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Diebold Patch May Be Evidence of '02 Election Tampering
An anonymous reader writes "Stephen Spoonamore, founder of IT security firm Cybrinth and former advisor to John McCain, claims he has new evidence of election tampering by Diebold in the 2002 Georgia gubernatorial and senate races. A whistleblower gave Spoonamore a patch that was applied to Diebold machines in person by the Diebold CEO. Spoonamore confirmed that the patch did not correct the clock problem it supposedly addressed, but contained two parallel programs. Without access to the hardware, he could not learn more. He reported his findings to the Justice Department, which has not acted."
the worst thing is even if the next election was rigged no body would really do anything.
I think I'll vote via absentee ballot and send it via registered mail. Paranoid? Maybe.
The first flag should've been that it was the CEO who performed the patch. If a CEO _ever_ gets his hands dirty, you can rest assured that there is something illegal going on that needs to be covered up.
I live in constant fear of the Coming of the Red Spiders.
The story says "The computer patch was installed in person by Diebold CEO Bob Urosevich, who flew in from Texas and applied it in just two counties, DeKalb and Fulton, both Democratic strongholds."
If that's accurate, that's astonishing to me.
I don't know much about "The Raw Story," which describes itself as an "alternative" news source. If this had appeared in the mainstream media I would regard it as something close to a smoking gun. I hope this isn't the end of the story.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Three problems with your point:
1) The patch was made to certified machines, thus making them non-certified.
2) It was only applied in 2 counties. (*cough*Democratic counties*cough*) Why not the whole state?
3) I'm fairly certain that if *I* merely open the ballot box or machine during the election, that satisfies the requirement for "tampering" regardless of me touching ballots or flipping bits, and I'd be making an extra stop at the local police precinct before going home.
Of course, it all depends on who's prosecuting and how it gets presented.
But if:
1. it doesn't fix the problem it claims to fix
2. it was personnally installed by the CEO of the vendor's firm
3. it was only installed on a subset of machines (and those in democratic strongholds)
alarm bells should be going off all over the place.
If, at my bank, we tried to push a change that hit even one of the above, ten people would be on the phone to in-house lawyers, compliance, management, etc.
Had one of my new guys yesterday wanting to push a change. "I'll tell you what it does," he said. "Don't bother," I said, "if what it's doing is not obvious, it's not going anywhere."
The CEO personally getting involved is more suspicious to me.
I mean Deibold is a fairly large company, why is the CEO applying patches to products in person?
And how often does he do this?
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
perhaps. However, there are many many many factions there. Do you know and trust all their motivations? Some factions might like the war because it is profitable, or gives them an edge in gang fights.
A Good Troll is better than a Bad Human.
The point is not whether those who won the election would have won anyway even without tampering. Obviously, those who perpetrated the alleged act believed that there was a chance there might be an upset, and alleged act itself remains criminal.
"Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket." -- Eric Hoffer
My point is, Obama should feel pretty safe in Iraq.
Not from the Blackwater goons. And he might want to stay away from the showers.
What?
why is the CEO applying patches to products in person?
And how often does he do this?
Whenever he needs to get paid
Well, Bart, your uncle Arthur used to have a saying: "Shoot 'em all and let God sort 'em out."
Credibility? You want credibility on an anonymous third-hand account of something that allegedly happened six years ago? Get real. There will be many, many claims of fraud, affairs, and other misdeeds against the Republicans in the next four months. To paraphrase Dan Rather "We're sure the story is true, even if the evidence doesn't support it".
I think if you could get Republicans to see how truly corrupt our election system has become, they'd be as outraged as well. But, it's hard to get a credible spokesman (read: a fellow Republican) to come out as vehemently against this as someone like Greg Palast has.
I think you severely underestimate a *partisan's ability to write off information that could force them into a state of cognitive dissonance.
Abu Ghraib was written off as "hazing" and "a fraternity prank."
I don't really see that mindset getting too outraged over election fraud in their favor.
*This goes both ways really. Anyone remember Dan Rather's fake documents?
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
For hundreds of years elections have been held using paper and pencil ballots, and fraud was very difficult to get away with. This is because you have to employ large numbers of people to commit it.
Electronic voting can be subverted very simply indeed, just by one person with the right technical knowledge. All electronic voting should be scrapped until a reasonably secure system can be organised, most likely by open source solutions. Even then there's no real reason for it.
And what the hell was the CEO doing installing patches? Sounds highly suspicous to me.
And how is this making war against the United States or giving Aid and Comfort to it's enemies in time of war?
Well, in the military, your oath is to defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign, and domestic. Someone subverting the voting process, which is set forth in the Constitution, could be seen as an attack on the Constitution. Since the primary purpose of the military is to wage war, and their foremost oath is to defend the Constitution, it could follow that this act could be considered making war against the United States.
Another way to look at it is the act of changing the votes could change who has control of Congress, removing the "winning" party from power. This would be an unconstitutional method of changing government, which would be an act of war against the "true government" of the United States.
Reading code is like reading the dictionary - you have to read half of it before you can go back and understand it.
Don't be silly. That's exactly the kind of thing they'd want. They can lie through their teeth, extract all kinds of concessions and appeasement, then point to those concessions as proof that the US is weak, immoral and powerless. Then launch an attack against the US but claim that they didn't do it. After the attack, more rounds of diplomacy and concessions, and the loop continues.
Further, they can point to the weakness of the US and tell the people they are oppressing that there is no help coming from the US -- just like Saddam was doing to his people before the war. Saddam used every city government anti-war resolution against us and his own people, repeatedly broadcasting the fact that the US wasn't going to ever do anything because all the people said they weren't. The fact he was wrong didn't stop him from doing it, and he was only wrong because we have a president that knows when enough is enough.
If you don't think this is how the terrorists operate, review the history of Iraq, or North Korea, which got concessions in exchange for nuclear limitations, and went ahead and built their nuke program anyway after they got the concessions.
An invasion and war, on the other hand, would push moderates in Iran into the arms of Islamic radicals that promise to defend them.
Yes, they win by spinning things either way. They lose if we remove them, which will never happen by talking to them. There is nothing we can say that will make them peaceful. They have no interest in compromise with Satan, unlike many of the people in the US.
I'm not sure I exactly agree with this definition, but clearly an argument could be made that subverting elections would in essence be "war" against the republic.
Umm, election fraud, pure and simple. It's not a new crime, and it has never been held to be treason. It's just more screechy politics that you would laugh at if the other side were making similar charges.
Go ahead and mod me down, I've got decent karma.
Yeah, bashing Karl Rove will really get you modded down on Slashdot. Who's next, RIAA?
There has to be a line. Yes, bad things happen in the world, and my heart bleeds a little every time I hear about a child starving to death, or the AIDS epidemic, or genocide. But the United States is only so strong, and only capable of dealing with so much.
Would you, personally, by hand, go out and try to feed EVERY homeless person in your city? Not build a shelter and feed the ones that come in. Actually walk the streets with a bag/shopping cart/truckload/whatever of food, and find the homeless, and feed them?
We spread ourselves too thin. We try to do so much good in so many places that all we manage is a barely mediocre achievement anywhere. I believe that isolationist policies are stupid, but we can't be the world's nanny anymore, we can't kiss everyone's boo-boos anymore. Our economy is in bad enough shape. Pouring so much of it into other places, nay, wasting it, is doing NOTHING to help stabilize ourselves. Yeah, it makes you feel warm and fuzzy to say 'My country feeds starving Nigerian babies' but what nobody says is that our aid programs drain public resources that could be put into health care, education, public works, or reducing the national debt.
Think about it. Yeah, it makes you warm and fuzzy to clothes a homeless man, but if you give him the clothes off your back, now, YOU are naked. How much good can we do to third world countries and those in need if we reduce ourselves to third-world status?
Don't be silly, making speeches is lousy theater. Video of anguished families rending their garments over the corpse of their child killed by an American soldier is a lot more effective in recruiting dissatisfied people than giving a powerpoint presentation about the oppressors.
Your enemies will certainly try to spin anything in their favor (what do you think the job of the White House press secretary is?) because nobody is going to hold a press conference to say "wow, we're idiots, it turns out those other guys are really great, look at this awesome aid package they're giving us!"
You have to convince people not to follow crazy leaders, which is difficult (it's taken eight years for us to ignore ours). You can either kill them mercilessly and terrify everyone into not wanting to risk it, you can give them jobs and food so that they're too comfortable to want to upset the status quo, or you can give them an alternate leader who they believe will be more effective (see: political history of Hamas).
As it stands, we're giving them jobs and then shooting them on their way to work, which doesn't make us look either strong or benevolent, it makes us look alternately malicious and idiotic.
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
Saddam had basically nothing to do with the war the US started against Iraq. He was just another dictator (hint - Pakistan was just another dictatorship until recently, but we're not going to invade them any time soon, right?). Iraq did not have a nuke program. It didn't have weapons of mass destruction. The reason given for the war was wrong.
Many, many more people have died in Iraq as a result of the invasion than would have died under Saddam's rule. Extremist religious groups are much more powerful now in Iraq than they were under Saddam's rule.
The old Iraqi government has never been meaningfully linked with any acts of terrorism against western nations. They had nothing to do with Al Quaida.
The US/Allied military invasion has killed far more civilians just in Iraq than terrorists have worldwide in the last 10 years.
These are facts... onto subjective opinion.... You are a true moron if you think that all Iranians believe the west "satan". Honestly, I hope you do not believe that Iranians hate the west and want a uniform Islamic world, because that would show absolute ignorance of Iran. The "they" you talk about are essentially a creation - "they" do not exist.
Also, how is North Korea an example of how terrorists operate? I mean, how on earth do you figure out that North Korea is a bastion of terrorism?
Basically, my advice to you is quit being so scared. These places you demonise are not actually inhabited by demons. They're just generally ordinary people.
OT here I come.
Why is it that nobody seems to understand that the DoJ is an executive agency, therefore an extension of the President. There is no "politicizing" DoJ. It is inherently a political agency. Its purpose is to carry out the President's policy.
The purpose of the Attorney General under U.S. law is to represent the United States, not the President.
Why does it need to be a (wholly irrelevant) Bush hate-fest?
Because the president of Diebold publicly stated that he would do everything he could to elect Bush president? Because Bush's flunkies have been inappropriately pushing prosecutors to investigate purported election fraud when it benefitted them? Because Bush has created such a culture of cronyism and corruption that's trickled down throughout the entire DOJ has basically become completely unreliable?
If we talk while our enemy fights, we lose.
Yep and thus India remains firmly under British control.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
I doubt Wallmart would want a greeter with Tourette's Syndrome, or undercontrolled Schizophrenia. Not so coincidentally, a disproportionate number (I've heard upwards of 50%) of the homeless population has mental disabilities. The rest? Yes, some are lazy. Some are young people who escaped abuse in a broken home, took up drugs, and are now essentially unemployable. Some people suffer from chronic pain which prevents them from working. Many are women who have escaped abuse, have young children to look after 24/7, and no marketable skills. Have you ever try applying for a job without an address or a change of clothes? Of course, don't let any of these cases get in the way of your simple and elegant world view.
Jeremy
Cute very narrow redefinition but I was thinking more in line with something in the dictionary. Thanks for the personal attack too - what are they teaching in those schools there?
It became clear to me when Cheney visited Sydney with ten times the pomp and ceremony of a real Royal visit. We even had to have a special night time sitting of parliment to change a gun law for him the night before the visit. Consider what little the Congress, the Senate and the Supreme Court can do if they oppose actions of the Executive now - they can only draft laws that can be ignored or make judgements that will be ignored. Now compare that to the little European Kingdoms of a couple of centuries ago - some of which had elected kings (by the nobles) and sometimes even with limited terms.
Really? You obviously have no idea what a monarchy is, but a theocracy? Just because religious people vote for another religious person does not make it a theocracy. Is Germany a theocracy? Because they actually have a Christian party, and their leader is the Chancellor of Germany.
He did not declare war unanimously. Only Congress can declare war, and Congress overwhelmingly supported the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars. The president actually has very little direct power, he's mostly a figurehead. Congress are the people rubber-stamping his policies.
George Bush is an asshole, but please respect the English language and common sense.
And people, get over it! There is absolutely zero hard evidence that the Republicans have stolen any elections. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof, not small amounts of circumstantial evidence and the ramblings of bloggers. You have to live with the fact that approximately half of the voting public voted for a complete jackass (making the large assumption that Kerry or Gore weren't idiots as well). That's one of the unfortunate things about living in a democracy. But you apparently don't know what that means either.