Major Diebold Voting Machine Security Hole Discovered... Again
from the and-yet,-we-still-use-them dept
It's been, what, a little over a month since a report of the last major flaws found in Diebold machines, and we've already got new reports of what's being described as a dangerous security hole in those machines. The vulnerability, which is still being kept mostly secret, appears to let someone upload new software to the machines with just a few minutes at the machines -- potentially allowing them to change voting results on the machine. This is, clearly, a major issue -- and certainly not the first one found on Diebold machines. In the past, we've seen reports about weak security, putting ballots online and unprotected, a default easy password used on all machines across the country, reports of miscounts on the machines, evidence that Diebold employees purposely hid security problems, claims that Diebold made last minute changes to voting machine software (in violation of election laws), evidence that other machines were easily hacked and a number of other problems with both the machines and people who worked at Diebold (such as the convicted felons who ran the unit that wrote the voting machine software). In all of this, the strangest thing has been Diebold's unwillingness to make the simplest of changes that would make people feel more comfortable with the machines: adding a verifiable paper trail, so that the electronic votes could be double-checked later on. For no clear reason, the company has mostly refused to entertain the notion (though, they once said if they were forced to they would charge an exorbitant amount to scare election commissioners away from those machines).At the same time, the company has repeatedly attacked those who published this information or pushed election officials to more thoroughly test the machines. In some cases, even when serious issues have been shown, the company has publicly laughed them off and then made life difficult for elections officials who are required by law to buy electronic voting machines, by doing things like making them sign contracts that won't allow these types of security tests. In fact, the whole reason this new serious vulnerability came to light was because of a security test done on the machines for a county elections official in Utah in March. You remember... that was the case where Diebold claimed such tests were a violation of their warranty, and they demanded $40,000 to "recertify" the machines. Because of this, the election official who dared to have the machines tested was yelled at by his superiors and lost his job. Considering it was those tests that discovered this flaw that has Pennsylvania, California and Iowa quickly telling its election officials to "sequester" all of these Diebold machines until they can be updated -- doesn't it seem like Diebold and Utah state election officials owe that local election official a bit of an apology?
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Don't just blame the Republicians
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Clinton Curtis
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Voting Machine Security
mind you, gives a great excuse for an attack on the us by some country which believes it should bring in freedom and democracy to the down trodden masses and citizens. What better excuse eh!
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Mofo Republicans
Another shining example of why the democrats keep losing...because they pander to idiots like the one above. Election fraud is nothing new and to be fair I believe the Dems in Chicago are usually the ones getting caught for election tampering.
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diebold
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https://www.piratpartiet.se/English.aspx
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Re: ALL you have to do to change this country is b
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When you think about it, without the Diebold machines, we still vote like we did in 1850.
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Re:
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Re: Re:joedirt
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Re: Re:joedirt
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Like pushing for no ID voter registration in areas with high illegal immigrant populations? Like trading crack for votes? The biggest difference between the Republicans and Democrats is at least the Republicans are effective cheats, i.e. at least they win. Democrats have mastered the art of f'cking up a wet dream; cheat, still don't win, and get caught being it so you (and the people that supported you) look like pathetic losers.
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Diebold
Democrats recognize that we need electronic voting, we need the potential improvement in accuracy, lower costs, and all the good things that improving technology can provide. We cannot afford to fund counter-terrorists. We depend on volunteers and honest individuals to alert the police to criminal behavior, and we depend on prayer that God may save our nation from the depravity and depravations of the serial killers (Bush, Sr.) and serial rapists (Bush, Jr.) and their henchmen running the republican party in America.
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Oh please
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Glitch???
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Diebold
We know that money almost always wins elections,
even more so than popularity, so we passed laws to supposedly limit the amount of money that you can can tribute to a candidate. Why don't you track down the money behind Diebold, I think you would be surprised at the diversity of shareholders which means that both parties have the potential to rig the elections they want to win and maybe even get together to decide in advance who gets what.
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Re: Diebold
For more, see:
http://www.onlisareinsradar.com/archives/001684.php
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Re: Diebold
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Young people need to get in line and vote.
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Re:
The real problem is the incumbents who are in office 30 or 40 years or more. The prime example being Strom Thurmond, who was 92 and died in office. There are others, like Byrd, Spector and Kennedy (do you realize there has been someone from the Kennedy clan in congress forever?), among others.
This is why nothing of any substance gets done, as these are the "old boys" who collectively run congress and, therefore, the country. It's their way or the highway and screw you if you dont like it.
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Careful with this "automated" voting systems
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Well at least the Dems van just break, as opposed to having 25 vans systematically vandalized by the son of the Chairman of the state Kerry/Edwards campaign.
http://www.ac4vr.com/reports/072005/democraticincidents.htm...Or experiance incidents of having shots fired into their campaign headquarters.
http://www.wbir.com/news/archive.aspx?storyid=20241
...Or having their 3 year old daughters assaulted for holding a sign.
http://www.phillyburbs.com/pb-dyn/news/32-09172004-367739.html
Do the people that invented urban machine politics, that brought us Boss Tweed and Richard J. Daley, really, really want to try and lecture us about institutional corruption?
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Welcome to America
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It is about Trust
Our spineless politicians and elections officials let these companies away with these security holes (I don't care about what party they belong to, Dems, Republicans, Green, organge, or independant, they all allow this to happen)
I say find a way to hack these things on election day and hack the HELL out of them so one of our first president, George Washington is again elected into every open government seat. That will get the attention of elections officials, Dibold, and the general public.
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Chris...
Eisenhower was very concerned about the military industrial complex. He said, "In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist." (cite)
I am pro-business, in fact I am starting my second business now. However, the ease at which profits can be turned into political power is why our government/political system has been skewed from protecting people to protecting business. It is unlikely that I will ever have millions of dollars to give to politicians, or the hundreds of millions of dollars to give to lobbyists (the real important money). That means I am going to be less influential than those business that can.
In addition, businesses (and those that own/run them) are generally the only entities that even have the ability to have something like profits. There are few people that have income in the millions that don't own/run businesses. What then is their concern? That their business expand through favorable government policies.
For some businesses, there is a greater return on investment in influencing government than spending money on their primary industry/market.
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Rebutle to Jim
The point I was trying to make about goverment spending in the military is that it's so much more than anything else that it's almost rediculous. Take a look at our Foreign Policy and the only theme you see transcending across our FP to all coutnires is containment. Any time there's a nationaly that has a different view (more "extreme") than ours we try and contain them. Simply put the US and other leading nations are the reason why Africa and South America, who have vast and plentiful resources, are still 3rd world countries.
Now you might say that the reason we have to keep our military strong is to ward off threats like Bin Laden. For those of you without a histroy lesson let me give you a VERY brief one. Iran and Russia were fighting, the US gave bin laden power and weapons to help beat out Russia. Once Russia was gone the weapons remained. Then the Iran-Contra scandal happened. The UFC (united fruit company) said that a revolutions who was trying to give his land back to the people was communist. Thanks to the help of the CIA, and smuggling weapons through Iran to a AWOL group of marines (CONTRA), this revolutionist was hunted down and murderd; along with many others. THIS is what pissed many people off. The fact the US enacted an arms trade embargo then went right around it to screw innocent people.
Africa's a whole different story, but more or less the US and much of the world has turned a blind eye to civil unrest beacuase it's a means to quell "competition."
Anyway, the US has to spend so much $$ on the military becuase it spends so much less $$ on education. A high school student from the 50's general had more knowledge than a college student with an AA. Tell your typical american that the US put Sadamn and Bin Laden into power and they'll tell you you're full of it. Iggnorance is the problem in america, and until we educate the masses about the outside world we are going to continue to have international relation problems.
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HAVA/Diebold/Ney/Abramoff connection
Here is a tidbit ALL Americans should be aware of: In 2002, HAVA was written in soon-to-be-indicted Congressman Bob Ney's office with the help of Jack Abramoff, the then Political Director of a K-Street lobby firm Greenberg Traurig. HAVA is a lie. Most Americans have been foolishly led to believe HAVA was written to address the bungled Florida election in 2000—wrong. HAVA was written for the vendors. In this same period when HAVA was written, Greenberg Traurig received 275 thousand dollares from—you guessed it, Diebold Corporation! HAVA, what we voting reform activists in Ohio refer to as the "Hack America's Vote Act", appears now more to be a clandestine plot to keep Republicans in power and to funnel huge amounts of tax dollars into the hands of their vendor friends. Oh, and don't think ES&S is all shining and innocent. Both Global Elections Systems (later bought by Diebold) and ES&S, Sen. Chuck Hagel's baby (these 2 companies count 80% of America's vote), were started by the brothers Bob & Todd Urosevich (insert Godfather music here) who hired convicted computer hacking felons as their first hires, including Jeffrey Dean (23 convictions, computer fraud). Now that Dean is out of jail, he is engaged in the voter registration business. Scary, isn't it? And the compiler code he wrote? It is still being used. So, if they weren't before, now your eyes are wide open, aren't they? We have criminals controlling our elections which are now fully privatized by them and their ilk. Whether or not we want a Constitutional crisis, we have one.
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Just want to mention
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