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Netcraft Shows Smartech Running Ohio Election Servers
goombah99 writes "Netcraft is showing that an event happened in the Ohio 2004 election that is difficult to explain. The Secretary of State's website, which handles election reporting, normally is directed to an Ohio-based IP address hosted by the Ohio Supercomputer Center. On Nov. 3 2004, Netcraft shows the website pointing out of state to a server owned by Smartech Corp. According to the American Registry on Internet Numbers, Smartech's block of IP addresses 64.203.96.0 – 64.203.111.255 encompasses the entire range of addresses owned by the Republican National Committee. Smartech hosted the recently notorious gbw43.com domain used from the White House in apparent violation of the Presidential Records Act, from which thousands of White House emails vanished." Update: 04/25 01:24 GMT by KD : ePluribus Media published a piece called Ken Blackwell Outsources Ohio Election Results to GOP Internet Operatives, Again on election eve 2006, when a similar DNS switch to Smartech occurred. They have been investigating the larger story of IT on Capitol Hill and elsewhere for two years.
The "change" is because the elections web site is only in operation for elections. Its operation was contracted to SmartTech by the Ohio Secretary of State. There was no "hack". Partisans and partisan companies are involved in the elections and voting process. The key is having enough oversight to keep everyone honest.
Ohio: 64.203.98.137
RNC: 64.203.98.0 - 64.203.98.127
There is no evidence presented that the RNC controlled the Ohio server in question. It fell outside the range.
Our democracy is in great peril as long as these "win at all costs" idiots are in the game.
Well, what a relief that the democrats would never stoop to grandstanding, using foreign money to fund campaigns, submit thousands of fraudulant voter registrations in key races, retain congressmen caught with $90k of bribe cash in their freezers (and put them on the Homeland Security oversight committee! you can't make stuff like that up!), etc. Do you REALLY think that the other party's habit of doing things like taking election cash from China as donations through a monestary in California DOESN'T count as "win at all costs?" You need a different complaint.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Search for wierd:
Did you mean: weird
Even more interesting is that the search for 'weird' and 'smartech' eventually leads to this interesting blog post which lists "Strange Domains Registered by the RNC"
"After you've got your minority support locked away, you can then begin the attack ads:" (from the blog post)
"...and, of course, to anticipate attacks by grabbing(and squatting on) those domains first:" (from the blog post)
- Ken Blackwell Outsources Ohio Election Results to GOP Internet Operatives, Again
- Ohio's election website still sent real-time results to GOP mirror server
Related storiesGrow your own @ePluribUs Media.
Damn it, this is why the republicans are driving this country into the ground!
The Secretary of State's office is NOT a partisan position. The Secretary swears to protect and defend the constitution (or whatever the equivalent is for Ohio state positions), not to protect the elephant. There should be a clear and unambiguous wall between the office holder's official actions and individual partisan actions, and should never, under any circumstances, use official resources for partisan purposes. When it's inevitable (the classic example being the president flying to events during the election season), the office holder is required to provide appropriate compensation for this use. E.g., equivalent first-class airfare for everyone on AF1, IIRC.
With most secretaries of state, I would agree with you that it's probably nothing more than temporary hosting during a period of high use.
But the outgoing Secretary of State, Blackwell (iirc), was extraordinarily partisan in his official acts. He's the reason why Ohio is usually the center of stolen election allegations. Given his amply documented bad behavior in the past, e.g., attempting to have his gubernatoral opponent disqualified on bogus grounds shortly before the election, a rational person would have no choice but to assume the worst and require proof that it truly was an innocent and unbiased decision.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
Where do I begin:
Carter was more in the "Religious Right's" pocket than Bush ever will be. Carter was a Fundamentalist Christian (a religious affiliation), but it consistently galled the religious right (a political affiliation) that he wouldn't champion their causes. For example, he was politically pro-choice, but privately held that abortion was wrong. Were visiting dignitaries allowed a glass of wine with dinner while visiting the White House in 1978? Nope! Alcohol was banned in the White House by Carter. Ok... and that makes him a poor president, why? Remember, we're comparing him to a man who hired a flunky with no experience to head up FEMA! Average mortgage rates during the Carter administration were over 15%! I don't even pay credit cards 15%!!!
Inflation was through the roof (12%).
Unemployment was high (7%). The economy sucked under Carter. However, any economist worth their salt will tell you that this was an unavoidable consequence of global factors, including our exit from Viet Nam. There was also the fact that the Fed was still applying, what Greenspan would later prove to be a losing strategy for managing inflation. None of this was under Carter's control. Deficit spending went through the roof (the deficit for the fiscal year 1979 totaled $27.7 billion, and that for 1980 was nearly $59 billion).
Devaluation of the dollar. These are consequences of a poor economy. Again, not Carter's doing. Gas shortages. Gas shortages are a tough problem, and I have to give R.R. credit for enhancing our oil options. Carter may or may not have responded in similar ways, but by the time any response was possible, he was out of office. Iranian hostage crisis.
Failure to rescue Iranian hostages. This was a very touchy situation, and I doubt we'll ever know for sure what happened. All I'll say is that, from the PR perspective, Carter hosed this one and hosed it good. Beyond that, there's just too much that was never disclosed. Demoralization and dismantling of the US military Well, the dismantling of large chunks of the military was inevitable, after the buildup during Viet Nam. Even Reagan's huge buildup in the mid/late 80s was only a stopgap that lasted as long as the end of the cold war. Canceled the B1-B program as well as the MBT-70. (Both badly needed to compete with our enemy of the time... the Soviets who had the T-72 and the Tu-160 BLACKJACK) I see no reason that those were badly needed to cope with the Soviets, and Carter's dealings with the Soviets and with arms issues were a major accomplishment of his presidency. It's actually kind of sad. Carter was probably the most intelligent president in US history. He just sucked as president. I think he was the best president we ever had. He refused to allow congress to continue to play their games, and effectively gridlocked them for 4 years. A better 4 years, I couldn't ask for. but things were better when he took office than when he left and things were much, MUCH better after four years of Reagan. Military spending was through the roof. Deficit spending dwarfed Carter's administration. The CIA and NSA were dealing drugs for international power-plays. No, things were not "MUCH better" after four years of Reagan - not by a long shot.
Carter was more in the "Religious Right's" pocket than Bush ever will be. Were visiting dignitaries allowed a glass of wine with dinner while visiting the White House in 1978? Nope! Alcohol was banned in the White House by Carter.
Oh noes!! Bring religious and being in the "religious right's" pocket are two different things. I don't think Carter is going around telling people that God came down to the White House and told him 'no more booze'.
Average mortgage rates during the Carter administration were over 15%! I don't even pay credit cards 15%!!!
Give it time.
Inflation was through the roof (12%).
Strong Fed has been keeping it low. Yay.
Unemployment was high (7%).
Unemployment is measured differently now than then. It's possible that unemployment now using the same measurements would be the same or higher.
Deficit spending went through the roof (the deficit for the fiscal year 1979 totaled $27.7 billion, and that for 1980 was nearly $59 billion).
What is it now? Oh right $521 Billion. And that's after having balanced the budget in the late '90s. So going from 0 to $521B is a bit more impressive.
Devaluation of the dollar.
$2 gets you a pound
Gas shortages.
Not sure why this hasn't happened yet. But $4/gal gas, here we come!
Iranian hostage crisis.
Failure to rescue Iranian hostages.
Funny how that ended just as Reagan took office. And how a later scandal was called Iran/Contra. Huh.
Demoralization and dismantling of the US military
Yea, the day after Bush blames Democrats for keeping the troops in Iraq longer than they should, Gates says all tours get extended from 12 months to 15 months.
Canceled the B1-B program as well as the MBT-70. (Both badly needed to compete with our enemy of the time... the Soviets who had the T-72 and the Tu-160 BLACKJACK)
We still beat the Russians, right?
Need I go on?
Oh, please do. I don't see anything about Carter tortuing American citizens, or spying on their telephone or banking records. The Internets wasn't quite the same now as then, so I'll give Bush a pass on spying on that, at least in comparing to Carter. Maybe Carter is to blame for Walter Reed, or K Street, or leaking Wilson's name, or any of the collection of other scandals we've seen in the past 6 years that makes losing money on a failed land deal look almost..innocent.
But you go on.
Just one comment on your exchange: Grandparent talked about the level of employment, you addressed the level of unemployment. Two different things since unemployment statistics relate to the percentage of job-seekers without work while employment is a measure of the percentage of the population that has jobs. If unemployed workers give up searching for jobs it is possible for unemployment AND employment statistics to both fall.
Life is short: void the warranty.
Well there were lies told before Vietnam (we didn't even admit we were there for a long time). There was also lying that led to the U.S. invasion of Cuba. And the U.S. invasion of Mexico. And Panama (okay, so we didn't invade Panama, but parking our gunboats in a way that blocked Columbia from a chunk of their own territory is close enough for me).Seeing as not many Presidents even had the Geneva Convention, I will ignore this. If you look at the spirit of the Geneva Convention though you will find many presidents who would be in violation if it existed in their day.See the CIA, and every President since 1947.Are you serious? Do you remember this thing called Japanese internment camps? Ever look into how Abraham Fucking Lincoln had some of his opposition jailed for being his opposition?Well seeing as the NSA was the agency involved with ECHELON, I would say at least every President since the early 1960's.
Computers allow humans to make mistakes at the fastest speeds known, with the possible exception of tequila and handguns
Ok, do you understand that if you're killing more and more al-Qaeda every day, and the numbers never drop, that means that you're not reducing an exhaustible supply - that you're making more of them by the very measures you claim to be using to eliminate them?.
A common misunderstanding Carter was handed a disfunctional military by Nixon, Ford, and Donnie Rumsfeld -- who was as much a disaster in his first tour at Defense as he was in his second. Carter INCREASED real military spending by 3% in each of his four budgets (which were 1978,1979,1980 and 1981 BTW not 1976-1980) That's just about the same rate that Reagan increased spending until Congress eventually stepped in and decided that the US had about as big a military as it could afford. Defense spending as a percentage of GDP was 4.7 percent when Carter took office. It was 5.2 percent when he left.
Don't believe me? Look it up. It's public record.
You can't see ANYTHING from a car, You've got to get out of the goddamned contraption and walk...Edward Abbey
Further problems with the economy (although most resulted from the deficit spending for that tragic military-industrial-complex profit endeavor, the Vietnam War) resulted from the Arab Oil Boycott due to Nixon's aiding Israel in the Yom Kippur War, nothing Jimmy Carter ever did.
Also, it was Jimmy Carter who put in place those trade boycotts with the Soviet Union after they invaded Afghanistan - something which was bringing them to their knees, economically speaking, but the same trade boycotts that Ronald Reagan immediately ended by his 23rd day in the White House.
And as a sidebar, it bears mentioning that the horrible throwaway mission, Operation Eagle Claw (the abortive attempt to rescue the American hostages held in Iran - and it certainly appeared to be nothing more than a BS mission by many of us combat vets), was planned by no other than General Richard Secord, latter deeply involved in Reagan's Iran-Contra scandal and an individual with a very shady past....