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Diebold to Withdraw from E-Voting?
ICA writes "It appears after years of criticism, Diebold may be ready to withdraw from electronic voting entirely. The company is concerned that this relatively small and marginally profitable unit is hurting the company's overall image."
de mortuis nil nisi bonum dicendum est
You can't talk about Wikipedia's flaws on Wikipedia
"It appears after years of criticism, Diebold may be ready to withdraw from electronic voting entirely. The company is concerned that this relatively small and marginally profitable unit is hurting the company's overall image."
Good. What other voting machines need to go next?
Zhrodague.net - I do projects and stuff too.
Whenever I called for technical support they would always say, "You know your vote doesn't count anyway."
The above comment was intended for amusement purposes only and in no way reflects true events.
Instead of just letting a company have their way with electronic voting, they really should have done research into the best voting method. I think on Slashdot we've reached a general consensus that there should at least be a verifyable paper trail that each voter can see their votes cast on paper. This would help in case of machine failure, or in case of voter fraud committed by the programmer. I'm no expert on electronic voting, but it doesn't take an expert to see there are flaws with the current electronic voting.
God spoke to me.
Unfortunately for Diebold, I'm not of the opinion that if they can't properly make a secure voting machine, what is to say that they can make a secure ATM? Sure, they may be two completely different divisions within the same company but considering how much the top management has avoided doing the right thing to fix their voting machines, I doubt the ATM division would be much different.
That evoting will be totally eliminated. We need to back to paper and pencil ballots.
Diebold doesn't seem to have the will to improve its offering, or even to take an honest look at its shortcomings. It's hard to see how others couldn't do a lot better.
Parity: What to do when the weekend comes.
Diebold was a respected maker of bank vault, ATM, security (!) and deposit equipment before they started messing with the E-voting market.
As my dad said, don't stake your reputation on something if you can't seem to get the hang of it; he was talking about sports, but it applies here as well. Diebold can't do this well; they should stop doing it and concentrate on their core business.
That, and Diebold has already accomplished what it's CEO promised to do - deliver the Presidency to the Republicans.
Nah, they're just pissed at Diebold for failing to fix the 2006 election correctly.
I wouldn't blame them. They tried to make something cheap and simple to use like the current systems with easy interactivity. But costs with anything related to the security of a vote will always be high. The only way I see that we could really secure every vote is to send out worm drive usb sticks for voters to just walk up and plug into thier voting office. This way once the vote is entered it cannot be changed. Only read or erased. This would also allow people to vote in the safety of thier own homes with access to far more research at the same time with the power of the internet. This would also make recounts easier.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_mortuis_nil_nisi_b onum
~ roscivs
Run Diebold Run! Dissolve the division and destroy the paper-trail before the Dems figure out what the real story was for the past couple elections!
"The company is concerned that this relatively small and marginally profitable unit is hurting the company's overall image."
That's absurd. Diebold's voting machines have destroyed the company's image completely, in my opinion. Seriously, if you know something about the history and you have a little technical knowledge, would you ever buy anything from Diebold?
DEADbold.
--
My summary of U.S. gov corruption. Where's your's?
If it is true that Diebold is looking to dump this business unit (which hasn't been confirmed or denied - Diebold has only said that an announcement would come sometime), what then happens to all the machines (100,000+, i think)? Surely they, or whoever purchases the business unit, is still on the hook for support, updates, and whatever flak comes when the things don't work right. Those machines aren't going to simply vanish or instantly become secure and reliable. Some improvements can be made by completely changing the firmware, but a great deal of the criticism behind the voting machines was their lack of physical security and lack of a physical paper trail. Those are problems that can't be fixed without drastically altering the hardware itself. What company out there would want to buy this business unit and take that challenge on?
I think they're taking the Democratic lead and will just appeal to the dead vote. You know, an FDR-esque "brains in every pot!"
On topic, they're probably right to do this. In my home state of Pennsylvania it is literally illegal for the touch-screen machine to produce a paper receipt so a black-box solution like what Diebold provides will always be open to criticism and question. They could provide a 100% fraud-free election and the loser will still complain. In my humble opinion the best solution is a touch-screen front end with a paper ballot printout that is then available for vote count verification. Run the count electronically, sure, but randomly verify counts of a few precincts and if anything is off you know you have to audit the whole thing. If somebody challenges the results you have a paper trail that was REVIEWED by the voter themselves before being placed in the ballot box.
Turn States Evidence and toss anyone who might be involved with voter fraud to the wolves.
If you don't have anyone, just fake it....the masses need the blood-circus to go with the bread.
....so by proving they -can't- fix their problems, they'll somehow convince the world that their -other- business (ATMs) are somehow reliable and secure?
Sure lack of profitability != bad product always, but I'm not sure how dumping their problem child is going to fix the problem now.
This is more about brand image than anything else- they're afraid people will start noticing the Diebold name on the ATM machines and stop using those banks, because Diebold has not been able to be trusted with voting.
After all, what's more important, voting or money?
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Another option for Diebold might be to fix the problems: print a paper confirmation, make motherboard access a little harder than a luggage lock. We don't ask for much.
With this munificent felon?
Pariotically yours,
Kilgore Trout
Hey, Diebold did their job and delivered Ohio.
Mission Accomplished.
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
According to quoted experts, Diebold might dump its poorly-rated electronic voting division. Or it might not.
$nice = $webHosting + $domainNames + $sslCerts
Ah, it's going so, so well, and then: That, and Diebold has already accomplished what it's CEO promised to do - deliver the Presidency to the Republicans. Funny - I would have expected that sort of talk to end after the latest congressional elections. Or is this one of those "only bring it up when we don't like the result" kind of things.
Lucky for us they did get into e-voting, and it has hurt their reputation. If they didn't, we wouldn't have been as aware that if security was their ass, they wouldn't be able to find it with both hands tied behind their back! Their reputation needed to be brought down.
One has to wonder if their lack of security practices was limited to their voting products, or perhaps it is SOP for all their computer-based technology like ATMs.
cat
"The company is concerned that this relatively small and marginally profitable unit is hurting the company's overall image" Another great company down the tubes, what's next Enron is fudging the books? You critics are killing us all!
Is it possible to tarnish this company's image any further?
Sorry if it wasn't evident; that last line was a sop to the conspiracy theorists. Not my belief.
51% against. 53% for George Bush. Case closed.
Oh really? I guess you've sworn off ATM's? Yeah... I didn't think so.
But, but, but, I though money = votes.
Was that a trick question?
You were 80% angel, 10% demon. The rest was hard to explain. - Over The Rhine
"Math in a song is good."-Linford
ATMs are even more closed than Voting Machines. All a company has to do is convince the bank that their product is secure and there is no one else to answer to.
Simple banker logic proving that ATMs are still secure -
Since:
Department produces insecure product = Department closed by company.
Therefore:
Department not closed by company = department produces secure product.
QED.
"If the ATMs were as screwed as our voting machines, we's fuck those guys off too!"
Unfortunately, it's rather difficult to choose what brand ATM you use. However, it's certainly possible to complain to your bank or credit union about their choice of Diebold ATMs, and it's also certainly possible that the people at banks/CUs who decide which ATM vendor to purchase from may decide against Diebold based on all the negative publicity.
...where is the "yay" tag?
Horseshit, hole-ridden garbage machines foisted off on taxpayers like me, either deliberately, or through plain old incompetence, all to the end of giant profits for unabashedly partisan executives? Say it ain't so!
Maybe now the invisible hand that has slapped Diebold will help bring forth e-voting that sucks measurably less. I'm pretty sure it can be done. Just need a few people with modest amounts of both skill AND ethics.
Perscriptio in manibus tabellariorum est.
Maybe I'm a conspiracy theorist, I don't know, maybe I've been in the computer business too long.
Diebold should have been able to make an e-voting system. NO bank would accept the "really, really, it works" hand waving from Diebold with regards to the e-voting. All ATM machines, teller machines, and machines that handle monetary transactions somewhere along the line, produce at least one verifiable paper record of credit and debit for each party in the transaction and agents involved. To do less with voting seems completely absurd. For Diebold to even suggest a system without proper accountability makes absolutely no sense what so ever. They really do understand security and record keeping, what the hell happened with e-voting? As a corporation, e-voting should have been a slam dunk for them.
Ineptitude at such a large corporation is not unheard of, but surely someone would have said something, right? When the president of Diebold said he would do what ever he could to make sure G.W. Bush gets re-elected, it was an event that colored my "benefit of the doubt" stance on Diebold.
I honestly believe that G.W. Bush and company helped fix the election and Diebold was just one of the methods. It only takes slight tampering to sway a consensus or another. When the polling authority in ohio opened ballot boxes to "pre-screen" the supposedly "random" selection in order to avoid a full recount, one has to wonder. In 2000 it was Florida, in 2004 it was Ohio, regardless the outcome is the same.
I think in the U.S.A. we have to ensure our own democracy before we try to bring democracy elsewhere by force.
Just my $0.02
P.S. This is not a flame post, just the words of a sad and disillusioned patriotic American.
But seriously, I'm not afraid of electronic voting. Online voting would be a disaster.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
http://uspolitics.about.com/b/a/207510.htm
Third paragraph in.
That's what the GP was talking about.
No, votes is a subset of money. As is food, as is housing, as is any other good or service. Thus you see, Diebold is making the right decision. Security in votes is unimportant when related to security in money transactions.....
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
You know that the technologies, hardware and software behind Diebold's systems were not inexpensive. So it's highly unlikely that they will just drop out of this. What will happen instead is that their work will be sold to the highest bidder. And that company will become the new Diebold with the main difference being that this new company will likely have e-voting as their main focus. Expect to hear about a new "better" voting machine before the next presidential elections. If they play their cards right, they'll spin it to make it seem like they are totally new and have better reliability than Diebold did. Then the same old games will be played and we'll have another presidential election tarnished by uncertainty about the results. They play this game enough times and this will seem "normal". Those voters who are happy with the results will not question the results. Those who are unhappy will also stop questioning as the other side will beat them into submission by saying, "sour grapes" enough times. And all will be well for those with the money to buy votes.
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
literally illegal
As opposed to "figuratively illegal"?
These will always be low bidder projects with thin margins and lousy propects. Look how well the mechanical voting machine company did.
Seriously, you can't make money on something which is (a) an expense which cannot garner any revenue and (b) which is used extremely infrequently.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Getting in the middle of a left-wing conspiracy was the problem.
1) Republicans are actively trying to tamper with the votes
2) They are trying to tamper with electronic votes
3) Somebody at Diebold was friendly to Republicans
That was the problem for them. Yes, this is flamebait. But that doesn't make it wrong.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
(and I searched through the comments, FYI :) - GOOD RIDDANCE!
What we need is voting solutions like this:
http://www.openvotingconsortium.org/our_solution
or this:
http://punchscan.org/faq.php
or some combination of the above two.
Let's make this country the #1 democracy in the world all over again. Let everyone know that feasible voting solutions exist in the here and now and are solved with current technology!
'A lie if repeated often enough, becomes the truth.' - Goebbels
You can't "elect" W more than twice, so their work here is done.
Here's what concerns me though; what if their ATMs are no more secure or well-designed than their voting machines? The voting machines were exposed as insecure due to public scrutiny. Who's buying ATMs and reverse-engineering them looking for holes?
I think it's fairly likely that the ATMs only continue to run fairly well due to either being locked down fairly well, or due to being interfaced with the bank's systems that won't allow too much crap to go down, or due to having been designed back in the day when their standards were better.
it would be bad if their other overtly secure products (*cough* whitelabel ATMs *cough*) were found to be just as riddle with insecurities...
DIE DIEBOLD DIE
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
Bank: End-user receipts are allowed and in fact welcomed. When you make a transaction it spits out a little piece of paper that shows your balance and/or banking history
Voting Machine: End user is not to receive a paper receipt, mainly on the basis that doing so could further vote-buying/pressuring/forcing/etc (i.e. a given group threatening dire consequences if voted Y doesn't come out with a slip saying he/she voted for "X")
and open source it,
then perhaps confidence in e-voting can be restored.
Dumbold Voting Machine for The Sims
The Dumbold Voting Machine for The Sims enables the simulated people in your virtual dollhouse to vote!
It's an interactive "get out the vote" public service message, in the form of a free downloadable Sims object.
This Sims object is an electronic voting machine that lets your Sims vote between four candidates: Kerry, Bush, Nader and Badnarik.
I've included informative text in this Sims object, which it displays in illustrated dialogs to educate players about electronic voting machines.
A major side-show is the "Monkey" item on the pie menu, which activates all kinds of cool easter eggs, and displays lots of in-game information and news about electronic voting machines.
Please give this Dumbold Voting Machine a good pounding on, and tell me if you have any problems (besides the usual problems endemic to electronic voting machines, which I've programmed into this Sims object on purpose).
At first look, it appears to be a fully functional voting machine. But it actually has a lot of fatal bugs and hidden features, just like real electronic voting machines!
Highlights of Cheats, Bugs and Easter Eggs (Illustrations are here)
The Dumbold Voting Machine is programmed with cheats, bugs and easter eggs, which you can discover and read about by playing around with it. It demonstrates and simulates some alarming problems with real world electronic voting machines, with many surprising effects and subtle interactions:
Baxter the Chimpanzee Erases the Voting Log. When you put the voting machine into debug mode and clear the votes, you will see a dialog with the hillarious picture and story of Baxter the Chimpanzee. In your web browser, you can watch the funny monkey movie showing Baxter erasing the voting log! Now your Sims can monkey around with the electronic Dumbold Voting Machines, go bananas hacking the system, fling poo and corrupt the election results just like the pros!
Vote or Die! P. Diddy, lately a.k.a. Citizen Combs, says: "'You all are the X-factor, the wild card," Combs said. "`History is being made here. Our revolution has begun." "Young voters in this country are throwing away their power to have a say about education, healthcare, and any issue that affects them." Combs explains. "These things affect your life, so - Vote or Die!" (If you select Vote, you live. If you select Die, you either get electrocuted, or burst into flames, then you die.)
You punched out the screen! Hey!!! You're supposed to touch the screen, not punch it! Next time, please don't take out your frustration with the lousy choice of candidates by punching the screen. That's not the way to get your vote counted. (Your Sim breaks the voting machine screen. You can repair it if you're skilled enough, but you might want to keep a handyman on call during the election!)
Osama Bin Laden Scares the Piss Out of You!!! Osama Bin Laden wants to scare you into voting for George W Bush, because Bin Laden is grateful to Bush for outsourcing the job of hunting him down to Osama's good friends, the Afghan warlords. Bush's policies have strengthened Bin Laden's cause, and George W Bush says he's not worried about Osama Bin Laden. Bush and Bin Laden both want you to vote in response to your of fears, not in pursuit of your hopes. "Americans all know that Osama Bin Laden doesn't pick our president. The Supreme Court does." -Bill Maher (Your Sim empties their bladder, pisses their pants, and then runs away screaming!)
Accidentally Voting for Pat Buchanan. When you select one of the four official candidates, sometimes it "accidentally" pops up an illustrated dialog asking for confirmation that you want to vote for Pat Buchanan! If you foolishly select "Yes", the voting machine breaks!
News about Black Box Voting.
News about CalTech-MIT/Voting Technology Project.
News about Diebold
Take a look and feel free: http://www.PieMenu.com
What we really need to do electronic voting is secure tallying. We need a public, verifiable way of checking that the tallies are legitimate. We also need to make sure that they are also anonymous.
Any proposed method of verifying your electronic vote, whether it's a paper receipt, a bar code, or a website that you can check later on, is susceptible to being left out of the tally. So what if the website reports that it has correctly recorded your vote? You have no way of knowing whether your verified vote is counted in the official tally. Even if you see a vote exactly like yours in the official tally, it may or may not belong to you. With anonymous voting, several people might be looking at a single ballot, all thinking it was the one that they cast.
I'm trying to imagine a system where we can all have verified votes and make sure that they are affecting the official tally, but still maintain anonymity in the vote. Voting is basically a system where each voter can affect the outcome of the election by exactly one vote, for each office and issue. Perhaps a system where each voter adds encrypted strings of their vote to the official tally. Each voter can decrypt the official tally string and see that their vote has affect the tally. At the end of the election the last voter turns their decryption string to the officials, and the tallies are decrypted.
As you can tell, I'm not a mathematician nor a computer scientist. Please feel free to chime in and criticize or offer new ideas.
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
after the latest congressional elections.
Florida-13, enough said. Oh wait, that's right, since both sides had "missing" votes (so much for democrats being idiots who can't operate a voting machine), it must have been a poorly designed ballot that hit exactly one county, since the next county over had a 1% undervote rate even though it's in the same district.
tagged abouttime
Personally, I see no other purpose in the design of Diebold voting systems other than to facilitate fraud. Seriously, there just aren't any really good protections built into the whole device.
Now, that it appears very likely that in 2008, Democrats will control both houses of congress and the presidency,I can understand why the folks at Diebold are worried about things like future investigations of their business. I really can believe it might make business sense for the Diebold management to dump their voting machines business at a loss-and let somebody else hold that hot potatoe. I would also expect some substantial managerial turnover is in order too.
Now, the problem is that Diebold is just the most visible of several corrupt companies here. I wouldn't forget about ES&S--which is another major player in the market-and which has similar problems.
According to Black Box Voting (http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/1954/173 05.html?1138394704) the company that originally designed the Diebold machines was founded by five convicted felons. Four were perpetrators of sophisticated fraud and the fifth was a drug-dealer prison buddy of one of the fraudsters.
The criminal records of these people would make them ineligible to carry bedpans in Maryland nursing homes, but of course there are no criminal record checks for people who design and maintain voting machines.
The criminal backgrounds of Global's original founders gives reason to suspect that the widespread security vulnerabilities of the machines were not due to mere incompetence but might have been connected to some kind of nefarious scheme concocted by their criminal minds.
Accordingly, let me suggest that a proper purchaser for Diebold Election Systems might be some international criminal syndicate, for example the Russian Mafia, the drug cartels, or perhaps some criminal group fronting for terrorists. That would, in a sense, return the machines to people with the backgrounds of the founders of the original developer.
The Russian Mafia could make voting systems a subsidiary of their organization that reportedly is responsible for all the recent spam related to pump-and-dump penny stock schemes. They certainly have sophisticated computer capability behind those schemes. They could auction election victories just like they now reportedly auction cybercrime facilities and exploits.
Just some thoughts.
Us "losers" are complaining because Diebold ISN'T 100% fraud-free, isn't verifiably so, and in fact deliberately designed not to be. blackboxvoting.com
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
no support, no parts, just give back the 800 number and get the (f) out.
take the losses and teach a lesson: building a division to irregularly "count" votes without safeguards, and having your CEO pushing a candidate who was widely seen as becoming president through a vote steal is truly irresponsible.
I will appropriate somebody else's sig for emphasis... approximate quotes... "the four boxes of freedom... soap, ballot, jury, and ammo." diebold election systems appears hell-bent on skipping the jury box. they must die.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
Translation:
We got what we wanted from the unit, a Bush presidency and business friendly congress. Now that Bush is over and the congress has gone over to the Dems and there is no new candidate on the horizon that is as business friendly as we would like, then there is not much point in continuing the effort.
There is nothing so silly as other peoples traditions, and nothing so sacred as our own.
[Disclaimer, I live and work down the road from the Diebold corp offices and have family that work there.]
/. crowd, but try getting the facts straight before throttling the company and writing it off as a total incompetent.
t ems
I know it's asking a lot from the
Diebold didn't make the voting machines, it purchased the company that did: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diebold_Election_Sys
For those too lazy to click the link:
"Diebold Election Systems is currently run by Bob Urosevich [1] who has worked in the election systems industry since 1976. In 1979, Mr. Urosevich founded American Information Systems. He served as the President of AIS now known as Election Systems & Software, Inc. (ES&S) from 1979 through 1992. Bob's brother, Todd Urosevich, is Vice President, Aftermarket Sales with ES&S, DES's chief competitor. In 1995, Bob Urosevich started I-Mark Systems, whose product was a touch screen voting system utilizing a smart card and biometric encryption authorization technology. Global Election Systems, Inc. (GES) acquired I-Mark in 1997, and on July 31, 2000 Mr. Urosevich was promoted from Vice President of Sales and Marketing and New Business Development to President and Chief Operating Officer. On January 22, 2002, Diebold announced the acquisition of GES, then a manufacturer and supplier of electronic voting terminals and solutions. The total purchase price, in stock and cash, was $24.7 million. Global Election Systems subsequently changed its name to Diebold Election Systems, Inc."
Diebold is actually well-respected and admired in this area. Diebold election systems are based in Texas whereas the financial systems are here in NE Ohio. I interviewed there for an SE position a couple of years ago, toured their ATM lab, and spent some quality time with some of their software engineers. They seemed to have a very competent operation and I enjoyed the interview. (I ended up taking a different job with another large international corp for other $elfi$h reason$ (I have a family to feed)) I heard the same moaning from the employees I met that I hear from family members who work there - something similar to "those stupid voting machines make us look bad." I have yet to meet an employee, management or otherwise, who has anything good to say about the elections systems division.
Wally O'Dell is largely (if not solely) responsible for the elections systems debacle. It's no secret that he lead the company right into this political mess at the expense of the company's and his own reputations.
Don't torpedo the whole company just because the former CEO bungled a bad deal with a flawed political agenda. It'll eventually work out in the wash, then you can cast aspersions on a new company TBA.
If you do what you always did, you get what you always got.
the only responsible ballot is paper, guarded, and kept under lock until all challenges are met.
whether it is counted by optical scanner or a dreary-eyed bunch of formerly high-minded citizens at 5 am is optional.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
That fear is justified, I won't use my bank's ATMs because they're made by Diebold. Given all the horrendous security gaffs Diebold has made over their voting machines (like having a picture of the key that opens them up on their website) I'm not comfortable using my debit card in anything they've designed. How do I know that the ATM was treated with any higher level of security on Diebold's end? Frankly I'm convinced there are just as many security issues with their ATMs, that they just haven't gotten as much bad publicity yet. I'm not likely to trust their equipment in the future either, and if I was ever in a position to be buying their products I'll certainly chose a competitor.
Voting, but I have to deal with money year-round whereas we only have elections once a year at most here. Thankfully we don't have Diebold voting machines, but I'll still be avoiding their ATMs. Any company with their security track record doesn't deserve my trust or business.
I've sworn off Diebold ones, it's not even very difficult to do. I've not seen any of the in-store debit card things made by Diebold around here and I can go into any store that has those and buy a small item and get cash back quite simply. I end up paying less fees this way as well (since my bank charges me fees for using even their own ATMs).
With all the negative press surrounding electronic voting, I wonder if this signals a jump back to the standard paper or mechanical voting machines. Any election can be fixed, but I've always felt electronic voting isn't quite ready yet. Given that most people wouldn't understand how an electronic voting machine could produce wrong or fraudulent results, it's probably not the best thing to introduce right now. People understand the idea of improperly marked paper ballots or an election official tampering with the older mechanical tabulators. People don't fully grasp the idea of a group of hackers, whether for fun or profit, gaining access to or changing vote results.
I say we should wait until computer security really is nailed down. Not just because Symantec or other vendors say we're secure, but because it's actually so. Listening to security vendors do presentations at work to the executives is a painful exercise. The common theme is "buy this box, and you're 100% secure from these threats." I think it's going to take a lot of convincing (and a few examples) to change people's thoughts on this.
I seem to recall several known security issues with ATMs, too. I'm not 100% certain that all of thee following issues were with Diebold's ATMs, but I think most of them were. For example, there was something about all their ATMs using only a single key or a very small number of keys to open them, so if you could get into the back room behind the ATM, you were in. Something about a standard master reset password that you could find in the manual online (and instead of fixing it, they just pulled the online copy of the manual). And they are based on Windows boxes, so it shouldn't be particularly hard to come up with a security hole you can exploit once you have access to the keyboard/mouse. And then, there was the demonstration of an exploit of the ATM network that could allow snooping. Put those exploits together, and what do you have?
I trust Diebold as far as I can throw them, whether they're doing ATMs or voting machines. That said, I still use their ATMs because I know that my credit union will be liable if anything goes wrong, as they own the ATMs. I still grumble every time I see the word Diebold on them, though.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
What I find amusing, is how much success we had using electronic voting machines here at Brazil... we have been using these for almost 10 years now. The last presidential election was almost entirely conducted using these machines... and only a few on the entire country had to be replaced due failure.
Of course there are some issues to be sorted, but overall it was a huge improvement over the old paper-based system.
So, why did Brazil succeed where the USA failed?
---- You know how some doctors have the Messiah complex - they need to save the world? You've got the "Rubik's" complex
-GiH
Here's the thing that bothers me about this, though: EVERYONE should be upset when someone says something like that. His statement should be read as, "I will use the Republican party to tear down democracy." Republicans should take that as a slap in the face, and should be MORE outraged than Democrats! This isn't an us-vs-them issue. If ANY party gains control over voting, EVERYONE loses. Don't imagine for a second that such a change would benefit the core values of the Republicans. As soon as entrenched politicians have no one to answer to, and no means of removal, they will serve their own needs (desires) alone. This has been demonstrated by members of every political organization (regardless of their views) that has ever been given the opportunity to go bad.
This is not a partisan issue. This is one man making statements that are darned close to treasonous and certainly a smear on the reputation of any party that accepts his support thereafter.
Seriously, if you know something about the history and you have a little technical knowledge, would you ever buy anything from Diebold?
They make good safes. That was their original business.
-GiH
So you won't use the ATM, but probably eat out and use your card and don't think about that fact that any waiter anywhere could just copy your damn card any time they wanted. Don't feed us bullshit, you know you use the damn ATM when you need to.
The sheet should print in a clear, visible box (obviously covered by plastic or glass or what have you). This way when it prints, you can verify what it printed. It would get pushed down into the paper stack and obscured from view prior to the next voter entering his or her vote.
A printed receipt does nothing if the printed receipts are fixed, too.
> In my home state of Pennsylvania it is literally illegal for the touch-screen machine to produce a paper receipt
/designed/ so that you can look at the receipt but leave the polling place with no more than you came in with plus an "I voted" sticker.
And for good reason: the only thing worse than not having a receipt is having one you can take with you. The machine needs to be
I prefer the optech systems where you just mark up a very unambiguous physical ballot and place it in a reader. Like anything else, those can be gamed too, but at least the ballots are there as a final authority.
My guess is that Diebold's exit will simply hand the company off to a buyer who will continue to run it in the same unaccountable way, but during the interim uncertainty, Sequoia, ES&S, and Optech will make sales. Also, keep in mind that ES&S has had more than its fair share of scandals as well.
Done with slashdot, done with nerds, getting a life.
"Let's make this country the #1 democracy in the world all over again. Let everyone know that feasible voting solutions exist in the here and now and are solved with current technology!"
What? And waste all that money that was invested in rigging the system? It's a capitalist dream investment - pay enough and you get to write the laws that will provide a very juicy return on investment.
Face it - you're as much a democracy as the UK (i.e. not at all). And even the UK is only slowly starting to admit that publicly.
Insert
I was just giving a trolling response to a troll.
I'm not a republican but thought the polemic response would provide insight into the futility of the argument.
Turns out: No. You responded with an equal amount of moronicatude. That said, I welcome you to answer this question: Why fight corruption in one party when both are equally corrupt?
Answer: It's not my party.
AKA: The Infocalypse!
Best Slashdot Co
"The company has already achieved its goals of delivering Ohio to the Republican Party as their founder promised, and no longer needs to be involved in electronic voting."
There, fixed that for you.
It of course is a reasonable reason given; it's definitely made me very aware that every time I use an ATM with the Diebold logo, I'm using a probably-insecure device. That's why the reason is so plausible.
I did find portions of the article interesting, such as this bit:
But in an annual report filed last week with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Diebold's discussion of its election systems business pointed out various ongoing concerns. Diebold acknowledged that complaints about its voting products and services have hurt relations with government election officials.
Diebold indicated it still is "vulnerable to these types of challenges because the electronic elections systems industry is emerging." The report also mentioned inconsistency in the way state and local governments are adapting to federal requirements for upgrades in voting technology.
This is probably true. If electronic voting had been in place for decades, perhaps no one would have even noticed that this horribly insecure-by-design system was so full of holes. So while Diebold complains about how unfair the system is, they highlight an area of concern - complacency.
Also interesting is this tidbit which I somehow missed at the beginning of this particular storm:
Voting machine makers such as Diebold; Election Systems & Software, of Omaha, Neb.; Sequoia Voting Systems, of Oakland, Calif., and Hart InterCivic, of Austin, Texas have had the federal Help America Vote Act of 2002 as a sales catalyst. HAVA, with $3.9 billion of funding, urged the nation to move past punch card voting and hanging chads that delayed the conclusion of the 2000 presidential election.
Here is the Help America Vote Act (or at least a link to a federal page about the same.)
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Before this whole e-voting fiasco, I hadn't heard much about Diebold at all. I used ATMs for years without really caring about who built the damn things any more than I would care about which company made the parking meter outside the bank or the thumbtacks on their bulletin board. I didn't work in any industry that was tied strongly enough to whatever Diebold did to care.
Nowadays, the only mental image I have of Diebold nowadays is the complete mess of things they have made, as reported by concerned communities such as this one. I've double-checked the ATMs I've used since then, eschewing the Diebold ones.
In my case, the e-voting debacle didn't destroy my personal image of the company at all. It created it.
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
ATM machines are non-anonymous and require a pin. And if an ATM machine wasn't deducting/adding money to accounts correctly, i would hope you would notice a descrepancy in your account. Not being able to verify that your vote was added to the right tally is the problem with voting, not necessarily evoting.
First of all, this is why "Anonymous Coward" needs to be eliminated.
Second, I think Cmdrtaco needs to report the parent's IP address to the authorities for posting a threatening message
Whenever I called for technical support they would always say, "You know your vote doesn't count anyway."
The above comment was intended for amusement purposes only and in no way reflects true events.
Amusement? Nothing amuses me more than truth, as in "you couldn't make up this stuff."
Consider when Diebold CEO, Walden O'Dell wrote in a fund raising letter that he was committed "to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the President." I don't bloody understand how much more the company's image could be tarnished.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
"District #142!"
"Bingo!"
Never give in--never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to conviction
Why is this marked Troll?
/. where stating something informative/truthful can get you marked as a Troll?!?
Oh wait, this is
because martial law will be declared and elections suspended starting next year. Their stock value would tumble if they don't get out now.
(p.s.: You hit that one out of the park, Mr. Rodriguez. I wish I had mod points...)
There's an even older one that only worked on those old Diebold's that had the one-piece garage door-like opening for the cash to come out. If you held open the door and left the cash there (it was apparently hard to keep open), the ATM would reset, and the last transaction would be dropped from its audit trail - meaning you could take that cash out, let the door drop, and redo-from-start. This was later fixed (though I wouldn't doubt there's a bank or two who refused to update).
>And for good reason: the only thing worse than not having a receipt is having one you can take with you.
The GP doesn't make clear what is meant by 'receipt' and you have interpreted it 'a vote report you take home with you.' Is that the case? If your receipt from the voting booth shows the result of your vote, but is the input to the next process, the ballot counter, and *its* output is the 'I voted' sticker, then it's not a problem to have a paper receipt, because the receipt doesn't make it out of the polling place with any value. (If you take it out, you didn't vote, so it's kind of silly to put pressure on you dependent on how you would have voted.)
I would hope that nobody is proposing a system where you take home a voting record, and would interpret his statement as being that there can be no paper record moving from vote station to vote counter. But, if that's the case, why did Pennsylvania decide to do this?
Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
Dr. Peter Venkman: This city is headed for a disaster of biblical proportions.
Mayor: What do you mean, "biblical"?
Dr. Raymond Stantz: What he means is Old Testament, Mr. Mayor, real wrath-of-God type stuff. Fire and brimstone coming down from the sky! Rivers and seas boiling!
Dr. Egon Spengler: Forty years of darkness! Earthquakes, volcanoes...
Winston Zeddmore: The dead rising from the grave!
Dr. Peter Venkman: Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together - MASS HYSTERIA!
Mayor: Enough! I get the point!
I'd like to agree with you, but that wouldn't explain why one of the banks I regularly deal with just upgraded to Diebold ATMs.
Sure I'm paranoid, but am I paranoid enough?
They are different: it is literally illegal if I do something, but only figuratively illegal if the government does.
Please, please, please, please let Diebold try to sell the unit to Dubai.
Like the OP, I too am from the Keystone State and hopefully I can offer a bit of clarification.
Someone from our esteemed elections bureau made comments, during hearings to find out why PA doesn't use paper trails with its electronic voting machines, to the effect that if a paper trail was used, how a person voted could be found out.
They did not mean that a person would receive a piece of paper to take with them (i.e. a typical receipt) but rather, if the machine printed out the persons vote and dumped it into the hopper on the back of the machine, all one had to do to figure out how a person voted was to count what number person they were to enter the machine then cross-reference to the corresponding piece of paper in the hopper.
If Joe Smith was the fifth person to vote on a particular machine, one could find the fifth paper receipt in the hopper to find out how he voted.
Of course this whole argument is stupid since Nevada has been using a paper trail with its machines and has never had this issue but this is Pennsylvania where everyone subsidises the two kingdoms on each of the state and the New Jersyfication process is well under way.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
When I called up about issues with their machines, they said, that "Do not worry. We guarantee that you will always have the right vote".
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Job's done (as promised), why not kill it off.
(+-) 3 to 6 percent skew of total units, no paper trail.
Tougher to do a job when so many people are looking over your shoulder.
~hylas
Prior to 2002, Diebold did not produce any electronic voting machines. In that year they acquired Global Election Systems, which became their voting machine division. GES had always produced garbage, and it is no suprise that they continued to do so under new ownership. The incompetance of that division shouldn'd reflect onto the abilities of the engineers in other divisions, although it does certainly say something about the management of the company as a whole.
As a side note, the reason that Diebold acquired GES in 2002 was because of the expected boom in voting machines sales as a result of the 2001 Help America Vote Act. This act, which was a response to the hanging-chad problems in the 2000 election set forth requirements concering voters with disabilities, which drove many states to buy electronic voting machines as they seemed the easiest way to statisfy the requirements. So next time someone tells you that the federal government cannot pass any laws about electronic voting, remind them that it was federal law that led the situation to begin with.
Probably because they know no matter what happens, they can't help Bush win.
Windows has detected an undetectable error.
Doesn't mean that the problems will go away. They will probably sell the unit to another company, trying to salvage what they can. And the crappy machines will continue to be used.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
They made stupid decisions and I hope it has hurt/hurts/will hurt them a lot.
"Empathise with stupidity, and you're halfway to thinking like an idiot." - Iain M. Banks
Third paragraph in.
That's what the GP was talking about.
Indeed. Let's look at that: Last week, the Brad Blog reported of possible class action litigation against Diebold and its CEO for securities fraud. In 2003, O'Dell promised to deliver Ohio to President Bush in his re-election bid.
If you click on the link there, it mentions that this was in the context of a political fundraiser event; he was speaking as a member of the public, not as the CEO of Diebold. So the objection here is that the guy has a political interest in his private life? First amendment, anyone? He was saying, in a Republican Party fundraiser, that we (as a representative of "we" being defined as Republican Party) will get the votes. He wasn't there as "Hi, I'm CEO of Diebold, our company is going to do whatever it takes...".
Selective snipping and taking things out of context as you have, shows rather a lot of bias.
boohoo, we can't run an electable candidate. boohoo. wait till 2008 when you have the same problems, suckers.
Yeah we all know GWB won by a huge margin in the past 2 elections...
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Well, maybe my history professor will accept that latin phrase instead of a report, right?
How many people are going to complain about the brand of atm that their bank is using though? I'm pretty sure that there could be excellent proof that they ran on puppies and most people would just keep on using them.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
So, did they vote on this at a board meeting? ANd if so, did they use the good old raising the hands method and counting? We should do this for national elections from now on.
Professor Karmadillo Songs of Science
Psst - I'll give you a little tip: they know that. In fact, everyone knows that. But it's better to rant and rave about how Bush stole the election than it is to admit that they had a candidate that many people just didn't like.
...said the Anonymous Coward.
Now that there's no more "elect George Bush and his Republican minions" industry, why would they stay in the business?
--
make install -not war
They managed to rig 2 elections, they knew they couldn't get away with it forever, so time to retire. Mission accomplished.
I see it as an opportunity. Voting is not something we should be outsourcing. I'd like to see the government bring the development in house completely. Buy Diebold's e-voting division, and open the entire system up to audit by whomever chooses to audit it. Leaving an election up to a (potentially partisan) third party is an awfully bad idea in my opinion.
"The guide is definitive, reality is frequently inaccurate."
You seem to have not paid attention. There were wide, and well substantiated claims of Diebold problems in that election, many of which are open to interpretation as to whether or not they were fraudulent, and if so if they were politically motivated (as opposed to just covering for incompetence). The problem was that the elections were so overwhelmingly in favor of the Democrats that these irregularities had little impact.
Here's the thing that bothers me about this, though: EVERYONE should be upset when someone says something like that. His statement should be read as, "I will use the Republican party to tear down democracy." Republicans should take that as a slap in the face, and should be MORE outraged than Democrats!
Pot/Kettle
As an ofttimes Republican voter I was:
* Upset when a thorough study of the 2000 Florida results (by mostly liberal mainstream media) concluded that Bush had indeed won the state, but long after that history has been re-written to only focus on headlines from 24 hours after the election.
* Upset that a paper ballot system, with known, but fixable flaws, was thrown out not only in Florida but in other voting districts all over the country, even in cases (such as my last two voting districts) where the paper based systems did not share the "hanging chads" issue and had never had any known problems concerning fraud or miscounts.
* Upset that perfectly valid systems all over the country were scrapped in favor of retrofitted WINDOWS laptops and Windows touchscreen devices with only marginally tested software.
* Upset that in the 2004 election cycle, Democrats AGAIN cried foul in districts where lazy, incompetent election officials spent taxpayers money hand over fist too buy this junky hardware and software rather than do realistic requirements analysis, and particularly upset that while these changes took place (pre 2004) these same left wing complainers said NOTHING, waiting instead for the results that they didn't like.
or but that wasn't enough,
* Post 2004 I engaged in numerous debates with individuals who swore they were not complaining about the 2004 results, but were indeed interested in the issue. Again, these people grew silent as distance from the 2004 election increased. As I would bring up newly discovered issues with this Windoze based software (and hardware) they would thank me politely for reminding them and then go right back to Bush bashing, continuing to ignore the very REAL bipartisan problems that were being ignored by the mainstream media.
* While you say the results of 2006 were "overwhelming", in fact in many local elections the margin of victory, particularly for newly elected democrats were a dozen votes, and for state level offices a few hundred. Almost NONE of these votes were contested, even in cases where the Republican candidate had only to request a recount.
Did these Republican candidates even get a "good sportsmanship" pat on the back from the press? Saving the taxpayers millions of dollars in recount costs, in fact got them nothing except continued insults from people like you.
Your right, we should all be outraged (and I am) by slipshod voting practices, whether the cause is corruption or incompetence (and very little is being done at the election-official level about incompetence), how many of them can you name who have been "fired"?
We should also stop accepting the fact that other types of voting corruption has gone on for years in largely Democratic districts. It seems to be widely accepted, even among Democrats that this corruption goes on, but where is the outcry? As your post indicates (not intentionally I'm sure) many Democrats are of the "ends justifies the means" school of thinking and simply don't consider an election invalid if their candidate wins. Of course there are Republicans who fall into this category too, but silence from the left is deafening.
The results of this, which will serve us (you) lazy citizens right, will be another ma
Oh, hey, that's a good point and one I hadn't thought about. (That's the thing with this voting stuff: it's hard to be as tricky as the hypothetical nogoodniks are.) But, still: if you physically received the only copy of the physical ballot, and then you walked it over to the separate counting machine -- which is more or less how it's done everywhere else in the world but they use pencils rather than computers -- that'll more-or-less disrupt a countback, right?
In other words: a sequential record of how people voted is a Bad Idea, but one (slightly) randomized by transport seems no worse than what we're currently doing across the rest of the US, right?
Their reasoning isn't stupid, though. It just might be one of those situations where the Best Way (from a voter security standpoint) isn't the Best Way (from a count accuracy standpoint.) And, honestly, I think I might be more likely to err towards voter security, although useful backcounting implies a conspiracy sufficiently large enough to overwhelm practically anything.
Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
> After all, what's more important, voting or money?
Which one was it that contributed to your ability to foist your personal madness on the rest of the world with impossible regularity and without challenge?
the NPG electrode was replaced with carbon blac
Funny - Walden O'Dell, the CEO who infamously promised to deliver Ohio's votes to Bush in 2004, resigned in 2005.
Okay, say the next company comes along with a very good system.
It shows Republicans winning by ever bigger majorities.
Placing doubt on the doubt.
You're right. I'm just hoping the people running the banks and choosing the ATM vendors will decide against Diebold in the future because of their newfound reputation. If I were in their place, I wouldn't want to choose Diebold, simply because they've demonstrated themselves to be incompetent when it comes to security with these voting machines, and for a bank, security is paramount for continued business operation.
Which one was it that contributed to your ability to foist your personal madness on the rest of the world with impossible regularity and without challenge?
Money. Well, partially. The other part was having parents who were actually FAITHFULL Catholics instead of bastards who got divorced and abused their kids.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
> Money
Spoiled little rich retard.
> The other part was having parents who were actually FAITHFULL Catholics
Are those the ones you credit with your autism, or the events which caused you to be a self-proclaimed sexual abuser in your childhood?
the NPG electrode was replaced with carbon blac
Funny - Walden O'Dell, the CEO who infamously promised to deliver Ohio's votes to Bush in 2004, resigned in 2005. See previous re: context. Hint: people with jobs are also allowed to join political parties.
Are those the ones you credit with your autism, or the events which caused you to be a self-proclaimed sexual abuser in your childhood?
Neither. The cause of my autism is still unknown, and after discussions with other autistics, I find my sexual maturation process was quite common for somebody with my brain. But at least I had parents who cared to correct me, unlike you. I pity you, for you will never fully understand Church teaching on the subject.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
> The cause of my autism is still unknown
You were dropped on your head.
> I find my sexual maturation
Or positive lack thereof since you seem to have an inner need to witness debasement.
> I had parents who cared to correct me
They failed.
> will never fully understand Church teaching on the subject
Which is what? "Do unto others" is somehow, in your mind, exempted in the course of discussion?
the NPG electrode was replaced with carbon blac
You were dropped on your head.
Not a possible cause of autism, which is biochemical and neurological wiring in nature, not specific "damage" like some other diagnosis in the DSM-IV.
Or positive lack thereof since you seem to have an inner need to witness debasement.
No, actually, I have no such "inner need". I just recognize that unlike my prefered ideal of all jobs being allocated from a centeral government computer server, the real world of corporatism means that human beings are mere resources to be chewed up & spit out; treated like the garbage they are in comparison to the real first class citizens of this nation. That's true for just about everybody earning under an eight figure income. And to get even a six figure income, you've got to be willing to live wth a wage in the low hundreds first.
They failed.
Actually, they succeeded admirably by Church and Evolutionary standards- in that I'm now faithfully married, have NO extramarital sexual interests, AND have a child. Oh yeah, and divorce? That's something only Protestants do....
Which is what? "Do unto others" is somehow, in your mind, exempted in the course of discussion?
More that it's a simplification for simple minds. Paul VI said it better in Humanae Vitae, but it took until my brain finished maturing at 25 to even *begin* to understand why I should follow that instead of the liberal "have many partners and throw them away" sexual revolution. "Do unto others", heck, I was treating the girls I went out with before then the way I wanted to be treated. To me, love and lust were one and the same; I didn't understand the difference. And as an autistic "inappropriate" meant absolutely nothing. In a way, just like I've treated you online. I've treated you the *exact* same way I expect to be treated and debated with. Do unto others doesn't count for much when you're used to being treated as an adult, for there is no reason to hide feelings behind a false polticial correctness with an adult.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
It's because GodfatherofSoul is a faggot.
I have. Haven't used an ATM in about 6 or 7 years. Had nothing to do with Diebold or any spiteful decision for that matter, they simply aren't all that relevant if you don't need to pay for things with cash a lot.
They've made so many obviously crappy products, bodged workarounds and security leaks, I'm glad to see them go because I don't want to trust their equipment with my vote.
I just hope they fire all the staff that produced the voting systems instead of relocate them to their ATM products where they can do more harm as they clearly don't have a clue.
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
Or don't you care if elections are literally stolen?
The 2004 presidential elections had anomalies THAT WERE OUTSIDE THE POSSIBLE MARGIN OF ERROR FOR EXIT POLLS.
Do you understand what that means? It means that the results WERE rigged. This country was forced into a war of choice by a president that was never legitimately elected and there are hundreds of thousands of people who are dead because of it.
This goes way beyond politics into the realm of treason. Those responsible for subverting our election process should be hanged until dead. Every last one of them.
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
Thank-you! You hit the nail right on the head.
-FL
Thanks you.
The machine shouldn't put the ballot in a sequentially sorted hopper, it should spit it out the front, like, I don't know, an ATM maybe? The voter checks it to make sure it's right, then on the way out drops it in a ballot box. Wouldn't be hard to work out a system with RFID or barcodes to ensure that voters don't leave the poll with their ballots.
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
Seriously.
All it would take is another well-timed 9-11, or a total market collapse, or some other disaster at the right time, and I can easily see Bush declaring himself Emperor for Life.
Either that, or the next guy will be even worse. "The Prezinator" anyone?
Ugh. In in world where the RIAA has guys with flak jackets and machine guns, any crazy thing can happen.
-FL
Flamebait? No. Coincidence? Maybe. If you can't mod appropriately, then post a reply.
How could the voting machines hurt their image? Are you telling me they do something *other* than help people subvert democracy?
I dont see why someone wouldnt just build an embedded open-source solution, wouldnt be that difficult to develop a system that runs off a microcontroller like a dsPIC, with a touch screen, printer, barcode scanner and some speech synthesis (for the blind), could be written in C++, and the hardware would be open source as well.
I regularly read the sight that the article I linked to links to, but I posted the about.com article because I thought you might like that source better than a progressive news service webpage commondreams.org, and the site that THAT article originally came from is a pay-subscription site... I was trying to link to a non-partisan source for you, in spite of my 'bias' that somehow came shining through in 10 words. If I picked that site out of any 'flaw' of mine it was laziness, as in too lazy to do an in depth search for someone who I knew wasn't interested in hearing it anyways, and just wanted to be a smart ass.
I agree with you about that whole thing being a 1st amendment right, and have been aware of that aspect of the story for a while now. Just cause he's allowed to say it doesn't make it less suspicious. If there is an outbreak of hangings in a town where the KKK just happens to be exercising their 1st Amendment rights up and down the street every day for a month, would you be suspicious? You SHOULD be, unless the hangings don't bother you too much.
There is an abundance of evidence that both the 2000 and 2004 elections were stolen, yes STOLEN, as in theft, as in took my vote from me. Why doesn't THAT piss you off? because they took mine and made it more like yours? It would piss ME off if they took YOURS and made it more like MINE.
And to all the cute little 'well why didn't it work in 2006 then?' comments, I've got a theory. Maybe they've (they as in the GOP machine) run the probabilities through a anti-unrest database to predict how many votes they can steal before the threat of armed uprising becomes too significant. Maybe they didn't wanna see how far into the red they could dip. I dunno, just a theory, but it's enough to kick "there was no fraud because the republicans didn't win this time" crap right in the nuts.
Since this artice IS about diebold and e-voting if you'd like I'll dig up link after link for you about the vote being stolen - in many different ways.
It won't matter - Andersons Consulting survived destruction of their image by a mere change of name to Accenture - Diebold still has some way to go.
Diebold is just remarketing bad software.
The Commonwealth Bank of Australia has both Diebold and NCR ATMs. If I come across a Diebold one when I'm low on money I decide how low I really am.
As an aside, one thing I'm noticing with modern ATMs is that the viewable angle is really wide. This is a bad thing. They should put in cheaper LCD panels or consider installing a privacy filter.
provided of course, that he is really dead. - Voltaire.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
the NPG electrode was replaced with carbon blac
Spare us the BS. You were dropped on your head. That explains your whining about headaches.
Nope, medical science. I wonder why you didn't know that- guess maybe you were lying about your education?
I pity the poor child who grows up under the supervision of a self-admitted youth s3x offender and a compulsive verbal abuser such as yourself. Every cent of your taxpayer leeched money will be necessary to ensure that the kid isn't reviled throughout their life.
Is there anybody out there who ISN'T reviled throughout their lives? Learning to deal with the hate is a part of growing up and being an ADULT.
As evidenced by your chosen path of discourse, in which you fail to maintain thorough continuity across subjects, your brain will never mature.
Learning to hold contradictory ideas in a single head is a part of maturity. Perhaps one day you will learn that.
Did that include the constant verbal degradation which you've clearly demonstrated on Slashdot?
Of course not- that's my WRITING style not my SPEAKING style- and as you admitted today, harrassment does not exist. Therefore it's not VERBAL, it's WRITTEN. Learn the difference.
Except that, when I dish back the insults and abuse which you've dished, you cop out. I've demonstrated that, no matter how ludicrous and incongruous your arguments are, I'm willing to patiently continue an attempt at discourse. Well, until today that is. I decided to try an experiment to see how you would receive the same crap which you give on a daily basis. You fail it.
I've kept up the discourse, but you fail to read it. The mark of a true troll.
If that is true then the level of disrespect which you've shown me is worthy of 4dult-calibre punishment (and no hiding behind desperate proclamations of "I'm autistic! I can't help it!"). You should be in prison or, at least, barred from internet use.
Disrespect isn't against the law. If you don't like the level of respect you're recieving, perhaps you need to change the level of respect you give.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
You're a mentally compromised social reject.
the NPG electrode was replaced with carbon blac
Speaking as an outsider (although I lived in the US a decade ago) I can definitely say that Bush will leave happily at the end of his term. Partly because he's too much of an idiot for even his masters to stomach (or control), but mostly because a majority of the US still believes they live in a democracy, and the people in charge are going to milk that as long as they can. It just makes good financial sense--why impose martial law when you can just keep stealing elections and get grudging support from the populace? (i.e. "Well he's an idiot, but our country voted him in so I guess we have to agree with him.")
The Democrats will likely win the next election as long as they have enough brains to put Hilary in, although the Republicans might be able to play the 'female president uncertainty' card and bring the totals close enough to rig another one. I doubt that'll happen though, because they can give up four years of officially calling the shots, in order to let the Democrats take the heat for the unholy mess the country is in now, and then step in for three consecutive terms. After that, (and maybe a fourth one--hard to say), then if there's anything left to seize control of, they'll do it--martial law will be VOTED on, and declared.
That is, of course, unless the rest of the world manages to extricate themselves and let the US collapse without taking everyone else down with them. At that point, who knows what'll happen?
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
"Don't you care that Diebold's trying to destroy all mankind? Huh?"
"But they're so BAD at it."
(With apologies to Invader Zim.)
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
You may not agree with the guy but there is no need to be abusive. Being reduced to abuse says more about you than him.
meh
Come off it. When your job is to BUILD VOTING MACHINES, extreme partisanship like that is AT BEST unethical and irresponsible. The man was way over the line.
You seem to have not paid attention. There were wide, and well substantiated claims of Diebold problems in that election, many of which are open to interpretation as to whether or not they were fraudulent, and if so if they were politically motivated (as opposed to just covering for incompetence). The problem was that the elections were so overwhelmingly in favor of the Democrats that these irregularities had little impact.
Here's the thing that bothers me about this, though: EVERYONE should be upset when someone says something like that. His statement should be read as, "I will use the Republican party to tear down democracy." Republicans should take that as a slap in the face, and should be MORE outraged than Democrats!
Pot/Kettle
Other than your attempts to divert the issue away from one of the most amazing statements ever to be made in the political world, I'm not sure what your point there is (BTW: I'll note that I haven't told you my party affiliation... just for fun, I'm going to continue to not do so, as I love watching people guess).
As an ofttimes Republican voter I was:
* Upset when a thorough study of the 2000 Florida results (by mostly liberal mainstream media) concluded that Bush had indeed won the state, but long after that history has been re-written to only focus on headlines from 24 hours after the election.
This is unrelated to my point, but it so happens it's wrong. In reality a number of news outlets worked together to determine which of the statistical methods that various parties were pushing for made sense, given the situation. The conclusion was not particularly aimed at a "who won" sort of result, but the findings did indicate that Al Gore's chosen method of recount would not have made a substantial difference in the outcome, while a state-wide recount most likely would have resulted in the opposite result.[1]
* Upset that in the 2004 election cycle, Democrats AGAIN cried foul in districts where lazy, incompetent election officials spent taxpayers money hand over fist too buy this junky hardware and software rather than do realistic requirements analysis, and particularly upset that while these changes took place (pre 2004) these same left wing complainers said NOTHING, waiting instead for the results that they didn't like.
This is not fair. I watched as plenty of "left wing complainers" screamed bloody murder in the non-mainstream press, but the mainstream press didn't want to touch the story because it was too "technical." Once the election was on... then it was news. Either way, the fault does not lie with the "complainers", but with those that were producing the bad systems and selling them to states that were hard-pressed to meet ill-interpreted new regulations.
* Post 2004 I engaged in numerous debates with individuals who swore they were not complaining about the 2004 results, but were indeed interested in the issue. Again, these people grew silent as distance from the 2004 election increased. As I would bring up newly discovered issues with this Windoze based software (and hardware) they would thank me politely for reminding them and then go right back to Bush bashing, continuing to ignore the very REAL bipartisan problems that were being ignored by the mainstream media.
Many of us have given up, and it's nice to see in this article that Diebold is finally deciding that they don't want to be in that business.
* While you say the results of 2006 were "overwhelming", in fact in many local elections the margin of victory, particularly for newly elected democrats were a dozen votes, and for state level offices a few hundred. Almost NONE of these votes were contested, even in cases where the Republican candidate had only to request a recount.
Of course. An overwhelming margin in the U.S. for (just for example) a Presidential race is what, 10-15%? That me
I'm from Ohio, and I have no respect for Diebold, and probably never will again.
Their dishonest demos and insecure, buggy, unverifiable voting system showed their complete lack of respect for America's representative democracy. At the very least they are unpatriotic. Whether they rigged the presidential election or not, they are criminals.
However, the only problem is that the world has a way lately of throwing in the unexpected.
I can't help but think that the Middle East melting down is going to cause some new dynamics. Do the Christian Apocalypse Occultists pushing for this crazy war have a plan of action for when all the people with brown skin are finally dead? What happens when you throw an apocalypse and Jesus doesn't come? Or worse, what happens when somebody shows up claiming to be Jesus? And how does this painfully boring build-up to, "Life On Mars" figure into it all. And then there's the comets and ice age stuff.
All of which sounds very weird, I realize, but if somebody had told me fifteen years ago that the entire national economy would be shaken to its foundation by a chain store called, 'Wal-Mart', that the presidency would be successfully stolen by rigged electronic voting machines, that the West was going to launch a ludicrously named, "War on Terror" because of a Bruce-Willis production of planes-into-sky-scrapers, that the Israelis would turn the Gaza Strip into a concentration camp without the world batting an eyelash, that the record labels would start hiring SWAT teams to enforce copyright while artists STILL get ripped off, and that the gulf stream would stop flowing, I'd have said, "Yeah, but only if the writers happened to be stoned at the scripting session."
It's all a little too Neal Stephenson for me. The world seems very fake and over the top these days, but surprisingly, I'm actually having a hard time being astonished when each successive bit of surreal fever dream weirdness parades onto the stage. I think it's important to be able to look at insane stuff and recognize it as such. Otherwise, it's the same as being asleep at the circus.
And hey, you'd miss out on the cotton candy.
-FL
I didn't know Diebold did anything *other* than electronic voting.
/. too much.)
(I read
alas, how we shall miss thee, how we shall lament thee not
Oops! Too late, guys. Your venture into electronic voting has probably sullied your reputation in most other areas of business that you are involved in. I know I'll never feel too comfortable using a Diebold ATM again.
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
You fuckwad shitdot cowards can go fuck yourselves. I'll rape your dogs and your hamsters you fucking theives.
In my original post, I said this, "Seriously, if you know something about the history and you have a little technical knowledge, would you ever buy anything from Diebold?"
I said nothing about not using Diebold ATMs. The liability is the banks', not the users'. The only point is that anyone knowing the history and having technical knowledge would try to find some other supplier.
Shell Game.
blah, blah, blah...
The part that promoted blackboxvoting.com was informative and relevant. However, the opening was pure troll. It was especially odious in that it was replying to someone promoting open, auditable voting. The implication of the post was that blackboxvoting.com is opposed to a real paper trail that is audited by the voter before being entered as a vote. Now, in reality, it was just some jerk on the internet who either can't read or who was being deliberately trollish.
-Eric
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
You're a mentally compromised social reject.
Yes, but I can't let that stop me from working and living in a house. So I don't. What does it matter if I'm a mentally compromised social reject? I'm the best me that I can be. And that is better than most in the end. I don't need you or anybody else to validate my existance.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Oh, no, you're doing just fine with your rants without my help.
I regularly read the sight that the article I linked to links to, but I posted the about.com article because I thought you might like that source better than a progressive news service webpage commondreams.org, and the site that THAT article originally came from is a pay-subscription site... I was trying to link to a non-partisan source for you, in spite of my 'bias' that somehow came shining through in 10 words.
Sorry, apparently I didn't make my point clearly. It's not the source you chose or didn't choose that shows the bias, it's interpreting this non-event as significant that shows your bias, you see.
I agree with you about that whole thing being a 1st amendment right, and have been aware of that aspect of the story for a while now. Just cause he's allowed to say it doesn't make it less suspicious. If there is an outbreak of hangings in a town where the KKK just happens to be exercising their 1st Amendment rights up and down the street every day for a month, would you be suspicious? You SHOULD be, unless the hangings don't bother you too much.
There you go again. Let me give you an example. I work for a very large company that makes, among many other things, light bulbs. I also have strong feelings about compact fluorescent bulbs. Yet, when I say "you should buy them to replace your standard bulbs as the burn out", I'm not saying that as a spokesman for my employer, I'm saying it as someone who is interested in the benefits of using CF bulbs. The distinction isn't subtle. Similarly, I help with the re-election committee of a friend of mine. When I spend my time, energy, and so on promoting why he should be re-elected as Sherriff, I'm doing that as _me_, not as an agent of my employer. This shouldn't be surprising to you.
There is an abundance of evidence that both the 2000 and 2004 elections were stolen, yes STOLEN, as in theft, as in took my vote from me. Why doesn't THAT piss you off?
Because I've seen the "evidence" and it fails the smell test. In 2000, not one count, recount, rerecount, rererecount, or rerererecount in just heavily Democratic counties put Gore over the top. The Supreme Court ruled and said "Gore, knock it off, give it up already, you lost." And yet your type has tried to re-invent history to somehow say that he won. He didn't. The "evidence" for 2004 is even more stinky - exit polls have NEVER been statistically valid. If they were, you see, we wouldn't have to do this whole "voting" thing.
And to all the cute little 'well why didn't it work in 2006 then?' comments, I've got a theory. Maybe they've (they as in the GOP machine) run the probabilities through a anti-unrest database to predict how many votes they can steal before the threat of armed uprising becomes too significant.
OK, I'm done. Your tinfoil hat appears to be a little tight there, sparky.
Diebold's slogan is "We never rest."
Compare to the popular phrase: "There is no rest for the wicked."
http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/257500.html
Where is my free pass to fail without accountability? Remember, I am interested in making money.
A simple google search and:
0 2/1440234
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/03/
You can find a link to the video on that page. Happy now?
Pretty lazy Dude.
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
Interesting that, rather than discuss the points I rationally raised in response to your messages, you decide to just tag me as 'foe'. Do you save this just for folks who clearly articulate points you can't answer, or do you do this for anyone who tells you you're wrong?
No no, I respond to people who clearly bring valid points to the table, and I ignore people who's version of a 'fact' means that it's FOXNews balanced and approved, and checked to make sure it's not too full of reality.
And I 'foed' you because people who whip out the 'tinfoil hat' in the face of overwhelming evidence (whether you like that evidence or not) are not worth my time talking too. You're an obnoxious fuck, anything I say will be responded to in an obnoxious fuck style, and I will not waste my time on you.
Feel better now? Good.
P.S. In response to that trite little tinfoil hat comment, I'll toss out one of my own, keep drinking the Kool-Aid buddy.
Did it sound witty comming from me? No? That's pretty much how you sounded too, tired, played out, and full of shit. You think you're cute, but you're nothing but a factless tactless troll.
P.S.S. Since you seem to want to continue this, tell me exactly WHERE exit polls have been proven to be anything but THE MOST ACCURATE measure of election results. Tell me why they are the indicator the U.N. looks at worldwide to see if elections are going fairly, and if they suck so bad tell me why the U.S. used them to justify forcing Shevardnadze to resign from the P.M. post in Georgia (Europe Version, since I'm pretty sure a reactionary troll like you wouldn't have known that) or is that something I shouldn't bring up because it points out just how full of shit you are.
Can you tell you pissed me off? I'm tired of you fucking idiots claiming people wear tinfoil hats just because they can fucking READ.
Turn off your T.V. and join the real world you ignorant fuck.
Assume much? I don't watch Fox News, actually I usually get news online from cnn, bbc, and a few other sites which are fairly unbiased. I even listen to NPR from time to time, although I'll admit that's usually for entertainment value.
As far as exit polls, you've put so many words into my mouth that your comments are really not worth dealing with. They're imperfect. Just like all polling is. If they were perfect, you see, we could bypass counting actual votes and just go with exit polls. We don't. And yes, I know where the Georgia you refer to is, and find it somewhat amusing that you feel the need to insult someone who merely points out the flaws in your point of view by assuming that they are also ignorant. News flash for you, sparky: just because someone disagrees with you, doesn't mean they're (a) stupid, (b) ignorant, or (c) wrong.
Your points might have any weight at all, and have any chance of convincing someone, if they weren't accompanied by a tirade of obscenities and insults. As they are, you just come across as an angry, opinionated person, who prefers to shout down rather than reason with someone who disagrees with them. Best of luck to you; I suggest that your rhetorical tactics are not optimal.