Voting Machine Fiasco: SAIC, VoteHere and Diebold

[KC]

Voting Machine Fiasco: SAIC, VoteHere and Diebold
by Lynn Landes
The voting machine wars are heating up and the implications of vote fraud in America are even more ominous.

Computer scientist Avi Rubin, whose Johns Hopkins University team found serious flaws in Diebold Election Systems software abruptly resigned from VoteHere, another election software company.

In a related story, on August 6th Maryland Governor Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R) gave a contract to Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) to review the Diebold Election System's software in preparation for elections in Maryland. The report is due in four weeks.

Avi Rubin announced today his resignation from VoteHere, an elections systems company. (Avi Rubin's statement) His statement reads: "Effective immediately, I am resigning from the Technical Advisory Board of VoteHere, and I am returning all stock options, which have never been exercised, and which are not entirely vested." Unexercised stock options may be the least of Rubin's problems.
Rubin's relationship with VoteHere was a surprise to many.

http://www.opednews.com/landes_voting_machine_fiasco.htm

[qb]

1. SAIC plead guilty to 10 counts of felony fraud?

Surely someone in the mainstream media has to be interested in this.

[Trajan]

2. DAMNIT ! ....

Rubin is TAINTED ! .....


F*CK ! ....

[gristy]

4. Maybe not...

Avi Rubin announced today his resignation from VoteHere, an elections systems company. (Avi Rubin's statement) His statement reads: "Effective immediately, I am resigning from the Technical Advisory Board of VoteHere, and I am returning all stock options, which have never been exercised, and which are not entirely vested."

And the article clearly states later on

Is it a conflict of interest when an industry insider reviews the software of a competitor?

Yes. However, these conflicts of interest may not necessarily discredit the Johns Hopkins report. The basic tenet of the report is true, say many computer experts who have reviewed Diebold's software. It is riddled with back doors that can be easily opened, an "open door" so to speak to vote fraud. It does, however, bring into question some of the conclusions of the report.

[DrBB]

6. Yup. But the report stands on its own MERITS

Disclosure: I have a personal connection w/Rubin so maybe I'm biased. But unfortunate as this is, I have no question that his report was completely honest. In any case it is based on a review of the actual code, in which the security flaws are manifestly obvious; moreover Diebold's own words (in their response to the report) demonstrate their misuse of the basic technical vocabulary; and finally, the report has been out in the technical community which is very much aware of its conclusions and persuaded by reviewing the hard evidence it presents.

So this sucks for Rubin, and certainly Diebold will use it to try to bluster away Rubin's findings. But the findings still stand. I think this adds some static in the message, but it's not terminal.

[hunter]

10. Good God! We are all "Tainted!"

Some of us more than others...

But it doesn't change anything. All these "Black Box Voting" machines still suck, there is no need to worry about Original Sin.

(Sorry about that. I'm much too Catholic. :) )

Peace

[stickdog]

19. Who gives a flying fuck? Really.

The findings of his group are so patently obvious that most any CPS undergraduate could have uncovered them.

[gristy]

3. Great post!

The whole article is FULL of reported fraud, insider contracts, and conflicts of interest at SAIC. Here's just one:

Former President, Chief Operating Officer, and Vice Chairman of SAIC is Admiral Bill Owens, who is now Chairman of the Board for VoteHere.

Oh. My. God.

Article ends with this:

So, what should Maryland's Governor Ehrlich do? Cancel the contracts with Diebold and SAIC, throw out all of the voting machines, and order a new batch of paper ballots. And most importantly, let the people count the votes.

I'd vote for that!

[DBoon]

5. SAIC is very spooky

Very tight privately held company, subject to non of the SEC disclosure requirements for its publicly traded competitors (Computer Sciences, EDS, etc.)

SAIC is very proud to help communication carriers implement CALEA requirements to permit government wiretaps (implementing wiretap capabilities well in excess of actual wiretap warrents)(http://www.telecordia.com/newsroom/pressreleases/10152001adc.pdf)

Provides services to the Republican Party (qutoing from http://www.cpsr.org/cpsr/states/california/govaccess/GovAccess.222.snoops_monitorin):

THE REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE CONNECTION

Pizzo's September article also reported, "When the Republican National
Committee needed an Internet service provider to build and maintain a web page for the party's 1996 presidential campaign efforts, SAIC got the job."

Also note http://www.proffer.org/bill/resume.html

The upper echelons of this organization are filled with spooks. It also by coincidence has a strong presence in the telecommunications and energy industries.

[Must_B_Free]

11. I worked my last project with CSC

they were using minorities as fronts to get contracts they bid on. They use a small minority owned compamny as the font name, to secure the bid, then CSC does most of the work and takes most of the money. It's a good deal for the minority, but sort of defeats the porpose.

[Must_B_Free]

I worked my last project with CSC

they were using minorities as fronts to get contracts they bid on. They use a small minority owned compamny as the font name, to secure the bid, then CSC does most of the work and takes most of the money. It's a good deal for the minority, but sort of defeats the porpose.

[Must_B_Free]

12. I worked my last project with CSC

they were using minorities as fronts to get contracts they bid on. They use a small minority owned compamny as the front name, to secure the bid, then CSC does most of the work and takes most of the money. It's a good deal for the minority, but sort of defeats the porpose.

[bushh8ter]

17. Unisys does the same thing

They subcontract to small minority owned companies and pay them a pittance.

[Generic Other]

7. The plot twists in this action thriller are mind-boggling!

How do you forget you joined the board of a company? I mean, I forget my keys, my password, my lunch. But never my membership on the board of directors! Good that he resigned.

Things are getting dirty around here.

[gristy]

8. Rubin wasn't on the "board" of the company

He was on the "technical advisory board". This could very well be just a fluff association. It's possible that he had no discussions with them at all after signing on.

[Generic Other]

9. Vita building

In academia, usually all fluff.

[RedEagle]

13. No Contact

I was told that Rubin was never contacted by VoteHere, after signing on advisory board.

It would be helpful if Rubin disclosed any communications with VH in his time on the AB.

Sometimes, I'm told, companies do that, just to get a "name."

Maybe Rubin could just disclose all information up front, if he ever received any?

[TinfoilHatProgrammer]

21. not the issue

Contact with or participation in VoteHere isn't the issue. The point is he had a direct financial interest in VoteHere which would be made more valuable by attempting to discredit one of that company's direct competitors, which is exactly what he tried to do. Couple this with some of the bizarre conclusions in the paper (e.g. the laughable notion that the security issues brought up in the paper would be addressed by a voter verified audit trail) and it begins to look pretty shady. Couple that with the timing of the paper's release, just a couple of weeks before Ohio was to decide on which vendors to qualify for that state's $130m contract to update its antiquated voting equipment, in which both Diebold and VoteHere/Sequoia were in the running and it looks very much like Dr. Rubin was acting purely out of his own financial self-interest in the paper he co-authored. Whether the technical points are valid or not, he's undermined his own efforts with his sleazy behavior.

JC

[stickdog]

24. Please explain how to cheat with these machines

if you audit the results against a securely handled, hand counted voter verified paper receipt.

Please explain why you think VoteHere is one and the same with Sequoia.

Please explain how it is that you, a supposed programmer, are somehow unable to verify the obvious and rudimentary validity of the vast majority of the Hopkins team's technical points.

[GAspnes]

26. *bzzzzzzt* you lose

The paper is accurate, in research and conclusions. Your tinfoil is too tight.

[ParanoidPat]

27. Perhaps you missed this....

"Effective immediately, I am resigning from the Technical Advisory Board of VoteHere, and I am returning all stock options, which have never been exercised, and which are not entirely vested."

emphasis mine. :evilgrin:

Speaking of "sleazy behavior", are you aware of SAIC's connections to the voting industry? They actually did profit from their connections!

Hey TFHP, besides being a voter, do you have any connections with the industry? :shrug:
If you do, does that make you "biased" or your posts on the subject "sleazy" :)

[RedEagle]

14. Voting System Critic Quits Board At Rival Firm- WBAL story

http:www.thewbalchannel.com/politics/2414729/detail.htm.

"Avi Rubin has also reportedly asked the university to review all of his outside consulting work."

[Eloriel]

15. Boy, I missed this earlier

:kick:

Eloriel

[RedEagle]

16. Rubin asked university to review his outside work

And, like, there weren't three other scientists also on that team? How about Wallach?

[BevHarris]

18. SAIC to review carefully "every line of the code" --hahahahaha

And in four weeks, no less. Only 999,888 lines left to analyze. Oops, make that another 10,000, forgot that the customized Windows files need a line-by-line exam also.

Here's that little gem, which I just found in the Easton Star Journal:

Reached by phone Aug. 7, Henry Falwell, an Ehrlich spokesman, said SAIC, the independent firm currently under contract to monitor and review the security problems, is already conducting the independent study of the voting system.

"We intend to analyze the security of the software through a more thorough investigation than Hopkins, as well as to hold a mock election to test the Diebold machines," said Falwell. "SAIC will go over the software system line by line to find out where they are right and where they are wrong. And we hope to have the report ready in about four weeks."

Bev

[SharonAnn]

22. So they're reviewing the Hopkins article? Not the code?

If their real purpose is to look at the code to determine whether the Hopkins article is right or wrong, that's a different "lens" than one would use when reviewing the code to determine if it was secure and whether it could be "hacked".

[stickdog]

20. There's almost too much dirt in that article to handle in one reading.

It reads sort of like a DU research thread.

[hunter]

23. It's far worse in the pharmaceutical business...

This sort of "conflict of interest" is very common. (And those guys make a lot more money!)

Honestly, I don't think Rubin thought he was going to benefit from this. Even if he did, the conclusions of the report are still solid.

As an aside, I think we are well on our way to "privatizing" the election business. I think the ultimate goal is to do elections just like they do big business:

Citizens of the United States, to be known henceforth as "sharholders," will be able to sign a single voter proxy card once a year, and the holder of that proxy will vote in said shareholder's name in all national, state, and local elections.

Peace

[DEMActivist]

25. State government abdicating their constitutional responsibility

to conduct free and fair elections! For the first time in history, corporate America counted citizens' votes in 2002.

Are we going to stand by and let them privatize our vote?

[RedEagle]

28. Hold the Secretaries of State Accountable

for this one. Then the county officials who have bought The Election Center version of elections hook, line, and sinker.