Just read the RABA report on the Diebold machines in Maryland

[Woodstock]

RABA report - http://www.raba.com/press/TA_Report_AccuVote.pdf

I just read their report that was introduced in testimony yesterday before Maryland officials. Diebold is using a Microsoft operating system without 15 of the latest patches (and even with the latest patches, you know what that means with Microsoft – just that there are lots more security holes that haven’t been announced yet.) Autorun is enabled & the CD ROM door accessible. They are using Access as the database (the database password & audit logs are stored in the database itself.) Nonessential services aren’t turned off. The monitor harness easily comes undone & can’t be fixed without opening the box (thus invalidating the results for the voting station.) You can plug a keyboard in and get control of the database. You can plug a flash drive in to the USB and introduce malicious code. Poor authentication. The list goes on. What a joke. One recommendation is putting “tamper tape” on bay doors, etc. as a solution since there is no time to rewrite the code – but that means it would take nothing to disqualify lots of votes (and disenfranchise lots of people.) They don't push for a paper trail for all votes, for some odd reason (though Johns Hopkins did.)

More discussion is here at slashdot.org

http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/04/01/30/1631243.shtml?tid=103&tid=126&tid=99

Seems like disenfranchisement will be the easiest way to cheat. Just tamper away in Democratic districts. The slashdotters have quotes from some numbskull officials responding to the report: one Republican elected official said this tampering stuff is too hard for most people to do (so just because he's living in 1925, he wants to assume the rest of the world is, too?) An elections official said nobody would tamper with the system because it's a felony (too dumb to comment on that one, I guess she thinks 1) everyone who does this stuff gets caught, especially when you make it a cakewalk, and 2) the jails are empty.)

In this Baltimore Sun article, one of the people who worked on the report said:

Diebold "basically had no interest in putting actual security in this system," said Paul Franceus, one of the consultants. "It's not like they did it wrong. It's like they didn't bother."

http://www.sunspot.net/news/bal-te.md.machine30jan30,0,6436243.story?c

[SharonAnn]

1. Thanks for the info on this. I heard it was bad but didn't know

exactly what they found.

For Pete's sake, they didn't even do the basics for security.

[BeFree]

2. Just like Bev told us...

...what's it been, about a year ago now?

No security, No security, No security. Just a bunch of cheap plastic junk that Diebold has been foisting on un-suspecting, sheep-like, Supervisors of Elections, all across America.

This should be the end, finally, of Diebold elections. Every district that bought this crap from Diebold oughtta be filing a lawsuit by this time next week.

[Kelvin Mace]

14. Exactly!

Bev and everyone else who looked at the code and the systems has said this over and over again, yet Diebold keeps lying and the politicians keep writing checks.

David Allen
Publisher, CEO, Janitor
Plan Nine Publishing
http://www.plan9.org

[Andy_Stephenson]

22. Makes you wonder why...

doesn't it?

[gristy]

3. man, what a thread

http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/04/01/30/1631243.shtml?tid=103&tid=126&tid...
292 replies to a thread posted noon today. And everyone "gets it" too! ...'cept for maybe the "is it a paper receipt or a record or a ballot?" question.

It ain't a receipt, I know that. That word just started being used some time ago, and it was a very poor, and indeed wrong, choice.

[gristy]

4. So, we get 4 posts on this thread.

and two of them are mine. BBV has clearly moved on, becuase it's not on DU any more. Don't know if that's good or bad. But it's a fact.

[Woodstock]

5. I was bothered by this all day

I assumed more had been done about it by now. Maybe the people here figure the same. But the thing is, nothing has been done. Diebold just delivered these boxes to be tested in horrible shape. Even the easiest things to do to make it more secure had not been done. Like the guy said, they hadn't even tried. Then the dumb officials made it seem like no big deal. But it's a huge deal. The report says it's a given that enough will not be done by November.

Do people really not care that their votes won't count? Or are they all zombies.

[DrBB]

23. Part of the reason--The old threads used to get so long

...because of the long wrangles with people who denied there was any real problem, accusations that Bev was just a self-promoting fraud, etc etc etc. Some of those were honest disputes, some were vengeful ravings by a particularly unbalanced person (know who I mean?) and some may have even been agents of the voting machine companies themselves blowing smoke. The main reason most of that noise has gone away is that the technical argument has been won, among intelligent people who know anything about this stuff.

I'm not a programmer, but my wife is and is involved at the highest level of groups like USENIX (Avi Rubin is a fellow board member), and when I started mentioning at parties back a year or so ago that the new voting machines were based on Access, people instantly knew that something fraudulent--or at least very very amateurish and shoddy--was afoot. I never encountered a single person at that level who didn't instantly recognize this--it wasn't even a question.

I think most of the people who were trying to defend these systems have been silenced by the facts--things like Rubin's report, and this current one--so the threads are shorter. I always check 'em out, but I don't necessarily contribute--I'm sure there are lots of others here doing the same. It remains a vital issue, but more of the work of convincing people of that fact has been done at this point.

[Woodstock]

28. How true - as soon as I read "Access" I knew this was slipshod

Amateurs. Access is for secretaries to manage office supplies.

I read there was a suit from the other contractors who lost out to Bush's pal who owns Diebold to do the job. It's clear no one could even attempt to stretch the truth far enough to even say the job was adequately.

[BevHarris]

6. The battle isn't over yet, but I'm already concerned about integrity

in the primaries. I now have a report that Diebold touch-screens were used in the Iowa caucuses, and much of the state of New Hampshire used Diebold optical-scan systems, and both of these are systems that have been found to be insecure.

We also cannot assume that there is no problem with inside access from programmers, since an embezzler who specialized in computer fraud worked on programming for the optical-scan machines like those used in New Hampshire, and failure to certify new versions would indicate that his programming still lurks inside. Likewise, he had something to do with the Windows CE system on the touch-screens, and no one has identified exactly what tasks he undertook when working with that system.

They are still using uncertified software -- Thanks to Andy Stephenson, we have now confirmed that in New Hampshire they used a version that was never examined at all by federal certifiers, and therefore violated FEC security standards.

The RABA report, though, draws some incorrect conclusions. As usual, they are still hung up on the idea that using a certification model can make our voting machines safe. In fact, we need an auditing procedure.

The concept is this: A vote should not change as it passes through the system. It is simple and cheap to run reports at each stage where the vote moves. Think of each detailed report as a checkpoint on the road the vote takes. The votes must match exactly from checkpoint to checkpoint. Such a system would cost almost nothing to implement and would take very little time, but it is missing from all the legislation (except the citizen's bill in Washington State) and is omitted by the Hopkins/Rice report, the SAIC report, the Ohio report, and the RABA report.

The other thing about this report is that it still minimizes the absolute need for a voter-verified paper ballot.

I will be making an announcement next week, watch for it.

Bev Harris

[Woodstock]

7. That bugged me about the "no need for the paper trail" part

in the RABA report.

Thanks for the update! It's great that you are on the case.

I'll try to make more noise about it, hopefully everyone else will, too. People still seem to have this sheeplike faith that someone else will take care of things. But time is running out.

[BeFree]

10. Thanks Bev

Say, when will we see the first suit against Diebold for non-performance? Seems like there is plenty of evidence that what Diebold delivered was not up to what even the weakest law demanded.

One way to put a halt to this charade is for a court to declare these machines unusable and require Election Supervisors to use Paper and Pencil.

[Andy_Stephenson]

16. Oh Howard!

Are you listening?

:) I know you are.

[SharonAnn]

26. Bev, I just received my BlackBox Voting book today!

I'm so excited. I scanned the first chapter and it's dynamite. Tying in voting rights the way you did really got my attention (all over again).

Thanks for all you've done and all you're still doing.

[BevHarris]

34. Thanks. Wait till you see the endorsement I just got on the book

basically, said it was New York Times quality journalism, and the quality of my reporting would be a career-maker for a reporter at NYT or Washington Post. Source: Vanity Fair

I'm paraphrasing, don't have the quote in front of me. But it was pretty wonderful.

Yippee!

Bev

[priller]

36. That's awesome, Bev!

Vanity Fair has done some pretty terrific reporting themselves lately. Congrats!

[ramblin_dave]

37. Diebold touchscreens used in Iowa caucuses?!

Where would any votimg machines have been used there? From what I could tell, people "voted" with their bodies by standing to be counted in the area designated for the candidate of their choice.

[BattyDem]

8. You know what really ticks me off?

All these officials who argue against a voter-verified ballot! What's the big deal? If they're so sure the machines are flawless, then a paper trail shouldn't be a problem. In fact, they should welcome it. After all, doesn't everyone want the votes to be accurately counted? :eyes:

Yes, I know why they don't want a paper trail ... but the fact that they fight so hard against it should be raising red flags all over the country! Why isn't the media all over this? Oh wait... I know why. :mad:

[Lugnut]

9. That's what drives me batty!

When I go to the ATM I get a paper receipt. When I put gas in my car I get a paper receipt....and on and on and on. More importantly the bank and the gas station have a paper record to verify withdrawals and deposits and sales which are pretty important to them. What's so hard about this? :shrug:

[BeFree]

11. Problems with receipts

The machines can print a receipt but log the vote differently.

Hand counted Paper Ballots are what we should be asking for.

[Woodstock]

12. Maryland had optical ballots that worked fine

It was a paper ballot and you just took a marker and drew a line to connect your choice, then you personally fed the ballot into a sealed container where it was scanned.

But Bush's good buddy, Governor Ehrlich, had to go out and buy these pieces of utter crap to replace them. I didn't realize these were Microsoft Windows things, that automatically places them in the category of unredeemable for me. Trash them and go back to the optical scanners. Computerized voting isn't ready for prime time and has a long way to go before it will be. Anything else is a bandaid. A system like this needs MUCH more refinement before it should have been anywhere near to being considered for implementation.

[BeFree]

13. Any vote counted by computer

Is suspect. Let me say it again:

Any vote counted by a computer is suspect.

Even an optical scan vote counter can be programmed to miscount.
Then you have the possibility of modem access altering the count. The transfer of votes from the single machine into a server can be altered.

Vote counting using machines would be like sending up another shuttle without knowing that all the problems have been ironed out. These machines are a long way from being safe to use.

Hand counted Paper Ballots are the only way to fly.

[Woodstock]

29. Nobody is going back to hand counted paper ballots

That's not an alternative. Optical scanners were acceptable until the technology/testing/procedures/training was in place for a new system to replace them. The rush to implement something before it was ready - something that is worse than what we had - was a mistake.

[BeFree]

32. Go back, is what you do when you're lost

Why do you say it's not an alternative? Let's see, in Maryland alone, $55 million has been spent to count the vote maybe 10 hours faster than hand counted ballots....Man, $55 million put in the hands of some unemployed folks to do a little counting now and then seems like a far more profitable venture.

Optical scanners: Have you missed the point that those machines are not perfect, that they too are susceptible to alteration, corruption and hacking?

After reading the RABA semi-whitewash report, I am more convinced than ever that we are lost in a maze and our only recourse is to backtrack.

We can not rely on any machine counted voting at this time. The unknown knowns <grin> are well known to be unknowable.

[Woodstock]

38. After 2000, nobody will consider a hand counted paper ballot election

a viable ultimate solution. Not only is it not practical, but people will not trust it, either. The potential for abuse is there, too.

Maryland shouldn't have ditched the optical scanners. I'm aware they aren't perfect, but they should have held onto them until they had something better. In the meantime, the effectiveness and security of the existing system could have been improved at far less cost.

Now that they no longer have the optical scanners, hand counting paper ballots may be our only option. But this is not a long term solution - and if they do this, there will be a lot of controversy over this method, too.

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on this.

[SharonAnn]

27. Computers can be helpful for data input and for counting but

not in the same unauditable BBV machine.

Because you can program the screens, you can handle all kinds of languages and a variety of ballots in the same polling place. That could make them good for input and would save the problem of knowing how many ballots to print.

Or, you could have a PC at the polling place that printed a ballot for each person (we have voting at one polling place for different school board districts, wo that would help). people could mark the printed ballot and it could be fed into another machine to be scanned and counted (tallied).

Much cheaper than several expensive machines at each polling place. And this process would be auditable.

lots of ways to solve this if you want to use the benefits of technology and also preserve transparency and auditability.

[Woodstock]

30. Yes, there is much that can be done - but it wasn't

This is nowhere near ready for implementation.

It would take years to get it 1) done right 2) robustly tested 3) proper procedures in place/training.

[Kelvin Mace]

15. Here is the question that I want to ask MD officials...

Why haven't you sued Diebold for breach of contract and misrepresentation? Why haven't you begun a criminal fraud investigation?

$55 million in taxpayer money went into this crap and yet they do not work as promised, are not secure as promised and STILL haven't been fixed as promised FOUR MONTHS AGO!

David Allen
Publisher, CEO, Janitor
Plan Nine Publishing
http://www.plan9.org

[Andy_Stephenson]

17. Amen Brother.

Amen!

[JetJaguar]

18. And we don't even need new machines.

At least thats what this expert said.

"Buying new voting systems won't fix most of what caused the problems in this election," said R. Doug Lewis, executive director of the Election Center, a Houston-based nonprofit association of state and local election officials. "We're going to have to work on policies; we're going to have to work on procedures; and we're going to have to educate voters."

-R. Doug Lewis, February 19, 2001

[Andy_Stephenson]

19. Doug oh Doug...

When will you ever learn. I need to call Doug again real soon.

Politicians sweating heavily. I love it. They all have these quirks their "tells".

Were coming fellas...and we are taking our government back!

[BeFree]

20. Hot on their tails

Like a pack of bloodhounds sniffing out the trail of their lies and deceits, we are getting closer and closer. Soon enough we'll have them treed and the big guns will begin picking them off, one by one.

Our baying and howling has them running scared and their avenue of escape is getting narrower and narrower. C'mon everyone, join in the chase, the rising chorus of our democratic voices are making history! Don't be left out, don't be one of the few who regret not having been a part of the pack that caught the Black Box Bandits!

[Andy_Stephenson]

21. Damm...

I love the imagery you placed in ma head!

[BeFree]

24. Well, Andy

Consider it payback time!

Some of the images you've laid out over the years deserve to be rewarded. Thanks...

[Andy_Stephenson]

25. Who me?

<looks around> :)

[Jose Diablo]

31. The fix is in

is there a way to force the primary voting to use paper ballots?

Injuction maybe?

[loudsue]

33. Can't the VOTERS ask for an injunction??? It's WE who are harmed!

Can we do that in each state? And HOW do we do that in each state? We have to act NOW!

Look folks, we really need to get MoveOn's numbers, talent, connections and money in on this, to spend some of that lost Super Bowl ad money on lawyers in each state to stop this madness from going one step further.

For instance, "I" don't know George Soros, but the MoveOn folks sure do. Injunctions across the country would sure whoop up a lot of fuss, and draw attention to this.

By the way, Mr. Allen, the little bookstore I ordered several copies of BBV from (NOT one of the big chains...I'm supporting the little guys), has had a heckuvatime getting the copies from Plan9. Plan9 is just about an hour's drive from here. Are you guys being swamped by orders for it! That's what I've really been hoping!

I've ordered copies for several people, including representatives. I can't wait to see it in hard copy, though I've been reading it on the web.

I can't tell you BBV Patriots how much I LOVE YOU!!! Please keep up the good work! I really miss the DU update threads from the BBV insiders.

O8) Sending prayers for your safety and success! O8)

:kick::kick::kick::kick::kick::kick::kick:

[BevHarris]

35. Hey, LoudSue, we think alike.

Watch for an announcement this week from me. And I won't speak for others on this list, but they might have announcements soon too.

Bev

[loudsue]

39. Thanks Bev....

I only wish I was CAPABLE of thinking like you! You have your bases covered before the question has fully registered my brain! I'm so grateful for all you've done.

I look forward to hearing the new announcement....

It just keeps getting better all the time!

:kick::kick::kick: