Diebold software files have company in double bind with state, feds

[Amaryllis]

Article Last Updated: 1/22/2006 02:42 AM
Diebold fate hangs on whether its voting software can be fixed By Ian Hoffman
By Ian Hoffmanm STAFF WRITER
Software files have company in double bind with state, feds
Inside Bay Area

For more than two years, Diebold Election Systems Inc. has hit one political or technical snag after another trying to reap more than $40 million in voting-machine sales in California.

Now only a collection of tiny software files on Diebold's latest voting machines stand in the way of those revenues and more. Last summer, a Finnish computer expert using an agricultural device found he could rig the votes stored on Diebold's memory cards and rewrite one of those files to cover his tracks.

The revelation posed a double problem for Diebold: Not only could its optical-scanning voting machines be hacked, but state and federal rules for more than a year have forbidden those files in voting machines.

This week, scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, UC-Davis and a private, testing lab in Huntsville, Ala., are studying those files under strict promises of confidentiality. What they find could bear directly on what kind of voting systems almost a third of California counties will use in the 2006 elections and indirectly on Diebold's viability as a voting company.

To read the rest:
http://www.insidebayarea.com/sanmateocountytimes/localnews/ci_3427025

[lvx35]

1. Boy, what was the "agricultural device"? nt

[bananas]

2. A pitchfork?

It's the only thing those devils understand.

[lvx35]

7. You know we're in trouble when it all it takes to rig an election is

a pitchfork.

[phoebe]

3. Jeezus Christ - the "private, testing lab in Huntsville, Ala" is one of

the labs - Nichols Research - that is tied to the Election Center, R. Doug Lewis and a whole lot of devious goings on. This very lab made a lot of us suspicious at the very beginning of this whole election scam situation. Anyone else remember Shawn Southworth et al?? CIBER?? Ties to the military industrial complex?? and it goes on and on..

Great - the SAME lab that was suspect is once again doing "testing"..

PS. Shawn Southworth was the ONLY person picked by R. Doug Lewis to certify all voting machines..

[Amaryllis]

11. Ah, Shawn. Yes indeed. This whole thing sounds like a Tom Clancy novel.

and they call US conspiracy theorists!

[phoebe]

4. kick and repeat - this is very bad news..

n/t

[Wilms]

5. May actually be extremely good news.

Yes, it's an ITA that gets it's authorization from the EAC but that's the system.

What's significant is that the software in question is being sent back to the ITA EXPRESSLY for the reason that it doesn't meet ITA spec.

:popcorn:

[phoebe]

6. hope you're right..

n/t

[nicknameless]

8. You're correct to be suspicious. ITAs just certified Diebold TSx for PA.

Bastards. (Wyle and Ciber)

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x410311

[nicknameless]

9. Agreed. If certification is left up to ITAs like Ciber, that *is* bad news

They just screwed PA.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x410311

[Wilms]

10. Not how it works.

The ITA's, ARE the ones to provide federal certification. And the software in question has already received that certification.

States aren't obligated to comply with that unless they've decided, by their own law or SoS ruling, to do so. PA, like CA, is a signatory.

Despite the question about interpreter code residing in the software, PA went ahead and certified the machine.

But not the CA SoS. He sent the software to the ITA and said that it doesn't meet the ITA's own spec. (ie: they never should have certified it in the first place.)

So, we have a Dem SoS in PA that certified it, and a Repub SoS in CA who refused.

Who would have figured. :shrug:

[Amaryllis]

12. Exactly what Bob Fitrakis and Mark Crispin Miller point out in their books

Dems are complicit, compliant, in bed with the vendors, and a big part of the problem. Or are some really that stupid? We have Cathy Cox in GA, Conny McCormack in LA, and now a Dem SOS in PA.

[Wilms]

13. I'm sure it runs the gamut.

Technically challenged BoE's, one's that take kick-backs, ones that do it for the party (wink-wink), and one's who are fascist plants. And don't forget combinations of the above.

It's a big