Diebold gets slapped down....corroborates they're rigged.

Look who doesn't want to share and took their marbles from the game.


http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/11/30/diebold_hides_source/


<clip>

Diebold would rather lose all of its voting machine business in North Carolina than open its source code to state election officials as required by law, the Associated Press reports.

Due to irregularities in the 2004 election traced to touch screen terminals, North Carolina has taken the very reasonable precaution of requiring vendors of electronic voting gizmos to place all of the source code in escrow. Diebold has objected to the possibility of criminal sanctions if they fail to comply, and argued for an exemption before Wake County Superior Court Judge Narley Cashwell. The judge declined to issue an exemption, and Diebold has concluded that it has no choice but withdraw from the state.
Click Here

The company's explanation is that their machines contain Microsoft software, which they have no right to make available to state election officials. This seems disingenuous, as it is hard to imagine Microsoft suing Diebold for complying with the law. It would hardly be Diebold's fault if it released MS code to a lawful authority on demand; that issue would be something for MS and North Carolina to work out.

where we'll KNOW our votes count!

fsc

Good for my birth state!

what the hell else would be necessary for our dem gang to make some noticeable noise about this.

The coincidence is incredible and irrefutable.

...at least while the courts are arbiters of the law.

Makes me proud to live here. I love how state officials really forced these companies to be accountable to the people. I guess Diebold was a little too distracted pouring money into Ohio to get state legislators bought off here. Maybe we need a new motto? "NC: The State that Stood Up to Diebold."

Diebold has concluded that it has no choice but withdraw from the state.

Good Riddance. We all know the reason why.

Especially since the Federal government doesn't require the same requirements for open source and verifiable standards across all elections for Federal offices.

perhaps this is the chink in Diebold's armor.

Just a reference to the dll. They're hiding their code because it has back doors and fixElection() functions. 100% Busted IMO.

The guilty flee when no man pursues ... and they're runnin' for cover.

When the truth outs, the GOP will experience a bottom that will make the days after Nixon's resignation seem like the aftermath of a minor faux pas. And thing about things like this is, the truth always outs ... sooner or later.

Microsoft has "code-sharing" licenses with some companies, but its still absurd. Its obvious that they are hiding something.

If Microsoft doesn't want code shared, they'd sue the state, not Diebold. Plus, every other voting machine company agreed to share this info - are Diebold's machines really so radically different?

If anyone's really interested, one web-site has the court documents from this case: http://www.thoughtcrimes.org/s9/doc_files/DieboldCourtDocs.pdf. Diebold's complaint includes the questions they sent for "clarification" from the Board of Elections. They asked if they had to include software from third-party companies; and the Board said that they did not have to. NC was not forcing them to disclose the software from third-party companies; instead, the Board simply asked Diebold to state the software that is not available, and the reason why it is not available. Diebold could've simply said the software wasn't available because it was created by a third party (like Microsoft) and been fine. They just complained that they didn't believe the Board's answer. :eyes:

Based on Diebold's questions, their biggest issues seem to be disclosing software, but also disclosing their programmers. Wasn't one of Diebold's programmers recently convicted for hacking? Who knows, maybe he's still on staff. I'm not sure why disclosing programmers would be such a problem for them - who are they employing? This complaint is also asking for incredibly drastic measures. Diebold not only tried to avoid disclosing its own code, it wanted to get an injunction to prevent North Carolina from reading the disclosures from any other company until the trial! What makes them think they have the right to tell a state how to run its elections?

Didn't I read sometime back when Diebold got started it was using special software ie/not windows?

this would be it. Just how hard is it to compile secure lists of votes, anyway?

would not consider it proprietary for this purpose or an infringement to put it in escrow with a state in compliance with a court order and they're BUSTED !!

This could be the opening we needed to start their Waterloo.

related to Diebold showing Diebold's source code. Any MS code, would not be MS's actual source code of their own, but rather licensed software code that they could easily show in "escrow" to a court.

Being personally familiar with the licensing at MS and knowing the prior court cases of Microsoft where for years the MS software and everything else was looked at with a microscope, I can assure you that MS is very familiar with how this works and they wouldn't be worried about this and they would never ever want to be associated as being "behind" voting fraud.

If there were laws on the books to MANDATE an open code to provide the services, I doubt the Diebolds and others would simply boycott the market.

They're trying to protect their crooked machines and prevent free and fair elections.

That is the ONLY reason they refuse to do so.

I wish I was in a position to decide on these matters. I'd say, fine - take your machines and go home if we can't have the machines and code and EVERYTHING.

It's only a tabulating machine - how "tricky" or difficult could it be to produce? We have the same thing for check books and ATM's!

I just don't understand all the inaction and silence on this, unless it WERE collusion and criminality.

Than they make off of the voting machines.

..but they can't show source to a state government for the voting machines.

Can we please have them show source in the other 49 states?

"Source code" means human readable code.
It can only be obtained from the SOURCE of the code, from the programmer who develops the code.

But once it's compiled into machine readable code it's extremely tough to figure out what's going on in the code when it looks like this:

000101011010101010101010111000

or like this:

-.\&-Oµ -".&-Ou -.\&-Oy -".&-OР-.\
.&.Jhì^{ìå0¨.&0Jhì.uhç..°ì {.ñ. .ì^
{.K..B|.K..G{.K..N.êì-j. &Á&&&MY &
hKa...; ..bã.¯.ì.uðk .Êk .ËK/.È.Ë 
.{.+.N.1èN.N.+.N.j.N.K.N.N.åد.o.N.
{¯.!-{.&ø.QK..»;Nå0¨þN..d&Kåø¯ ìø.{
Dì^{Àå0§hK.JDL¯ì j.ì.áªþ...°.MYì.{.



But if there was a whistleblower among Diebolds programmers....
That would be a hero! But he would risk his life...

written in. If it's Java then it is in bytecode which is easy to parse. If not there should be some disassemblers around that will handle it, depends on the target chip, and then it would be visible in assembly code.

I could understand that - you don't need to be a hyper specialist.

I suspect the Microsoft code is to do with network connectivity - if it isn't Windows it doesn't need .dll's for normal operation.

is the use of an Access database to hold the results, if I remember correctly from the black box voting and Deb Harris threads from 2 or three years ago. The problem would be in the code that writes the code to the database. Microsoft and Access have nothing at all to do with Diebold's code.

as a side note, one of the identified problems with Diebold machines is the poor security of Access databases.

And, just how "proprietary" can Diebold's source code be? It shouldn't be anything more complex than a script to write the selected votes to a database. BFD. Why are they so damn proud of code a beginner web programmer can write?

of their quality standards if they are using Microsoft products. I wouldn't touch it with a barge pole in an important project.

It is such a simple process - counting input - that you don't need anything complicated at all on the client side. The only complexity required would be in the fixing algorithm (how frequently to miscount votes, etc).

It is a real stretch to imagine that data you format and stuff into Access has anything to do with MS source code.

Reverse engineering is tough but quite doable for those who have the knowhow. The fact that it's tough is no reason not to do it.

He wouldn't release those either claimed that the Networks owned them and hew wasn't allowed to release them .

This seems disingenuous, as it is hard to imagine Microsoft suing Diebold for complying with the law.

But it isn't hard to see MS witholding future code from Diebold, or rescinding their license in order to prevent its release.

It would hardly be Diebold's fault if it released MS code to a lawful authority on demand; that issue would be something for MS and North Carolina to work out.

This is not necessarily true. Say A and B have a contract which prohibits A from releasing any of B's source code. That basically prohibits A from doing business in places where they would be required to release all source code.

Granted, I don't think this is the reason that Diebold may pull out of NC, but it's not as silly an argument as The Register suggests. I've been through this crap before. However, I'm really interested to know what sort of MS code Diebold is using if it's anything other than the OS.

Microsoft voting machines? ::shudder::

This is a major issue.

may the big one be next.

Northrop-Grumman, Lockheed-Martin, Electronic Data Systems (EDS) and Accenture supply the machines/e-voting.

lies, discrepancies, manipulation and just plain stealing...of our votes. This is fact!

And why should privately own corporations, be allowed to own & control our tax paying & right to public voting machines, (why, because they can steal elections, easily).

They are indeed republican owned machines, owned by their benefiting corporations & republican candidates!!!!