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Microsoft Moves To Change NY State Election Law
myspace-cn sends us to Bo Lipari's blog where it is revealed that Microsoft has moved forcefully into New York State with proposed changes to NY state election law drafted by Microsoft attorneys. A document has been circulating (PDF) among the legislators for a while now. The proposed changes would gut the source-code escrow and review provisions in current law that were hard-fought-for and passed in New York in 2005. Microsoft is siding with the makers of voting machines that run on Windows — the company doesn't want its code inspected by outsiders. From the article: "Now the software giant has gone a step further, not just saying 'we won't comply with your law' but actively trying to change state law to serve their corporate interests... Adding insult to injury, these changes are being slipped into a bill that may be voted on Monday or Tuesday, June 18 or 19."
Read Subject.
see subject.
I know they would still vote Bill Gates for president.
Just because he had so much TV time...
Those goddamned motherfucking bastards!!!
""Now the software giant has gone a step further, not just saying 'we won't comply with your law' but actively trying to change state law to serve their corporate interests... Adding insult to injury, these changes are being slipped into a bill that may be voted on Monday or Tuesday, June 18 or 19.""
OK. So what's the audience going to do about it?
No matter how sympathetic I am to Microsoft and no matter how much I like Vista. This should be illegal and it is most certainly wrong. Lets hope that NY state officials have the sense to stick with open source software.
"Oh boy"
Any form of eVoting will raise trust issues. Without source code there cannot be trust of a complex computer program - testing won't work. E.g. maybe only when sysdate is 15.May.2009 will a particular "feature" manifest. Microsoft are a closed source firm so they shouldn't go near eVoting.
these changes are being slipped into a bill that may be voted on Monday or Tuesday, June 18 or 19."
Can someone explain why it is that politicians are allowed to "slip" completely unrelated items into bills that must be voted on all-or-nothing? They do this all the time, tacking on things that only a small minority want, onto a bill that is important and that everyone is going to pass because the main item is needed by most/all.
One reason I could see is if they believed that congress moved too slow to be able to vote on everything unless things were bundled like this. That's a sad excuse still.
The other reason I could see is that there may be too many cases where it was impossible to get a majority vote on any single issue without puting something into the pot for several different interests to help the bill pass.
Anyway, what is this process by which they can just tack on other unrelated provisions? And who gets to say what gets added? Just pay off a senator and it's in basically?
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
Just pile the whole mess of these machines into a trailer rig, attach a bill for them to the rear door, and send it off to Redmond. There...no code, no code escrow worries. Next, locate a vendor that will produce a machine *with* a specification so that the software can be developed by any vendor that follows the specification. This would make a great open source project.
Lets cut out the well bribed middlemen and just elect corporations to run the country...think of the money it would save them!!!
sic transit gloria mundi
Microsoft doesn't "campaign" to change the law, they "move" to change it (as if they have some special law-making power that no one else can use.)
They didn't just "move" into New York State, they moved "forcefully" (as if they needed the submitter's permission.)
They don't "modify" the current laws, they "gut" them (right...like these kinds of phrases are used when the EFF proposes changes to a law.)
The laws weren't just "passed", they were "hard fought for" (as if a law that was "hard fought for" is somehow more valid than the rest of the country's laws.)
They aren't asking for a redress of grievances...they're trying to "serve their corporate interests" (duhh, what to do they want Microsoft to do? Make decisions that hurt their interests?)
They aren't just "adding" the changes to a bill, they're being "slipped in" (as if this isn't exactly the same process used by every single other bill.)
Why is that Microsoft doesn't deserve to have its interests represented by their government the same as every other citizen and corporation. Or should the companies we like be treated "more equally" than the ones we don't like?
* Voting machine manufacturers want their code closed so that they can take bribes for deciding the winner.
* Microsoft wants their code closed in order to protect lock-in.
* Those in power take bribes from Microsoft and the voting machine manufacturers, and moreover, they want to be able to hand their offices to friends and supporters when their own terms are up.
Summary: things are happening that appear to be motivated by agendas antithetical to democracy.
When the used car salesman if performing gymnastics to guide your eyes away from some aspect of the car, that's where you'd BETTER look if you don't want to be ripped off.
What we have here is a salesman who is desperate to keep us from examining the source of the OS.
This is the company that sells software to Automatic Teller Machines, which are very important pieces of machinery in how they can effect a person's life. We've all read horror stories about ATM's running windows crashing, but MS expects people to put their trust in them when deciding who runs the country?!? This is lunacy!
I'm a student. I write iPhone apps.
Here in Soviet Amerika, Microsoft and Haliburton write our laws. This is Corporatism, its Mercantilism, and its evil.. If we let it continue we will find ourselves homeless in the country our forefathers conquered.
Bringing liberty to the masses. - http://freetalklive.com/
I'd like to say none of this is new. Voting itself has never been all that secure anyways. The only security is that the number of people needed to pull of a rigged election was so large that the probability of someone or many someones spilling the beans kept the completion in check.
Now, with the automation of so many of life's crucial processes, fewer and fewer people are needed to rig any thing.
Everyone seems to be hyping the internet, but you're walking into a mindfield, where the truth will be subjugated beneath all the other junk.
The easiest way to hide a murder is to commit an atrocity. And now thanks to the internet and computers, it takes few like minds to do such.
Is why aren't the amendments debated and voted on separately? It's completely bizarre that they are just stuck on like used chewing gum.
Deleted
Given that voting is (generally) considered quite an important activity, with natinal security implications, I see no reason why the relevant software/hardware combination should be held to lesser standards than, say, software in avionics on our planes or on-board software on our satellites, both of which seem to work "just fine" (relatively speaking, yes, you get thousands of newspaper articles when there is a single failure).
:)
Or, (google for the story) apparently writing the e-voting bill was really easy in Nevada, they said "Hey, we'll use the same audit standards that we already have for our slot machines" -- and all the Diebolds decided to skip NV as a customer...
Paul B.
From Bo Lipari's blog:
s enators?OpenForm
"Take Action Now - It's urgent that you call your State Senator and Assembly representatives on Monday, June 18, at their Albany offices, and tell them they must not weaken New York State's escrow and review requirements. Remind them that the Legislature passed a strong law 2 years ago - they must not give in to pressure by voting machine vendors to undermine those protections.
Find your Assembly member's contact information here:
http://www.assembly.state.ny.us/mem/
(Not sure who your Assembly member is? Click here to search by Zip Code)
Find your State Senator's contact information here:
http://www.senate.state.ny.us/senatehomepage.nsf/
(Not sure who your State Senator is? Click here to search by Zip Code)"
The PDF is fine! Basically MS is saying that we will not release our source code to you for the underlying OS. They still want the APP to have the source code released. Apple would do the same with OSX if it was the underlying OS for the APP to run on. I am not sure how legal the current law is. It states that if a vendor creates an app that runs on any os, the app and the os have to have an audit review and the source code released. IANAL, but I think this would create an issue with the vendors submitting a voting machine that can not comply with the law.
Even if you have all the source code to Windows and all the source code to the voting application running on it, you may still not be able to detect the routines that may have been inserted illegally. For example, Microsoft could easily insert code into their compilers to insert backdoors into the source code of the compiler itself and any applications being compiled that count votes. By then recompiling the compiler itself without the logic that detects and inserts the backdoor, their compiler source code would have no evidence that the backdoors are inserted, but they would be nonetheless.
For a much better explanation of this, read Ken Thompson's essay "Reflections on Trusting Trust".
Get a hacker to hack the said machines and display:
:) "
"This voting machine was infected with a virus. Who knows if they're altering the votes? MUAHAHAHAHAH!
P.S. Thank you for choosing Microsoft products
That'll teach 'em. The voters i mean >:D
Democracy =! A country in which you can have your political way by throwing money at stuff.
Change your ways, or we'll be forced to come over there and liberate the opressed masses.
Sincerely yours
Denmark
This is just one more reason we should have stuck with the paper ballot. Despite all the complaints about the 2000 election, there was a clear paper trail to follow. I do not believe that there is any way to make an electronic ballot that there is a way to make it so that the average person could be confident that the vote wasn't rigged. Even with open source software, unless you compiled the code yourself (or at least were present when it was compiled), how do you know that the "open" code is actually what they installed on the machine?
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
And control needs power. Twice so in a democracy. The foundation of democracy is the free, anonymous voting system. So this voting system has to be testable by anyone in any way.
If the foundation of democracy cannot be tested by the people, the whole system is lacking a solid base to build on. I'd be very wary to weaken this kind of basic foundation of democracy. The building on top might collapse if the base is weak.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Why an OS for an appliance computer? (Because a voting machine is basically an appliance computer).
I mean, what does a voting machine needs to do? Read a keyboard (or touch screen), write to a display device, print a receipt/results, read and write to a RAM card (to get the candidates and put the results).
So why do you need a whole goddammed operating system to do that? Are programmers becoming sufficiently incompetent to be unable to do those basic I/O tasks from scratch???
What's so difficult in booting from ROM? Set stack pointers, memory access registers, jump to start of POST routine and go.
It's not very hard at all.
So why do you need schwindoze (or schlinux) to do all those basic things????
I think you might have just triggered Godwin's Law there. On to the next article...
......you shouldn't be able to contribute a nickle. Nor a penny. Nothing at all. Corporations can't vote, but they can sure pay for legislation. They shouldn't be allowed to, get them out!
I say, three strikes and you are out, same as with individuals. Once any corporation has lost three court cases for being jerkwads (which is the technical legal term for dinks and assholes, just to be precise), they should be dissolved, their stock rendered legally useless except as curios, and all their physical plant and assets auctioned off.
THAT is the only thing that is going to get bosses/workers/stockholders of corporations to stop being jerks, sudden immediate complete loss of wallet. It's takes all three of those parties combined to makeup a corporation, so everything the corporation does is their fault, and no whining. Don't like your position there, want to be excused? Stop being associated with jerkwads, if it takes a union to do that because you are a "workerbee", and the union (whatever, an employee association, call it that, some deal where joe grunt worker can have a voice in policy) has to threaten a strike to get honesty and responsibility put into the system at a company, then do that. If it takes being a stockholder and actually paying attention to what your hired help bosses do, you'll have to do that if you don't want your "investment" to poof on you. If it takes the bosses to go from huge salary to nothing at all, then we should do that. Three strikes, they are out! Buh bye! Corporate dissolution. MS would be history by now with that.
*Nothing* short of that will rein in the rise of the supranational megacorporation that gets so big they are able to have power such as this over our election system and total economy. It doesn't matter what they do, the government has proven that NO amount of fines or anything else they do can stop corporations from being jerks. so what we have now ISN'T WORKING, which means we need something completely different, and the corporate "death sentence" is the only credible threat that maybe might get their attention. Fines they just pass on to their customers and take it out of employee pay.
No corporation should even be *allowed* to get this big and corrupt. These guys should have been shutdown years ago when it became more than apparent that at top managerial levels they are chronic liars, crooks, thieves and strongarm extortionists. I feel just a teeny bit sorry for the workerbees, but if they aren't aware of the dismal track record and completely absent set of decent ethics at the top, they are too clueless to be employed as an adult with any adult responsibility. Yes, if you work there, you are part of the overall problem, no matter your job title. You voluntarily work there, or sit on stock, yes, it is partly your fault when YOUR company is such a menace. Blackbox voting is a "clear and present danger" to our entire society right now. This is beyond news, hearing about them being jerks is ordinary now, it is a common occurrence, so no one who cashes their check should be let off the hook.
siderant:
And speaking of bigass totally weird corporations that shouldn't even exist, is anyone getting a little worried over PRIVATE ARMIES like blackwater being created and paid for with your tax dollars? Isn't this rather dangerous long term? I mean, pure physically dangerous? Didn't we fight a revolution, in part, so we wouldn't have damned hessian mercenaries running around? It's bad enough trying to keep regular civilian corporations in line, or various government agencies, but private corporations that have armed helicopters, armored vehicles, full auto this and that? Isn't this kinda stupid to let this go on?
The other problem with these laws is that they go hand in glove with laws making it illegal to test the system or hack it or to publish the results.
"Another one - the deficit. Current law says its okay to run huge deficits, and to keep raising the legal deficit ceiling. public opinion is WTF"
Is this the same country whose citizens have a negative savings rate?
Even with open source software, unless you compiled the code yourself (or at least were present when it was compiled), how do you know that the "open" code is actually what they installed on the machine?
It's worse than that, actually.
"I've said it before and I'll say it again, democracy simply doesn't work".
-- Kent Brockman
Because really, that is what it is. Does it make you feel better to use accurate wording now?
I don't care if other companies do the same thing: corruption is corruption - no matter who does it, not matter what you call it.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that it isn't credible. But, this is just a bloggers site, and the PDF could have been created by anybody. Could this possibly be a hoax?
Of course it follows naturally the existing subversion of the political process and the failure of the two party system through corportate lobbying of candidates, which is the only issue in modern politics. Because until that's fixed nothing else can be.
Of couse, this is one thing that can be prevented from being broken but, to me at least, it looks like Benjamin Franklin is being proven right http://www.usconstitution.net/franklin.html
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
For myself, I think if Richard M. Stallman was present to go through the source code, do an MD5SUM on the source code, compile the code and do an MD5SUM on the binary, I personally would feel comfortable about his ethics enough to trust the ballot. Not sure how many other people I would trust, though... except of course Bill Gates or Monkey Boy... heh-heh. (Of course, I'd have to be able to verify the MD5SUM... hmmm.
soylentnews.org Go there to enjoy the people!
Does this surprise anyone? It's Corporate America; after all, it's their country. We're just serfs and peasants.
I would trust election officials to compile the code.
If the install media are stored securely after an election possible tampering by officials can always be proved/disproved afterwards.
Election software can be simple enough to even be verified manually by a knowledgable official. You don't need flip3d to hold an election.
Ok well... I just had to RTFA, and funny thing is that it no place in the article did he mention a bill number or a sponsor. Additionally there is generally nothing to back his assetion up with the exception of the PDF he points us all to. Now I am not saying its a hoax, but he gave us precious little information to go on.
Soooo I clicked on over to the New York State Assembly and had a look around. I keyword searched for "voting or software" and got one hit. Below is the text of the bill:
SUMMARY:
A6383 Benjamin
BENJAMIN
Amd S7-202, El L
Requires security and personnel safeguards in the use of electronic voting systems and
software. BILL TEXT:
STATE OF NEW YORK
_____
6383
2007-2008 Regular Sessions
IN ASSEMBLY
March 7, 2007
___________
Introduced by M. of A. BENJAMIN -- read once and referred to the Commit-
tee on Election Law
AN ACT to amend the election law, in relation to secure electronic voting machines and software.
The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assembly,
do enact as follows:
1 Section 1. Legislative declaration. The legislature hereby declares
2 that no electronic voting system shall at any time contain or use any
3 undisclosed software. Any voting system containing or using software
4 shall disclose the source code, object code, and executable represen-
5 tation of that software to the state board of elections, and such board
6 shall make that source code, object code, and executable representation
7 available for inspection upon request to any local election board.
8 2. Section 7-202 of the election law is amended by adding a new
9 subdivision 5 to read as follows:
10 5. No electronic voting system shall be used in an election for state
11 office unless the manufacturer of such system meets the following
12 requirements:
13 a. The manufacturer shall conduct background checks on individuals who
14 are programmers and developers before such individuals work on any soft-
15 ware used in connection with the electronic voting system.
16 b. The manufacturer shall document the chain of custody for the handl-
17 ing of software used in connection with the electronic voting system.
18 c. The manufacturer shall ensure that any software used in connection
19 with the electronic voting system is not transferred over the internet.
20 d. The manufacturer shall provide the codes used in any software used
21 in connection with the electronic voting system to the state board of
22 elections and may not alter such codes once certification has occurred
23 unless such system is recertified.
24 e. The manufacturer shall implement procedures to ensure internal
25 security, as required by the state board of elections.
26 f. The manufacturer shall meet such other requirements as may be
27 established by the state board of elections.
28 3. This act shall take effect immediately.
EXPLANATION--Matter in italics (underscored) is new; matter in brackets [ ] is old law to be omitted.
LBD07122-01-7
SPONSORS MEMO:
NEW YORK STATE ASSEMBLY
MEMORANDUM IN SUPPORT OF LEGISLATION
submitted in accordance with Assembly Rule III, Sec 1(e)
BILL NUMBER: A6383
SPONSOR: Benjamin
TITLE OF BILL: An act to amend the election law, in relation to secure electronic voting machines and software
PURPOSE OR GENERAL IDEA OF BILL: Requires security and personnel safe- guards in the use of electronic voting systems and software.
SUMMARY OF SPECIFIC PROVISIONS: To amend the election law, in relation to secure electronic voting machines and software.
JUSTIFICATION: This bill would ensure voting rights by preventing tampering to voting machines and their software through added security features.
PRIOR LEGISLATIVE HISTORY
Hey KID! Yeah you, get the fuck off my lawn!
We call it the political process. Asking the government to make laws that suit you is not "corruption", it's democracy. The government may choose to incorporate the changes Microsoft is requesting, or they may choose not to. And if the people are unhappy with the choice the government makes, the people may elect new representatives in the next election.
1. Ballmer a potential cabinet member of one of the candidates. 2. Thomas Barnett assistant attorney general (formerly of Microsoft) uses position to write letters to state attorney generals telling them not to prosecute MS. 3.Delegations lead by Ambassador C. Boyden Gray (formerly of Microsoft). Additionally over the past few years MS has directly and indirectly hired a lot of lawyers who could fill one or more of the following rolls: A. Lawyers can easily be groomed for political office. B. The ability to take advantage of a favorable change in the political/judicial environment by engaging in massive parallel litigation. C. Simple high paying welfare for lawyers who tend to have influential relatives. MS writing code for voting machines is at the very least a conflict of interest. Notice that the amendment language effectively puts a gag order on anyone, courts included, that finds out the equipment/election/etc has been rigged preventing them from warning the populace.
There was a story about some rider that was written by one of the **AA's for something to do with piracy. Apparently this was written without any congressman's knowledge, let alone approval.
What is to prevent anyone from walking in to a legislative office and write a rider? If lobbyists can do it, what is to prevent you or I? Do lobbyists have some sort of special ID to get into legislative offices?
Are these places so loosely run and chaotic that anyone can walk in and do anything?
I have walked into offices totally unescorted to look for someone or something. These are not places where I work; ie; I had no legitimate reason to be there except that I told the receptionist that I was looking for someone or something.
From the sound of things in these articles on Slashdot; I think that if we really want to; instead of sitting here and complaining; we should behave like lobbyists and go into these legislative offices as if we own them and start writing our own riders.
The scourage of all children in playgrounds . . . .
Padlocked Swings
Asking government to make laws that favour you at the expense of another group while at the same time slipping them a bunch of money to do so is bribery. The political term is "lobbying", but in all honesty, it's just simple bribery.
When there are only two parties available to vote on, and both take bribes that only large corporations can afford, what's the average citizen to do??
Greed is ruining democracy, just like it ruined communism.
Would like to say get the fuck out of my state Microsoft. -A New Yorker content without M$ fucking with my legislation.
Good karma sticks to me like velcro on a piece of plexiglass.
Move along, citizen.
My smart-ass criteria for a true embedded system is that it's not allowed to parse any ASCII while booting.
The people are the ones the state must protect, not the corporations. Wake up Americans. If Microsoft gets away with their stuff, then you can all kiss your freedom goodbye. The new government will be the corporation by the corporation for the corporation. As MS would say, we dont want to show how much we pirated from open source or other software packages, and we dont want to show code that we cut and pasted from other sources. I have no faith in MS Sr Management, though they do have good to excellent developers.
Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
Why are we, probably the ones most capable of hacking said machines, complaining? I'm not advocating doing so, but a blatantly altered election following passage of a bill like that would send a message to the state. Perhaps we can just give the legislature input on "how we'd do it if we did it"... assuming they cared.
Even better is the Read the Bills Act which would require these thugs to be preset for a full and complete reading of every bill passed. If they had done this for the patriot act, they'd still be reading it and we wouldn't have been stuck with it today. No veto necessary. And it's hardly an unreasonable requirement that people voting on a bill should be forced to read it first. I think anything less is a subversion of the constitution.
Philip K. Dick, is that you? ;-)
To be, or not to be: isn't that quite logical, Slashdot Beta?
Why not good old manual pushcards, levels, etc.? Have people gotten so incompetent that we think it's a good idea to have people who can't grasp basics of how to physically operate basic machinery (like "push the pen in the whole") deciding who gets to have their finger on the button?
Seriously. If that's how far we've devolved the make it a random lottery. Do a lotto style drawing. First draw for the state to choose from, then county, then city, district and then people to serve. Once you've served, your name is removed from future pools. The way it should be done for jury duty, btw.
Think of the money we coudl save. No more campaign contributions, no more plastering signs everywhere, no more "debates" and endless polling, no more occupying the "news" channels with meaningless sound bytes from candidates. Think of of the time, money, energy, and effort spent in campaigning on both sides (candidate and non-candidate) spent today being replaced by such a simple system.
My Suburban burns less gasoline than your Prius.
It's called "Fascism"
:: rolls eyes :: your wrong "Fascism" is not corporation control of government. In a Fascist's government your property and rights are second to that of the governments. Go back to school.
Bringing liberty to the masses. - http://freetalklive.com/