Students, ISP Sue Diebold

Quixotic1 writes "The campaign against Diebold that began as electronic civil disobedience took an exciting turn today as the EFF announced that they were filing suit against Diebold for abuse of copyright claims. They will be representing Swarthmore College students and the ISP Online Policy Group, who hosted and linked to copies of controversial internal memos."

Comments

Awesome

[randyest]

Fantastic. I was afraid Diebold might be able to C&D this under the rug, and even took (perhaps useless) precautions of "archiving" the incriminating memos in several places (floppies, p2ps, random servers for which I have pw's . . . ). But, it seems like this will see the light of day. This choice quote is a good summary:

"Diebold's blanket cease-and-desist notices are a blatant abuse of copyright law," said EFF Staff Attorney Wendy Seltzer. "Publication of the Diebold documents is clear fair use because of their importance to the public debate over the accuracy of electronic voting machines."

Indeed. Better still:

"Instead of paying lawyers to threaten its critics, Diebold should invest in creating electronic voting machines that include voter-verified paper ballots and other security protections," said EFF Legal Director Cindy Cohn.

Or just give up and leave it to someone else. Diebold's credibility is ruined, IMHO. If you don't agree, read those memos flying around. Systemic fraud exists in Diebold's practices. The should be nailed. And not like Enron, really nailed.

Shady?

[Scalli0n]

From what I read in the article/press release by the EFF, this is going to be a fairly shaky case;

"Publication of the Diebold documents is clear fair use because of their importance to the public debate over the accuracy of electronic voting machines."

How that statement is going to hold up in court would be very interesting; it's debatable how much we the people (in the eyes of the court) should know about the internal workings.

For example, I'd imagine that's why we don't get to listen in on the Supreme Court's discussions; that's a basis for our democratic process, but we don't watch it, we aren't allowed to (no big fuss about that either).

Blah, I don't know what I'm talking about.
Sig & Below

Re:Shady?

[RabidChipmunk]

"they were gov't documents"

Well now, this does bring up an interesting question. What makes something a governnment document? If it was created solely for the purpose of performing government business, is only meaningfull within the government and plays a vital role in the functioning of that government? Doesn't that make it a govenment document, even if the people who wrote it were technically private/contractors?

Wouldn't this arguement apply to a lot of [all?] contracted government services? It is applied if they are social services. Why not software services? This should make all government software a public document.

Lots of interesting issues here.

[Sheetrock]

If you fail to properly secure your website, do you lose copyright interest in your information?

If I was a (hypothetical) member of the Diebold mailing list, and there were a few e-mails in that bunch that I authored, do I retain copyright on my e-mail? I always assumed I was offering a non-exclusive right to the audience of the list to read/retain/copy/etc., but if that audience increases without my knowledge or consent do I lose the legal right to complain?

When the media reports on specific items in the memos, do lawyers/judges figure the toothpaste is pretty much out of the tube at this point or is there the possibility of going after reporters?

Re:You can kill a revolutionary

[quantaman]

...but you can't kill a revolution. You see this is why i favor revolution to voting. You don't run into these problems.

Yeah, I know it's a joke but I'll bite anyways. The problem with revolutions is that they tend to get a lot of other people killed as well, not just revolutionaries, in fact a lot more often than is desirable the people who win the revolution are not the people generally desired to lead but the ones who are most successful at killing the other side. Always remember
dreams of perfect society + bloody revolution = bloody dictatorship

That being said there becomes a point where a political system degrades far enough some kind of revolution may be in the long term interest. If this Diebold problem isn't fixed fast (i.e.before the next US presidential election) than the US may find the foundations of their political system in very serious trouble. No I'm not saying you guys should have a revolution ;) but don't rest until this issue is resolved in a manner that allows democracy to continue.

I'm a poor student livin' on loans

[blach]

but I still scraped up 10$ and donated to the EFF using PayPal.

I really encourage everyone to do the same. Lawsuits don't come cheaply.

James

If you want it done right...

[dcfix]

Hire the guys that create the lottery machines. They're incredibly secure, yet easy enough for convience store clerks to operate. Due to performance riders (the software company pays penalties if the system goes down) they're extremely stable. They sure as hell don't slip patches in when no one is looking.

Seems like a no-brainer to me.

Reminds me so much of MS

[serutan]

Favorite quote - at the bottom:
"4K Smart cards which had never been previously programmed are being recognized by the Card Manager as manager cards."

Reminds me of the Win2K/XP feature that makes you an Admin if you insert an install disk.

NPR

[docmittens]

All Things Considered ran a good overview tonight of the Diebold story.

Cited are critiques of security and even poor code quality, the guts of internal memos now floating around, Diebold's threats against ISPs, and comments from the EFF.

(Runtime, 4:50; RealPlayer or WMP required)

Was the voting software written off-shore?

[Anonymous Coward]

Diebold HMA to become software-sourcing hub for Diebold Inc

Nitya Varadarajan

Chennai, March 7: Diebold HMA, a joint venture with 50:50 holding between Diebold Inc and HMA Data Systems in Chennai, will be expanding its software development operations for Diebold Inc's operations worldwide ... rest of article

Re:You can kill a revolutionary

[geoffspear]

Or it might be because he's never seen a single protester. Protesters at Bush events are put into "Free Speech Zones" far from the actual event.

As one guy who was arrested for refusing to move to one of those zones put it, "I thought the whole country was a free speech zone."

Great scheduling

[Animats]

The EFF arranged for the hearing on this matter to be held on election day. Tomorrow. With a press conference after the hearing, at the Federal courthouse in San Francisco.

It's not clear whether they'll win a preliminary injunction, but there's a good chance of it. Either way, it's great PR.