MiamiHerald.com: "Hackers rigging voting machines a real possibility"

[intheflow]

This reporter sounds like he's being swayed but is proceeding cautiously. Wonder if this will make print, or if it will only stay on the online edition.

Thanks to newbie kuozzman for finding this article.

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/columnists/fred_grimm/10137159.htm?1c

Hackers rigging voting machines a real possibility
by Fred Grimm

(snip)

Since last Tuesday evening, the Internet has been jammed with untoward explanations of a Bush victory that occurred despite exit polls indicating things would go swimmingly for the challenger. I never suggested that I believed that Republic computer hackers had altered the true outcome of the election. I don't. But our nifty new touch-screen voting systems do nothing to discourage such paranoia.

Electronic voting machines have two unsettling flaws. They generate no paper records that can be used to check the actual results against the totals offered by the computer.

Worse, the operating systems that run the machines are the privately-held property of the manufacturers. The computer source codes are not open to public inspection. Yet computer scientists from Stanford, MIT, Rice and Johns Hopkins universities have warned that the secret operating systems are rife with vulnerabilities.

Anyone with a Microsoft Windows operating system on their home computer -- locked in a constant, losing battle to fend off viruses, worms, Trojan Horses and spyware -- ought to shudder with fear when they cast votes on machines manufactured by Diebold, Sequoia or ES&S (used in Broward and Miami-Dade counties). Without public inspections of the operating systems, without the paper records, election officials have no evidence to quiet talk that an election was rigged.

(snip)

Angry Republicans, at least those firing off e-mails, seem to suspect that I'm conspiring with the computer science departments of several major universities to undermine the election of their candidate. But they ought to consider a vote-chilling reality.

Hackers (at least the few that authorities manage to nab) tend to be youngish, anti-establishment, anti-status quo, anti-corporate, anti-social. They're not likely to join the country club. They're not singing in the choir at an evangelical church. They're not security moms. They're not anxious to join the Marines and rush gung-ho into the battle for Fallujah. They're not likely to spend much time humming along with country music's Brooks & Dunn, who performed at the Republican National Convention.

Dear Republican critics: Which way do you suppose hackers will tip an election, when they decide, just for the heck of it, to have a little fun with the computer programs that now determine American elections?

(snip)

[Us vs Them]

1. He's not coming around, he's already there.

Hackers (at least the few that authorities manage to nab) tend to be youngish, anti-establishment, anti-status quo, anti-corporate, anti-social. They're not likely to join the country club. They're not singing in the choir at an evangelical church. They're not security moms. They're not anxious to join the Marines and rush gung-ho into the battle for Fallujah. They're not likely to spend much time humming along with country music's Brooks & Dunn, who performed at the Republican National Convention.

Dear Republican critics: Which way do you suppose hackers will tip an election, when they decide, just for the heck of it, to have a little fun with the computer programs that now determine American elections?

Brilliant! This man is a genius. Finally, someone using fear mongering for the good of the people.

[aquart]

11. Noticed that, did you?

[Bernardo de La Paz]

2. Big stories have small beginnings.

[Gloria]

3. Big Kick.....

eom

[Name removed]

4. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[intheflow]

5. Bogus analysis of analysis

1) Hacker could be diddling with compiled state-wide totals by district/ward/county.

2) Are you mad that hackers can't keep a secret? What about all those malicious Internet viruses that go around. You ever hear anyone come out and say they started those? No, because hackers know how to keep their secrets.

I smell a troll.

[bigmust]

7. "What about all those malicious Internet viruses that go around."

"You ever hear anyone come out and say they started those?"


Yes, certainly. That is how they get caught. You probably don't follow that scene much, do you.

[tkmorris]

22. He may not, but I DO

I suspect you know a little something of it as well so I am CERTAIN you are aware that when an attempted hack on a grand scale actually works very often the hacker (or the virus writer, as the case may be) realizes that he can't afford to be caught. So he shuts up.

It is usually only the fools who have no real concept of the damage they've done who crow about it. They are somehow too stupid to realize that when the Man really wants to find out whodunnit, they have eyes and ears just about everywhere.

[xxqqqzme]

8. fat $$$$$$ can go a loonnnggg way 2

buy silence.

[Robert Oak]

10. software sounds "biased"

supposedly one poll worker claimed a touch screen came up
with "Bush" already selected.

That implies the bias is built into the software itself.

So, one could bias the vote without hacking anything.

[aquart]

12. Yes, dear.

[okieinpain]

62. what's weird to me is it's either for bush, or there is no vote for

kerry. bush comes out ahead every time. and this is just what they will admit. what happens if we can get somebody to really take a good look.

[2Design]

14. if bushCo hired hackers - they know - they just don't want us to know

but by using this other crazy logic - they might get the ground troops of rethugs to look into it - exposing their leader

we already know they hacked the dems congressional computers back during the campaign - what a year ago - there was something aobut ted kennedy computer and stuff and them using personal notes to attack - might have been during the mid year elections

the rethugs have already shown they know how to hack computers

[sandnsea]

21. And are willing to do it

Somebody needs to pull that situation back up right now and make any possible connections to how voting machines would be hacked. Even wild ones, the idea is to remind people they already did it.

[2Design]

45. here is hacker story on ted kennedy - not sure where to put this

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2003_11/002729.php

<snip>REPUBLICAN HACKERS....A couple of Orrin Hatch's staffers on the Senate Judiciary Committee have been caught stealing files from the computers of Democratic senators Dick Durbin and Ted Kennedy. Josh Marshall has the story.

As he says, this makes the charge that a Republican staffer stole that Intelligence Committee memo quite a bit more plausible too.

<snip>

this looks like it is from blogs/message boards

more on it
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2003_11_23.php#002240

[The Flaming Red Head]

23. Hackers under the guise of Homeland Security at the DoD

Like they wouldn't do it. Some people are soooo naive.


Got to keep this war machine rolling.

[teryang]

25. The masters of electronic warfare (US gov) allow

...a method of voting that they know is completely insecure and yet not amenable to recounts. How convenient. By not being amenable to meaningful recounts the elections are illegal according to many state statutes. Glenda Hoods recount rules in Florida are a joke because they do not comply with state statutes. This problem has been with us now for four years tainting the legitimacy of elections yet no one in a position of power lifts a finger. Why?

[VegasWolf]

65. Yes, and it will continue until it bites THEM in the ass! Gotta

fight fire with fire.

[BUSHOUT]

38. Your analysis is juvenile...seemingly wishful, nothing more.

You're talking in hypotheticals, and therefore simply projecting your own hopes on the situation.

[TahitiNut]

40. That poster is now tombstoned.

Please don't feed the trolls.

[RaleighNCDUer]

44. I think Bigmust has a point -- the hacking problem is real, but a

red herring nonetheless. The real problem is in the proprietary code of the voting machines. We cannot, by law, see what's in there to start with. Why bother with hacking, and risk being caught, when you can preprogram the results in perfect safety? How many lines of code does it take to maintain votes for candidate A at no more than 47% of the total? How many lines of code would it take to flip every 23rd vote for candidate A to candidate B?

A half dozen programmers at Diebold and ESS could do more to throw an election than a thousand hackers.

In complete safety.

[VegasWolf]

68. True, but unless one of them comes forward with proof and

spills the beans, we're hosed. These few programmers
could not get away with it if the results were audit-able.
I think we must bite the repukes in the ass with these
"black box" machines. You wouldn't need to hack that
many machines, j( votes added in K increments ) * k machines.
For example, here in Nevada, Clark County ( Las vegas ) is
the huge metropolitan area, and the only blue county here
in the state. All you need to do is modify the ratio here,
e.g., giving bush enough extra votes, and nothing else would
be needed to be done in the entire state. This may be true
for a few counties in Ohio.

edit for typo

[BUSHOUT]

39. Nevermind, you "disrupted poorly". Buh-bye!

[dkofos]

67. What makes you think it was just a few hackers

Rove doesn't do things small.
He probably had an army of hackers.

[theredpill]

70. Only the tabulator computer needs to be hacked

Why do you say 1000's of machines? You only need to access the tabulator machine.

There is software that states use written by Diebold called GEMS. It is a central tabulator for all votes whether by electronic, paper, etc. These votes on the tabulator machines can easily be manipulated without a trace.

I am a software engineer and I have been able to alter votes using the GEMS software and database that was for download at blackboxvoting.org. I was able to figure out how to change the votes without an audit trail in about an hour. Now it would take me about 2 minutes. I had never seen this software before either, which means security was not in the original software architecture if I could figure out their algorithm for calculating votes so quickly. This stuff is not even encrypted. Very sad.

I did not hack anything and would not, but someone obviously did! It had to be someone on the inside is my guess.

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

89. Horse poop. Ever since Mitnick did time, Hackers have learned

that discretion is the better part of valor. Hacking has long been a purview of higher offices for quite some time now. Money talks, bullshit walks. The government would be dumber than it already is to ignore the fact that a good hacker is a powerful tool.

Hackers are people too. The sell out as easily as the next person.

Tell me: Would you set up a stranger for a fall for $50 million?

Even if you say you wouldn't, how many people do you think would?

[Amigust]

94. Hacking the central tabulators was all that was necessary.

There are Diebold GEMS central tabulators in 1000+ county election offices. (There are 3000+ counties, using a variety of tabulating systems.) It takes only 90 seconds to change the tallies in a Diebold GEMS machine if you do it manually.

Vote-changing software run from a single remote hacking location could do most of the election night work quickly and in a very sophisticated manner.

Do some arithmetic. 50 to 100 hackers (or even substantially less) could do it all. And I'm not talking about kids in their bedrooms.

[Brundle_Fly]

6. my letter to miami.com

Hackers rigging voting machines a real possibility- Fred Grimm

Kudos for writing this.

It is amazing that yours is only the second mainstream media coverage of the election problems on Nov. 2, 2004

I wanted to point out that the gems software has been available for months and months, thru Limewire, or Kazaa. We "hackers" have already discovered how to fully hack it.

Is it some tragically in-depth heavy algorithm to crack the intensive layers of firewalls securing it? NOPE.

It is as simple as editing a excel or Access file. That's it! The very fact that the election software was written MS Access, is possibly the most funny thing about it all.

We write several Applications at my company, and for anything that has to go outside the Users Network, Access is possible the weakest/stupidest choice for doing anything remotely secure.

However there are ways to lock up the back end of applications written in Access, but the time to complete a project and fully locking up the back doors is painfully slow and complex.

Thankfully the brains at Diebold always thinking about the almighty dollar, didn't have to worry about securing the back end of their application. They fully saw the waste of time it was, and smartly left it wide open.

You can even change the files while the user has no idea you are in the system, remove your footprint and laugh away/

As you have so easily stolen an election.

This story needs to be investigated fully, I wish you the best of luck, and congratulate your courage

[chomskysright]

114. I wrote the Herald guy also: here

Marsha Hammond, PhD: Licensed Psychologist, NC & GA

e mail: [e-mail]; cell phone: [phone]

November 14, 2004


Dear Mr. Grimm:

Thank you for your article re: hackers. Here is where it is floating around, should you like to know: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x975204

IN any case, I am wondering if you have this information which I sent to Tallahassee Democrat.

Thanks for your hard work. You're getting ready to take some heat. Hang tough.

Marsha Hammond, PhD


Updated: 06:30 PM EST
Fla. Panel Approves 2004 Election Results
By BRENT KALLESTAD, AP

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) - It was a wish come true Sunday for Florida's elections officials: no cameras, few questions and a clear decision.

Unlike four years ago, when scores of television satellite trucks and hundreds of reporters camped outside the Capitol, the state canvassing board quietly certified the results of the Nov. 2 general election, in which President Bush captured the state's 27 electoral votes by a comfortable margin....."

"I think everyone is glad the election has come and gone," Secretary of State Glenda Hood said.

DON'T BELIEVE IT FOR A MINUTE!


1. Zogby report on FL malfeasance: http://www.zogby.com/soundbites/ReadClips.dbm?ID=10398

2. you want to see some of the voting irregularities ( in FL so you can ask for a recount like OH is doing? 2 sites that I know of so far (DOZENs for FL):


https://voteprotect.org/index.php?display=EIRMapCounty&state=Florida&county=Leon&cat=ALL&tab=FP04 (sort it by your own state)

http://www.votersunite.org/takeaction.asp


3. And the FL vote has been changed (from 11.3 to today) and a marvel: none of the percentages have changed. Amazing FL BOE! the way they do work is wonderous:

http://www.zogby.com/soundbites/ReadClips.dbm?ID=10398


4. And one of your own refuses to throw in the towel re: his Congressional race. Go here and look at the lowdown re: some bits of how your election was hacked:

http://www.JeffFisherforCongress.com


5. And if you have the smoking gun information you can make yourself a cool 100 grand (this is no joke):

"Justice Through Music" <[e-mail]>



6. here are the people moving your information around: go here for a rich source of information you'll never read in the newspapers:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=203&topic_id=49319&mesg_id=49365&page=


7. a few more dollars are needed for that OH recount and go here to contribute (then we need to start you an account in a similar manner): http://www.votecobb.org/
8. Here is an overall synopsis as of about 6 p.m. today, Sunday, November 14th: http://www.nov2truth.org/

GET ON BOARD FLORIDIANS: WE’RE LOOKING FOR YOU!!

[Guaranteed]

9. Hackers also tend to be poor.

And they will sell-out, and have sold-out, to the highest bidder.

[Brundle_Fly]

17. the hacker

was on the inside.

they were changing results from the interior of diebold's head office.

I have no doubt.

[Fiendish Thingy]

55. Inside job for this election, but possibility of outside hackers

now or in the future, may be what brings some reasonable, moderate republicans to join our challenge to the fairness of this election.

[ellie]

27. Like I said on another thread,

we should collect money and offer a reward for information leading to a conviction for those found hacking the vote. People can't resist money. Someone would talk.

[Sterling]

29. Sure worked so well with OBL

People act ike every crime in this country gets solved sometimes and because every crime gets solved that meaqns no one can keep a secret. This is utter bullshit.

[Amigust]

96. You have the wrong idea of what "hacking" means.

As discussed in the context of the stolen 2004 election, the term merely refers to gaining unauthorized access to election computers and changing data in them.

Given rudimentary computer skills and sophisticated vote-changing software, nearly anyone could do it as long as they were working as part of a team set up for that purpose and provided those assets. It wasn't necessary to take the time and brain cells to figure out how to break in and change data, all that was needed was to just do it. Make that job easier by forgetting all the individual voting machines and concentrate just on the central tabulators in county election offices. These machines were where all the information ended up before it was reported out, so these were the ones to work on.

Now set the election night team of "hackers" up in one or more secure remote locations and you can see a better picture of what hacking could have looked like on Nov. 2.

Ditch your preconception of a hacker in this case. This was a well coordinated professional job, not the prank of some poor nerds at home.

[Robert Oak]

13. they need to consult a cyber security expert

as well as get ahold of one of the machines that came up
in a "bush" state and that even when the voter voted..
on the "confirm your vote" screen it would pop up Bush.

If we had one of those machines, we could reverse engineer it to
see specifically what that code is really doing and if it's biased.

The newspapers should also consult any of the group of computer
scientists who spoke out about these voting machines to explain
the many ways they discovered to hack the system.

I believe it could be done with very few being aware of how it was done..

and also they implode people with confidentiality agreements who
are engineers, so it's not completely impossible to imagine this
being engineered to be biased towards Bush without it getting out.

And therein lies the real problem of an election system
with mixed machines, mixed methods, voter repression on the side...

plus no way to audit the vote.

The nation should adopt the Oregon system, absolute. It's the fairest.

[intheflow]

15. Enlighten us about the Oregon system?

Please?

[BluesInARedState]

26. Oregon is an all mail-in ballot state

I believe. I am not sure about the transparency of its vote counting processes but have never heard complaints about it.


(finally decided to stop lurking)

[calimary]

42. Welcome to DU, Blues InARedState!

Thanks for weighing in!

[Brundle_Fly]

18. they used a XP PC

that is it, you can download the software from blackboxvoting.org right off the main page, we have been stripping it....its so lame.

[RaleighNCDUer]

51. Have you considered that they may have let us see this

software, in all its flawed glory, to keep us occupied with it and not asking questions about the real software in the machines -- the software that can be preprogrammed to flip votes from one candidate to the other, or other such malfeasance?

Why would they insist on protecting their proprietary code if it is already so easily available? Perhaps, because there is another, real program that they are protecting?

[VegasWolf]

69. Yes, except black box doesn't have mods and patches,

for example, what's inside the body of the function
increment_vote( int counter, bool is_Republican );

:)

[shelley806]

16. I didn't like this ....

"Dear Republican critics: Which way do you suppose hackers will tip an election, when they decide, just for the heck of it, to have a little fun with the computer programs that now determine American elections?"

Pisses me off...Equates hackers with Democrats, when he is describing the chacteristics of Rove.

[intheflow]

19. Maybe he's trying to get inside a Republican brain

and speak a language they can hear?

But I agree, I thought the whole tone was kinda condescending. But very good to be out there in the press, all the same. Tallulah Bankhead used to say it didn't matter what the press said about her, as long as they spelled her name right. The name of this is computer voting hack, and Grimm spells it right.

[GoBlue]

20. I think you missed his sarcasm

[M155Y_A1CH]

31. Hackrs don't offer remedeys

It seems to me that hackers try to cause the
most harm they can inflict.
They don't do it for the good of society.
It's also not likely such rebels would be affiliated
with any official party.
It was very obviously NOT Dems,
we would have won the election.

[crispini]

48. I think we're pretty lucky that

we don't have Mickey Mouse as our new president.

Although that would certainly show the extent of the problem.

Might satisfy the ABB people too. :evilgrin:

[RaleighNCDUer]

53. Well, I'd prefer Kerry, but Mickey Mouse would be a significant

improvement over *.

[tngledwebb]

60. That's the spin of this article.

Hacking happens and is dangerous and we got to stop it, but Dems would do it and would benefit, so Republicans weren't hacking this time.

[maryallen]

87. Not necessarily ...

That description could fit a Green, an Independent, a Constitutionalist, a Socialist, an anarchist, a foreigner ... the list is endless.

[Zhade]

24. Wow, this is a pretty damn good angle.

Just the one I've been pushing (because it's true ) - how do Republicans know that non-Republicans won't hack the vote against their guys?

They don't.

Look, as much as I despise the views of rightwingers, even Freepers have the right to a fair, clean, transparent election where every vote is counted. If the process works, and the people vote Republican, so be it. This isn't about us versus them, this is about EVERYONE'S vote counting, Dem or Repub or Green or Socialist or whatever.



======================================================================

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MC Frontalot's Special Delivery - one nifty anti-war jingle!

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Casualty Count - updated every three hours from the CentCom database. Watch in real-time as our soldiers die for b*sh's lies.

Reasons To Distrust The DLC

Criminal Intent

[City Lights]

28. This is exactly the point we need to make everyone understand.

If the machines are susceptible to hacking, they can be hacked in favor of either candidate, from inside or outside the USA.

[OnceAndFutureTruth]

50. Excellent point! Plz send Olbermann tech info showing how ease of hacking

the electronic machines and other machines involved in the process is a serious threat. I don't have the background in computers to explain it concisely and clearly, but I'm sure there is someone here who can. The angle needs to be CAN they be hacked first, then we can deal with WERE they hacked this time.

[OnceAndFutureTruth]

54. Yes! First issue: CAN they be hacked; once that is established, WERE they

This is a great approach. Someone who understands computers very well AND who is able to explain this in very clear, CONCISE terms should be selected from the DU talent pool to write a statement to be circulated around the web. Do we have any technical writers here?

AND someone should pitch this approach to Olbermann, again being concise but using some good examples of the weaknesses of the systems. I think I read part of an interview transcript with Bev Harris showing someone how easy it would be to switch votes around. Anyone know what interview that was and where it can be found?

[City Lights]

66. Here you go:

Howard Dean was guest host on Topic A with Tina Brown. There may be other links out there, but this is the only one I have. You might try CNBC to see if they have transcripts available.

http://www.commongroundcommonsense.org/index.php?showtopic=1235

[Skinner]

30. This is the angle that everyone should be taking.

If you even suggest that the election was stolen, if you even suggest that someone has already taken advantage of the flaws in these systems to rig an election, you will be easily discounted as a conspiracy theorist or a hopeless partisan.

And let's be honest here... There is plenty of stuff that smells funny, but so far there is not proof that we was robbed.

And I'm not sure the "liberal hacker" fearmongering is going to work. Americans are so deeply indoctrinated with our civic values that is is unthinkable to most that anyone would mess with the sacred ballot box. But anyone who has used a computer knows what it's like to have a document disappear because you forgot to save, to have a virus delete large amounts of data, or to have the computer simply freeze for no reason.

For this issue to go anywhere, it cannot be seen as a partisan issue. It has to be seen as an American issue.

I do believe that Republicans do have a genuine interest in this issue, which should make them care: Let's assume that the GOP is now the majority party. As long as there are electronic voting machines with no paper trail, then there will always be a sliver of doubt about the legitimacy of Republican victories. That is why they should care.

[Beartracks]

97. An apple a day...

"As long as there are electronic voting machines with no paper trail, then there will always be a sliver of doubt about the legitimacy of Republican victories. That is why they should care."

This tendency for conservatives to automatically rule out the possibility of wrongdoing -- "W won fair and square, with a MANDATE even, so drop it!" -- reminds me of someone who doesn't want to go to the doctor, afraid of what the doctor might find. They might find nothing; or they might have a grave diagnosis. And if you really are sick but never have a doctor fix the problem... :shrug:

[liam97]

32. Validity of these elections

My first post to DU and from a different country (which, by the way. successfully completed an election with 668 million registered voter and removed a government which was confident enough to call an election 5 months early!).

I think while recounts are necessary - it is important not to get sucked into that game. It is critical to build our resistance on the claim that we cannot know for sure that the election was not hacked. There is enough evidence to plant reasonable doubt that there may have been irregularities (verifiedvoters.org has a great database). I believe the GAO letter has mentioned 30,000 irregularities. In addition there is possibility of voter repression. So its results cannot be accepted by the American public.

I think members of the American public, especially from Ohio and Florida should also start bombarding foreign media with this claim. Imagine a headline in The Guardian... we have received 6000 faxes and emails from voters in the US who claim.....

In solidarity

[City Lights]

33. A hearty welcome to DU, liam97

Glad to have you here. :hi:

Your suggestion to bombard the foreign press has been suggested here, and I believe it is a great idea.

[shelley806]

82. Thank you for your excellent observations and suggestions that we

bombard the foreign media with the electronic election problems. Just last night an Australian posted the same well taken advise. I see that you are so new that you probably still can't post. I'd be more than glad to post this for you as a separate issue, so that more can read and attend to it, if you'd like. Just post me back a response, and I'll copy, paste and post it for you.

Welcome to DU!!!

[malachi]

34. Big fuckin' deal. Even if irrefutable evidence comes to light showing

that EV is a total fraud, do you honestly expect Dems to do anything about it? The sight of Pelosi on tv giving congrats to the chimp on his victory is all you have know about Dems. I think that we should let the DNC know that unless they do something about EV, Dem voters will sit on their hands and refuse to vote as a protest in the 2006 elections.

[liam97]

35. Suggestion

Yes, I think it is absolutely critical to bombard the DNC about voter protest and potential boycott. Have any of you tried emailing any media outlets in the Middle East or the Arab Press - just an innocent unbiased mention of the controversy while Falluja is being assaulted may not hurt.

[Poor Richard Lex]

56. Don't forget what Dr. Dean was talking about

We need to take over the Democratic Party first.

If every one of us got involved in our precint's democratic party we could the become party in a few years.

[m berst]

61. come again?

What on earth does the Arab press have to do with the American elections?

[Lizzie Borden]

77. The Arab press might be more

helpful because they hate Bush so. Also, if our election looks rigged, it makes America look bad.

[m berst]

84. ok....

And Arabs hating Bush, and making America look bad helps us how?

[peekaloo]

36. kick

[halobeam]

37. BEV HARRIS ON Air America Radio NOW

ASKING FOR FUNDING FOR RECOUNT OF OHIO.... the fund is called...

HelpAmericaRecount.org.. will be up and running at any point now.... she's calling for 5 people from each precinct to file for recount...starting exactly on and NOT before this Friday, and ending date for filing is thurs. midnight the following week... then it's costing 10.00/precint, which she estimates will total at a couple hundred thousand dollars from start to finish for this project.

need donations...... NOW... we have one week to raise this money and have these citizens file.

LET'S GO!


She will be on press conference with Ralph Nader at 1pm this afternoon EST

[deacon]

98. Post this at the new blog site that team kerry set up for bev

harris donations.

http://commongroundcommonsense.org/

[Name removed]

41. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[phylny]

46. QUESTION for the computer savvy

Is it possible for those who have the machines in their possessions to mess with them BEFORE any possible recount? In other words, can they cover their tracks without us knowing?

I'm all for checking into these abnormalities. I just don't want to think we can be scammed twice - during the voting, and again before the recount to make everything look okay.

[crispini]

49. Source link, please?

Also per DU copyright, don't forget, only post 3 paragraphs of the text. (No, I'm not a moderator, but I pretend to be one from time to time. :evilgrin: )

[mcg]

52. Wrong, exit polls are MUCH MORE accurate than polling

"But as we now all know, the exit polls were off a bit. Regardless, exit polls are not hard data, they are as accurate as polling"

The discrepancies between the exit polls and the supposed vote count are not 'a bit', they are huge. The chances of this happening (without foul play) have been calculated to be .01%

Combine that with the fact that the voting machine companies have big ties to Bush. One example, the CEO of Diebold said he was "committed to delivering Ohio's electoral votes to the president". He wrote this shortly before Diebold got a contract for OHIO. Who gave his company the contract? Republicans. Hagel was the head of ES&S, he quit, ran for senator an an election which used ES&S machines, Hagel mysteriously won by a landslide.

Feeling a little anxious? Do you want democracy or fascism?

[Timefortruth]

57. link?

Funny how none of these debunking articles mention the Republicans screaming bloody murder in New Mexico.

Damn liberal press.

[Broken Acorn]

43. Simple SQL Scripting (again)

I posted this last night in another thread..but I will post it here as well. I am not taking credit for the Herald's article, but I did contact the Miami Herald, Washington Post, LA Times, Orlando Sentinel and SF Chronicle on Friday and had about 15 minute conversations with someone in each of their newsdesks. This has included some email follow ups over the weekend and on Monday.

All 5 publications hadn't heard of Florida's county % descrepancies by % of registered voters (Evoting vs. Op-Scan) and all were EXTREMELY interested in my argument (eventhough it is a longshot).

It looks like the Herald finally is testing the waters on this one.

Here's last night's post:

As a Professional Database Developer, I am amazed at the simplicity of the way these software programs are written. I only learned of this after the results of the election were final, yet the Exit Polls did not match the margin of victory. At this time (last Thursday) I began doing my own research.

Here is my argument (although it's not new) that most of us are failing to recognize.

Each county/precinct around the country conducts polling the day of the election. Canvassers count how many people voted and electronic voting machines tally the votes internally (inside the machines).

These software voting programs are all written using Microsoft Access, a step above Excel and very easy to use. Once each county completes their day, somebody at the polls uploads the Access file usually through a modem or LAN to a state centralized server. The county election officials do not have access to the results, nor do they have the sophistication to commit voter fraud.

Because this voting software is 'proprietary', somebody at ESS/Diebold, etc. has to be managing the state centralized server in order to make sure it doesn't crash. Therefore, it is highly possible that the Network Administrator could open these .mdb files (MS Acces) and switch the voter results but keep the voter count.

That would be the hard part...requiring massive programmers/manpower to manually changing all the individual votes in a coordinated effort one by one.

Now, someone like myself, could easily write custom scripts that would apply to all these .mdb files and run them after they have been uploaded from the counties BUT BEFORE being published to the state servers, thus adding to the overall state results and altering in the process before anyone knows it.

Here’s the crux of my argument. It could be managed remotely in 1 office by using a Virtual Private Network (VPN), Remote Desktop Connection (RDC), or any host of remote access programs easily available today by as little as 3 to 5 people on 1 computer each. This would explain 2 mysteries to me.

1) Did anyone else find it odd that the result totals were statistically even or favoring Kerry both in Florida and Ohio most of the night and then all of a sudden…Bush wins big!? The answer to this mystery could be last minute scripts being run on the uploaded .mdb files before being published to the state’s servers.

2) It would also explain the massive irregularities of voter %'s per party vs. who they actually voted for; in addition to explaining the total votes exceeding # registered per county.

Bad scripting and panic attacks by Republican 'hacks' (no pun intended) is a very clear possibility.


As a professional programmer (and IT Administrator), this stuff is not rocket science. You just need access to the right IP addresses and Authentication Privileges to make it happen (and a little experience writing scripts, which they lacked in).

Trust me, I upload (and change) .mdb files remotely all the time on servers for clients of mine around the country that I work for. It’s not that complicated of a process.

I only hope that someone on the inside speaks out if this is potentially true.

[peekaloo]

47. I'll try not to sound too dumb but complaints were registered in both

the 2002 midterms and this years' election by voters who voted for one candidtae but the screen confirmation would show the opponents name. Defined as a "glitch" and shrugged off by "officials".......does any of your above outline(s) encompass this "error"?


Welcome to DU!

:hi:

[Broken Acorn]

59. Software Progamming Possibilities

peekaloo,

My analysis argues that a rogue employee or cohort of these voting software companies alters the final counts behind the scenes AFTER the .mdb files are uploaded from the individual counties but BEFORE the results are posted/compiled into the centralized state server.

It is also possible for the code itself to be 'rigged' by having inherent functions to auto-calculate totals when they are compiled. I doubt this is the case because any software engineer can look at the internal coding and point easily to this mischief.

But it is also possible...which would explain the 'glitches' when voters go to confirm their selection and all of a sudden see Bush for Pres. when they chose Kerry.

Stranger things have happened...

[Petrodollar Warfare]

63. Here's my input from another post...

..but it appears more relevant here...

Either we have entered the Orwellian Universe where the laws of mathematics simply do not apply, or the 1am "exit poll sweep" attempted to match the unauditable machine counts with the real exit polls, but in order to do so it had to violate the laws of mathematics, and reverse the data from the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and final exit polls that showed a Kerry victory.

In the reality-based community that is called FRAUD, but in the faith-based community this is called "conspiracy theory."

Based on my background in Information Security (INFOSEC), I would suggest we may be looking at someone who preformed at 1am manipulation of the AP "exit poll" data with an incremental increase in sample size that was done sloppily and in violation of mathematical laws, and a remote hack of the Windows-based machines that tabulated the states total votes, or perhaps a "man-in-the-middle" attack to change county/state totals. This is not improbable given that INFOSEC/Computer Scientists have documented and tested how simple it is to manipulate the data in the GEMS server. This is simple to accomplish given the known security flaws in the Diebold system (and possibly the ES&S sytem), and it is not difficult to change what is in essence a Microsoft Access Database.

All you really need are the modem access number(s), and maybe a simple password cracking program, assuming you were an "outsider" hacker without any help from the "inside" (ie. Diebold/ES&E or a county/state elections employee).

Would anyone like verification of that statement? No problem, and I should note the following are only two of seven findings from an independent review of the Diebold touchscreen system which they set up in a "real-world" enviroment to test its security from hacking - the results were shocking. (Many of these issues likely applies to ES&S as well). Note, this study was done in jan. 2004

"1. The GEMS server lacks several critical security updates from Microsoft. As a result, the team sucessfully exploited a well-known vulnerability using a software product known as Canvas"..."By sucessfully directing Canvas at the GEMS modem interface, the team was able to remotely upload, download and execute files with full system administrator privledges. All that was required was a valid phone number for the GEMS server." (page 20 of 25)

"6. Social Engineering/Phone line hijacking: The procedure by which precincts upload votes to their LBE (Local Board of Elections) is vulnerable to a "man-in-the-middle" attack. This is the result of an incompolete implemetation of the SSL protocol. Specifically, the team demonstrated how a labtop could act as a GEMS server. If one could convince the precinct judge to dial into an attacker's labtop then that laptop would not only receive the election results, it would be able to acquire the name and password to access the GEMS sever. With this name and password in hand, the attacker could upload modified results to the GEMS server - all in real time." (page 21 of 25)

Trusted Agent Report Diebold AccuVote-TS Voting System (January 20, 2004)
http://www.raba.com/press/TA_Report_AccuVote.pdf

Bottom Line: The final exit poll variances in some of the "swing states" is both divergent from the (pre-sweep) exit polling data, and was not a random event as would be expected. Everything reported past 1am was skewed towards Bush, regardless of previous multiple polling data/trends.

We also know these e-voting systems do not provide a paper audit trail, and have been proven by computer scientist and INFOSEC experts to be easily hackable. In fact, the Johns Hopkins and Rice University researchers candidly stated in their 2003 technical analysis that the serious security flaws in the Diebold source code rendered it "unsuitable for use in a general election."

Analysis of an Electronic Voting System
http://avirubin.com/vote/analysis/

Furthermore, RABA's 2004 "test enviroment" simulated the Diebold voting system as it was deployed last week all across America and their findings of security flaws are even more disconcerting given their team's ability to easily and transparently hack the system and change the results.


The only way to verify if these well-documented and easily exploited vulnerabilities actually occured would require an INFOSEC forensic investigation of the source code in the computers which did the actual county and/or state tabulations, and an analysis of all modem/network activity from the county to the central tabulators in the weeks before and during the election. This could be accomplished by a team of expert network analysts and INFOSEC experts - and for less money than that "army of lawyers" that we heard so much about.

However, I do not expect this type of investigation - which is imperative based on the publically known data - to occur in a willing manner within our current political structure.

Thus, it is with great sadness and anger I must profess my analysis of extreme variances in the the data strongly supports the our Election was indeed hacked in atleast two states, possibly more, and that We The People no longer live under a funcational Democratic Repuiblic. Thomas Paine stated at the founding of our nation:

"The right of voting for representatives is the primary right by which all other rights are protected. To take away thus right is to reduce man to slavery."

[tex-wyo-dem]

71. Excellent analysis Broken Acorn...

I find it absolutely inconceivable that a system as important as this would be so woefully insecure. My company's network is a 1000x more secure than this and we still have problems with security.

Does anyone know how (or if) the government oversees design, development and manufacturing of these machines? Does anyone in the government specify the design and security requirements of these systems and then verify that the systems do what their supposed to do, or do they just give Diebold a blank sheet of paper and a check and say "we want a machine that counts votes and, oh, by the way, you can keep all of this to yourselves, we don't need to know anything about it." If the later is the case, this would be unbelievable.

BTW...new to DU...only been lurking a few days :)

[SheepyMcSheepster]

79. welcome to DU!

:hi:

[JanMichael]

75. Bingo. Not a programmer myself but I'm very aware of the ease of...

...access to any connected desktop.

[SheepyMcSheepster]

78. great post, thanks for insight. welcome to DU

:hi:

[Broken Acorn]

58. Boston Globe Coverage

Boston Globe is now covering this as well

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2004/11/10/internet_buzz_on_vote_fraud_is_dismissed/

My only complaint is that the DNC spokesman:

"No one would be more interested than me in finding out that we really won, but that ain't the case," said Jack Corrigan, a veteran Kerry adviser who led the Democrats' team of 3,600 attorneys who fanned out across the country on Election Day to address voting irregularities".

He's missing the point with electronic voter fraud. Has the DNC audited the internal source code? I seriously doubt it.

[Catherine Vincent]

64. I hate the title of their article.

"Internet buzz on vote fraud is dismissed"

but at least they are covering it, I guess.

[intheflow]

73. Not exactly a ringing endorsement of fraud

but it is a ringing endorsement of getting people seriously working on the overall problem of evoting security.

I'm thinking the statistical analysis that shows all errors favoring * is our best argument for this election.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

72. we need to find the"18,181" guy!!!!! 18181 18181 18181 18181 18181 18181!!

remember 18,181?

[JanMichael]

74. Sure do. That was in Texas, yes?

Also the dBASE nature of the scantron system reader is almost laughably simple to change.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

76. yes it was ...we need to find that programmer..he sent us the alert.......

signal and we need to locate him somehow...if he hasn't already "baxterized"

[SheepyMcSheepster]

80. i am not familiar with what are talking about ?

can you give some background? thanks.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

81. here isthe best tutorial link about fraud 2002 electronic voting"18181"

http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/votefraud.html
ELECTION FRAUD 2002
It's all here, too much to read in one day. I suggest you get a cup of coffee and start out by reading Votescam. Votescam lays out the blueprint that everything else is essentially built apon. Save for future reference and send out to everyone!

scroll way down to this snip:

"More Magic: winning vote totals uncanny. County Judge Danny Scheel received 18,181 votes. Republican Carter Casteel got exactly 18,181votes. Republican state Sen. Jeff Wentworth also got 18,181 votes. http://www.mysanantonio.com/specials/elections/story.cfm?xla=saen&xlb=180&xlc=860675VNS - CIA link? VNS, the guys who are deep sixing their exit poll data, used an outside company to develop their computer programs. It turns out that the company is..... Battelle Memorial Institute, an Ohio-based technology company that also works as a defense contractor to help build the new VNS system. A Battelle spokeswoman declined comment on Tuesday's performance. " From:http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?"

[mcg]

85. web page no longer there

http://www.mysanantonio.com/specials/elections/story.cfm?xla=saen&xlb=180&xlc=860675VNS

is no longer there

[ElsewheresDaughter]

88. yeah i know..sorry but just google "18181votes" tons of info on 18181 ....

like this one: Rhizome.org: 5 Republicans win by 18,181 votes
... 5 Republicans win by 18,181 votes. ... In Comal County Texas, an uncanny coincidence resulted in three Republican candidates in one county winning by exactly 18,181 votes each. ...
www.rhizome.org/object.rhiz?28966 - 21k - Cached - Similar pages

[mcg]

90. From rhizome:

http://www.rhizome.org/object.rhiz?28966

"In Comal County Texas, an uncanny coincidence resulted in three Republican candidates winning by exactly 18,181 votes each.

Two other Republican candidates outside Texas also won by exactly 18,181 votes."

http://www.co.comal.tx.us/election_results2002.htm

State Senator, District 25 Jeff Wentworth Republican 18181
State Representative, District 73 Carter Casteel Republican 18181
County Judge Danny Scheel Republican 18181

(the Democratic votes are not equal)

http://www.alternet.org/story/16474

[SheepyMcSheepster]

92. thank you. nt.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

83. 18181 in binary 1=a 8 =h = ahaha...18181 ahaha 18181 ahaha..joke is on us

this programmer was sending an alert to those in the know...we need to find him

[mcg]

86. sounds plausible, I was thinking it might mean something, came up with...

less likely meanings:

18181 is a palindromic prime number.

http://primes.utm.edu/glossary/page.php?sort=PalindromicPrime

It is also 2 X 9091 and 9091 is also a prime number.

Could it be a zip code? No, but the FIPS code for zip code 47995 (Wolcott, IN) is 18181.

Could it be a house number?

[ElsewheresDaughter]

91. ever hear of this dude....

he doesn't trust computer voting

http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/press/pressitem.asp?ref=160

<snip>
Donald P. Moynihan, PhD is an assistant professor at the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University. His research examines the application of organization theory and public management reform. In 2002, he won the award for best article from the Public/Nonprofit section of the Academy of Management.

Foolproof E-Voting? Not yet.
September 2004

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Direct Recoding Electronic (DRE) voting devices are not as revolutionary as anticipated.


In the aftermath of the Florida recount during the 2000 presidential election, Congress and most states decided to modernize their elections. In 2002, the federal government passed the "Help America Vote Act" that provided funding for the replacement of old (punch-card) technology and the creation of the Election Assistance Commission. Increasingly, state and local governments are turning to DREs- ATM-like machines with a memory card and a touch-sensitive screen that promise to record each vote perfectly and instantly and reduce voter-error. Despite their advantages, like aiding the visually impaired and removing the guesswork from a dimpled or hanging chad, they are considerably risky. “The new technology creates an illusion of security, resulting in machines that are not protected by some measure of redundancy, or able to recover from failure,” author Donald P. Moynihan writes in an article publishing in the latest issue of Public Administration Review.


DREs are susceptible to bugs, tampering, failure, and do not have the ability to recover data (e.g. they have no recount mechanism) among other flaws. The high complexity of these systems makes them inherently prone to error- Microsoft still has numerous bugs after hundreds of man-years of testing. Further, Moynihan explains that “by definition, the vulnerabilities that hackers exploit will not have been foreseen by programmers, and are therefore unprotected.” In use, DREs have recorded questionable results like the three winning candidates of a Texas county that each received exactly 18,1818 votes, and the Florida precinct that reported negative 16,022 votes for Al Gore in 2000. The Caltech/MIT Voting Technology Project of 2001, consisting of social scientists, engineers, and computer security specialists, found that “…between 1988 and 2000 the most reliable of the voting approaches were the oldest technologies: manual ballot counting and levers.” A well-designed system should fail smart (have the ability to recover quickly, retrace, and remedy the problem), but the DREs internal paper record relies on the same technology as the original tabulation and is therefore not an independent verification. “As the sanctity of elections declines, so too does the legitimacy of the governing regime,” Moyihan states. If e-voting machines were to provide a voter-verifiable paper receipt and/or the e-voting software is developed through an open system (Australia posted their privately designed election software on the Internet to allow for external review and criticism), then security and the safety of the vote would be increased without the sacrifice and convenience of technology.


This study is published in the current issue of Public Administration Review. Media wishing to receive a pdf of this article please contact [e-mail]


Donald P. Moynihan, PhD is an assistant professor at the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University. His research examines the application of organization theory and public management reform. In 2002, he won the award for best article from the Public/Nonprofit section of the Academy of Management.


Dr. Moynihan is available for questions. Please email him at [e-mail].

[mcg]

93. using computers as the only way to count votes is crazy or worse

good article

I program computers, so I see just how flawed computer programming is be, even with no foul play involved. Considering the temptation of foul play in an election, using them as THE way to count votes is stupid, or sinister. I can see using them as a double check.

[mcg]

108. 18181 also around 20,000/11

http://mathforum.org/epigone/sci.math.num-analysis/wixchaikrung

[mcg]

109. chances are around 2,500 to 1

From
http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2003/12/1665555_comment.php

A mathematical analysis:
"All the actual votes for Republican candidates lie in the interval from 16504 to 19601, a range that encompasses 3098 possibilities. Suppose we round this up to 3100 and assume -- or pretend -- that each of the 3100 totals is equally likely. Then the revised probability estimate becomes:
4060 x 310028/310030 = 4.22 x 10-4
In other words, the odds against such a three-way coincidence are somewhere near 2500 to 1."
http://www.dartmouth.edu/~chance/chance_news/recent_news/chance_news_12.03.html

[GingerSnaps]

99. It was three towns in Texas

All three had the same amount of votes.

[raipoli]

95. $100,000 Reward for Evidence of Vote Fraud

Justice Through Music, www.jtmp.org, today posted a $100,000 reward for anyone who can provide conclusive evidence that voting or tabulating machines were hacked or tampered with to the extent that it threw the presidential election. See website for details. JTM is looking for whistleblowers and insiders who will spill the beans. JTM would like to sweeten the reward to provide the greatest incentive to people who will lose their jobs, so feel free to donate to the reward fund. [e-mail]. JTM was with Bev Harris and Ralph Nader today at a press conference in DC discussing strategy about all of this.

[HR_Pufnstuf]

100. "I won't lose"

GWB, 2004

[mcg]

112. The election's over. We won. ... we'll take care of the counting.

Bush: The panhandle.....
(unintelligible)
Bush: She's a panhandler
King: It's over..... The election's over. We won.
Pelsosi: How do you know that?
King: It's all over but the counting. And we'll take care of the counting.

Quicktime movie of Peter King (right next to Bush) saying this:

http://homepage.mac.com/duffyb/nobush/iMovieTheater256.html

http://www.kingwatch.blogspot.com/

[TeeYiYi]

101. kick

TYY:kick:

[fylgja]

102. something to think about

ever written code? ever had a program that did the exact opposite of what you thought it would, and it took you 20 minutes to find that one little extra character in that two thousand line program that was making your program not work right?

ever have a bug that surfaced only occassionally and you couldn't for the life of you figure out which line was causing the anomolie?

ever wonder how much damage a disgruntled computer programmer can do unnoticed to a project with two million plus lines of code?

any idea how long it would take to find that little easter egg if you were looking for it? what chance would you have to find it if you weren't looking for it?

why are all of these people who can't program their F#*(#$(*! VCR's suddenly trusting electronic voting machines?

why me?

[Pallas180]

103. TOO GOOD NOT TO STAY ON TOP ___ BUMP

kicking it, but through with dem donkey sign

[Name removed]

104. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Supersedeas]

105. and this too is unlikely to make the Network News

[Karenina]

106. Unless WE

FORCE THE ISSUE. :kick:

[Occulus]

107. Very funny. I'll take that with a quarry of salt.

[Zhade]

110. Troll on rightwing blogs much?

Just sayin'.

[Straight Shooter]

111. This is fascinating. Kick.

And I still love the donkey.

:kick:

[chomskysright]

113. I sent e mail to the Miami reporter: here

Marsha Hammond, PhD: Licensed Psychologist, NC & GA

e mail: [e-mail]; cell phone: [phone]

November 14, 2004


Dear Mr. Grimm:

Thank you for your article re: hackers. Here is where it is floating around, should you like to know: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x975204

IN any case, I am wondering if you have this information which I sent to Tallahassee Democrat.

Thanks for your hard work. You're getting ready to take some heat. Hang tough.

Marsha Hammond, PhD


Updated: 06:30 PM EST
Fla. Panel Approves 2004 Election Results
By BRENT KALLESTAD, AP

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) - It was a wish come true Sunday for Florida's elections officials: no cameras, few questions and a clear decision.

Unlike four years ago, when scores of television satellite trucks and hundreds of reporters camped outside the Capitol, the state canvassing board quietly certified the results of the Nov. 2 general election, in which President Bush captured the state's 27 electoral votes by a comfortable margin....."

"I think everyone is glad the election has come and gone," Secretary of State Glenda Hood said.

DON'T BELIEVE IT FOR A MINUTE!


1. Zogby report on FL malfeasance: http://www.zogby.com/soundbites/ReadClips.dbm?ID=10398

2. you want to see some of the voting irregularities ( in FL so you can ask for a recount like OH is doing? 2 sites that I know of so far (DOZENs for FL):


https://voteprotect.org/index.php?display=EIRMapCounty&state=Florida&county=Leon&cat=ALL&tab=FP04 (sort it by your own state)

http://www.votersunite.org/takeaction.asp


3. And the FL vote has been changed (from 11.3 to today) and a marvel: none of the percentages have changed. Amazing FL BOE! the way they do work is wonderous:

http://www.zogby.com/soundbites/ReadClips.dbm?ID=10398


4. And one of your own refuses to throw in the towel re: his Congressional race. Go here and look at the lowdown re: some bits of how your election was hacked:

http://www.JeffFisherforCongress.com


5. And if you have the smoking gun information you can make yourself a cool 100 grand (this is no joke):

"Justice Through Music" <[e-mail]>



6. here are the people moving your information around: go here for a rich source of information you'll never read in the newspapers:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=203&topic_id=49319&mesg_id=49365&page=


7. a few more dollars are needed for that OH recount and go here to contribute (then we need to start you an account in a similar manner): http://www.votecobb.org/
8. Here is an overall synopsis as of about 6 p.m. today, Sunday, November 14th: http://www.nov2truth.org/

GET ON BOARD FLORIDIANS: WE’RE LOOKING FOR YOU!!