Verifying individual votes is perhaps fun for the voter, but does not a thing to ensure that the totals are correct. Ever think of electronic ballot box stuffing? Many of the new "improvements" will be excellent ways to attempt that. To wit:
Same company is now doing electronic voter registration and now, electronic sign-in at the polling place.
I say, if I'm a crook: Find addresses of all those nursing homes (and old method, but much enhanced with the new electronic voter registration concept). Register all the bedridden geezers, electronically sign 'em in, and electronically stuff the ballot box.
Voting in America is going to trigger the next Boston Tea Party. Check this guy out: He just put a stash of new Diebold files on the web, and is daring Diebold to come and get him:
In fact, in one of the source code files from the Windows operating system, B-Square, the company that did the CE programming for Diebold on the file, had a notation that it was only to be used read-only.
The very FIRST change in the file, made by Diebold, was to switch it to read-write.
There are also changes in Windows to remove authentication, and they apparently stripped out some of the security features designed for the interface between CE and NT, in order to make it backwards compatible for Windows 98 and 95.
They then represented the Windows software to certifiers as "COTS" (Commercial Off The Shelf) even though it was CE, and therefore customized from the get-go.
My favorite code comment, found in one of the nk.bin files: "We stole this part from some dead guy."
The file was in a zipped directory. Inside the zipped directory, the file save date was preserved intact.
Also, the file contains an audit long of some 1,000 automated voting program events dating back to spring 2000. This file was March 5, 2002 and had dozens of identifiers to prove it, including audit log items. Also, the votes matched the final tally, proportionately, since they weren't all in yet.
Of course, the elections supervisor swears it wasn't her staff that put it on the FTP site, and Diebold swears none of theirs did it.
However, the password on the file was "Sophia" and Diebold has an employee who is a voting machine tech named "Sophia" and the S.L.O. County elections officials told me that Diebold's Sophia was on site on the election day this file was used.
Seems to me highly likely that Sophia put that file on the Diebold web site, and that she did so on election day, since that's the day she was there.
And if you read my post you'd see that the first sentence says I advocate touch screens, and that is not what the whole debate is about. It is about using touch screens that print a ballot, which are entirely friendly to the disabled. So why did you answer with this:
"However you will hopefully have noted that the old style pen and paper system while it has three advantages (it's simple, simple and simple) isn't as accessible as a touch screen."
HAVA and bringing in the touch screens had absolutely nothing to do with disabled voters. I got a transcript of the secret meeting of the voting machine vendors yesterday, and they made that perfectly clear. HAVA, according to VENDORS and INSIDERS, in their own meeting, was pushed through specifically for a profit motive. The players behind HAVA were mainly defense contractors. Go to the Blackboxvoting.com site for the transcript on that meeting, which is a gun just oozing smoke.
Touch screens are just as friendly to the disabled when paper is in their printer. I can tell you this: I know Roxanne, who is the woman Georgia invited to hack the machines. She also is not saying dump the touch screens. She's saying:
Put paper in the printer so there's an evidence trail.
By the way, those machines in Georgia were rigged in 2002. This is the first time I've made a declarative statement like this in public. They were rigged.
Bev Harris
Yes, I'm the author of Black Box Voting.
And thanks, Georgia, for becoming the poster child of this fiasco, which is soon going to veer away from computer programming and start examining the "R" word: Racketeering.
The issues have nothing to do with web site design. And apparently you can't rebut anything about:
The wisdom of using Windows, with security features removed, and security patches never applies, on a voting system, while at the same time using wireless communication to transfer voting results into a Microsoft Access database with its security features disabled.
I thought this was a board that discusses computer issues, like the code and the security weaknesses of the Diebold machines.
By the way, before anyone gets in a dig about this, obviously, CE is always customized, it's made that way. What was unusual is the way they customized it. The other troublesome issue is that they claimed Windows was "COTS" (Commercial Off The Shelf") software, so that certifiers did not examine it. The FEC has regulations about this, and what they did to Windows could never in a million years be called "COTS."
But web site design is in no way the same thing as C++ coding and database design.
The Diebold system uses the Windows operating system. It has a customized and never-examined Windows CE interface on the touch screens. They send their results in to the county server, which is on Windows NT 2k.
At the touch screen level, they appear to have taken out many of the security features in order to make information transmission backward-compatible with Windows 95 and 98 machines, so they could sell the system to counties that had their old systems.
The county machine uses Microsoft Access and, in the program I ran, which was GEMS 1.17.17, the the only version listed as currently certified for use, the security features are disabled, including disabling the autonumbering feature on the audit log.
The MS Access database is constructed without referential integrity.
The newest Diebold touch screen system, the TSx, substitutes wireless communications for land line modems.
It is these issues that will be explored, not how to design a web site.
But thank you for playing.
Bev Harris
Black Box Voting
No one is saying get rid of touch screens, we are saying PUT PAPER IN THE PRINTER which is already built into Diebold and every other touch screen machine. Print ballot, voter verified, it goes in a ballot box, you've got evidence of the vote.
Explain why:
1) A person in a wheelchair, or a muscular or neurological difficulty, who can vote on a touch screen suddenly cannot vote on a touch screen if you have paper in the printer.
2) A person who is blind, and uses the headphones to vote, suddenly cannot vote on a touch screen using headphones if you have paper in the printer.
This is a prepared talking point sent out by the voting machine industry.
Bev Harris
Black Box Voting
1. Go to http://www.blackboxvoting.org
2. Send an e-mail to the webmaster (Roxanne) who is the woman that Georgia gave permission to hack the machines.
Bev Harris
Black Box Voting
Slashdot Mirror
Same company is now doing electronic voter registration and now, electronic sign-in at the polling place.
I say, if I'm a crook: Find addresses of all those nursing homes (and old method, but much enhanced with the new electronic voter registration concept). Register all the bedridden geezers, electronically sign 'em in, and electronically stuff the ballot box.
Voting in America is going to trigger the next Boston Tea Party. Check this guy out: He just put a stash of new Diebold files on the web, and is daring Diebold to come and get him:
http://www.blackboxvoting.org/JimMarch2.htm
He says, "Diebold: I cordially invite you to bite me. Bring it on. Make my day."
The very FIRST change in the file, made by Diebold, was to switch it to read-write.
There are also changes in Windows to remove authentication, and they apparently stripped out some of the security features designed for the interface between CE and NT, in order to make it backwards compatible for Windows 98 and 95.
They then represented the Windows software to certifiers as "COTS" (Commercial Off The Shelf) even though it was CE, and therefore customized from the get-go.
My favorite code comment, found in one of the nk.bin files: "We stole this part from some dead guy."
Cheers.
Bev Harris Black Box Voting
Also, the file contains an audit long of some 1,000 automated voting program events dating back to spring 2000. This file was March 5, 2002 and had dozens of identifiers to prove it, including audit log items. Also, the votes matched the final tally, proportionately, since they weren't all in yet.
Of course, the elections supervisor swears it wasn't her staff that put it on the FTP site, and Diebold swears none of theirs did it.
However, the password on the file was "Sophia" and Diebold has an employee who is a voting machine tech named "Sophia" and the S.L.O. County elections officials told me that Diebold's Sophia was on site on the election day this file was used.
Seems to me highly likely that Sophia put that file on the Diebold web site, and that she did so on election day, since that's the day she was there.
See ya. Bev Harris Black Box Voting
"However you will hopefully have noted that the old style pen and paper system while it has three advantages (it's simple, simple and simple) isn't as accessible as a touch screen."
HAVA and bringing in the touch screens had absolutely nothing to do with disabled voters. I got a transcript of the secret meeting of the voting machine vendors yesterday, and they made that perfectly clear. HAVA, according to VENDORS and INSIDERS, in their own meeting, was pushed through specifically for a profit motive. The players behind HAVA were mainly defense contractors. Go to the Blackboxvoting.com site for the transcript on that meeting, which is a gun just oozing smoke.
Touch screens are just as friendly to the disabled when paper is in their printer. I can tell you this: I know Roxanne, who is the woman Georgia invited to hack the machines. She also is not saying dump the touch screens. She's saying:
Put paper in the printer so there's an evidence trail.
By the way, those machines in Georgia were rigged in 2002. This is the first time I've made a declarative statement like this in public. They were rigged.
Bev Harris
Yes, I'm the author of Black Box Voting.
And thanks, Georgia, for becoming the poster child of this fiasco, which is soon going to veer away from computer programming and start examining the "R" word: Racketeering.
The wisdom of using Windows, with security features removed, and security patches never applies, on a voting system, while at the same time using wireless communication to transfer voting results into a Microsoft Access database with its security features disabled.
I thought this was a board that discusses computer issues, like the code and the security weaknesses of the Diebold machines.
By the way, before anyone gets in a dig about this, obviously, CE is always customized, it's made that way. What was unusual is the way they customized it. The other troublesome issue is that they claimed Windows was "COTS" (Commercial Off The Shelf") software, so that certifiers did not examine it. The FEC has regulations about this, and what they did to Windows could never in a million years be called "COTS."
Bev Harris
But web site design is in no way the same thing as C++ coding and database design.
The Diebold system uses the Windows operating system. It has a customized and never-examined Windows CE interface on the touch screens. They send their results in to the county server, which is on Windows NT 2k. At the touch screen level, they appear to have taken out many of the security features in order to make information transmission backward-compatible with Windows 95 and 98 machines, so they could sell the system to counties that had their old systems.
The county machine uses Microsoft Access and, in the program I ran, which was GEMS 1.17.17, the the only version listed as currently certified for use, the security features are disabled, including disabling the autonumbering feature on the audit log.
The MS Access database is constructed without referential integrity.
The newest Diebold touch screen system, the TSx, substitutes wireless communications for land line modems.
It is these issues that will be explored, not how to design a web site.
But thank you for playing. Bev Harris Black Box Voting
No one is saying get rid of touch screens, we are saying PUT PAPER IN THE PRINTER which is already built into Diebold and every other touch screen machine. Print ballot, voter verified, it goes in a ballot box, you've got evidence of the vote. Explain why: 1) A person in a wheelchair, or a muscular or neurological difficulty, who can vote on a touch screen suddenly cannot vote on a touch screen if you have paper in the printer. 2) A person who is blind, and uses the headphones to vote, suddenly cannot vote on a touch screen using headphones if you have paper in the printer. This is a prepared talking point sent out by the voting machine industry. Bev Harris Black Box Voting
1. Go to http://www.blackboxvoting.org 2. Send an e-mail to the webmaster (Roxanne) who is the woman that Georgia gave permission to hack the machines. Bev Harris Black Box Voting