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Help Black Box Voting Examine ES&S Software

Posted by kdawson on from the ooh-fresh-code dept.

Gottesser writes, "Bev Harris of Black Box Voting has asked for the help of the Slashdot community. She would like people to take a look at ES&S's central tabulator software and start reporting on their impressions of it. This is a past release of the software but it is similar to the applications in production. Sorry, no source code." Read on for Bev's request and pointers to the code repositories. Update 23:38 GMT by SM Bev has confirmed that blackbox1.org is indeed owned by BlackBoxVoting making both a comment in the discussion and a post on the front page of blackboxvoting.org to help assuage reader fear/doubt.


From Bev:

"ES&S 'Unity' central tabulator software.

Software stash: three zip files --
http://www.blackbox1.org/ems.zip
http://www.blackbox1.org/un5.zip
http://www.blackbox1.org/Unity.zip

User Manuals for ES&S software can be found here:
http://www.bbvforum s.org/forums/messages/2197/2864.html

This is the ES&S central tabulator software, the ES&S counterpart to the Diebold GEMS central tabulator software. No source code, sorry, and no software for the precinct machines. This is reportedly one generation back, but from what I'm told has significant similarities to the new stuff. I would appreciate it if you can provide me with feedback on your impressions after looking at it. You may want to Slashdot it or whatever.

Best,

Bev Harris
Founder
Black Box Voting

3 of 197 comments (clear)

  1. Re:I won't ask... by Spunkee · · Score: 0, Redundant

    Agreed. This is a bullshit story. Way to go Slashdot!

  2. this is legitimate, it's not phishing by kaan · · Score: 1, Redundant

    I just got on blackboxvoting.org and called the primary phone number, and Bev Harris answered the phone.

    I spoke to her for about 5 minutes, explained that an article showed up on /. and there were questions about its authenticity. She said it was legit, they set up a new domain name so they don't hammer their primary server (they've gotten a ton of traffic lately). She said she could not disclose where she obtained the executable code, but that it was real software and she wanted feedback from the slashdot community.

    This is not a phishing scam, it's really from Bev, and she's trying to solicit help from the /. community to dig into this stuff.

    Kaan

  3. Re:Legality by kaan · · Score: 0, Redundant

    I just got on blackboxvoting.org and called the primary phone number, and Bev Harris answered the phone. She said she could not disclose where she obtained the software, but that it was legitimate, real software. She set up another domain to prevent /. of their primary domain. Run a traceroute and you'll see that both blackboxvoting.org and blackbox1.org are hosted with Rackspace. Phishers do not use Rackspace, they use domains in Russia or where ever.

    This is not a phishing scam, it's really from Bev, and she's trying to solicit help from the /. community to dig into this stuff.

    Oh, and yes, I'm posting similar comments in reply to all of the "is this real?" comments... Moderators: please do not mod me down without calling them yourself (go to blackboxvoting.org for phone number).

    Kaan