BBV: Malicious Insiders - Forbidden Concern?

[Junkdrawer]

Why is it that one of the chief concerns of electronic voting is hardly ever mentioned in press coverage of the issue?

I know that my chief concern is that the major voting machine companies are owned by Republican partisans that, at least in one instance, have promised to do everything in their power to re-elect Bush. I know that's why I want elections auditable and audited. And yet when CNN, for example, does a story, the concerns are limited to software errors and outside hackers.

Advocates of electronic voting say paperless ballots save money and eliminate problems common to old systems. But the technology brings a new breed of security concerns, like software errors and hackers that could make the results unreliable.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/03/02/e.voting.test.ap/index.html

And it's not just CNN. I think I could count on one hand the number of mainstream articles that bring up the malicious insider concern.

[tom_paine]

1. Such thoughts do not go with Official Imperial Pravda

The last thing the Busheviks want to do is to let us know what their gameplan is.

Even if it's not like that, I have no doubt that AOLTimeWarner is loathe to speak of malicious, unprincipled Bushevik insiders. After all, CNN themselves are shot through with these Totalitarian Creatures.

[seemslikeadream]

2. Imperial Pravada

couldn't be closer to the truth

Vikant Corp., a Chicago area company owned by Alex Kantarovich of Minsk, Belorussia, supplied the control cards to ES&S. When The SPOTLIGHT inquired where Vikant cards are produced,
Kantarovich said, "I cannot disclose where the cards are made," but admitted that they are not made in America.

Kantarovich told The SPOTLIGHT that he has been in America for 11 years but declined to discuss his employment prior to running Vikant Corp., saying, "I don't want to disclose that information."

Kantarovich said he had obtained his degree in the Soviet Union and initially refused to answer questions about how his product was chosen for the ES&S voting equipment.

It is "inside information that I cannot disclose," he added. Kantarovich said later that his firm was chosen over larger firms like IBM and Panasonic because Vikant was able to meet the specific requirements of ES&S and provide the cards on short notice. He
added, however, that there had been "some problems" with the cards from other suppliers.

"To tell you the truth, I have no idea how these vote counting machines work," Kantarovich said. "We are just the supplier of one particular product."
http://www.voxpolitics.com/weblog/archives/000186.html

The process of researching this article resulted in a thinly veiled death threat issued to Mr. Christopher Bollyn by the Russian born Alex Kantarovich, now living near Chicago and providing election software for the largest supplier of vote-tabulating computer systems in the United States. The story of that death threat is carried in our archives in the November 14th, 2000 Network American e-wire.
http://www.votefraud.org/News/2000/10/102700.html

[tom_paine]

9. Sounds like one of Comrade Putin's KBG "soulmates"

Given their treasonous bent and their history of aiding and abetting and working with the nation's greatest enemies, it wouldn't surprise me in the least if the Busheviks were looking to the Soviets to help with vote rigging.

[Junkdrawer]

3. BTW: To answer my own question...

I think that if the issue is limited to stopping outside hackers, security measures short of a paper trail are sufficient. If, however, you allow that insiders may want to throw an election (perish the thought) a voter verified paper ballot AND spot checks are the only sensible solution.

[never cry wolf]

4. I believe that Bev, Andy, Pat, Greg et al have framed it that way

Purposely so that it does not get sloughed off as a whily librul issue. It truly is, or should be, a non-partisan concern but if it is framed as Dems vs. repugs it will never get anywhere.

I agree, your fears are my fears as well, but the issue HAS to be brought forth the way it has been or most of the sheeple will just dismiss it.

[Junkdrawer]

5. But you still have to address the malicious insider issue -OR- the...

motivation for a Voter Verified Paper Ballot (VVPB) is just not there. I do, however, agree with keeping the public debate as non-partisan as possible. Heck, I'd invoke the ghosts of Mayor Daley and LBJ to show that Democrats have been know to cheat too.

[Junkdrawer]

6. kick

:kick:

[Kelvin Mace]

7. Two things to consider

1) If you harp on the ownership problem, you get labeled a "conspiracy nut". Unfair? Yes, but that's life.

2) Imagine you have to bet on how I might die in the next six months. Your options are: a) A terrorist hijacks my plane and flies it into another big building. b) A drunk driver takes me out.

How do you bet?

The smart money is on the drunk driver, as there are *many* more of them than there are suicidal terrorists in the US.

The same holds true for BBV. The bet becomes a) An election rigged by persons willing to risk jail. b) An election screwed up due to buggy software running on flakey hardware.

Again the smart money is on buggy/flakey. Each BBV machine is a disaster waiting to happen, i.e. tens of thousands of potential errors. The number of people willing and able to rig an election is much smaller.

Odds that another 9/11 will happen in the next 24 hours: 1:10,000?

Odds that a person will die due to a drunk driver in the next 24 hours: No bet, it is a certainty

Chance that someone will rig an election in November: ???

Chance that a voting machine will malfunction and fail to properly record a vote: 100%

Of course, a deliberately rigged election is like 9/11: catastrophic and inevitable at some future date.

David Allen
Publisher, CEO, Janitor
Plan Nine Publishing
http://www.plan9.org

[Junkdrawer]

8. Replies:

1.) As for the "conspiracy theorist" ad hominem, I'd say that we're looking at their current best-counter talking point:

"If they suggest that an insider may throw an election, scream "conspiracy theorist", if they don't, point out how expensive/disruptive it is to require a VVPB just to keep "hackers" out. NEVER allow that an election may be rigged by those who provide the software or monitor the election"

Now, the way "conspiracy theorist" is currently used (the Congressional Black Caucus have just been called "conspiracy theorists" by Colin Powell), I'm hoping its dubious power will be diluted soon. However, until it is, we need to stick to the more technical "malicious insider" meme and try to get the heavy weights (Mercuri, Dill, etc.) to provide support.

2.) As for the odds:
I'm hoping you understand that I meant insider rigging which, given the current lax standards, seems more likely than not, and not outside hackers which, I agree, would be extremely unlikely.

[Junkdrawer]

12. PS:

A while back IBM did a famous study where they discovered that "Disgruntled Employees" are something like 10 times more likely to damage a computer system than external "hackers". Here's just one cite I Googled up:

Threats within an organisation

Security experts from IBM warn that in the growing wave of concern over critical infrastructure attacks, the real threats, contrary to common belief, emanate from the business’ internal environment. The Lloyd case is one such classic example.

“The threats don’t come from outside. More often than not, it’s the internal environment, be it disgruntled former employees or current employees,” says Tan Chin Bin, IBM Global Services, Asean/South Asia solutions manager.

He adds that the internal factor represents 70 per cent of the threat to business security. This contradicts the popular belief that hackers and viruses are the major security menace to many corporations around the world, especially those with Internet presence.

Perhaps this could help remove the "conspiracy nut" spin when the issue is brought up.

[hunter]

10. It's a feature, not a bug...

I think in a lot of places local election officials were very comfortable "fixing" screwy election results. If you ever watched the movie "Harold and Maude" imagine the part where the mom is filling out the kid's computer dating service form for him...

In the case of the Diebold machines, the use of Microsoft Access with all the usual accounting safeguards turned off is the "feature" that would allow local election officials to continue doing these sorts of manipulations.

[Junkdrawer]

11. Yes, but do you know the extent to which those Access DBs...

and the GEMS program have been co-designed to pass spot checks of precinct totals while still throwing the county-wide totals? It's impressive.