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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."
...but you can't kill a revolution. You see this is why i favor revolution to voting. You don't run into these problems.
"It is not how things are in the world that is mystical, but that it exists." -Ludwig Wittgenstein
Those memos are very interesting. They show that the Diebold people did not care a bit for the elections.
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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.
everything in moderation
here are all the memos for your browsing pleasure:
http://tapdance.sourceforge.net/diebold/
hope this helps
Investing forum
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
Sig & Below
Yuck Fou
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?
Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.
-- Dr. Spock, stardate 2822-3.
Pending: your vote is now the property of Diebold, Inc. Any attempt on your part to ascertain the disposition of your vote is hereby declared to be in violation of federal law, e.g., the Digital Millenium Copyright Act.
You have the right not to vote. Any vote you make can be used against you in a court of law. The judge presiding in such a court of law may be appointed by Diebold, Inc., and need not require a jury, but if a jury is summoned, it need not be a jury of your peers.
By acting to vote you consent to our determining whether your vote is valid, and in the event it is judged not to be valid, you consent to our voiding your vote and further voiding your right to vote in the future.
You furthermore acknowledge that owing to storage and bandwidth limitations that Diebold, Inc., may experience, your vote may be digitally compressed in a way such that your true intent in casting the vote may be lost. If such an eventuality should occur, your vote may be determined using statistical data derived from any source we deem appropriate or convenient.
You have the right to protest if your vote is cancelled, altered, or in any way modified as the result of such action on our part, however, you hereby acknowledge that in such an eventuality, Diebold, Inc. may determine that your right to vote is deleterious to democracy as implement by Diebold, Inc., and therefore may be considered to be an overt act against the national security of these United States.
You have 10 seconds to comply.
God Bless America.
"There are two major products that come out of Berkeley: LSD and UNIX. We don't believe this to be a coincidence."
Now's a good time to Donate to the EFF. As we all now, small donations can add up to a lot, if people who care pitch in.
If you agree with the EFF's decision to stand up to Diebold, then I may suggest making a small donation to the EFF to show your support.
... and everyone else should too, if you can possibly afford it. This case is the tipping point for me. I've always admired the EFF's work, but most of it hasn't affected me personally. The voting machine issue affects everyone in the US, and given the importance of the US globally, everyone on Earth. Put your money where your mouth is.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
If you want to cause trouble for them, just demand a recount. When it is found to be impossible, people will notice. For the conspiracy minded, notice that the loser didn't contest the election and demand a recount - This makes sense if you think they are all really on the same side and the public is the enemy. I'm not that cynical yet, but a lot of /. readers are :-)
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
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.
What cod piece?
If you want to cause trouble for them, just demand a recount. When it is found to be impossible, people will notice.
How I wish.
But they covered that: If you demand a manual recount, they print the database as hardcopy individual ballots, for humans to hand count.
Of course the count comes out the same. (Unless a human goofs, of course.)
And of course if the issue was that the database was corrupted, the recount means nothing.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
My question is this:
There seems to be many, many people who are very passionate about this issue. Why can't someone produce a talented team to produce a free, open source alternative to Diebold's system and then pitch it to concerned governments?
Slot machines in Vegas don't serve the same purpose as voting machines, but the system set up to regulate those slot machines, their manufacture, programming, every part of their operation, is very secure. Voting machines are just another example of an industry prime for careful regulation.
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.
Tie in voting with slot machines and people will vote in droves!
Punch in your vote, pull the lever, get a receipt and maybe a jackpot!
-- secret asIAN man (not Secret Asian Man)
Actually, the government as an entity isn't legally capable of holding a copyright - works produced by it are, by definition, in the public domain. You'd think this would mean that legal documents are public domain, too, which they are - except that they hire specific companies to transcribe them into usable form, and said companies hold the copyright on the LINE NUMBERING of the resultant documents. Spit.
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)
and she was born in a bottle-rocket 1929.
Diebold HMA to become software-sourcing hub for Diebold Inc
... rest of article
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
Once the originals of the memos have been presented in court don't they become something that anyone can read as part of the court record? If so at the least the EFF could post the court transcripts and make the memos public that way.
And NPR just ran a story on it
9 09 01
http://www.npr.org/features/feature.php?wfId=14
The Constitution of NH includes as Article 10:
[Art.] 10. [Right of Revolution.] Government being instituted for the common benefit, protection, and security, of the whole community, and not for the private interest or emolument of any one man, family, or class of men; therefore, whenever the ends of government are perverted, and public liberty manifestly endangered, and all other means of redress are ineffectual, the people may, and of right ought to reform the old, or establish a new government. The doctrine of nonresistance ag ainst arbitrary power, and oppression, is absurd, slavish, and destructive of the good and happiness of mankind.
This is one of the most clearly delineated passages anywhere in American law pertaining to the ultimate rights and, more importantly, RESPONSIBILITIES of citizens.
"Live Free or Diebold."
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
Scientology documents have marketable value; ie they were made available to high level members who pay money to achieve that high a level in the Scientology organisation. It is therefore possible to argue that the Scientology documents lose value as a tool to encourage members to progess within the organisation (and get access to thee documents) if made publicly available.
So there is a difference between these cases.
OK, I've been doing a little background reading, and my question is, how are internal memos copyrightable? Isn't a copyright supposed to be issued to a work for sale? Unless someone in the company is selling copies of the internal memos, how is it protected?
If they wanted to protect the information, couldn't they invoke Trade Secrets? It would seem to me a better path than copyright.
Of course, couldn't Diebold be liable for sedition? They are trying to usurp the power of the election, something clearly listed and enumerated in the Constitution. Of course, I'm not a lawyer, check out the wording.
http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/2384.html
I recall reading an article on CNN a couple years ago (if anyone has a link, please post -- tried to find it quickly but was unable) where a guy received a nasty C&D letter when he posted a copy of his state laws on the Internet.
Apparently his state had contracted a publisher to print books with all the state laws. Said publisher claimed a copyright to the laws themselves and claimed that his website was hurting their business. As I recall he backed down -- he probably could have challenged it, but who wants to spend the money on a lawyer?
In any case, WTF is wrong with that picture? My state (NY) posts all of the state laws (Penal, DMV, Liquor, etc etc) on the State Assembly webpage. Shouldn't this be a model for everybody?
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Remember the DirecTV extortion case? The people complaining about the extortion not only got slapped down by the court, the court made them pay DirecTVs legal costs to the tune of $100,000. Same thing will happen here.
The courts hate people challenging copyright.
But this is a fight we have to take on locally. Find out what's used in your district. If they use black-box machines with no paper trail (virtually everyone does) then hit 'em with a big ole ream of this. Send it your city councilmember, call your Congresscritter and your Senators, bitch to your local paper, blog. Do something.
My favourite excerpts:
Or how about:
Or even:
Makes me feel all warm and gooey inside, but not in that comfortable, sated, internally glowing way. In that queasy, rumbling, internally bleeding, hosting-an-Alien-baby kind of way.
Not quite that blatant. The Uniform Building Code is written and published by a private organization. Local governments will sometimes (usually) adopt the UBC "by reference," which essentially means passing an ordinance saying that the UBC published in such and so year shall have the force of law within that city.
They do so without including the UBC's text, however. My own city did that for our traffic law, passing an ordinance stating that the Colorado Model Traffic Code is adopted by reference, with homegrown penalty provisions. (For you Coloradans, it's Article Four of Title 42 of the Colorado Revised Statutes, less licensing/registration/insurance provisions and DUI. Since the MTC comes from the legislature anyway, it doesn't really matter.)
So, the publisher still owns the UBC. It's just being used by a local government. Or so the story goes.
It's also been tried here with one particular form of statute book. I have three current ones on my shelf: the Colorado Peace Officer's Handbook, the Colorado Peace Officer's Legal Sourcebook, and the Colorado Revised Statutes Pertaining to Criminal Law. Three separate compilations from three separate publishers: one for-profit and two not-for-profit. The value-added features are copyright, such that I (hypothetically: they're culled word-for-word from the standard jury instructions) can't re-sell copies of the Handbook's misdemeanor charging section.
The actual text of a given law, however, is not copyright. But then, the legislature did not adopt CRS 18-3-206 "Menacing" by reference to a private publication, but instead wrote it themselves.
And either this clarified things or confused the hell out of you. Law stuff can do both at once.
I'm no grammar expert, but I'd like to point out that some people miss 1 or 2 of the commas in the 2nd Amendment. From the Library of Congress version, there are 3 commas. "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed." This sentence has 4 phrases. Not one of these phrases alone is a clause and cannot stand independently; no phrase has the proper subject-verb relationship to convey a complete thought. The phrase "being necessary to the security of a free state" is a present participle; it acts as an adjective modifying the noun "[a well regulated] militia." It contains neither the subject nor verb of the sentence. Taken together, "a well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state," is an absolute phrase; absolute phrases do not modify any specific word in a sentence, but rather modify the entire sentence by providing context. "The right of the people to keep and bear arms" is the subject phrase of the sentence. The subject is "the right." "Of the people" and "to keep and bear arms" are prepositional phrases modifying "the right." "Shall not be infringed" is the verb phrase of the sentence. "Shall not be" is an auxiliary verb string modifying the main verb "infringed."
Therefore, the main idea conveyed by this sentence is "the right shall not be infringed."
I hope Diebold doesn't settle or withdraw their claims. Or if they do, then the EFF doesn't accept or withdraw their suit.
I hope the EFF take Diebold to court and subpoena them for all their worth. Get to the bottom of this. Establish a public record of just how incompetent or, more likely, corrupt these voting system companies can be. Call in expert witnesses. Depose the (largely Republican) executives. Find records of the communications Diebold has been having with election officials across the country, and why they haven't been doing their jobs. Shame them into getting a clue. Anything they can think of to establish the truth about how our democracy (?) is being run.
What's that old saying? "Open mouth, shoot self in foot." Something like that.
Diebold might win this case, but just the fact that it is being brought means that they have lost. All the facts will be aired and Diebold will lose the public trust. It's hard to imagine how a voting machine company could continue to operate under those circumstances.
But on to the case itself: According to the traditional four points courts consider in determing fair use, I'd say the EFF has a pretty reasonable case. (Though the DMCA will probably come into play and, as we all know, the DMCA can shred fair use rights entirely).
Here is my layman's analysis of the four points of Fair Use as they apply here:
1. "The nature of the copyrighted work"
As a long, factual type of work (as opposed to a work of artistic expression, something highly creative and original, or something like a short poem or song), these memos will enjoy the LEAST possible amount of protection of any kind of work, under this point. This point clearly weighs towards the students/ISPs.
2. "The purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes"
The character of the use is clearly non-commercial, which weighs heavily in favor of fair use. Especially since students and a university were involved, there could be some argument made about "nonprofit" and "educational purposes". Here, too, is where EFF can argue convincincly that it is in the public interest to have these important documents in full public view. Furthermore, extracts from or summaries of the documents would not serve the public interest in the same way that the full set of verbatim documents do.
3. "The amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole"
This is the only point that weighs heavily against the students/ISPs. Unfortunately, some judges will find in favor of the copyright holder if even ONE of the four points weighs in favor of the copyright holder.
4. "The effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work." The market value of the literary copyright on this work is $0, and this weighs heavily in favor of the students/ISPs. Diebold never intended to sell these documents or make a profit from their copyright on these documents.
Entirely irrelevant is the fact that Diebold may lose money because of negative publicity or as a result of the revelation of embarrassing information in the copyrighted material. I believe that there is good precedent on this matter (though I'll have to leave it to the lawyers among you for the details).
The court is supposed to weigh all four factors together. Three of the four factors weigh towards the students/ISPs, which is certainly good. But I did happen to read a case not that long ago (not being a lawyer, I can't give the citation, sorry) in which the judge summed up very similar to they way I just did, found that 3 of the 4 points clearly favored Fair Use, and then ruled for the copyright holder. In his opinion, the fact that ALL of the work had been copied outweighed all the rest of the points. (I seem to recall that the case was actually rather similar to this one, and involved verbatim copying of "Church" of Scientology documents which proved various nefarious actions on the part of church members.)
Someone said that copyright doesn't apply until something is published. That isn't true (at least in the U.S.) and hasn't been for many years (since 1979?). Copyright in a work exists from the moment it is fixed in a tangible medium (ie, from the moment it is written, typed, recorded, videotaped, etc. etc.).
No copyright registration or copyright notice is required. However--the damages that can be collected are severely limited if the work was not registered with the copyright office BEFORE the violations occured.
The copyright for the Memos was certainly not registered when this whole t
Where are you getting gun ownership data from? Iraq had much more liberal gun laws (as in, letting people have more access to guns) then the US, and they were not nearly as well enforced. Lots of people had pistols and even Kalishnakov assault rifles. Even today you see people who still have plenty of missiles and mortars and grenades and such.
I know the CPA has been trying to crack down on gun ownership, but I'd be surprised if there is less gun ownership there then here.
(so much for an armed populous preventing dictatorships as the NRA people seem to think)
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
It might be a better idea to contact your state and county governments, who control those things now and make sure they know how you feel before the election.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
"How can one of Bush's top fundraisers be allowed to run the company producing the computerized voting machines to tally his votes in the next coup de corp?"
How could you claim to be a free country if you had a law that specifically prevented that individual from doing so? The conflict of interest is clear, perhaps, but there seems to be no problem with disclosure. You want to be the first one down the slope where you decide what ventures people may or may not invest in? You want to use the theory that there might be a vast right-wing conspiracy as your criterion to make that decision? You willing to do this without evidence?
The Diebold memos are evidence of poor management, and poor quality control processes. Possibly there is even evidence of some fraud, but it looks like the fraud is limited to a coverup of quality deficiencies. It's a long, long way from here to exposing the conspiracy that finally brings down the house of cards on top of The Man.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
Hi,
On my way to donate I noticed that they were a 501(c)3 non-profit organization. I thought that political groups were not allowed to be claimed as non-profit? Where exactly is the line drawn?
thanks
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.
Hey, why not use this ability to submit Propositions for something good, and use them to outlaw closed source, paper trail-less, unaudtable voting machines like Diebold's here in Alameda County.
It would be good if this could get on the March primary ballot, so that there'd be time to ditch them before November, and for other states to realize that they should ditch them, too.
I did just realize, there's a huge conflict of interest with using Diebold voting machines to count votes on an anti-Diebold proposition. We'd have to conduct opinion and exit polls to make sure that the results of the election agreed with how people actually though, since Diebold has already shown that they can't be trusted, and often get the wrong results (always in favor of Republicans, it seems).
Students sue Diebold?
What is this? Soviet Russia?
__ Someday, but not this morning, I'll finally learn to use the preview button.
NPR did about 10 minutes about the suit this afternoon on All Things Considered. They even had Wendy on. Also, a good overview about the problems with the machines. It appears the mainstream media is catching on to this. Shall we start a pool on when Faux News picks it up? (My guess is never!)