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Does anybody know how many districts in the contested House and Senate Races are going to use Diebold or similar computer voting machines?
I wonder if the RNC has their copy?
Diebold Source Code Leaked Again
Critic receives copies of sensitive data, as election date with e-voting nears.
Robert McMillan, IDG News Service
Monday, October 23, 2006 06:00 AM PDT
Source code to Diebold Election Systems voting machines has been leaked once again.
Last week, former Maryland state legislator Cheryl C. Kagan was anonymously given disks containing source code to Diebold's BallotStation and Global Election Management System (GEMS) tabulation software used in the 2004 elections. Kagan, a well-known critic of electronic voting, is Executive Director of the Carl M. Freeman Foundation, a philanthropic organization based in Olney, Maryland.
The disks were created and distributed by two federal voting machine testing labs run by Ciber and Wyle Laboratories. They had been testing systems on behalf of the state of Maryland, Diebold said in a statement.
Earlier Breech
This is not the first time that Diebold source code has been leaked. In early 2003, Diebold critic Bev Harris uncovered similar source code while conducting research using Google's search engine.
Soon after, researchers at Johns Hopkins University and Rice University published a damning critique of Diebold's products, based on an analysis of the software.
They found, for example, that it would be easy to program a counterfeit voting card to work with the machines and then use it to cast multiple votes inside the voting booth.
Diebold says it has since introduced security enhancements to its products, but the fact that the company's sensitive source code has again leaked out is not a good sign, according to Avi Rubin, a computer science professor with Johns Hopkins and one of the authors of the 2003 report.
The first leak should have taught Diebold a lesson on securing its source code, he said. "You would think that given the amount of embarrassment that caused them, they would do a better job of protecting it."
Evaluating Criticism
Rubin, who was shown the latest source code by a reporter at the Washington Post, said that it appeared to be "just another version" of the code that was published in 2003.
The disks came with a letter that was highly critical of Maryland State Administrator of Elections Linda Lamone, Rubin said. "It read like it was from somebody with a very, very serious axe to grind," he said. "It was one of the more outlandish things I've read." The researcher commented further on the source code leak on his blog.
Rubin believes the disks were given to Kagan because of her past criticism of electronic voting machines. "I guess whoever did this knew she would pursue it doggedly, which she did."
Diebold said the source code was for BallotStation 4.3.15C, which is no longer being used in the U.S., and for GEMS 1.18.19, which is being used in a "limited number of jurisdictions."
The FBI is investigating the leak, Diebold said.
Ready for Election
The leak comes with just three weeks before elections in the U.S., but Maryland Board of Elections Deputy Administrator Ross Goldstein expressed confidence in the Diebold voting machines. The leaked code was "not software that's in use in this election," he said. "The software now is different and has many more security features."
Diebold echoed Goldstein's comments. "Voters and election officials can be confident that on Election Day, votes and vote totals will be safe, secure and accurate," the company said.
Kagan, however, wasn't so sure, saying that the security of the source code raised concerns. "The idea that it could be that readily available and could be delivered to me and who-knows-who-else around the state [is disturbing]," she said. "Who know what any other people may be doing with it?"
Does anybody know how many districts in the contested House and Senate Races are going to use Diebold or similar computer voting machines?
See boutons and the dimm-o-craps are getting ready
in case the they get outvoted again and lose the
mid-terms. We told you so, they rigged the count.....
Hey isn't this where we came in....guess we can go
home now....
Well, Diebold has made it stunningly easy to steal an election now, with no paper ballots to back anything up. Bravo.
^^bet they will be popular in South Texas with the
dimm-o-craps......
You know where dead people vote, alphabetically.
They probably can't afford high-tech stealing.
^^Sure they can, it is taxpayers money. And they are
real good in spending taxpayer money.
No one is against diebold Ray but could we at least have a receipt verifying our result?
Yeah, but they already spent it on Tahoes and such.
I don't see why anyone would oppose paper back up to electronic voting. So many people are quick to say both sides are corrupt and will take advantage of the system etc..... Then why oppose efforts minimize the opportunity for election fraud?
Generally, elected Republicans are the ones that fight this. Why? Is it because they have the most to lose?
Because it's the Left who, more often than not, are bringing the complaints up. Thus, the natural reflex for Team Republican is to object to those complaints.
Partisan Gamesmanship.
The left has been screaming the loudest, but its not like the M$M has been paying attention to this issue anyway, which I think is more important than the Demos taking the House or Senate in the 06 midterms. Where are the M$M expose' via /via John Quinonez on ABC or any other serious reporter besides maybe, Keith Olberman?
What has me worried is if the Demos do take the House, will the thugs-in-charge finally blow the whistle on the Diebold, ES&S and Sequoia fraud to try and save their own asses?
I would like to ask a question. Are you familiar
with the "old" mechanical voting machines? As
far as I know they had no paper trail and you did
not get a receipt of how you voted. It just had
counters in the back of the machine that was
used to make the tally.
The were notorious for screwing up, but the kept
using them for years.
People keep saying you can hack the new
computer voting gadgets. Maybe you can, but
it doesn't make sense, since it is a closed system
and each voting place is independent of the
others, as far as I know. I may have to stand
corrected, but to me it doesn't make sense to
tie all the voting places together.
To be honest I am not sure how they set up
the computers, but I would assume they are
independent of the others. Maybe someone on
the board knows.
I know you trust Fox News, so watch this.
Unfortunately they didn't take as much time as Lou Dobbs did a few days ago. It was revealed there that every Diebold voting machine uses the exact same key to access its memory stick ports where a virus could be introduced. That and computers within each voting station are linked and vulnerable to an introduced virus.
Oh, and the Princeton guys got their Diebold voting computer and and the key to every Diebold voting computer in the country on eBay.
Vote absentee.
Strange they would link them together. Wonder why.
I would think it would make more sense to let them
be stand alone, then no one could tamper with more than
one machine. And why do they need memory sticks?
just wondering out loud.
It's pretty clear that they aren't terribly concerned with security. Linking them makes it easier to automatically tally the votes.Strange they would like them together. Wonder why.
I would think it would make more sense to let them
be stand alone, then no one could tamper with more than
one machine.It makes it easier to program several computers with the same software.And why do they need memory sticks?
I know that here in Virginia Diebold just told us that they ed up and every county that uses their machines will see the following on the ballot
George F. Allen
James H. "Jim"
Now I'm not sure if they show party affiliation, but i find it less than humerous that a tight race for senate would cut off the last name of one of the candidates (James H is Jim Webb) and that the ballot for some reason cannot be corrected.
What further complicates matters is that the counties where diebold is going to be used, Webb has his biggest leads.
also....apparently the owner of Diebold was a very large contributor to the Bush campaign
What are those machines doing running closed source software in the first place? That code should be available for everyone to see.
Saludos.
I'll go a step further and say that e-voting should be controlled by the FEDS, like the non-partisan GAO office, not Seqouia, Election systems and Software and Diebold.
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