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Diebold Folds In DMCA E-Voting Lawsuit
sunbird writes "Diebold has filed a responsive pleading (PDF) in the lawsuit brought by the Electronic Frontier Foundation to challenge Diebold's practice of using the DMCA to suppress discussion of the critical flaws with electronic voting. Diebold states that it has "decided to withdraw its existing DMCA notifications and not to issue any further ones . . . ." Other recent developments include: this transcript of the court hearing on EFF's application for a preliminary injunction and Dennis Kucinich's linking to Diebold memos from his webpage at the U.S. House of Representatives. Stay tuned- the judge has scheduled a status conference for this Monday in the case."
Talk about a poorly crafted piece of legislation. There are so many ways to abuse this ridiculous thing. It really needs to be amended to get rid of all of these legal like mechanisms that do not involve the courts. You should have to get a judge to issue an injunction to take material offline, not just say "You have to do it".
Diebold's defense that the plantiffs "did not suffer irreparable harm" because Diebold didn't actually sue them is outrageous. The threat to sue, especially by a party with deep pockets vs a small party definitely causes a chilling effect on free speech. If Diebold had not intention to sue, why did they ask for the material to be removed?
Now it's time for the substantive discussion of how best to tally the votes and ensure it is done accurately and impartially. This needs to be done in open public discussions by people who really know how to design and peer review such systems.
I'd like to take this moment to publically thank, congratulate, and otherwise embarass my illustrious former roommate, David Weekly. Alot of people talk about problems, like how alot of people talk about "Gee, how tragic is Zero Tolerance for all these kids, oh look, another one just got expelled for learning the word 'Knife'!"
Most people don't do anything. David Weekly did.
He stepped up, fought back against Diebold, and brought justice -- not just for himself (he's the founder of the California Community Colocation Project, so the ISP takedown notices directly affected him), not just for the four college kids attacked by Diebold, but for all of us here and for everybody with a stake in the perceived integrity of the American vote.
That's some damn fine work, David. Thanks! And thanks to everyone at EFF and OPG who fought this battle with him too!
Yours Truly,
Dan Kaminsky
DoxPara Research
http://www.doxpara.com
I don't think that their systems are faulty really. I think they work exactly as designed.
"It is not how things are in the world that is mystical, but that it exists." -Ludwig Wittgenstein
I just read this in conjunction with the story on Best Buy and FatWallet, and I can only hope, maybe people are finally seeing the DMCA the way we see it. Here we have two cases against major companies challenging the DMCA for its chilling effects. How long before it works its way up to the Supreme Court?
It's not a win unless the EFF wins the actual case. Although the main intent behind the suits was to stop Diebold from issuing any more takedown letters citing copyright, a successful injunction against Diebold would have sent a very strong message against any future abuses of copyright in ways contrary to the public good (ie, interference with 1st amendment protections.)
If the judge allows dismissal, the EFF misses a slam dunk chance to nibble away at corporate abuse (ie, the DMCA stands, Diebold gets away with saying "Oops, we really didn't mean to stifle free speech. We promise not to do it again *crossing fingers*" While OGP will probably be relieved that they won't have to go to the time and expense of trial, we're just postponing the inevitable courtroom clash between individual freedom and corporate manipulation of federal law.
The Republicans are firmly in the pockets of Computer Hardware and Software manufacturers that want to keep the DMCA to prevent competitors from copying products and making compatable ones.
The Democrats are firmly in the pockets of the RIAA and MPAA that want to keep the DMCA to help them keep their strangleholds in thier markets.
Everyone else has an icecube's chance in hell of getting in regardless of who funds their habits.
It is worth mentioning Mr. Kucinich is trying to get the presidential nomination and has very little financial contamination from the formentioned industries. $36,275 from TV, movies, and music industry and $25,590 from the computer industry out of $3,399,709 total.
Any sufficiently advanced influence is indistinguishable from control.
Take a look at The Register's article as mentioned a few days ago here in regards to the MP/RIAA seeking anti-trust exemption...
"Hatch said the big studios and major record labels need the exemption because of "market realities...The bill authorizes appropriations to ensure that all Department of Justice units that investigate intellectual property crimes have the support of at least one agent specifically trained in the investigation of such crimes," he said last week."
Why isn't the DOJ doing this? I'm sure that the DOJ and the FBI have models in place for persuing internet fraud and cracking cases (yes I know this is not the best comparison theft vis a vis copyright infringement), so until the DOJ gets Copyright agents, the RIAA/MPAA is acting as an affiliate of the government and conducting searches without due process.
Anyway, this is my take on it
-B
I think maybe you are confusing this with IBM's countersuit against SCO. In this case, there was no precident that could be set either way. (AFAIK, IANAL)
What happened at the hearing was that the judge made it clear that he was going to provide declarative relief in favor of the plaintiff, although not an injunction on the question of the fair use of all 13,000 emails. It isn't always as crystal clear from the hearing what the judge will do, but check out this comment from the Judge:
You can see how he's not going to go for an injunction if you read the whole hearing transcript.
One very importaint thing, it became clear that because of precidents set in the Scientology case, if Diebold had sued, the court was going to have to go through all the emails and decide on a case-by-case basis which of them are subject to fair-use protections and which aren't because they contain no public-interest material or contain an overwhelming abundance of "how-to/how-not-to" information with commercial value. From a technical perspective, of course, we have already seen how some of the source code with respect to weak encryption has some of the most importaint public-interest information. There is no way any judge would be savvy enough to catch that on the first go-round, and so this would have been a real money-loser for the good guys.
So, I am very glad this didn't go to trial.
This is from the Kucinich Blog from June 20, 2003. Americans have become very sensitized to manipulation of the vote since the debacles in the 2000 presidential elections. All over america, people are expressing to me their concerns about honest elections, about election technologies, about the ownership of voting machine suppliers, about the potential for fraud...all of which can undermine our democracy. We need solutions. Here's what we can do: we can organize in every community across this country into citizen groups of individuals with technical expertise in computer programming, systems design, and working knowledge of elections. These precinct activists can begin immediately to create a template for securing the 2004 vote. The elements of such a program might include: taking action to gain access to inspect the technology, to learn what safeguards have been put in place to make sure that no coflicts of interests are involved, and to make sure there are no problems with the chain of custody. What I'm advocating is monitoring the vote. Maybe we should call it MTV2004...Monitor the vote 2004. Perhaps we could begin to post our ideas to the wiki www.civicactions.org. We will need to organize state by state or county by county. If anyone has any ideas, please go to the wiki and let's act collectively to ensure a fair election in 2004. (lifted from his Blog under his CC license).
Just last week, he blasted the FBI for stripping away the constitution. All from a man who 25 years ago, on Dec 25, 1978, refused to sell Clevelands municipal electric company under threat of political death. He stood by his principles and sacrificed his career. After a few years and hundreds of millions in savings, the people brought him back. If there is ever a candidate for president who supports rights of netizens, and "we the people", this is him. Consider a Thanksgiving day gift .
Better yet, make the voting machines dispense cash, and the ATMs to let you vote.
That should increase voter turnout.
You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
Screw the EFF case, the one that really matters is whether we get fair votes or not.
Down in Florida they showed just what the GOP is capable of, forget the recount. Before the poll even took place the Republicans disqualified over 150,000 voters, mostly black on bogus grounds. One man was disqualified because of a conviction in 2007!
The 'scrub' list was compilled by a GOP connected firm, despite the fact that their bid was $2.5 million rather than the $57 thousand one of the other companies bid. The list was compiled by matching the first four letters of the voters name, the date of birth and the race of the voter. This is how the poll was fixed, a white voter would not lose their vote because of a black convict still in jail in Texas.
There were also tricks played with the voting machines, not just the mechanical chad ridden ones. The optical scanners can be configured to reject a ballot if an error is detected or to silently consume it. The error can be voter error or machine error.
Well guess what? In the white areas the GOP configured the machines to give the voter another try if there was a problem. In the black areas the exact same machine was configured to silently eat the ballot. That is why the rates of miscounts were so much higher in the black areas (12%) than the white areas (1%). Easy when you know how.
Click on my sig and read the Pallast article which gives the blow by blow account. And before you squeak "bias" - the inquiry vindicated every one of the NAACP allegations. Only by that time Katherine Harris and the GOP had got away with it.
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