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Swarthmore Students Keep Diebold Memos Online
An anonymous reader submits "Two student groups based out of Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania announced today that they are rejecting Diebold Elections Systems' cease-and-desist orders and are initiating an electronic civil disobedience campaign that will ensure permanent public access to the controversial leaked memos. You can read the memos, search the memos, or download the memos."
You can have a real effect on what is going to happen. Please take a few minutes to help us out with this action.
Here's how to help:
1) The students engaging in this civil disobedience are meeting with the Dean of their college Wednesday, October 22nd at 4pm. We need you to email *nice* and *supportive* emails to rgross1 (at) swarthmore.edu and cc them to info (at) why-war.com *before* October 22nd at 4pm EST. Please help Dean Bob Gross understand the importance of this issue!
2) Download the entire memo archive:
http://why-war.com/memos/s/lists.tgz
3) Join the disobedience by hosting the memos and posting the URL in this thread
SCDC: http://scdc.emegaweb.net/
Why War?: http://www.why-war.com/
Pleas join an existing, legitimate effort at http://verifiedvoting.org -
This site, rather than continually despairing at the fact that there are problems with electronic voting, has concrete steps that average citizens can take to make change.
Friday, 12 September 2003 (PDT)
.mdb file with MS-Access, and alter its contents. That includes the audit log. This isn't anything new. In VTS, you can open the database with progress and do the same. The same would go for anyone else's system using whatever database they are using. Hard drives are read-write entities. You can change their contents.
.mdb file. Even technical wizards at Metamor (or Ciber, or whatever) can figure that one out.
.mdb file to prevent Metamor from opening it with Access. I've threatened to put a password on the .mdb before when dealers/customers/support have done stupid things with the GEMS database structure using Access. Being able to end-run the database has admittedly got people out of a bind though. Jane (I thin
By Bev Harris - blackboxvoting.org
http://www.blackboxvoting.com
If certification isn't being done properly, the whole house of cards falls. Below are actual copies of internal Diebold memos which show that uncertified software is being used in elections, and that Diebold programmers intentionally end-run the system.
Quick backgrounder first, scroll down to see the memos.
BACKGROUND
Our voting system, which is part of the public commons has recently been privatized. When this happened, the counting of the votes, which must be a public process, subjected to the scrutiny of many eyes of plain old citizens, became a secret.
The computerized systems that register voters, will soon sign voters into the polling place using a digital smart card, record the vote we cast, and tally it are now so secret they are not allowed to be examined by any citizens group, or even by academics like the computer scientists at major universities.
The corporate justification for this secrecy is that these systems adhere to a list of "standards" put out by the Federal Election Commission, and that an "ITA" (Independent Testing Authority) carefully examines the voting system, which is then provided to states for their own certification.
As it turns out, the states typically do not examine the computer code at all, relying instead on a "Logic and Accuracy" test which will not catch fraud and has frequently missed software programming errors that cause the machines to miscount.
A Diebold message board has been used since 1999 to help technicians in the field interact with programmers to solve problems. The contents of this message board were quietly sent to reporters and activists around the world, most likely by a Diebold employee. In a letter to WiredNews, Diebold has acknowledged that these memos are from its own staff message boards.
Without further commentary, judge for yourself whether Diebold has been following certification requirements:
From Nel Finberg, Technical Writer, Diebold Election Systems
(Note: Metamor/Ciber is the ITA assigned to certify the software)
alteration of Audit Log in Access
To: "support"
Subject: alteration of Audit Log in Access
From: "Nel Finberg"
Date: Tue, 16 Oct 2001 23:31:30 -0700
Importance: Normal
Jennifer Price at Metamor (about to be Ciber) has indicated that she can access the GEMS Access database and alter the Audit log without entering a password. What is the position of our development staff on this issue? Can we justify this? Or should this be anathema?
Nel
Reply from Ken Clark, principal engineer for Diebold Election Systems
RE: alteration of Audit Log in Access
To:
Subject: RE: alteration of Audit Log in Access
From: "Ken Clark"
Date: Thu, 18 Oct 2001 09:55:02 -0700
Importance: Normal
In-reply-to:
Its a tough question, and it has a lot to do with perception. Of course everyone knows perception is reality.
Right now you can open GEMS'
Now, where the perception comes in is that its right now very *easy* to change the contents. Double click the
It is possible to put a secret password on the
Freenet.
Exactly why it exists.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
WARNING-Goatse man link!!
Swarthmore Students Keep Diebold Memos Online
litigious bastards
suck it sco!
From Nel Finberg, Technical Writer, Diebold Election Systems
(Note: Metamor/Ciber is the ITA assigned to certify the software)
alteration of Audit Log in Access
To: support
Subject: alteration of Audit Log in Access
From: Nel Finberg
Date: Tue, 16 Oct 2001 23:31:30 -0700
Importance: Normal
Jennifer Price at Metamor (about to be Ciber) has indicated that she can access the GEMS Access database and alter the Audit log without entering a password. What is the position of our development staff on this issue? Can we justify this? Or should this be anathema?
Nel
Reply from Ken Clark, principal engineer for Diebold Election Systems
RE: alteration of Audit Log in Access
To:
Subject: RE: alteration of Audit Log in Access
From: Ken Clark
Date: Thu, 18 Oct 2001 09:55:02 -0700
Importance: Normal
In-reply-to:
Its a tough question, and it has a lot to do with perception. Of course everyone knows perception is reality. .mdb file with MS-Access, and alter its contents.
That includes the audit log. This isn't anything new. In VTS, you can open the
database with progress and do the same. The same would go for anyone else's
system using whatever database they are using. Hard drives are read-write entities.
You can change their contents.
Right now you can open GEMS'
Now, where the perception comes in is that its right now very *easy* to change the contents. Double click the .mdb file. Even technical wizards at Metamor
(or Ciber, or whatever) can figure that one out.
It is possible to put a secret password on the .mdb file to prevent Metamor
from opening it with Access. I've threatened to put a password on the .mdb before
when dealers/customers/support have done stupid things with the GEMS database
structure using Access. Being able to end-run the database has admittedly got
people out of a bind though. Jane (I think it was Jane) did some fancy footwork
on the .mdb file in Gaston recently. I know our dealers do it. King County is
famous for it. That's why we've never put a password on the file before.
Note however that even if we put a password on the file, it doesn't really prove much. Someone has to know the password, else how would GEMS open it. So this technically brings us back to square one: the audit log is modifiable by that person at least (read, me). Back to perception though, if you don't bring this up you might skate through Metamor.
There might be some clever crypto techniques to make it even harder to change the log (for me, they guy with the password that is). We're talking big changes here though, and at the moment largely theoretical ones. I'd doubt that any of our competitors are that clever.
By the way, all of this is why Texas gets its sh*t in a knot over the log printer. Log printers are not read-write, so you don't have the problem. Of course if I were Texas I would be more worried about modifications to our electronic ballots than to our electron logs, but that is another story I guess.
Bottom line on Metamor is to find out what it is going to take to make them happy. You can try the old standard of the NT password gains access to the operating system, and that after that point all bets are off. You have to trust the person with the NT password at least. This is all about Florida, and we have had VTS certified in Florida under the status quo for nearly ten years.
I sense a loosing battle here though. The changes to put a password on the .mdb file are not trivial and probably not even backward compatible, but we'll
do it if that is what it is going to take.
Ken
Reply by Nel Finberg
RE: alteration of Audit Log in Access
To:
From http://www.indymedia.nl/nl/2003/10/14569.shtml: http://www.emptylogic.com/suprnova/torrents/451/li sts.tgz.torrent
Enjoy!
Withdrawal before climax is very ineffective and those who try this are usually called "parents."
Read my rant here.
http://saveie6.com/
Courtesy of the Seattle Indymedia site.r nalmemos.pdf . html
http://d176.whartonab.swarthmore.edu/
http://d176.whartonab.swarthmore.edu/diebold_inte
http://noisebox.cypherpunks.to/~visible/vote/vote
http://www.scifience.net/
http://emdx.org/r.php?U=BBV
http://opium.mine.nu/bbv/
http://centipede.provocation.net/diebold/
http://localh.kicks-ass.org/bbv/
http://d125.wortha.swarthmore.edu/
Source thread on Indymedia if you are interested.
These are my two best servers. Though I must admit, they have never had a severe bandwidth test. I guess its about time.
Please provide other mirrors if you can.
Here you go:
mirror1.coolmacguy.com/lists.gtar
mirror2.coolmacguy.com/lists.gtar
-You may license this sig for only $6.99.
they've been doing most of the grunt work on this issue. Bev Harris deserves alot of credit. They have a really easy way to donate on their front page. 2 paypal buttons, 1 is a one time payment, the other is a $1.99 supscription. 2 bucks a month is cheap if you consider what these people are trying to do. So please help them out.
Available here. Someone please mirror this torrent, uploadit.org probably can't host it for too long.
Torrent is built with backup trackers, so if you're using TheSHAD0W's experimental client it will fall-back to the next tracker in line if one is down.
Try this bittorrent mirror link; this torrent uses multiple trackers so even if the tracker is taken down it will still work, as long as there are seeds connected (or even once complete copy of the file across all the downloaders).
okay, I know this is half a joke, and I am drunk right now so I should probably jsut not answer, but.. I grew up a quaker and have done some research into it
there are many different types of quakerism.. 3 main branches, i grew up in the most liberal ( www.fgcquaker.org ) i think nixon was in EFI, which is basically like baptist.. i don't even know why they call themselves quaker (they don't reallly beleive anything that it was based on.
the other group is FUM.. they seem nice but i haven't really dealt with them
they are mor conservative than fgc but still openminded.. they have a more close minded doctrine but the individuals seem cool
afsc is mostly fgc i think
Would that be the same cultural revolution where they shut down the universities and shot all the hippy-pinko professors?
This was the rallying cry of the united fronts of the 1930s trying desperately to stop the spread of Nazism and fascism in Europe. When the most immediate threat to your freedom comes from brownshirts, an alliance with the extreme left is quite prudent.
The sad fact is that Stalin's lamentable ``Social Democracy is objectively the moderate wing of Fascism'' divided the anti-fascists so much that there was nobody to stop Hitler until it was too late.
In Berlin in 1933, from any standpoint not alien to modern American norms of morality, there were no enemies to the left.
To suggest that somehow the post-Maoist state capitalism practiced in PRC now is somehow the same thing as Bolshevism, much less the same as Marxism or Catalan-style anarcho-syndicalism, is simply hallucinatory. One might assert with equal validity that Social Catholicism, white separatism, extreme laissez-faire capitalism (a.k.a. pure `liberalism' in the true sense of the word), English Conservatism, and Falangism are all the same thing. And only Stalin would say that.
In principio creauit Linus Linucem.
"This would completely knock Watergate out of the history books."
Would it?
Watergate was an incident of a political party's attempt to manipulate an election. The perpetrators were caught, and even a conservative view of the facts indicates that members of the highest level of government conspired to coverup the incident. The effort was a failure, and led ultimately to the only resignation of a sitting US president in history.
The Diebold situation seems to consist of a correspondence record of some engineers and managers who botched the quality control phase of a project. The closest thing to a crime indicated here, would be on the hands of whoever allowed an uncertified product to be used in a public venue where certification was required.
I'm afraid Watergate still holds its place on the scale of national scandals. There's really no evidence that Diebold's incompetence is because they have been instructed by a political party. There is some evidence for negligence though. I wouldn't want to be ANY of the people whose names are on these memos, at least not while looking for my next job.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
I find that the legal climate concerning publications about computer security is becoming such that research in this area is increasingly being put in jeopardy. In large part this comes about as a result ofthe DMCA, but the problems that the DMCA cause are being exacerbated by companies issuing gag orders on publications that they find embarrassing or annoying. Should this be allowed to continue, fundamental research in the area ofcomputer security may well become an underground activity - with prior restraint on publication, gag orders on publications that do make it out and severe penalties on those who support or condone such publications or even such research even at second hand.
I urge Swarthmore to contest this legal threat and to continue to support academic freedom on all levels.