Something new, Diebold affair: cease'n'desist to my ISP...

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Jim March

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My ISP got a cease'n'desist - it was dated Sept. 4th but he doesn't get to his PO box that often so he finally got it today.

You can see what he got here:

http://www.equalccw.com/desist.pdf

My response complies with the counter-notification rules here:

http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/512.html

I edited my personal info out here but per the rules, I put 'em in in the letter which went to my ISP plus CCed to Diebold's lawyers:

---------------------

Subject: Counter-notification under 17 USC 512(g)(3)

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

This is a counter-notification to a "cease and desist" memo filed by Diebold Election Systems legal counsel to my Internet Service Provider, Mr. (deleted). Mr. (deleted) recieved this notification on 9/18/03 and forwarded a copy to me. He has informed me that he has filed a query with your attorneys as to exactly which Diebold-related files I currently host infringe on Diebold copyrights.

The files in question are:

http://www.equalccw.com/CDDOCMENTATION.pdf
http://www.equalccw.com/ElectionSupportGuide.pdf
http://www.equalccw.com/smokinggun.pdf
http://www.equalccw.com/testnote.pdf
http://www.equalccw.com/testnote2.pdf
http://www.equalccw.com/testnote3.pdf
http://www.equalccw.com/voteprar.pdf
http://www.equalccw.com/dieboldtestnotes.html
http://www.equalccw.com/initialprar.html
http://www.equalccw.com/vancouverstaff.html
http://www.equalccw.com/ATL-TSRepair.zip
http://www.equalccw.com/initialprar.html
http://www.equalccw.com/alamedaprarresponse.pdf
http://www.equalccw.com/alamedafollowup.pdf
http://www.equalccw.com/alamedafollowup.html
http://www.equalccw.com/alafollowup2.PDF

I have some suspicion I know which files Diebold would consider "private property", but I am not of course quite certain as to what claims Diebold is making. Some of these files are of such shocking nature, I would be rather surprised if Diebold were to voluntarily declare ownership of them as they suggest serious criminal activity on the part of Diebold Elections Systems.

The files fall into four general categories, which I will discuss in detail below:

* "Program files" as used below refers to Diebold executable programs, mainly "GEMS" and the code needed to make it work. I do not have any source code, nor do I have the programs that run on Optical Scan or Touchscreen terminals (either online or on my local disks).

* "Data files" refers to the voting data files used by GEMS, identified by the extentions ".MDB" (Microsoft DataBase, also viewable in commercial versions of MS-Access) and ".GBF" (Global Backup Files, which GEMS can convert into .MDB files). Some are found within .ZIP archives, some are standalone.

* "Manuals" - these are documents written by Diebold Elections Systems, generally bearing Diebold corporate logos and graphics. They are very "professional looking" and generally stored as ".PDF" files. Most are written for Diebold customers, but at least one is described as being for employee use only (especially the hilarious "ElectionSupportGuide.pdf" file).

* "Internal EMail traffic" - a Diebold Elections System employee leaked a huge archive of EMail messages that were originally distributed across an internal Diebold mailing list managed by the Majordomo application. (Approximately 20+ Diebold employees were subscribers to this list; all messages that were sent to the mailing list address were "reflected" back out to the group as a whole for comment or informational purposes.)

Setting aside a detailed query as to each individual file or even file type as described above, my intent in writing this is to notify Diebold and their legal counsel that it is my honest opinion that I have committed no copyright infringement, and I ask my ISP to leave the files in question intact and/or reinstall any taken down.

I base this opinion on the following facts:

1) The material is subject to "fair use" copyright provisions because it provides a public service: informing the public, media and government figures that the "security" of Diebold Election Systems is deliberately flawed in ways that strongly suggest an intent to commit voter fraud.

2) I have made no profit whatsoever from this material, and have no intention to ever do so.

3) Most of the material in one way or another documents criminal activity on the part of Diebold Election Systems. These include:

3a) Setting up GEMS with zero effective security, by allowing MS-Access to alter GEMS voting data, passwords and audit trails. Even a cursory examination of the data files by anyone technically competent with MS-Access will reveal most of the extent of the problem.

3b) Knowingly leaving these security flaws in place, because MS-Access was a "convenient tool" to modify the data, despite MS-Access never being approved or tested by ANY government agency as elections software. Internal Diebold EMails fully document this going back to at least the year 2000, and in 2001 fraudulent statements were made to the Federal Independent Testing Authority ("Metamor", now called Ciber Inc) regarding this security flaw - in an EMail message of October 18th 2001 by Ken Clark, Diebold Election System's "Senior Engineer" which also disparaged the technical abilities of said testing lab, apparantly with some authority.

3c) In that same damning EMail, Mr. Clark mentions being able to tamper with vote data himself.

4) The data files are NOT Diebold property. They are owned by the various county clients of Diebold, and in my opinion and study of the California Public Records Act, the files from California (Alameda and San Luis Obispo Counties) are public record. According to SLO County Registrar Julie Rodewald, the SLO County file is "live elections data" from the day of the 3/5/02 primaries, timestamped BEFORE the close of the polls (stamped 3:31pm) and containing "live vote data" (absentee ballots). Rodewald claims that this file was NOT released to Diebold by her or her staff, certainly not for public distribution on a Diebold website unprotected by any password at all. The file itself did have a primitive password which turns out to be "sophia" - Diebold technical staffer Sophia Lee was present at the county that day according to Rodewald, apparantly in violation of INS rules! (See also the "ElectionSupportGuide.pdf" file section 3.1 on "crossing the border" for instructions by Diebold Election Systems to their employees to violate US immigration law.)

5) The other major reason the Diebold Elections System copyright is invalid is that said copyrights cannot legally benefit Diebold Elections Systems. Not without one hell of a large re-write. It is illegal to use the GEMS product in a US election. It passed Federal Elections Commission certification due to Diebold's deliberate fraud, and the laws of every state where electronic voting systems are used ban the use of programs and systems that can be tampered with.

California Elections Code 19205 is a typical example:

-------------
19205. The Secretary of State shall establish the specifications for and the regulations governing voting machines, voting devices, vote tabulating devices, and any software used for each, including the programs and procedures for vote tabulating and testing. The criteria for establishing the specifications and regulations shall include, but not be limited to, the following:
(a) The machine or device and its software shall be suitable for the purpose for which it is intended.
(b) The system shall preserve the secrecy of the ballot.
(c) The system shall be safe from fraud or manipulation.
-------------

GEMS emphatically does not comply with (a) or (c) above.

It is just as illegal to use GEMS to tally a California vote as it is to deal crack cocaine at a polling place. And Diebold technical staff have known this for years.

Therefore, no lawful income to Diebold can possibly be curtailed by my actions or the action of anyone else distributing Diebold Election Systems code, manuals and the like.

In conclusion:

For these and a host of other reasons, I am convinced that no possible Diebold Elections Systems copyright can be used to conceal criminal activity from a person affected by said criminal activity. As a California and US voter, I am so affected by vote fraud of the type Diebold Elections System is engaged in.

I state under penalty of perjury that I believe, in good faith, that the files in question have been misidentified as being legally copywritten material not subject to fair use principles. On the contrary, the copyrights themselves are beyond merely "questionable", they are highly doubtful, and the files enjoy the strongest possible "fair use" protection as I have distributed them and commented on them.

This file has been digitally signed with the freeware version of PGP 6.58 available at:

http://web.mit.edu/network/pgp.html

My public key with which this document is digitally signed is available at:

ldap://certserver.pgp.com (default PGP key-server - there are TWO keys there for me dated a week apart, use the LATER one. They are linked to the name "Jim March", EMail address [email protected]).

I submit this matter for the jurisdiction of the Federal courts in Northern California, whichever Federal courthouse is in or closest to Sacramento, California.

My complete name, formally, is James March, no middle initial. I tend to go by "Jim".

I will accept service of process at:

xxxx xxxx xxx x
Sacramento CA xxxxx

My phone number is 916-xxx-xxxx

I look forward to any further legal discussion or action that arises out of this matter. I guarantee that Diebold Election Systems will not find the experience anywhere near as pleasant.

Jim March
Webmaster,
Equal Rights for CCW Home Page
http://www.equalccw.com
...and my Diebold-related main page:
http://www.equalccw.com/voteprar.html

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Have any popular treatments of the Diebold situation been published?

For those of us who don't speak geek, reading your treatment is painfiul. I'm looking for articles which deal in common words and pictures (not likely). I would think the 9th Circus Court may be interested in your efforts.

When I heard the trend in voting was to go with more computer involvement, I was not impressed. Seems to me voter fraud would entail the work of fewer people way back in the shop who speak languages most people don't understand. IOW, it would make the situation worse.
 
Jim,

Get this info to the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, NY Times and maybe the ACLU and see if any of them feel it worthy of immediate publication. Might be better to have someone else send "tainted" material to them if you've been served with cease and desist.

Also, have any of the 50 state Attorney's General or Registrar's been exposed to it?

Adios
 
(See also the "ElectionSupportGuide.pdf" file section 3.1 on "crossing the border" for instructions by Diebold Election Systems to their employees to violate US immigration law.)
Click to expand...
Jim, that sholuld be section 2.1, not 3.1.

Kharn
 
Gee, I wonder what would happen, if someone just copied some of those files from your website and decided to host it with a foreign web hosting company and have the site owned by a foreigner?
 
Waitone, I'm not following the situation very closely, but from what I gather...

1) The GEMS voting system is horribly insecure - it uses MS Access data files, which means anyone with MS Access (or clever people who know the Access format and can edit the raw data) can do anything they want to the voting data.

2) The raw voting data is disassociated with the per-district results (this I seem to recall from an earlier Diebold GEMS study that was posted to slashdot), so voting officials could look at overall voting data saying Bustamante won by 10%, while the raw voting data would say (if summarized) that he lost by 5%. The key problem is that any district or overall summary should only be generated from the raw data, so that there's no possibility for raw data to be correct but results to be edited.

3) In this particular situation/election, it appears that diebold got election data before the polls closed. Allegedly some diebold machine was hooked up to a phoneline - why, I have no idea.

In all fairness, timestamps are often wrong (ever looked at timestamps on receipts when you buy stuff?), and that possibility must be considered.
 
Several points:

On the SLO County data file, the authenticity is confirmed by the actual data inside. In other words, about 28% of the total county vote is IN there, in exactly the sort of randomized-yet-consistent-with-reality fashion you'd expect: Davis dominating the primaries on the Dem side, and Simon squeaking past Riorden by a nose with Jones in 3rd on the GOP side. The ratio of Dem to GOP voters is consistent with this largely rural, Republican county.

Putting that data in by hand would be a HORRENDOUS job. We know what test data looks like, just endlessly repeated automatically inputted patterns. Compare the Cobb County test data with the SLO county real thing - both are available for download and complete notes are provided here:

http://www.equalccw.com/dieboldtestnotes.html

That's on top of the fact that the election officials there have confirmed it's real. That suggests that at 3:31pm, Diebold staff had enough onsite access to grab a 50+ meg data file off of the super-secure GEMS box and ultimately upload it to the Internet.

(Preliminary voting data of that sort, even if it's just the absentee counts, would be incredibly useful to a campaign manager on elections day. He can then allocate scarce resources to those areas where he needs it, esp. the critical "get out the vote vans" driving people to the polls.)

The situation with MS-Access:

It's bad enough that Access is usable as a "hack tool" with no passwords or security. The real issue is that the database is internally rigged for fraud.

What they did was, they set it up so that the data comes in from the field by modem and goes to three tables inside of the single main database file.

We don't even know what the third table does. I have a theory that you can pre-load votes into it and defeat the normal "zero the machine" process (make sure no votes are already in there) but that's a theory.

The first two though are well understood: when you ask GEMS for a report on the votes in indivual precincts, it pulls the data from one table. Ask it for county-wide totals, it pulls from another. BY DEFAULT, they're the same numbers. But if, in MS-Access, you hack at the table providing the county-wide numbers (take "x" number of votes from one candidate and give 'em to another) you, the unwitting county elections official, might smell a rat based on the totals but if you start spot-checking precincts with a hand-count, you'll get un-dicked-with numbers and it'll look OK. GEMS doesn't TELL you there's two (well, three) data pools so why would you check for that? To spot trouble, you'd have to total EVERY precinct, add them up on a hand calculator or whatever (external to GEMS) and then match the total with GEMS' total.

Unfrickin'believable. This thing was designed to defeat normal checks by honest elections officials.
 
pdmoderator: these aren't "ballots" with people's names on 'em. Thank GOD. They show how many people voted at each precinct, but not WHO voted.

No voter names in there at all.

So yes, this is (or should be) public data. In fact, in California the total voter info at each precinct must be posted; by adding up all of those, you'd effectively get the same data as this, if the numbers are honest.

Note that hacking away at the central vote database in GEMS is only ONE way of dicking with the vote. There's a ton of others that would alter the memory cards out in the field. In fact, we know the touchscreen terminals were built on a Windows CE base which was hacked to hell and gone, the source code never published, and the testing labs were fraudulently steered away from studying it. To quote one of the Diebold internal EMails:

---------------------

To: <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: Pennsylvania Certification
From: "Talbot Iredale" <[email protected]>
Date: Mon, 15 Apr 2002 09:40:26 -0700
References: <001501c1e269$1fb16f10$0e03a8c0@hirondelle>

Don,

We do not certify operating systems with Wyle. Therefore we do not need to get WinCE 3.0 certified by Wyle. What we need to get certified is BallotStation 4.3.2. We do not want to get Wyle reviewing and certifying the operating systems. Therefore can we keep to a minimum the references to the WnCE 3.0 operating system.

Tab

-----------------------

Jim again. Problem: he's correct in that the rules don't require full certification for "non-customized" stuff like normal Windows.

But WindowsCE isn't normal - OEMs have to build up editions for their own hardware, writing a LOT of code and otherwise customizing the build. It therefore has to be certified, and it wasn't. As the head programmer Talbot Iredale knew that. But he doesn't want the Federally approved test lab (Wyle) looking anywhere near their WinCE build...one of many excellent places to hide "hack the vote code". (He doesn't want them looking at ANY of their Windows installs; hacking at a Windows comm driver at the central NT/2000 box would be another place to commit nefarious deeds.)

:fire:
 
In California, probably not, although not impossible.

In Georgia's November 2002 races, it seems highly likely - a LOT of races went to GOPers that weren't expected to win. Diebold does the whole state on no-paper-trail systems, the easiest to tweak.

There were also some highly weird things go down in Texas but those weren't Diebold. They were "no paper trail" electronic systems from other vendors.

The overall impression is that Georgia's main 2002 election was a test to see if it could be done. No proof, just a LOT of weirdness. Search google for the terms "rob georgia" with the quotes on, for details of the numerous "patches" that were being applied to Georgia touchscreen terminals with NO certification being done, no security either.
 
"In all fairness, timestamps are often wrong (ever looked at timestamps on receipts when you buy stuff?), and that possibility must be considered. ...Tyme."

Seems to me that, in this case, accurate time stamping is very important to the validity of the whole system.

If the time stamps are correct, the system is corrupt.
If the time stamps are not correct, the system is still corrupt.

Sam
 
*Order more orange jumpsuits.
*More rope and lumber for the scaffold.
*Whiskey, one barrel for the guest.
*Fresh horses for our men.
*Watch six.

Jim March, keep up the good work and really watch your six.

Giant
 
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