Thank you Ion Sancho. A million thanks for doing the right thing

[texpatriot2004]

and allowing non-Diebold people to be part of an actual test of the machinery used in our "elections." I am grateful to you and to the handful of people who got hold of this issue and relentlessly pursued it while educating others about the danger.

I am sure that you paid a personal price and there's nothing I can do to change that, yet my hat is off to you; you who dared to do the right thing. Thank you Ion Sancho.

The nerve of those pompous, self-righteous criminals at Diebold to state that only Diebold approved people should have access to the machinery!

[bluerum]

1. I second that. nt

[montanacowboy]

2. What an honorable and honest man

My heart went out to him - it's such a powerful documentary - please HBO, make it free for everyone to see

[texpatriot2004]

8. Agreed! nm

[april]

3. thanks from so many people who don't even know yet!

[democrat in Tallahassee]

4. We had to call him to come out in the 2004 election at the precinct

where I was working cause Repug scum were trying to keep blacks from voting; Ion set them straight quite quickly; he's great

[texpatriot2004]

7. He seems like he would be a fair and reasonable man. nm

[Beetwasher]

5. Yeah, You Could Tell How Shook Up He Was After The Hack

Seems like a good man.

[texpatriot2004]

10. Yes, he was stunned. nm

[AikidoSoul]

6. Sancho-like actions now made illegal by Florida officials

It happened back in July and was reported by the Miami Herald.

Here's a quote from Ion Sancho: ''The new rules are designed to make sure that they're never embarrassed again,''

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/14803773.htm

IN MY OPINION
Elections hacks don't guard us against hackers
BY FRED GRIMM
[e-mail]
For a county supervisor of elections needing someone to test the vulnerabilities of his voting system, Dan Wallach's the man.

Wallach, who runs the security computer lab at Rice University, is a nationally regarded expert on computer network security and voting system vulnerabilities. He's associate director of ACCURATE (A Center for Correct, Usable, Reliable, Auditable and Transparent Elections). Besides, his parents live in Lauderdale-by-the-Sea.

He is a perfect choice. But not in Florida.

Wallach and his associates at ACCURATE may represent academia's leading experts on voting system security, but under the new rules promulgated by the Florida Secretary of State, they don't qualify.

Any security test, the secretary of state's office insists, must be performed by someone certified by the American Software Testing Qualifications Board, the American Society for Quality or the EC (E-Commerce) Council.

Not only is Wallach not certified by the three organizations, ''I've never heard of them,'' he says.

TRAINING COURSE

Actually, the first two organizations are concerned with the overall quality of manufactured software, not security. The EC Council website offers a five-day training course into something called ''ethical hacking.'' Five days of training, under the new rules, would trump the most sophisticated résumés in computer science.

Computer professor David Dill, of Stanford University, who served on California's Ad Hoc Task Force on Touch Screen Voting, and whose degree -- not the five-day kind -- comes from MIT, added his apprehensions to the comments on the proposed rules the Florida Secretary of State's office collected Monday. He said they would ``would exclude the most competent evaluators, such as those who have found most of the reported security holes in existing voting systems.

''I have checked with several computer security experts, who not only do not have these qualifications, but, like me, have never heard of them. A little research on the Web reveals these certifications to be of dubious relevance to voting system evaluation,'' Dill wrote.

Other rules would require that the voting-machine vendors and the secretary's office get advance notice of any security test. And a supervisor of elections contemplating a security test must first take special pains to protect the machine manufacturer's secret operating code.

CERTIFIED HACKERS

Wallach and Dill seemed puzzled. Wallach noted that a voting machine ought to be secure no matter who tries to hack the system. The notion that a would-be hacker must first be properly certified and possess special qualifications (like a five-day online course), and the vendors need advance notice becomes utterly irrelevant in cyberspace.

SNIP

:cry: :cry: :cry:

[texpatriot2004]

9. "never heard of them" that speaks volumes doesn't it nm

[flpoljunkie]

11. Here's a link to HBO's documentary "Hacking Democracy." Includes photos, summary, and schedule.

http://www.hbo.com/docs/programs/hackingdemocracy/index.html

[BeFree]

12. To the Greatest with Ion!

The man is a hero. If we had just 50 more like him, we wouldn't have a problem with secret vote counting software.

[elehhhhna]

13. Give that Man a Medal of Honor. Stat.

k&r

[AtomicKitten]

14. Bravo!

That is exactly what I thought when I witnessed him actually testing the system, and he seemed visibly shaken at the results. I cried along with one of the witnesses. He pointed out that the Supreme Court's decision in Bush v. Gore prevented further investigation of the -16,020 votes in Volusia County in 2000 that would have made Gore president. I am just sick today after seeing this documentary. I can't think of a reason why the Republicans would stop cheating now.

[In Truth We Trust]

15. Thank you democracy loving Ion Sancho! HCPB's NOW!!!