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Feds to Open BlackBoxVoting User Logs?
Doc Ruby writes "Investigating a crack of eVoting company VoteHere, the FBI is said to be issuing a subpoena for the traffic logs of journalist Beverly Harris' BlackBoxVoting website. The FBI is pursuing Harris on the theory that her site is the connection between incriminating memos leaked from (VoteHere competitor) Diebold and the intrusion into VoteHere's servers. Are you on the list?"
They can't subpoena something that doesn't exist...if sites with potentially controversial content make a policy of not keeping logs more than 24 hours (or even better, simply write the logs to /dev/null) then there's nothing at all for the FBI, NSA, etc. to subpoena.
I'm surprised they don't do this already.
Actually, if this were a slashdot article eons ago, it probably got slashdotted, and thus have lots of slashketeers on their list. Those that cared to RTFA, anyway...so that drops it down to a handful. :)
Guess here's one of those instances where it pays NOT to RTFA. Like we ever do anyway.
How about the feds crack down on the companies that make this terrible software in the first place?
...there isn't enough epithets I could hurl right now at the level of inanity at this. You have a case where the firms entrusted to provide equipment & services to THE most critical democratic process are in need of investigation more than anything else. The hubris and incompetance is fucking staggering.
This administration is easily outpacing the chicanery of Harding, Fillmore, and Tyler combined.
This is so wrong. We're talking about electronic voting, something which demands security (and transparency, but never mind the apparent paradox just now) and they're not concerned that someone has broken into their network? That's like the police not being worried that someone has been wandering around the evidence room.
Next, "A crime is a crime is a crime". Not only is that redundant but unless you're speaking algebraically it's a bunch of bullshit. In court, your method, your motive, and whether or not your hair is neatly parted and whether or not you've flossed that morning all have a profound effect upon the results of your trial. Furthermore there is a big difference between (say) accessing someone's network for monetary gain, accessing someone's network for the purposes of just defacing it, or accessing someone's network in the pursuit of liberty. Today, that sounds cheesy and fake, which makes me sad. There are valid reasons to break the law. Sometimes when you break the law for a valid reason you are punished anyway, and sometimes not, which is a risk you take - but please allow me to remind you or inform you all (as appropriate) that here in the US of A evidence gathered during the comission of a crime by a private party is admissable in court, but evidence gathered by a police officer which he has to commit a crime to collect is not (typically) so clearly society recognizes some cases in which it might be a good idea to allow selective enforcement of the law.
Maybe I just rant too readily, but I don't like this guy already.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Bev Harris Speaks on Secret Service Issue
Apparently a judge somewhere has been shown enough information to think that a search of the site is warranted...
Not judge. Grand Jury.
"Just a bunch of citizens" meeting in secret and nosing into anything a prosecurot thinks might be a sign that a crime might have been committed.
Because their proceedings are (allegedly) secret and the details of their deliberations do NOT become either public record or evidence usable at a trial, claims of privilege and immunity to search do not pull much weight.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Apparently a judge somewhere has been shown enough information to think that a search of the site is warranted...
"A judge somewhere"... Exactly the problem, here. Thanks to the lack of clear jurisdictions containing a given website, the FBI can pretty much take their pick of every judge in the country to find one willing to issue a warrant on this. Consider me not exactly inspired with confidence on the justification for the issue of this warrant.
Gotta trust the system
No, we don't. Hear that sound? The founding fathers just broke mach-1 turning over in thier graves at your suggestion. A significant portion of the US constitution describes how to properly replace it when, not if, we need to overthrow an overly oppressive government. We cannot, and should not, trust the system. The system exists to extract real labor from you in exchange for purely token compensation. Nothing more, nothing less.
If you still trust the system, I hope you've enjoyed coming out of your coma. But I have to tell you, things have changed. The "system" allows you your freedom only because you haven't become a visible enough target yet, not because you haven't committed any crimes (and trust me, we've all committed crimes, breaking laws we don't even know exist, ones that include mutually exclusive (and thus impossible to comply with) terms. The "system" leaves us alone until it needs us to vanish, then it simply has to pick a crime with which to charge us.
Traditional Republicans yes, but the neo-cons in power are anything but traiditional Republicans. And thanks to them, the USA is a lot closer to fascism than we think:
Fascism: A system of government marked by centralization of authority under a dictator, stringent socioeconomic controls, suppression of the opposition through terror and censorship, and typically a policy of belligerent nationalism and racism.
OK, the control is there, the suppression of opposition through terror and censorship is growing, belligerent nationalism is very evident, racism has always been there and now is more prominent in the "war" against terror. The only thing lacking is the true centralization of authority, although the way the President was given a free hand to declare war it's not too far off. We're just one more major attack, followed by a declaration of martial law, away from fascism.
Furthermore, as Mussolini said, fascism should more properly be called corporatism. Corporatism. Ring a bell in today's USA?
From the VoteHere site (http://votehere.com/vhti.html):
"VHTi proves that electronic voting machines worked correctly and did not cheat in every election. "
So . . . only in a few elections?
"We have to Slashdot the site in order to save it."
It has been said before:
Question Authority
and Authority will question you.
But in the past, for most of us, that was just a quaint saying to chuckle over in the dorm lounge. This is the first time this shit is coming HOME for many of us. If you think this list of users isn't going to go into a database somewhere, you probably aren't on the list in the first place.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Wrong. You're thinking of the Declaration of Indepenence. Which, in fact, is not a part of the oppressive, monolithic "system" as you described it (the Constitution, the U.S. Code, and the laws of the several States is what I think you were referring to). In fact, the Declaration of Independence has no legal basis in our system whatsoever-- it was just a self-justification published by a bunch of guerillas revolting against an overseas colonizer (granted, it was a very well-written one). The fact that some of those same guerillas went on to establish a central government over the previously independent colonies is inconsequential. Nothing within the "system" as you call it provides for its own overthrow-- that's to be taken up by brave patriots like yourselves. (Do you really think you could make a better one?)
The "system" allows you your freedom only because you haven't become a visible enough target yet, not because you haven't committed any crimes
Wrong. The "system" allows you your freedom because you haven't been convicted by a jury of your peers of a crime that requires you be remanded into custody of the state. (You do realize that trial by jury is still in effect, right?)
You seem to have skipped a few stages on your way to 1984, my friend:
If you're concerned about the activities of a particular branch of the government, I suggest your first step should be to look up who's on that particular oversight commitee.
Your significantly less paranoid friend (who works at one of those overseen government thingies),
-d
You do realize that trial by jury is still in effect, right?
Ask the guys at Guantanamo, or the largy body of "material witnesses," suspected terrorists, and other U.S. citizens being held without trial or conviction by the US government.
Welcome to the 21st century.
you overlooked the fact that the FBI's subpoenas (even the secret ones) have to be reviewed by a judge and often a grand jury.
But what if they don't need a subpoena?
and perhaps most significantly, you seem unaware that the activities of the FBI are overseen by Senators and Representatives that you and I vote for
Oh sure, I trust the other branches of the Gov't to oversee the FBI.
The problem is that Congressional and Court oversight usually waits until things have gotten so far out of control that they can't duck their responsibility. By which time many innocent people have been hurt. I call the current stupidity in Iraq (ICRC pdf - sorry) as my first witness and Frank Church as my second.
Your significantly more paranoid friend (who has worked for two out of three branches of the Federal Gov't).
FreeSpeech.org
I not only visted her website on several occasions but I also purchased a copy of her book. It is titled "Black Box Voting: Ballot Tampering in the 21st Century." I look forward to reading it soon. I also once listen to her when she appeared on on a radio talk show. I even went so far as to write to my elected representatives on this subject. Does that mean that I will soon be on the FBI's long list of suspects?
I first started following what she and others had to say when the Swathmore College sudents launched their electronic civil disobedience campaign against Diebold. The students were trying to bring attention to internal Diebold memos which showed that Diebold employees knew how insecure their voting machines and the software was. The students were fighting Diebold's cease-and-desist letters that were forcing websites to take down the memos. For a few hours at a time websites would appear with the information and then the would quickly be shut down and dissappear. The websites not only had the internal Diebold memos but some even had the actual GEMS software and sample voting data files to play with.
The webpages included instructions on how to intall the software on your Windows computer and then use Microsoft Access to easily bypass the all security features. As I recall, it also explained how to modify the "AuditLog" and bypass the audit trail. Keep in mind that the internal memos showed that Diebold knew about most of those problems and did not seem to want to bother fixing the security flaws. Many polling places are now using Diebold voting machines here in the United States.
I did not downlaod the GEMS election software and the memos from the websites. The files would have been to large to be downloaded with my slow dial-up connecton. But, I am sure that many people around the world did. I have not kept up with what is going on lately but apparently the FBI claims to be investigating an alleged break-in at the VoteHere electronic voting software company. The FBI also seem to still be interested in the Diebold memos.
What Bev Harris and others want is for us to use voting machines that print out a stub which can be inserted into the ballot box as a backup in case a recount is needed. Machines of that type exist now but for some reason there has been less of a push for using them. Correct me if I am wrong but, I have heard that several of the voting machine companies have several lobbyists busy in Washington and have made a number of political contributions. Perhaps the main problem is that Bev Harris is trying to bring all that to everyone's attention. She and others are guilty of trying to protectly the integrity of the voting process here in the USA.