thanks! And thanks to everyone at EFF and OPG who fought this battle with him too!
Yours Truly,
Dan Kaminsky
DoxPara Research
http://www.doxpara.com
Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:The Problem: (Score:5, Informative)
The Democrats are firmly in the pockets of the RIAA and MPAA that want to keep the DMCA to help them keep their strangleholds in thier markets.
Everyone else has an icecube's chance in hell of getting in regardless of who funds their habits.
It is worth mentioning Mr. Kucinich [opensecrets.org] is trying to get the presidential nomination and has very little financial contamination from the formentioned industries. $36,275 from TV, movies, and music industry and $25,590 from the computer industry out of $3,399,709 total.
Re:The Problem: (Score:1)
In his bid for reelection, for example, he has raised (or lowered himself to) $84 million (totally dwarfing the $25M for Howard Dean, the richest Demokraut). Basically all of that is from individuals. Less than 0.5% is from any one group. All are presumably people with sufficient spare change, but hey, it's their money, right?
From opensecrets.org:
Re:The Problem: (Score:2)
He has very little financial 'contamination", period.
Re:The Problem: (Score:2)
I think the General might just be the one to say "to hell with the entertainment industry -- they don't run this country, I do."
Re:The Problem: NOT! Vote Third Party (Score:2)
It's perhaps a poor attitude to have, "Well, they can't possibly win now, so why bother," but it's more or less accurate. Start campaigning for Congresspeople to be from third pa
Increase name recognition with multiple runs. (Score:2)
People say that like it's significantly easier to get local or Congressional district third-party candidates to win than it is to get a third-party President. It's much the same battle, no matter what level you're talking about, and virtually all of the people I've heard give that advice have no idea how much struggle is involved to get a third-party candidate o
My Theory (Score:5, Insightful)
There was ir-repairable injury (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:There was ir-repairable injury (Score:2)
I highly reccomend people start acting on this now (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.shareaza.com
. If you're just interested in reading documents, another good read at
http://www.blackboxvoting.com
for those of you who don't want to sift through hundreds of e-mails in the archive but want the good stuff(downloads are at the right side of the page). Of course, they probably can't get slashdotted to horribly without going under, and therefore, if you can download the files and throw them on a p2p app such as shareaza you'll be doing everyone a big favor or if you can download them off of a p2p app that works well too to make sure their website's bandwidth bill isn't horrendous.
Additionally, if you do nothing else and live in the US, goto the EFF's webpage and fill out their form and fax or e-mail it to your legislature (which is all nicely automated for you).
http://action.eff.org/action/index.asp?step=2&ite
This way, if congress gets millions of documents stating we know and we don't like the sharade, they'll have to pull it and may even throw a few congressman on the legal fire to keep us satiated.
Beginning of DMCA downfall? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Beginning of DMCA downfall? (Score:2)
Re:Beginning of DMCA downfall? (Score:2)
Too bad they folded. (Score:4, Interesting)
from the company's perspective, i'd FIRE the dimwit who championed this strategy.
Fair thanks (Score:3, Insightful)
sticking to the relevant way of using the 'fair' mechanism, I'd like to thank those two students, and the whole bunch of people who fought Diebold's obnoxious use of the DMCA.
You did a fucking awesome job. And you proved that personal actions really matter in this deincarnated world.
This is no time to loosen the backlash ; Dieblod may ask for some 'mediation', my advice would be not to give them any relief. They *must* pay for what they've done.
Regards,
Jdif
Open source democracy (Score:4, Insightful)
"the code, which Diebold refuses to allow the public to audit, was discovered unencrypted on a publicly accessible Diebold Internet FTP (file transfer protocol) site.
But all fun aside, at least it can now be said to have been officially confirmed that one of the numerous things DMCA will not protect you against is your own stupidity and incopetence.
Re:Open source democracy (Score:1)
Re:Open source democracy (Score:4, Insightful)
The govt. should contract to have the voting software written, so it is govt. owned and open source. I don't want my tax dollars wasted pumping up Diebold from now until the rest of eternity, and more importantly I want vote integrity - not just actual integrity, but also public confidence. They should form an oversight committe for this voting software contract. Reputable scientists from academia and industry would come out of the woodwork to join the committee and help insure votes are counted right.
Denying the memos (Score:2, Interesting)
Giving the EFF this concession is quite sneaky, as it helps them deal with the memos.
this is not a win... (Score:2, Interesting)
Can WE abuse the DMCA too? (Score:3, Insightful)
Surely there are enough correct-thinking corporations that we could begin to use the DMCA to begin to put pressure on certain groups. Then perhaps the government will begin to realize how asinine it is (the DMCA, not the... never mind.)
This is kinda like the putative holes in Diebold machines. If nothing can be done about them, surely they can be abused by everyone
Kucinich Blog on Election Activism (Score:5, Interesting)
Just last week, he blasted the FBI [kucinich.us] for stripping away the constitution. All from a man who 25 years ago, on Dec 25, 1978, refused to sell [denniskucinich.us] Clevelands municipal electric company under threat of political death. He stood by his principles and sacrificed his career. After a few years and hundreds of millions in savings, the people brought him back. If there is ever a candidate for president who supports rights of netizens, and "we the people", this is him. Consider a Thanksgiving day gift [kucinich.us] .
Re:Kucinich Blog on Election Activism (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Kucinich Blog on Election Activism (Score:2)
As opposed to "Let's send someone who with no clue about electronic, who will nod cluelessly when the Diebold representative lies about the safety of the process".
He's right. His idea should be implemented. I'm not an American so I can't really get involved, but I hope some peopl
Re:Kucinich Blog on Election Activism (Score:2)
Or are you implying that these watchers can and would do something other than nodding to the Diebold technicians? Anything more than simply watching and observing the set-up and vote-counting processes will run afowl of vote tampering laws pretty damned quickly.
Re:Kucinich Blog on Election Activism (Score:2)
WTF?
OT:Kucinich Blog on Election Activism (Score:2)
Re:Kucinich Blog on Election Activism (Score:2)
In this century, both the Nazis and the Bolshiviks came to power openly despising the rights of the people. Mussulini is famous for making the trains run on time, not giving rights to the people. Furthermore, the authors of your quote didn't approve of the popular election of the president or senators; as they
Re:Kucinich Blog on Election Activism (Score:2)
The Nazis were a political party that came to prominence in the polls by appealing to nationalism and anti-communist sentiment. And if you think the Bolsheviks became popular by "despising the rights of the people," you obviously aren't familiar with Karl Marx's writings.
"the authors of your quote didn't approve of the popular election of the president or senators; as they set it up, appointed e
Re:Kucinich Blog on Election Activism (Score:2)
Karl Marx never promotes what we think of as the rights of the people; he promotes what the rights of the People, of the masses taken as a whole.
limit our choices only to those the political parties see fit to give us,
In a system using a straight majority vote, not runoffs or Concordate systems, you're going to get two real canidates. There'd be no more reason
Re:Kucinich Blog on Election Activism (Score:2)
Governments (in general) have been so unable and unwilling.
On the other hand our federal system, by recognizing the imortance of government of, by and for a specific people, has given us Maine, Vermont and (to an extent) West Virginia, none of whom felt they were treated fairly by the republican governments of Boston, Albany and Richmond respectively
But they haven't given us N
Re:Kucinich Blog on Election Activism (Score:3, Insightful)
The fact is that despite Ralph Nader's claim that there was no difference between the major party candidates in fact it turns out that there is. The small matter of a multi-trillion dollar surplus being turned into a multi-trillion dollar debt and starting a war in Iraq befo
Re:Kucinich Blog on Election Activism (Score:2)
Also, if you're going to try and influence a likely winner, don't jump behind them too early. Your leverage over Dean is in that you might endorse someone else, like Kucinich. There's still at least 2 months till a primary. If you haven't committed your mind already, really look at the candid
Re:Kucinich IS electable on the issues and charact (Score:2)
Oh come on, Dean got a medical degree. I don't think you get onto those courses through the 'positive discrimination' that Yale practices to favor 'legacies'. I certainly don't think you can get a medical degree
One question (Score:2)
Re:One question (Score:2)
Koo - sinn - itch
Theres always one way out (Score:1)
Iraqi elections (Score:2)
Grand Ayatollah Ali Husseini al-Sistani has condemned this [smh.com.au], and has asked for a system whereby the person who gets the most votes gets elected instead.
After the ATM story (Score:2, Interesting)
Barratry? (Score:2)
If so, let's hope the victims of Diebold's overzealous legal department strike back, recover their costs and have their moment of glory in public courts where the mass media will pick up on it?
Publication by Congress (Score:2)
Re:Speech and Debate clause is limited (Score:3, Interesting)
The current Supreme Court might well decide Gravel differently.
Has this ever come up before in an intellectual property context? A
Re:Speech and Debate clause is limited (Score:2, Interesting)
Donate (Score:2)
Link to their donation page. [eff.org]
corruption (Score:2, Interesting)
in the whole article.
The Diebold employee Ken Clark admits that numerous state counties had requested the
zerg (Score:3, Funny)
good and bad news (Score:2)
Bad News: This avoided a situation where the DMCA could have been challenged in court like it desperately needs to be.
Re:Kucinich (Score:2)
Don't forget Kucinich supports Slavery Reperations (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Who votes anymore? (Score:3, Insightful)