Black Box: SAIC report to remain a secret (Wired News)

[BevHarris]

http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,59976,00.html

"According to Diebold spokesman Mike Jacobsen, the company granted SAIC access to the source code after the group signed a nondisclosure agreement. The report is expected to be completed in about three weeks but likely will remain closed to the public."

This report contains a very good rebuttal by Avi Rubin about Diebold's many claims, specifically that:

- The software has since been updated and no longer has the flaws
- The software was run on the wrong machine
- The Hopkins report only looked at five percent of the system

Basically, he says that

- No way can you redesign the whole system in less than a year, and there was no incentive to do so since these news reports just started breaking

- They looked at the source code, which tells the machine what to do. It is not relevant what machine they did their tests on, because they only did the tests to see if the software would run at all. Their conclusions were based on the source code itself

- Saying you'll train poll workers and put checks and balances in place does not overcome the issue of using flawed software. Each aspect must be secure.

"security standards call for "defense in-depth," a term used by security professionals that means defenses must be built into every layer of a system," he said.

"I think SAIC has competent people," Rubin said. "But if SAIC passes the software, then I'll be very suspicious of how good they did the review.

"But I obviously don't think this thing is going to pass the tests," Rubin said. "It took us a couple of hours to identify very serious problems and two weeks to complete our project, including writing the paper. Diebold called the research we did a 'homework assignment.' But if a homework assignment can find these problems, then how much is a real serious audit going to find?

Bev Harris
http://www.blackboxvoting.org

[dusty64]

1. Outrageous! This

is supposed to allay fears about the electronic "voting" machines? They really must think we are all brain dead. I wonder if there is anyway we could all pool our money together and purchase one of these things and do a study ourselves.

[BevHarris]

2. Violates the licensing agreement to examine one after you buy it

Of course.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

3. That license says volumes.

'nuff said.

[Kolesar]

4. "So sue me"

What are they going to do? Throw you in jail if you analyze their product?

I wonder how Consumer Reports would manage this if it were a consumer product and a safety or quality issue.

[gristy]

5. Report not to be made public. Do they think the public is really

dumb enough to accept this? The report is expected to be completed in about three weeks but likely will remain closed to the public.

:wtf:

SO it's going to be a whitewash, but they won't show the people the whitewash. Sounds like Cheney's energy meetings, the 9/11 report, etc, etc. The people aren't going to buy this. More ammo for our side.

[Junkdrawer]

7. Maybe Cheney could hire SAIC to review the energy meeting papers...

"We did a thorough review of the notes to the so-called 'secret meetings' and found that nothing damaging to the public interest...."

Big money in those Beltway Bandit contracts.

[RedEagle]

10. Just Like The Certification Process....

....that helped get us into this jam. So tell me, how can an already proven flawed process (nondisclosure)conduct a credible review?

That system has led to this kind of trouble. Now they're saying, "Let's us the same bandaid over again."

Is it time to overwhelm Congress, Maryland, or both with our outrage?

[flpoljunkie]

6. Bev, a question about the 2002 mid-term Congressional elections...

Will whistleblowers be the only way we will find out if the elections in Georgia, Colorado and other states with improbable results, were made vulnerable to fraud by the software?

I understand from recent posts that there is NO way to go back and document that these elections were compromised by built-in back doors, etc?

Is this indeed, true? If so, this is really disturbing.

edited for typo

[RedEagle]

11. One Whistle Blower is Already Working on It

http://www.libertywhistle.us/

This is Dan Spillane's site.

It is a work in progress.

Dan could be VoteHere's downfall.

He need's some expert computer help for witness and could really use some pro bono legal help.

This lawsuit is already in the making.

It may help reveal the corporate influence on election lawmaking.

[alaine]

8. I don't see how this is even legal...

This is a government issue regarding the possible violations of the civil rights of the citizens of this country. How can they keep an evaluation of these machines private? What about the freedom of information act? The very FACT that they would try to keep it private tells me that something is fishy. You can't keep something like this hidden from the citizens of this country. It IS outrageous, like the 1st poster said. Who do we complain to...this is crazy, crazy. Is it really legal for them to do this? What about the ACLU?

[Gordon25]

12. One federal judge

They can get away with keeping everything about their computer code secret because of one federal judge in Florida. After the 2000 election, one election supervisor became suspicious of the results and asked to see the source code being used on the systems (supplied by ES&S). The company refused, and the election official took ES&S to federal court. The judge ruled that the source code was a "Trade Secret", protected under federal law, proprietary and barred the official from access to it. To my knowledge, that decision has never been appealed.

Since that time no citizen anywhere in the US, and no elected or appointed government official, has had the right to inspect the source code containing the instructions given to the computers counting our vote.

Who can you complain to? First, spend an hour or so educating yourself on the issue so you can answer questions when talking with officials. Searching past discussion threads here is a good start. Check out blackboxvoting.org, and whatreallyhappened.com. Do a Google search on the issue. Then, contact your representatives and senators at both the state and federal level.

At the federal level, try to get your reps to sign on to H.R. 2239, the Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2003, which would modify the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) to require a paper record of votes, ban use of undisclosed software, and calls for mandatory hand counts in a small percentage of precincts as a check on the machine counts.

At the state level, urge your reps and senators to oppose the purchase under HAVA of any system which does not A.) have a voter-verified paper ballot which can be referred back to for hand counts if necessary; B.) which does not meet 2002 Federal Standards; and C.) which will not allow election officials, or experts hired by them, to examine the source code of the system being purchased.

Hope this helps.

Gordon25

[grasswire]

14. which judge?

We should know the name of the judge and what his affiliation is.

[alaine]

16. yes, yes, muchas gracias.

But with regards to the decision it should have been appealed to the supreme court because it is a national, not state issue.

aarrgghh!.

Thanks so much for your response.

[4dog]

19. Please tell how you search the archives

I have not had much luck with the search engine here. Can you Google the site? Would that slow it down?

[pansypoo53219]

9. the sheeple

will be mollified when told that the so-called 2000 bug didn't happen, therefore, vote stealing can't happen.
BWAH HA HA HA.

[w4rma]

13. It's obvious Diebold should not be allowed to be in this type of buisness

They are not only totally incompitant, but they utterly *refuse* to correct any errors. I'm now hoping that their company just goes flat bankrupt, because no company should be allowed to do this and stay in buisness.

[ramblin_dave]

15. Has anyone else asked for Diebold source code to review?

Specifically have Johns Hopkins University or Rice University offered to examine the Diebold code under the same terms as SAIC - i.e. sign a nondisclosure agreement, etc?

[Junkdrawer]

17. How could you do a public report if you sign a nondisclosure?

"We'd like to describe the flaw in x process, but we would have to reveal a trade secret.."

[BevHarris]

18. Yes, Rubin et. al requested the code almost immediately

and Diebold almost immediately said no. (Even though their first talking point was "we'll work with anyone to improve our product.")

[4dog]

20. BBV folk: ES&S offers voter-verified ballot option.

Found this in Wired from May 9 afer reading the first post. Voting Machine Leaves Paper Trail .
http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,58738,00.html
Lou Dedier of ES&S supposedly made a prototype V-VB machine (not described). Avante and Vote-Trakker are also mentioned and linked. Diebold says they would make one if the market demands it.

Theoretically this should be welcome news. Practically, I am scared of products from Omaha, the center of much big-Republican activity. Any thoughts on how the V-VB could be corrupted?

Sorry this is off topic. This seems to be the main BBV thread tonight.