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Legal Troubles Continue To Mount For Diebold
dstates writes "The State of Maryland has filed a $8.5M claim against Premier Election Systems (previously known as Diebold), joining Ohio in seeking damages from the company. The claim alleges that election officials were forced to spend millions of dollars to address multiple security flaws in the machines. Previously, Diebold paid millions to settle a California lawsuit over security issues in their machines. The dispute comes as Maryland and Virginia prepare to scrap the touch screen electronic voting systems they bought after the 2000 presidential election. California, Florida, New Mexico, and Iowa have already switched to optical scanners, and voters in Pennsylvania are suing to prevent the use of paperless electronic voting systems in their state. Meanwhile, Artifex Software is suing Diebold for violations of the GPL covering the Ghostscript software technology used in the proprietary voting machines."
Man, it must really be xmas! LOL!
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
Palm trees and 8
He didn't say Christmas. He said Xmas. Totally different holiday.
elections in the USA for what, to replace one corrupt politician with another?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efKguI0NFek
The truth is that while paperless may sound sexy it is not really practical. They are trying to apply technology to what is a social problem.
"The stupid neither forgive nor forget; the naive forgive and forget; the wise forgive but do not forget." -Thomas Szasz
They'll probably get a bailout for their efforts too.
Don't be so politically correct, it ruins everything for the rest of us.
They should hold a referendum so people can vote for getting rid of these flawed electronic voting machi.. oh wait!
Anyone else find it kind of weird that this is happening right around the time that Bush and Cheney and Co. are heading out of office?
And this is what pisses me off so much! People like Avi Rubin WARNED of the pitfalls in Dielbold (and other) systems years ago and the pols didn't listen. I remember writing to my Maryland State Rep YEARS ago about inherent problems in Diebold systems and referred him to Professor Rubin's work and got the pat-on-the-head response telling me not to worry. Screw all of them. I can't believe how angry this makes me.
Its a Christmas present!!
or is it a Christmas past??
My wish comes true... Hope these bass-turds get the pants sued off them so we don't have to put up with this corruption the next election. Good thing that our next president was elected by such a landslide, that the Republican/GOP Cheat Machine wasn't able to steal this election....This time...
You mean XF86-mas, or X.org-mas?
We could celebrate with a new newsgroup, alt.die.bold.die
Hopefully, when it comes time to nail them to the wall, they'll use Wilson's Nails.
Is it a Christmas Present??
Or a Christmas past??
I hope these bass-turds get the pants sued out of of them. Good thing our future president won by such a landslide, the Republican/GOP cheat machine did not have an effect on the last election.........
This time.......
Exactly how was electronic voting EVER considered a good idea?
8.5 million is a small price to pay for that level of control.
No one who speaks German could be an evil man.
I thought it was OS Xmas.
Seriously, the crap that kept the Bush administration in office has paid off.
Does anyone believe that the 2000 election was a legitimate Bush win? Does anyone believe that Diebold DIDN'T tamper with the machines? Now that bush is leaving office, we find that the machines are insecure and aren't going to be used?
Now, *all* of the wealthy Bush supporters made HUGE amounts of money under Bush. The bailout was basically a theft of $700B (and more to come) from the U.S. treasury for the very people that have been getting rich 8 years. Never in the history of man-kind has so much relative wealth been given to so few. How did this happen?
I can't think of a single policy of this administration that was designed NOT to remove money from the middle class and transfer it into the hands of the more wealthy. Immigration, trade, health care, intellectual property, and even the department of the interior and the CPB have all been centered around either allowing corporations to make money at the expense of the people, or out-right giving money to large corporations directly.
Now, we, the regular people, call us middle class, working poor, unemployed engineers, have to somehow rebuild the economy after its departure.
I'm 45 years old. I am ill at what I've seen happen to my country. It is a rush to the bottom. If we are not a third world nation already, we will be. Its disgusting.
Santa knows who's been naughty....
If our elected representatives no longer represent us, do we still live in a Democracy?
It's called tying up loose ends.
--MarkusQ
As a lone rant it won't make a difference, but as a group you can change what's happening in Washington. Get rid of the aspects of the US that clearly go against your espoused morals, including but not limited to Guantanamo Bay (the weakest excuse ever to perpetrate atrocities), move towards the principles of the Constitution once more and go after ANYONE who tries to get away with anything dodgy. INSIST on transparency, also from all the agencies. You may have to bury a bad past, but that's no excuse for an equally bad future.
The latter includes the judges who were supposed to guard your legal system but has sat back and let it become the playground of the rich and unprincipled, the security "services" that willingly break the law with the excuses of "terror" and "for America". Even now, the US has heaps of potential but the Bush administration has willingly ruined the standing the US had in the world.
Last but not least, think again about impeaching people. If you impeach one president because he's human you should CERTAINLY impeach those who trampled the very founding principles and imperilled the entire world with their grab for money. I'm not against making money, but I am against slaughtering the goose with the golden eggs to benefit just a few.
The US standing has never been so low, the currency never so weak, the national debt never so high. Yet, you can still overcome this - if you back to core principles.
I refuse to believe that a nation that can produce people like the late Randy Pausch can be all bad, but you sure worked hard making it appear that way. There are very few nations left who would trust the US as the basic assumption is that you won't hold yourself to any laws, even your own, and you will cheap, bully and blackmail to get your way. Quite a nice image to have as the formerly leading "democracy".
On the bright side, it can't possibly get any worse. Unless you start another war..
Re the supposed GPL violation, the mailing list post linked to from the article doesn't make a lot of sense to me.
This seems nutty to me. As far as I understand, there's never been any prohibition on simply loading GPL software onto a machine that has a proprietary OS and other proprietary apps.
Huh? This is just plain wrong.
Find free books.
The Bold The?
All wonderful jokes, but Xmas (in my mind at least) is the consumerism day, while Christmas represents the true, original spirit of the holiday, before corporations got their grubby little paws on everything.
"I'm not sure I like the fugnutish tone you used in your post!" -RogL (608926)-
Diebold was doomed as soon as their management started openly playing politics. That is just bad policy for a company that is supposed to deliver the pretense of accurate electoral results.
(the president of Diebold publicly said he'd do everything in his power to get George Bush elected president)
I suspect the world will move towards open source voting systems as the only way to use modern technologies in the voting process and still have a shot at accurate results.
Merry X-ed-Mas. Maybe, staring at the weight of Mounting OlympBUST, diebold might GET OUT OF THE VOTE and just DIE BOLD...
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
"Diebold" always struck me as such a typical bond-villain type of name; "Premier Election Systems" sounds like it's trying to cover up that the company is run by the mafia... maybe they should buy voting machines from ACME? Sure they'd blow up every now and then, and the roadrunner would get away, but in many ways such obvious failure would be better than subtle and undetected vote-rigging :-)
I mod down anyone who says "I will be modded down for this", regardless of the rest of their comment
Yeah, Xmas is the holiday with an evil robot Santa that rains destruction on everyone that's been naughty (and everyone has been naughty).
All wonderful jokes, but Xmas (in my mind at least) is the consumerism day, while Christmas represents the true, original spirit of the holiday, before corporations got their grubby little paws on everything.
The X stands for chi, the Greek letter and first letter in the Greek word Christ. Xmas is simply an abbreviation for Christmas.
Grubby little paws? Corporations I know have huge powerful sucking tentacles, and they're in everything.
Happy Festivus!
On the other hand, xmas might sound more consumerist precisely because the filthy corporations tried to distance themselves from Christ, both to persuade Christians to think more about shopping and to include, er, heathens in the consumerist orgy.
Of course, Christ never had anything to do with Christmas anyway. He was probably born in August-ish if he existed at all, and Christmas was just the Catholics' attempt to usurp yet another pagan holiday that had been around ever since people knew what a solstice was. So perhaps "Xmas" is a (slightly) better thing anyway.
Happy Newtonmas, everyone!
"The biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has taken place."
Paperless shouldn't even be attempted.
This is the system used to elect leaders. Trillions of dollars and millions lives are affected by election results.
Whatever system you choose must have full audit capabilities ... and that means paper.
The only reason for using electronics is to get faster results to those with short attention spans.
No sig today...
as (s)he said over here, this made my holiday a very happy one indeed.
Merry War on Christmas, everybody!
-- haaz.
I feel sorry for Stephen Heller, the whistleblower who was charged with three felonies for revealing Diebold's legal problems, in Feb 2004.
while Christmas represents the true, original spirit of the holiday
You mean this?
You mean the pagan holiday with the lights and the tree and the gift giving that the Christians stole? Because Easter(Ishtar) and Christmas(Winter Solstice) are both as pagan as you can get. The Christians in the Catholic church didn't even bother changing the traditions, they just stuck some made up Christian reasons for doing them. BTW, just FYI, Jesus was born in June, during the Roman tax census IIRC.
Now to TFA, I don't know who made the voting machines we used this year in AR(not Diebold because these actually work) but IMHO they really need to roll these out nationwide. It was truly a pleasure to vote this year. In fact the entire process was so friendly and orderly and voter efficient it is a shame they don't just copy it nationwide, as it makes it truly nice to vote. Who would have thought AR would be ahead of the curve in something?
Anyway I walk in and everything is nice and neat with 5 machines and an orderly line. Before I even get a chance to vote I'm already impressed by the way they handled voters who went to the wrong polling place. Instead of sending them all over town trying to find the right place an election official asked them to set aside for a moment and he would get on his cell after finding out which district they voted last in and have them transferred. Those that showed up in the wrong place only had an extra 5 minute wait before being allowed to vote with everyone else. Very nice. Then I get up to the machine and you could tell some serious thought went into this one. A large screen with a big round blue circle that you would touch to choose your candidate or position, and when you made your choice a large pop up would read "We believe you wish to vote for...Is this correct? If not please push the green cancel button to the left of this message" and when you confirmed a large, easy to read printout would scroll up under a glass plate to the left of the screen, so you could easily look down and make sure the machine was putting down your choice. Very nice. Then when you were finished the machine would blink and a volunteer would collect the electronic vote with this cartridge and the paper ballot. Then the ballot was placed into a box and the electronic vote was placed on the table with the election officials for use with the next voter.
The entire process took less than 10 minutes and made voting truly a pleasure. Volunteers were offering coffee and donuts to those waiting in line and were just as friendly and helpful as could be. I only wish all government dealings could be as friendly and efficient as voting was this year. And this year there weren't any "surprises" and the election results went pretty much exactly what the polls taken the week before had said they were going to be. So all in all I was quite happy with the machines this year and only wish that everyone could have as nice an experience voting as I did. On and Merry Xmas!
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Funny or insightful?
too bad I don't have any mod points today.
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
I speak german. What does "the bold, the" mean?
Just for the record, I'm a he. (despite the /. basement dweller's manboobs)
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
"...Christmas represents the true, original spirit of the holiday, before corporations got their grubby little paws on everything."
Yeah, and there once was an old Roman solar festival that use to enjoy this special day until the Christians got their grubby little hands on it. Jesus's birthday is unknown so why not pick, at the time, a popular day.
Live Free and Die Bolder?
@Mindless Drivel: 100% of Twitter posts ever Tweeted.
I dunno about all you barbarians, but I had a Saturnalia party, and trust me, wearing togas and drinking wine is way better than the boredom going on today..
I'm usually not someone who sides with people trying to drain a company through legal means, but in this case I'm willing to make an exception. Bleed them. Make them go bankrupt. If they go under, that's the last we'll see of EVoting, because nobody would willingly touch it again with a ten foot pole.
Make them die.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Of course Jesus existed! His existence is as much a matter of historical record as, say, Pontus Pilate's. It's whether he supernaturally rose from the dead (etc.) that's under dispute.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
You expect to make sense out of this from just one post in the middle of the conversation?
I can make sense of that post, I suppose, because I've gone through the GPL and related stuff for myself, to determine whether I wanted to use a free software or open software license, whether I wanted to use an existing one or roll my own, etc. (I end up using different licenses for different projects.)
So I suggest you do more research of the licenses themselves, and read more of the threads there, for starters.
In the post you link, they were discussing things they thought they should check on, and even whether they they thought it was worth checking. The current situation is that they found stuff, and you'll have to look for other (later) posts to find out what they found.
Oh, and, as I read it, they were talking about the bundling as being an issue if Diebold were to claim to be using the other license, not the GPL.
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
Maybe it's XXXmas. Rowr, baby.
Oops. You truly are clueless.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3_xFb1sWKU
Did I mention Mike Connell, Rove's computer guru, subpoenaed in election, is now dead?
No we do not need those dog crap machines by the crappy company Diebold (who changed their name in an effort to obfuscate) rolled out to the rest of the nation.
What we DO NEED is to OUTLAW all electronics in our elections. PERIOD!!!
Ooops...sorry to burst your little bubble there pal, but according to the nice election official I talked to while waiting in line we didn't actually USE the electronic vote except for those "early results" that the TV news channels so love. According to him the vote was counted by scanning the paper ballots, which thanks to the voting machine you didn't get any crap like what we are seeing in Minnesota and that if the Dems, Repubs, or Indies contested anything in a district(and all three were allowed to watch the scanning) then that district would be recounted by hand.
So sorry, you might want to go back to the hanging chad or have some Minnesota style fun in YOUR home state, but I'll take the nice printout machine that makes sure there isn't anyone guessing my "intent" thank you very much.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Actually, his existence is also under dispute, which must be quite amusing to Him if the Christians are right after all. Your favourite search engine will direct you to quite a few people disputing it, with varying degrees of eloquency and scholarliness.
"The biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has taken place."
Are they by any chance based out of Japan?
You've got it backwards.
Christmas is when you're stuck with that big aunt that won't stop pinching your cheeks, while Xmas is the part where you get to start thrashing down hills on your new sports equipment.
(Alternatively, Xmas is when Santa starts rappelling down the chimney, chugging Mountain Dew as he delivers presents)
This is America to do nothing! in a world crisis, we in Russia, thousands of people are unemployed (for example the situation in our city - http://linux-life.ru/ but they are shared by millions!
Do the same people also deny the existence of Julius Caesar?
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Oh, look it up for yourself, for Ganesh's sake.
"The biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has taken place."
Would you care to back-up August? The biblical account points to spring the only time of year when shepherds would be inclined to keep their flocks in the fields all night for lambing.