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Diebold Sues Massachusetts for "Wrongful Purchase"
elBart0 writes "Diebold has decided to sue the commonwealth of Massachusetts for choosing a competitor to provide voting machines for the disabled. Diebold wants to force the state to stop using the machines immediately, despite the upcoming municipal elections in many towns. The commonwealth chose the competitor based on an open process that included disabled groups. Diebold executives appeared confused when encountering election officials who made an intelligent choice."
I'd love it if someone would do this in every state where someone agreed to buy Diebold voting machines.
Wrong actor, right technique. Based on security issues alone, we know Diebold is always the wrong choice. Just by a knee jerk methodology, we could keep the machines out of people's hands for another few months each time. It would generate some press, if nothing else.
LBJ wanted his opponent accused of having sex with barnyard animals. It wasn't that he thought the charge would stick -- he wanted people to hear the candidate deny it. In this case, the response will be "well, your software is a joke -- completely insecure." We'll get to hear Diebold deny the charge. Any suit brought to force reopening analysis before purchase of Diebold's stuff would mean that, once again, they'd have to say "No, our software isn't laughably insecure. No the fact the our code showed up on the Internet isn't a problem. No, our keys are not from a hotel minibar and orderable over the Internet, and no, they're not all the same. No, we didn't miscount this race in this way or that race in that way." If they deny it enough, everyone will know that it's true. Oddly, though, in this case it actually WILL be true.
So I think we should also allege that they have sex with barnyard animals.
What if Coke sued you because you bought a Pepsi? What if AMD sued you because you bought an Intel chip?
That's not quite the right analogy. It's more like if you were deciding between Coke and Pepsi, and told both companies that you'd be selecting on the basis of taste. Suppose now that Pepsi's research shows that people strongly prefer Pepsi over Coke -- but you choose Coke anyway. That's sort of what's going on here.
That said, as I noted in my other post, I don't understand where the actual legal issue is in all this.
Step 1: Establish a credit account with Oil Company A.
Step 2: Call them and ask the price of oil next time you need some.
Step 3: Get a load of oil from Oil Company B, who happens to have a better prioce that week.
Step 4: Get your credit account cancelled by Oil Company A because they know how often you should need oil and you didn't order form them.
No, it's not a lawsuit, but they're denying you credit for simply buying from their competition.
This is all perfectly legal in the State of Connecticut. It's like driving by a Mobil station to get cheaper gas at Shell, then Mobil cuts up your Mobil card.
Business today seems to run on the notion that if it's not specifically prohibited, we should try and do it, no matter how bad it looks. I get better ethics and learning curves from my third graders.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
I work for an agency under DoD. I had some end of year fundage to spend so I decided to buy some printers and networkable scanners - about $100k worth of gadgets. I'd requested HP hardware because that's pretty much what the infrastructure here is geared to support.
Because of the size of the contract award the thing went out for open bid - and I was contacted by another printer manufacturer. I won't tell you their name, but their initials are L-e-x-m-a-r-k.
Strongarm tactics ensue. First the local contracting office asked me to define printing and scanning requirements as the Other Printer Company believes they can meet my requirements at a lower cost - but we won't mention the fact that all the supplies I have in stock are from the Printer Company I Wanted To Use and adding another hardware vendor would be a logistical nightmare.
So - starting with the network scanners I start looking at hardware specs. The Other Printer Company says they can meet my requirements, but since a digital sender is an input device as opposed to an output device, I would have to get the new hardware certifiied by the network spies and I don't have time to do that, so for that part of the procurement I got the hardware I requested.
The printers were another matter. Once you've specified dpi, print speed and networking capabilities you've pretty much got to go with whoever brings the lowest bid - so the Other Printer Company won that.
During the acquisition process I felt like I was being strongarmed by the Other Printer Company and since I couldn't give a good reason not to use their hardware I have to use it. If I'd have had a week instead of a day to process the procurement I probably could have.
I have learned that I need to fine-tune my hardware requirements to keep it from happening again - but manufacturers can and will sue the government for buying from somebody else.
we see things not as as they are, but as we are.
-- anais nin
Most state and federal purchase contracts (short of "sole source" contracts) have a procedure to follow for assessing the candidates. It is up to each solicitor to publish the evaluation criteria. What you don't always get is how they graded each component in the criteria. Because technology and price are only two of many criteria, the winning bid may not be the highest score in either. In any contract of sufficient interest to the bidders, there is always contention over who won and why. Happens in federal contracts all the time. Some companies tend to avoid formal protest (even when they feel there is cause) because they don't want to adversely affect their chances in the future. Others see reason to protest and do.
Despite the typical Slashdot half-the-facts synopsis, don't read anything in Diebold protesting this contract. Diebold is after two things: to find out HOW the criteria were evaluated and to appeal the contract award. At this point, neither Diebold nor anyone on Slashdot knows how the candidates were evaluated. Therefore speculation about the validity of Diebold's case is idiotic.
No, I don't have any connection whatsoever to Diebold. I have been involved in years worth of contracting. You'd be surprised how many times I investigated after a contract was awarded elsewhere, only to find out that it was someone on the customer side who had their finger on the scale.
In other words, Diebold wants to see the proprietary scoring format used to judge who should be awarded the contract.
Why does that sound familiar?
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Touché. Wish I had mod points to give you. Maybe the commonwealth of Massachusets can just tell Diebold that doing so would reveal "trade secrets" so they are not going to comply...
"But this one goes to 11!"