Bradblog: Diebold Insider--Back Door for Foreigners, Homeland Sec Said

[autorank]

”Play it again, Sam…” This deserves a second, third, fourth look…

* EXCLUSIVE! * A DIEBOLD INSIDER SPEAKS!
DIEB-THROAT : 'Diebold System One of Greatest Threats Democracy Has Ever Known'

Identifies U.S. Homeland Security 'Cyber Alert' Prior to '04 Election Warning Votes Can be 'Modified Remotely' via 'Undocumented Backdoor' in Central Tabulator Software

BradBlog ROCKS the House!

In exclusive stunning admissions to The BRAD BLOG some 11 months after the 2004 Presidential Election, a "Diebold Insider" is now finally speaking out for the first time about the alarming security flaws within Diebold, Inc's electronic voting systems, software and machinery. The source is acknowledging that the company's "upper management" -- as well as "top government officials" -- were keenly aware of the "undocumented backdoor" in Diebold's main "GEM Central Tabulator" software well prior to the 2004 election. A branch of the Federal Government even posted a security warning on the Internet.

Pointing to a little-noticed "Cyber Security Alert" issued by the United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT), a division of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the source inside Diebold -- who "for the time being" is requesting anonymity due to a continuing sensitive relationship with the company -- is charging that Diebold's technicians, including at least one of its lead programmers, knew about the security flaw and that the company instructed them to keep quiet about it.

[msongs]

1. your post is more idle speculation with no content....again. where's the

beef?

Msongs
www.msongs.com/clark2008.htm

[autorank]

3. Do you like the idea of your vote being tampered with?

Diebold

GEMS Central Tabulator 1.17.7, 1.18

A vulnerability exists due to an undocumented backdoor account, which could a local or remote authenticated malicious user modify votes.

No workaround or patch available at time of publishing.

We are not aware of any exploits for this vulnerability.

GEMS Central Tabulator Vote Database Vote Modification
http://www.us-cert.gov/cas/bulletins/SB04-252.html#windows
======================================================================

A "tabulator" is what counts the votes. A back door is a little surprise that the programmer leaves in order to get in the system for watever purpose the programmer or his/her patron might have. "No workaround or patch available..." means there is documented way to fix it.

That's Diebold tabolators.

======================================================================
About 80% of the vote counting, tabulation, in the US is controlled by Sequoia, Diebold, and ESS (ESS is owned by SAIC).

Sequoia, major US vote tabulator is a British Firm, i.e., foreigners

Check this out.


http://www.ecotalk.org/VotingMachineCompanies.htm
The Big Louisiana Election Scandal of 1999-?: Sequoia has been plagued by scandal. And it has some of the earmarks of an outrun run by organized crime. In 1996 right wing Republican Woody Jenkins lost to (increasingly conservative) Democrat Mary Landrieu for U.S. Senate seat. Jenkin's investigation led to federal charges of bribery of election officials. Sequoia Pacific’s Regional Manager, Phil Foster, and their regional sales executive, Pasquale (Rocco) Ricci (also owner of New Jersey-based Independent Voting Machine Services), were indicted for paying out about $8 million in bribes to Louisiana Commissioner of Elections Jerry Fowler. Glenn Boord and Ralph Escudero, also involved, owned Uni-lect, which was associated with Sequoia Pacific. They pled guilty to conspiracy to compound a felony. According to Asst. Dist. Atty. Sandra Reber, "Foster’s hands-on involvement was Foster's recruitment of his own brother-in-law, Donald Philpot of Birmingham, Alabama, (owner of Election Services Inc.) to help launder the kickbacks." J. Herbert Webb, president of Electec, Inc. was also involved. Fowler may have paid as much as $8 million more than required to buy machines, parts and maintenance services from Pasquale Ricci and David Philpot. In all, 22 people were indicted on charges related to a department whose primary responsibility is warehousing and maintaining the state's voting machines. Nine have pleaded guilty. Ricci, amazingly, got a one year home detention. Fowler got over 50 months in prison. Sources:http://www.cnn.com/2000/ALLPOLITICS/stories/11/27/fowlertrial.ap/ / http://www.madcowprod.com/intro.htm / http://www.securepoll.com/Archives/Archive47.htm / http://www.whoseflorida.com/voting_machines.htm http://sanfrancisco.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/stories/2001/11/19/story4.html /
There's your beef! Enjoy (although I can't guarantee it's organik)

[mod mom]

2. Add this to Bob Fitrakis' reports on Blackwells dirty deeds on election

night and BINGO: Ohio is blue and Kerry is Prez!

<freepress.org>

[autorank]

4. Wouldn't that be nice. I'm still working on President Gore!

:hi:

[knowbody0]

5. autorank, YOU ROCK !!!

thanks for posting. recommended. we need this now more than ever.
peace

[shance]

6. Autorank does rock, doesnt he?

:)

[autorank]

10. Well, damn, you both rock but BradBlog's Brad Friedman is LORD!

and Knobody0, you alerted me to this post! Thank you. You are too kind, in addition rocking (and Shance is too kind also;)

[Nothing Without Hope]

7. In June Fitrakis said that the Ohio central tabulator had THREE BACK DOORS

and that one of them was in Blackwell's office. (But any of the three could have been used to manipulate the data.) Anyone hear any updates of this? It was a statement he made in June on a couple of radio shows, Brad's show and Laura Flanders', and I don't know if he or anyone else has said or written anything on it since then:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x377215#377222

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x378842

Here is an audio file of the Brad Show segment with Fitrakis in it (June 11):
http://bradblog.com/BradShow/Archives/BradShow_061105_Hour2.mp3

Here is an audio file of the Fitrakis interview from the Laura Flanders show:
http://wanderingstar.com/design/bobfitrakisAAR.mp3

Here's yet another June file including Fitrakis discussing this:
http://www.kpftx.org/archives/kpftsignal/index.php

Presumably since this was Ohio the machine the system involved would NOT have been Diebold, but it's obviously the same issue. I haven't listened to these files lately, but my recollection is that the State Patrol had one of the three back doors. Ken Blackwell had another, and I don't recall who had the third.

We need to put all this info together, update it, and get an integrated story with the different pieces reinforcing one another.

Recommended - we need to keep an eye on this story and update it aggressively.

[TheStates]

8. How do we find out the type of machine counter used?

I think it ought to be very easy to find out if Blackwell's machine was Diebold or not.....It sure sounds like it was. Only Diebold type GEMS would have three open backdoors I would think...

[Nothing Without Hope]

9. Since it was Ohio, I don't think it would be Diebold. ES&S maybe? We need

to get an update and clarification from Fitrakis. He spoke of this bombshell several times on radio in June, but to my knowledge has not written anything on it since then - I checked his usual Free Press site and found nothing. Maybe he DID write something and it is somewhere else or under another first author.

If autorank can talk to Fitrakis, I hope he asks him for this information: what's the latest on the Ohio central tabulator backdoor, and if he's published anything on it, where is it?

It was quite a letdown when there was this huge disclosure in June and then, so far as I can tell, silence. Maybe he is gathering more evidence - but I'd iike to know where the story stands.

[autorank]

11. The beauty of this is that it's a public listing, on the web.

Just says, hey vulnerability and no fix at hand. I'll get some Ohio folks over here and also, we can all look on BradBlog for the discussion. There is some very good work being done there.

The larger point is: (a) if they allowed this here, then why not in other machines (it's not easy to get a hold of them because they're "proprietary" you know)? and (b) there is huge access to Sequoia machines all of which are owned by a British Firm (see post three from me, autorank, on this thread). What's with that. A British firm! Wonder if they're close to bLiar.

This is stupid. When I was a kid, my mother took me to vote starting at age 4. She'd hoist me up (which wasn't easy since she was petite) and have me watch her vote. It was with a inked stamp, on a flat paper ballot in California, which has a lot of material almost always. It made such an impression on me -- you go to vote in private, you take your time, and, in her case, you vote for Stevenson for President ---Yes!

Simple stuff...fix the whole damn thing tomorrow. Oh, but the Board of Elections officials would be inconvenienced. We just need to remind them that we pay their salary.

[Nothing Without Hope]

12. Well said. Yes, wouldn't it be ironic if a British neocon cabal helped

hack the blivet** into the 2004 coup d'etat? But I'm betting the traitors were home-grown.

As you say, the fact that this is a FACT, a TECHNICAL FLAW known to be in the system and not only ignored but concealed from people who might have opposed the system if they knew, and that its description is open to all on the web is highly significant.

I do wonder what's cooking with that extremely tantalizing statement by Fitrakis, made on multiple radio programs.

[autorank]

13. States, Welcome to DU!!! Here's the first part of the answer.

"Diebold also manufactured many of the tabulators used to count punch card* ballots. In the vast majority of Ohio precincts, those tabulations were not rechecked or recounted. In at least two counties, technicians from Diebold and from Triad dismantled all or part of such tabulating machines prior to the recount. In Shelby County, election officials admitted that they discarded crucial tabulator records, rendering a meaningful recount impossible. In many cases, the recounts were conducted not by public election officials, but by private corporations, many of them with Republican ties.

In other precincts, impossibly high voter turnout figures -- nearly all of them adding to Bush's official margin -- remain unexplained. In the heavily Republican southern county of Perry, Blackwell certified one precinct with 221 more votes than registered voters. Two precincts -- Reading S and W. Lexington G -- were let stand in the officially certified final vote count with voter turnouts of roughly 124% each.

In Miami County's Concord South West precinct, Blackwell certified a voter turnout of 98.55 percent, requiring that all but 10 voters in the precinct cast ballots. But a freepress.org canvas easily found 25 voters who said they did not vote. In the nearby Concord South precinct, Blackwell certified an apparently impossible voter turnout of 94.27 percent. Both Concord precincts went heavily for Bush."
http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2004/1057

I'll get you the Diebold machine model #'s. My Ohio expert is asleep, it seems. Someone else will know and may respond.

The presence of Diebold and the Diebold attitude towards security is the real issue. They don't need to be the exact same tabulator models but that would be interesting.

Good question.

*Southwestern Ohio was dominated by punch card machines. This is also one of the hot beds of strange happenings and vote totals. See the whole article for more or the work of Richard Hayes, PhD in Free Press. In Warren County, for example, the Board made all observers leave the tabulation area (where they had a right to be, ) claiming that homeland security (federal) had sent them a terrorist alert. The room was cleared. The FBI was contacted by the Cincy Enquirer the next day and they categorically denied any, any security alert that day and any slert to Warren County Ohio. Many of the Board members and employees who pulled this stunt are still employed in their jobs there.

[paineinthearse]

14. I've been away

But this appears to be same as what was on home page Friday afternoon?

[autorank]

15. Now your back and you are whole... thanks!

[Usrename]

16. It's the date on the Cert to Dept. of Homeland Security that's key.

It was before the election! THEY KNEW! THEY DID NOTHING! WHY WEREN'T THEY WORRIED?????

Oh well, could be just another case of selective incompetance. I think the general public will assume a more nefarious intent.

kicked!!!!!

[freedomfries]

17. a national security liability

Right on usrename!
CERT posted the warning and Homeland Security did nothing about it, leaving the backdoor open to ANY intruder!
Insecure voting systems are national security liabilities.

[autorank]

19. Username, Nefarioius AND incompetent: not mutually incompatible.

...haha...but unfortunately, it's no laughing matter. If they were compentently nefarious, we wouldn't know about this and the listing of the flaw wouldn't be on a public board. Just because they're stupid, doesn't rule out nefarious intent. I think they're so bold, they just don't give a good *** damn! Thanks for the kick...here's one for you and your efforts

:dem:

[LeahD]

18. And kick. n/t

[Wilms]

20. .

[TheStates]

21. UPDATE on Diebold: Call to action regarding HR-550 in the House!

http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00001842.htm

Support flooding congress to uniformly pass HR-550, over 149 co-sponsors for a permanent requirement of verified paper ballots and random auditing procedures!!!!!!!

http://www.velvetrevolution.us/Content/VotingReform/pen3.php

[autorank]

22. Did it. Thanks ... that's so easy!