



Sequoia Threatens Over Voting Machine Evaluation 221
enodo writes "Voting machine manufacturer Sequoia has sent well-known Princeton professor Ed Felten and his colleague Andrew Appel a letter threatening to sue if New Jersey sends them a machine to evaluate. It's not clear from the letter Sequoia sent whether they intend to sue the professors or the state — presumably that ambiguity was deliberate on Sequoia's part. Put another clipping in your scrapbook of cases of companies invoking 'intellectual property rights' for bogus reasons." Sequoia seems to be claiming that no one can make a "report" regarding their "software" without their permission.
Update and more details on this (Score:5, Informative)
Re:The ambiguity is a dead giveaway. (Score:4, Informative)
I'm wondering "how thay can threaten their customer?" Who do they think they are, the RIAA and that New Jersey is a mom on food stamps?
But perhaps they can. This cynical old man thinks there's a lot more here than meets the eye - Sequoia may surreptuously funnel cash to the campaigns of some of the high ranking New Jersey goons, er, excuse me, lawmakers/bureaucrats.
But then I'm in Illinois where the last Democrat Governor [wikipedia.org] went to prison, and the last Republican Governor [wikipedia.org] then went to prison. I'm thinking if a Republican wins the next Governor election, Blago [wikipedia.org] will join Ryan in a cell.
Rich powerful people don't play nice. You don't get to be a rich, powerful man by giving a rat's ass about anyone or anything except your money and power.
-mcgrew
(background on Illinois Politics): [wikipedia.org]
Re:History lesson (Score:5, Informative)
See http://www.constitution.org/mil/tn/batathen.htm [constitution.org]instead.
Re:Let's call a spade a spade: (Score:4, Informative)
Also unconscionable is the notion that the underlaying software algorithm would essencially boil down to a very simple statement that looks something like the following:
You could argue that there is some finesse involved in getting that data from the machine it was cast at to the central tallying point where it is counted and tabulated, but NOTHING in that process is any more complicated than the Automated Teller Machines which function in a similar way to take data from client nodes and send it up to the hub... so "prior art" in the realm of basic concepts of networking makes those patents unattainable.
Re:Ok, I RTFA, but still... (Score:4, Informative)
See the "Major Actions" section of this address
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d105:HR02281:@@@L&summ2=m& [loc.gov]
So, if your congresscritter was in office in 1998, you really have to assume he/she voted for it. I suppose you could troll the attendence logs for the day in question and see if they were absent, but I don't know how much that washes their hands. And potentialy, House reps may have voice voted against it, but it's unlikley.
So, Pretty much any Senator/Rep who's been in office for more than 10 years is responsible.
Disappointing (Score:3, Informative)
This just doesn't fit with their actions back then. Has there been a change in management?
Re:History lesson (Score:2, Informative)
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Comment removed (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Open Source Secure Voting Application (Score:3, Informative)
I wouldn't trust one. Even if I had something that purported to be the source, how am I to know that that's exactly what was loaded into the machine? How am I to know that the combination of software and machine does something the software alone doesn't?
The only solution is a paper trail. The voting machines used around here have paper ballots that are scanned for counting. Quick returns, and actually verifiable.
Re:The ambiguity is a dead giveaway. (Score:1, Informative)
DemocratIC. "Democrat" is a noun. "Democratic" is an adjective or adverb.
Re:Here is Sequoia's response from their website.. (Score:2, Informative)
The reports are publicly available: source code review [ca.gov], red team review [ca.gov].