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http://www.GuluFuture.com/diebold_scoop.htm
THE REAL SCOOP
ON
DIEBOLD
25th July, 2003
by Fintan
Dunne,
Editor http://www.gulufuture.com/
On 24th July, 2003 an important story broke. Johns Hopkins University
researchers found
that electronic voting machines are full of security flaws which can allow
fraudulent election results. A scandal indeed.
But like many
reported 'scandals' this is a pseudo-investigation. In truth, the news was
two weeks old. Alternative media site Scoop.co.nz first broke the unabridged full story, by Bev Harris --back in early July, 2003.
The Johns Hopkins team only decided to commence their
investigation precisely when the Scoop story hit the Internet. Now, in
double-quick time they are in print in the New York Times (followed by Yahoo News and MSNBC)
with what the NYT called "the first review of the software by recognized
computer security experts." Author of the Scoop articles, Bev Harris,
although a world leader in this field, is sadly unrecognized --by the NYT
at least. So the NYT coyly ignores the explosive content of her prior
Scoop story.
Why? Note this remark by Aviel Rubin, of Johns Hopkins
University, who led the team which examined Diebold software used in
voting machines across the USA. When asked to comment on allegations by
Bev Allen that the Diebold software may have been designed to facilitate
fraud, Rubin described the claim as "ludicrous."
Rubin could
dismiss the allegation of deliberately fraudulent design in Diebold
software, because his team never examined the Diebold software in
question. They only looked at security flaws in the touchscreen terminals
and smart cards used by voters. It's true, these are deeply flawed, but
not criminally flawed.
The jaw-dropping revelations in the Scoop
story did not relate to the touchscreens, but the Diebold software running on the servers which collate the
results from many individual touchscreens. It is here that the smoking gun
was found.
Incredibly, this software keeps not one, but two
Microsoft Access data tables of voting results. It's like a business
keeping two sets of account books. The two tables are notionally identical
copies of the votes collated from all polling stations. The software uses
the first table for on-demand reports which might uncover alteration of
the data --such as spot checks of results from individual polling
stations.
And here's where it got scary. The second of the two
tables is the one used to determine the election result. But the second
table can be hacked and altered to produce fake election totals without
affecting spot check reports derived from the first table. These will
still check out.
The election officials using menu-driven Diebold
software are never aware there are two underlying data
tables.
Finally, alterations to the second table can be
accomplished by dialing into the Diebold server across the Internet
through a maintenance port. Whew!
Is this software designed with
criminal intent? Consider this: If the IRS called to a business and found
two sets of books -one used for IRS spot checks and a second, alterable
set used to make IRS returns, do you think they might be a little bit
annoyed?
Yet even though the Johns Hopkins team sourced their data
from Scoop and surely knew of the full implications of Bev Harris's
discoveries, by only looking at touchscreen stations in their
investigation, they can with straight faces dismiss the deliberate intent
allegations as "ludicrous."
The real Diebold story may have been so
hot, that some in US media and academia have co-opted the controversy and
have masked it's full scope. It's not the first time this tactic has been
used. For the straight dope on Diebold, go to the people who got the scoop!
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