The root? of the Diebold wireless port story

I had an opportunity to talk with Rebecca Mercuri over dinner back in June - 05. She mentioned the Diebold wireless port. More recently I have wanted to confirm this thru other sources.

I found this article at this site--
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn4584

LAN or WAN
The specifications for the TSx machine, seen by New Scientist, make it clear they could support a wireless local area network (LAN) or wide area network (WAN) card: "The method of loading data on to the AccuVote TSx's PCMCIA Flash Card will be by means of a modem or LAN/WAN/wireless card plugged into the PCMCIA slot."

Wireless LANs have a range of about 100 metres, while wireless WANs could transmit vote tallies from polling stations to a county's headquarters.

Many of the computer scientists New Scientist spoke to were unaware of the wireless capability of the TSx machine. Rebecca Mercuri, a research fellow at Harvard University, thinks Diebold has not publicised it because of the criticism the company has already received.

She supports legislation currently pending in the US Congress that specifically prohibits the use of wireless communications devices in voting systems.

is not a Republican victory, nor even a fundie supported victory but a victory based
on deception, that is the hardest thing to accept

I've always suspected 41 of helping the numbers in Dallas in 1963, blue blood degenerates are capable of anything.

it will come out, no secrets last forever especially in this electronic age and DU will be right there at the bbq.

I found it very depressing going through accepting the 04 election.

It woulda been so much easier to accept a bona fide loss.

I hope that this unravels and we finally see the man behind the curtain

Hopkins, computer network security expert, wrote that he thought it was probably too late for 2004.

He was guessing maybe 2006 we'd get it fixed.

I have my fingers crossed.

It is such an affront to our democracy, our nation, and the people.

Everyone has an interest in this, and therefore you get all the scientists lining up against Diebold, Dub et al.

They all believe in Democracy!!

it's are only chance to get our democracy back, look at Virginia where they are now refusing
to recount all the votes for the AG race, Mr. Deeds is only 300+ votes behind, it is ridiculous.

How many people voted and assumed that their vote was correct? How many votes did dumbshit get because of crooked machines?

I am so fucking pissed that this country has been thrown into turmoil, nearly bankrupted and taken to war based on this corrupt voting system.

everyone is angry and aware and constantly watching

These are the same people who planted all sorts of lies and false "evidence" to take this country to war -- an adventure that has cost $500,000,000,000 and 100,000 lives which sending billions of dollars to the companies that orbit around Bush and Cheney.

How could anybody understand that and also be surprised that the same people are systematically corrupting the election machinery to preserve their ability to continue these crimes?

I'm glad that more people are starting to get their eyes opened about what the Republicans have been up to, but really, the information has been out there for a long time. We need to get past sentimentality and naivete. We're dealing with the largest gang of organized criminals ever seen on this planet. We have to do more than regret that things aren't as they used to be and wish they were different.

It wasn't the baby boomers that sucked the life out of this country, it was Republican
leadership who have dominated the political scene for two-thirds of my life. With their ownership society and trickle down economics. They have sucked the money out of treasury and redirected it to their party and to their friends. I read that during the Reagan administration, America went from the world's banker to the world's beggar.

Here's a list (28 Years of Republican leadership/not counting 2005))
Eisenhower (R)
Nixon (R)
Ford (R)
Reagan (R)
Bush I (R)
Bush (II)

Dems
Kennedy
Johnson
Carter
Clinton

Unfreakingbelievable.

Probably disguised as Faux News trucks.

say they had people in vans parked outside major polling areas, could they transmit from
there to say a machine inside, they could have downloaded something from DC from their hotel
using a modem, or anywhere really and then retransmitted using wireless. Is that impossible?

If you know the WEP key and/or ESSID (if the device even has one), you can send anything to a wireless device. They could be sitting in a van/car and be viewing/updating just as easily as I am now. And anyone who knows wireless can tell you that the technology is far from secure .....

Some interesting reading from a couple of years ago -

http://www.zen36511.zen.co.uk/warring/warring.html

I appreciate it

EVEN A REMOTE CHANCE?
by Pokey Anderson
January 10, 2005

http://www.votersunite.org/info/evenaremotechance.htm

Imagine sitting in your favorite easy chair with a remote control, and being able to just push EJECT and get George Bush out of office. Or, let's say you're on your laptop, and you can dial up a regime change.

"Hmm," you say, "I'm feeling like blue today. Blue is a nice color. I think I'd rather have Kerry for president." Let's say you're up late, it's November 2nd, you see that Kerry is losing in Ohio, and you say, "the HELL with that!" So, with your laptop, you dial into the tabulator for, let's just say, 41 of 88 counties in Ohio. And, you switch 14 votes per precinct from Bush to Kerry. Voila. Kerry wins.

Could that happen?

Or, um, the other way around -- Kerry is winning, and someone dials in and changes a dozen or so votes in each of roughly half the precincts in Ohio, and VOILA, Bush wins Ohio. (A flip of a dozen votes in 5000 precincts would result in a net change of 120,000 votes in Ohio, more than the current margin separating the two candidates.)

Remote control of elections? Science fiction, right? Start playing the Twilight Zone music? Not exactly.

MORE

*sigh*

The more this subject is probed, the more depressing it is.

There is nothing whatsoever complicated about that. Any voting system can be designed to include a verified paper record. This is something that 80% of Americans can understand, and strongly support when they understand it.

Keep it simple. We have only one demand -- a verifiable paper record. Only a crook would be against that.

that their vote is correct? Isn't that the basis of a democracy? "One person, one vote."
Good God, what is so freakin' hard to understand about that. It seems to me that anyone against the idea of vote verification might have something to hide. How about we start mentioning that?

The people of this country should be up in arms about this.

- just feeling overwhelmed by it all. Hell, Diebold makes paper receipts for the ATM is use every day.

And no consumer with any brains would ever make a deposit at a bank machine if those machines did not produce receipts. Doesn't our democratic process deserve the same level of protection?

There are absolutely no technical barriers to doing this. Many jurisdictions use voting systems that use a paper ballot. It is no big deal (and ultra-economical) to fill out these ballots with a pencil, then run them into an optical scanner. But if people want to conplicate things with touch screens, it is extremely straightforward to produce a touch screen system that produces paper ballots that are 100% verifiable.

There simply is no argument against having verifiable balloting systems. Anybody who is arguing against this is an election criminal.

if we just out-hacked them. Do you think the integrity issues would get fixed then?

after all, we're smarter and better-looking.

to blame the democrats and use the police to beat us into submission, how about a jammer brigade, techies with knowledge of WiFi, hanging out outside of major polling place with pocket jammers

quote:
The specifications for the TSx machine, seen by New Scientist, make it clear they could support a wireless local area network (LAN) or wide area network (WAN) card: "The method of loading data on to the AccuVote TSx's PCMCIA Flash Card will be by means of a modem or LAN/WAN/wireless card plugged into the PCMCIA slot."

it says can "support", but do they use wireless or plug in modem.

a modem connection would be too obivious

thats the selling [point they push on local officials

Most wireless WANs I've seen require rather large antennas to be mounted on a rooftop. The money to set up and maintain this link would be cost very prohibitive given that the machines are rarely used. A 28.8k modem connection would be sufficient to upload vote totals and wired LANs are very easy to build these days for whatever the networking needs are at the precinct level, so there's no reason for wireless to be involved here.

Also what sort of operating system/firmware are these voting machines running? I know the GEMS central tabulator thing is Windows but I haven't seen any information on what the TSx is running. There must be just a few specific WiFi cards that will work with the TSx.

are currently being pushed down our throats in NY. WTF is wrong with these people?

I would assume that the TSX runs windows too,,, as the base OS, with the APP. over it.

Look here for some particulars

http://www.nased.org/certification.htm