Black Box: Military contractor to whitewash Diebold?

[BevHarris]

The state of Maryland just asked SAIC to issue a report on Diebold touch-screen voting machines. (See Late Breaking News http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=54201&mesg_id=54201)

My prediction: They will issue a report that puts a seal of approval on these voting machines. It will be almost impossible to debunk their report.

This is just to shut people up. SAIC = Military.

So far, we have the Pentagon involved with Accenture/election.com
General Dynamics,
Diversified Dynamics,
Northrop Grumman

All getting involved in voting systems -- as are the Saudis and the Pentagon. Why?

Take a gander at the companies run by SAIC and below this, their board of directors

At SAIC we have over 35 companies, subsidiaries and equity partners. A partial listing is provided below.
http://www.saic.com/about/companies/
AMSEC LLC
Specialists in full ship systems support: command and control systems, combat systems, communications, information warfare, main propulsion systems, hull & deck systems, auxiliary systems.

Bechtel SAIC Company, LLC
A joint venture between SAIC and Bechtel, Bechtel SAIC Company, LLC provides research, engineering and nuclear science capabilities to meet the unique challenge of science and engineering for the Yucca Mountain Project.

Data Systems & Solutions
A joint venture between Rolls-Royce and SAIC, DS&S incorporates Rolls-Royce engineering/controls expertise with SAIC's systems integration and information technology skills.

Hicks & Associates (H&AI)
Defense industry consulting.

Saudi SAI
Installation and maintenance of computer systems, telecommunications systems, and other data analysis systems in Saudi Arabia.

Members of the board:

D.P. Andrews
Corporate Executive Vice President, Federal Business, SAIC

W.A. Downing
General, US Army (Ret.)

B.R. Inman
Admiral, USN (Ret.)

H.M.J. Kraemer, Jr.
Chairman and CEO,Baxter International, Inc.

M.E. Trout
Executive Vice President, Cytyc Corporation (?? someone want to look this up?)

J.A. Welch
General,USAF, (Ret.)

A.T. Young
Executive Vice President, Lockheed Martin Corp. (Ret.)

==================
Diebold is on the ropes and they reach out to military contractors by way of the governor of Maryland. Help. Suggestions????????????????????????

Bev Harris
Black Box Voting

[AngryYoungMan]

1. Go for a NYT story...

...through your Slate/NYT connections?

By the way I'm sure I speak for everyone on DU when I express my gratitude and awe at the work and commitment you've put into this issue, and my congratulations on what you've achieved so far.

[BevHarris]

3. Slate did a hatchet job and NYT will endorse SAIC

count on it. There is no way to accuse the military-industrial complex of trying to interfere with the voting system and get something like that in the media. Won't happen.

This is bad.

[NewYorkerfromMass]

4. no less a patriot than Eisenhower warned of the insidious

military-industrial complex. Go for it Bev.

[shance]

25. Slate did a hatchet job on what?

n/t

[BevHarris]

29. Slate reporter wrote an editorial, not a news story, and

misquoted our interview -- let's just say he made it up from scratch and had a definite agenda. Part of his purpose was to paint "Bev Harris" and a conspiracy nut.

Specifically, after I told him I found the ftp site after my publisher asked me to locate a technical manual, and I went searching for technicians to contact to ask them for one, and while on Google getting a list of programmers and technicians, found the web page with the ftp button, he wrote "while obsessively Googling for information that would tie Diebold to the Bush Administration" -- never went there in the interview, he made that up entirely.

Then he put a link to my article about bypassing passwords, overwriting audit logs, changing votes in a triple set of books in Microsoft Access (a report that got favorable review in slashdot) without describing the article or rebutting the work, called it "black helicopter" stuff.

By the way, Slate is owned by Microsoft, and Microsoft has announced it's getting into electronic voting.

That's what I mean by hatchet job, anyway. The Slate article is the most irresponsible article written about my work yet.

Bev

[shance]

35. Those whores. Wonder if they know what damage their doing to their own

fricking country.

[LifeDuringWartime]

153. M$ voting??

thats BAD, BAD news!!

[NashVegas]

80. Wired?

They often tend to do a slow but thorough job.

[BevHarris]

87. Yes, but they have a 3-month lead time.

Too slow.

[NashVegas]

102. Slow is Better than None

When you're dealing with a review panel that will likely find whatever the state wants it to.

It might be a good tactic, if you can find a way, to make Maryland *want* the review to turn up negative.

[tom_paine]

2. Whew! A tough one.

After looking at that board, Bev, I tend to agree with you that a whitewash is a strong possibility.

Have you contacted them? Relayed to them some of your findings or leads or the problems you've uncovered?

I know, it's a double-edged sword. If they are truly Busheviks interested in a whitewash (and, called upon by Bushevik Ehrlich, one could certainly see that as being so) you would be giving them a gameplan for their whitewash.

But I am just putting it forth and you can take this or leave this as you will (there is also the option of only "playing half your cards" with them as sort of a test, then playing the other half if they "pass", or some variant of that strategy).

Other than actually attempting to work with them and letting them know what's going on and what to look for from someone who knows, I'm not sure what you could do.

[BevHarris]

5. It doesn't matter what we come out with next.

They have 30 days to issue their seal of approval, and I am sure that's what it will be.

At this point I'm drawing a complete blank on strategy. Lawsuits.

But look, I've spent days on the phone and have not found one lawyer who wants to take this on as a lawsuit against anything. Yes, tried Bugliosi (very nice, but he's working on a Kennedy assassination book and has no time). Tried Spence, they said they like big, but this is too big. Tried Cochrane, no go. Tried whistleblowers groups, tried everyone I've heard of (couldn't get hold of Derschowitz).

This is the first time I've smelled defeat.

Bev

[NewYorkerfromMass]

9. 30 days is simply not enough time

that should be clue No. 1 that this is BS.

[ozymandius]

24. Bev - check your call list.

Do you have anyone with a defense contractor affiliation who would be able to cast any doubt on the veracity of their findings (assuming it's a whitewash)? If the findings do not appear assailable, then the technique by which the determination is made could be.

I see to remember reading what is essentially hearsay, by my word, of a defense contractor engineer stating that Diebold "did not even come close" to achieving a totally secure system. Who was this person? Is there anyone else who might get involved to bolster this claim?

How transparent will the vetting process be? Will the evaluation process be within the spirit and letter of the law concerning "proprietary" software systems? By what method will the Diebold system be evaluated? Which version of the software will they test? Which version of the hardware will be tested? How does their controlled setting compare with yours? Or with anyone else's?

Good luck.

[PATRICK]

55. The best strategy

Would be for Rubin and company to withold their deeper findings- if potentially super damning until very late and see if SAIC blinks first and sticks their neck out. Or other evaluations if the Diebold files CAN be dismissed out of hand as they are trying to. I know the university people are not into playing politics, though no one can fault them for timing as they are totally unofficial.

Other fronts have to be opened quickly AND public outreach.

[Junkdrawer]

6. First Question: Will their report as well as their test data be public...

or will we get a public conclusion with private test methods/test results?

If it's all public, then let the academics rip it apart. If it's the usual bullshit, paint it as such. In either case, Dill/Rubin et al should be able to submit a minimal set of test questions.

BTW: Republican Sec. of State, right? Would you expect anything else?

[BevHarris]

10. You know it will be private secret research with public conclusion

Look at the WMD. Look at the players involved.

We won't be able to refute this because they won't give us access to the ammunition. If the certifiers (Shawn Southworth, Ciber, and Jim Dearman, Wyle) could blow off Dr. Dill and the California Task Force, refusing to answer the questions they asked, do we really think they will fare any better with this outfit?

[Junkdrawer]

15. Dill/Rubin should still submit questions and copy the press...

If SAIC refuses to answer, that will be more ammunition when SAIC presents their glowing findings. “We presented these questions which SAIC refused to answer…”

[BevHarris]

7. According to this DUer, this is a company that has promised to find WMD

From Lostnote03 on LBN
Kay=SAIC
....Great IndyMedia article regarding Kay and SAIC....They have raked in close to a billion Govt subsidized dollars since 2000 and now their ex CEO is promising to find WMD....Definitly NO conflict of interest in this integrity laden Administration

[Noordam]

8. Remember WMD and David Kay

And David Kay worked for SAIC, and SAIC built mockups of weapons labs on trucks and when they found trucks in Iraq Kay said that they were to produce WMD from early June http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/06/07/cia.mobile.labs/ BUT later the trucks where shown to not be used for WMD but were sold to IRAQ by Britain.

[MuseRider]

11. NO!

Bev, I have been absolutely no help to you, do not understand all the tech stuff. I haven't a clue how to help with this either. I have spread your findings far and wide to everyone I know and talked with the election people in my state but that is all. We all need to brainstorm this or it is over. What can we do, give me a starting point and I will see what I can do from this end. If it is not all the technical stuff maybe some of us who haven't been able to help much can now.

[punpirate]

12. The unfortunate part in this...

... is that SAIC was already a contractor to Maryland for security consulting. That means there's no way to challenge this as a contract award without competitive bidding.

Geez, Bev, I don't know what to say about it--gotta think a little on this one.

Cheers.

[punpirate]

20. Okay, one angle...

... go after SAIC's reputation on security and trustworthiness:

http://www.dcia.com/pizzo.html

"In 1990 SAIC was indicted by the Justice Department on 10 felony counts for fraud in its management of a Superfund toxic cleanup site. (SAIC pleaded guilty.)"

"In 1993 the Justice Department sued SAIC, accusing it of civil fraud on an F15 fighter contract."

"In May 1995, the same month SAIC purchased NSI, the company settled a suit that charged it had lied about security system tests it conducted for a Treasury Department currency plant in Fort Worth, TX. (The company paid the government $125,000 to cover the cost of the investigation as part of that settlement.)"

I'll see later if there's more. SAIC said the above are isolated incidents in which employees broke rules and were fired for doing so.

Edit to add:

http://www.casi.org.uk/discuss/2003/msg02397.html

Cheers.

[BevHarris]

33. Outstanding, as usual, PunPirate -- can we get more research on this?

Anyone? I'll do the press thing if we can get sourced, accurate material that shows inappropriate vested interests, unsavory dealings, and more.

Thanks as always, Pun

Bev

[punpirate]

50. Let me work on it tonight...

... still at work right now....

Cheers.

[BevHarris]

WHAT CAN DU DO: Two things: Thing One: RESEARCH

Get every investigation into SAIC. Every indictment. Every guilty plea.

Get every subsidiary and every conflict of interest.

Get their campaign contributions.

It takes me a few hours to consolidate into a write-up, but yes, this has to go out ASAP.

For my backup blaster: I will PM you shortly with instructions, assuming my DSL might get taken out on this blast, as it did (5 times) while the Hopkins story was breaking.

GOAL ONE: Laying out in public who SAIC is, and why they haven't asked the academic experts, who have already been involved in this, to do the review. Why are we using a MILITARY CONTRACTOR to do what academia should be doing?

The Black Box Voting team will make contact with Dr. Dill, Dr. Jones, Dr. Mercuri, and all four of the Hopkins/Rice researchers and will provide with the information about SAIC and urge their participation.

DU: Also make contact with your representatives and the media you feel is appropriate to voice your concern.

Thanks,

Bev

[HFishbine]

69. My Contribution

See post #67

[ParanoidPat]

75. Let the 'Massive Parellel Browsing' begin!

More on SAIC lawsuites....
http://www.tri-cityherald.com/news/2001/0323/Story5.html

Judge delays decision on engineer's lawsuit

This story was published 3/23/2001 in the Tri-City Herald
<snip>
U.S. District Judge Fred Van Sickle heard arguments Thursday from attorneys of the former employee, G. Thomas Clark of Spokane, and of Science Applications International Corp., an engineering firm that does extensive subcontracting work at Hanford.
<snip>
Clark joined SAIC's Richland office in 1988. In 1993, SAIC asked him to be its "corporate engineer" -- being the company's official licensed engineer responsible for SAIC complying with Washington's engineering regulations.

His lawsuit alleges that Clark told his superiors that nonengineers were doing work that licensed engineers should be doing, and that no licensed engineers were on staff at SAIC's Olympia and Bothell offices in 1993 as legally required. His lawsuit alleges that SAIC downplayed his concerns, harassed him and pressured him to ignore the state's engineering regulations.

Clark's lawsuit alleges the harassment consisted of threats of being laid off because of a lack of work; being left out of new engineering work, which "effectively dried up (his) billable time;" and being criticized for taking his job too seriously.
<more>

Re: A fourth lawsuit against NSI by a domain name owner to try to keep from losing a domain name
http://www.cctec.com/maillists/nanog/historical/9606/msg00167.html
<snip>
There is now a fourth case in which NSI wrote to a domain name owner
saying that their domain name would get cut off in 30 days, and in
which the domain name owner says it wasn't infringing anybody's
trademarks (which is of course no defense under the present NSI
policy), and finds itself suing NSI to avert loss of the domain name.

roadrunner.com
dci.com
ty.com
clue.com
<snip>
Let's look at SAIC, the parent company of NSI. As you may know, their
domain name is saic.com. Well, there is some company in Italy with a
trademark registration of "saic". They make meat, I seem to recall. This Italian company could simply spend the cost of a postage stamp and send a copy of their trademark to NSI, and NSI would have to commence a dispute proceeding with its own parent company. If SAIC failed to provide the precious trademark certificate within 30 days, NSI would have to cut off the domain name of its own parent company. Or if SAIC did manage to provide a trademark certificate within the required 30 days, NSI would have to ask SAIC to sign the well-known "indemnification agreement" and perhaps ask it
to post a bond. If SAIC failed to sign the indemnification agreement within 14 days, then NSI would have to cut off the domain name of its own parent company. Of course, SAIC might feel that it was unreasonable to have to sign the "indemnification agreement", in which case SAIC would presumably have to sue NSI for a court order to restrain NSI from cutting off the saic.com domain name.
<more>

NEW CLASS ACTION LAWSUIT SEEKS $1.7 BILLION FROM NETWORK
http://www.aira.org/legal/000314.html

In 1995, Science Applications International Corporation ("SAIC") purchased NSI.

END OF AN ERA SAIC purchase formalizes Bellcore's new charter
BY DAN O'SHEA, Technology Editor and JASON MEYERS, Wireless Networks Editor Telephony, Nov 25, 1996
http://telephonyonline.com/ar/telecom_end_era_saic/
<snip>
The proposed sale of Bellcore to Science Applications International Corp. breaks the last formal tie that has kept the Bell companies brethren for the past 12 years, and it officially re-christens Bellcore as an independent software and professional services vendor.
<snip>
Likewise, most of SAIC's revenue comes from defense contracts. But as defense spending has dropped, the company has begun to pursue more systems integration outsourcing contracts and has broadened its work in the cable TV and Internet industries.
<snip>
Pointing out Bellcore's growth as a software company, he said the agency has an installed base of more than 80 million lines of code worldwide, putting it in the same league with Microsoft and Lucent Technologies.

The combined SAIC/Bellcore braintrust is likely to paint itself as an open market competitive powerhouse. But the fact remains that neither company has a long history of savvy marketing skills.
<more>

The Pentagon's best kept open secret -- July 18, 2003
SanDiegoSource
http://www.sddt.com/Search/SearchResults.cfm?Expression=SAIC
<snip>
Beyster's company, Science Applications International Corp. may be the most influential company most people have never heard of. The federal government, its main customer, often doesn't want the public to know what SAIC is doing and, as one of the nation's largest employee-owned companies, it escapes investor scrutiny. Beyster started SAIC in 1969 with a handful of employees, feeling stifled as a researcher in Gulf Oil's nuclear accelerator lab.

SAIC to train new 'non-political' Iraqi army -- July 03, 2003
<snip>
San Diego-based Science Applications International Corp. was named on Thursday to the team of defense companies that will train a new Iraqi military. The entire contract, for one-year at $48 million, was awarded by the U.S. Army late last month to a division of bellwether defense company Northrop Grumman Corp. (NYSE: NOC). SAIC, currently the biggest defense company in San Diego with annual revenues of $5.9 billion and a Fortune 500 company last year, declined to comment on the award...

Local Scene -- SAIC wins $19 million contract -- June 05, 2003
<snip>
San Diego-based SAIC won a $19 million contract from the U.S. Navy for engineering support related to upgrades of ultra high frequency military satellite communications systems. The three-year contract includes a pair of one-year options, which if exercised, would bring the contract value to $27 million. Work will be performed in San Diego and is expected to be completed by June 2006.

Local Scene -- SAIC wins $28.8 million contract -- May 27, 2003
<snip>
Science Applications International Corp. of San Diego won a $28.8 million contract from the U.S. Air Force for the design and development of advanced infrared countermeasures and tools to thwart up-graded infrared missiles and sensors. Contract work is to be complete in September 2008. SAIC wins $28.8 million contract

Lots more too come! :evilgrin:

[MuseRider]

84. DId you add up those numbers

from just 2003? Jesus H. Our money?

[BevHarris]

86. Great stuff, Pat!

Wonderful job, thank you so much.

[ParanoidPat]

134. No Bev, Thank you for giving us a way to turn our anger to action!

:) Now for the motherload! :evilgrin:

http://www.saic.com/contractcenter/viewcon.html
View All Contracts

SAIC delivers best-value services that today's federal organizations need in order to integrate, modernize and upgrade their information systems. Use the alphabetical list below to quickly navigate through SAIC's Major Task Order Contracts.

http://www.saic.com/contractcenter/press.html
Related News

03-25-03
SAIC Wins GSA Connections Contract

11-11-02
SAIC Awarded GSA Task Order to Help US Army Europe Consolidate IT Services Throughout Europe

03-25-02
SAIC Team Awarded FedCIRC Task Order

03-05-02
SAIC's Information Systems Development Group Awarded Follow-On MOBIS Task Order

02-07-02
SAIC Awarded Secure Communications Systems Contract

11-06-01
SAIC Wins SPAWAR Task Order

11-05-01
SAIC Named Most Valuable Schedule Contractor by GSA Federal Supply Service

06-12-01
SAIC Wins FBI TRILOGY UAC Project

04-30-01
SAIC Team Awarded FedCIRC Task Order

02-21-01
SAIC to Support Secretary of the Air Force Budget Information Systems Office

01-30-01
SAIC Wins NASA Goddard Software IV&V Contract

01-08-01
SAIC Achieves Earned Value Management System Certification

12-26-00
SAIC Wins GSA LOGWORLD Contract

11-27-00
SAIC Wins U.S. Army Simulation and Training Award

11-09-00
SAIC Awarded BPA for Social Security Administration Presidential Decision Directive (PDD 63) Support

10-19-00
SAIC to Provide Information Technology Services to Department of Education

06-19-00
SAIC Wins FEDSIM Contract to Provide Support to the U.S. Department of Agriculture

06-16-00
SAIC Begins Work on $54 Million Internet Support and IT Services Task Order

05-02-00
SAIC Team is Issued TASS Blanket Purchase Agreement

05-01-00
SAIC Selected for Omnibus 2000 Technical Support Contract

03-08-00
SAIC Wins GSA Contract to Provide Call Center Support Services to Federal Customers

02-07-00
SAIC Awarded FEDSIM Contract to Provide Information Technology Support to Army Personnel Command

02-01-00
SAIC Awarded Defense Logistics Agency Industrial Prime Vendor Contract

01-19-00
SAIC Awarded U.S. Air Force Engineering Services Contract

01-10-00
SAIC Awarded GSA Marketing, Media and Public Information Services Contract

12-21-99
SAIC Awarded U.S. Naval Research Contract

10-19-99
SAIC Awarded Second USAF Contract to Implement E-Commerce System

10-04-99
SAIC Awarded GSA Professional Engineering Services Contract

09-15-99
SAIC Selected to Support Phase I of the U.S. Air Force Distributed Mission Training Operations and Integration Contract

06-24-99
SAIC Awarded U.S. Air Force Contract

06-21-99
SAIC Awarded Three DOE Federal Energy Technology Center Contracts

05-26-99
SAIC Wins GSA Millennia Contract

04-21-99
SAIC Awarded GSA Environmental Advisory Services Contract

Still more to come! :evilgrin:

[ParanoidPat]

201. These guys are into EVERYTHING!

Capabilities They Offer
Consulting Services
Contact Center
Customer Relationship Management
Data Mining & Data Warehousing
Distributed Enterprise Management
Enterprise Resource Planning
eSolutions
Financial Services
Homeland Security
Imagery
Information Security
Information Technology
Knowledge Management
Outsourcing
Site Operations and Management
Software Development
Supply Chain Management
Systems Integration & Program Management
Training
Wireless


Products
Aviation/Unmanned Vehicles
Computer Hardware
Inspection Technology
Safety & Security
Simulation
Software
Transportation


Industries They Serve
Biomedical Research
Criminal Justice
Energy
Environment
Financial Services
Health Care
Maritime
National Security
Space
Telecommunications
Transportation

Technologies They Develop
Abacus™
AgentMiner™
Inspection Technologies
Neural Networks
Omega
Quava®
Simulated Environments
Supercomputing

Licensing Opportunities
Communication
Energy & Environment
Financial Services
Health Care & Biomedical
Government & Security
Information Technologies
Supply Chain & Project Management
:wow:

[ParanoidPat]

208. Recent Financial Information

SAIC achieved revenues of $5.9 billion, reflecting a growth rate of 2 percent over the previous year's revenues of $5.8 billion.

The current SAIC stock price is $30.50 per share for SAIC Class A Common Stock, effective July 11, 2003. This represents a 5.1% increase from the price of $29.02 established on April 11, 2003, and an increase of 5.5% from last year at this time.

SAIC files financial and disclosure documents with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). View our Form 10K; and our Form 10Q for the First Quarter. SAIC's filings are available on the SEC's EDGAR database (view all filings).

In addition, Forms 3, 4, and 5, filed by SAIC directors and executive officers pursuant to Section 16 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 are also available on the SEC's EDGAR database (view Forms 3, 4, 5).

View their recent financial press releases.
06-16-03 SAIC Announces Revenue and Earnings for the First Quarter
04-14-03 SAIC Announces Financial Results for Fiscal Year 2003
12-16-02 SAIC Announces Revenue and Earnings for the Third Quarter
09-16-02 SAIC Announces Revenue and Earnings for the Second Quarter

[ParanoidPat]

209. Companies, Subsidiaries and Equity Partners

SAIC has over 35 companies, subsidiaries and equity partners. A partial listing is provided below.

AMSEC LLC
Specialists in full ship systems support: command and control systems, combat systems, communications, information warfare, main propulsion systems, hull & deck systems, auxiliary systems.


ANXeBusiness Corp
ANX Service provides businesses with a user-centric, high service quality, high security, flexible, high-value, multi-provider, managed communications infrastructure.


Bechtel SAIC Company, LLC
A joint venture between SAIC and Bechtel, Bechtel SAIC Company, LLC provides research, engineering and nuclear science capabilities to meet the unique challenge of science and engineering for the Yucca Mountain Project.


Danet
Designs and develops software for a variety of technical and commercial application areas requiring or using telecommunications and expert systems.


Data Systems & Solutions
A joint venture between Rolls-Royce and SAIC, DS&S incorporates Rolls-Royce engineering/controls expertise with SAIC's systems integration and information technology skills.


Hicks & Associates (H&AI)
Defense industry consulting.


SFS SAIC Financial Servies logoSAIC Financial Services
SFS offers a wide range of financing options in support of SAIC's products and services and the other capital equipment requirements our customers might have.


Saudi SAI
Installation and maintenance of computer systems, telecommunications systems, and other data analysis systems in Saudi Arabia.


Telcordia Technologies
A leading provider of communications software, engineering, and professional services.


SAIC Venture Capital Corporation
A wholly-owned subsidiary holding equity investment interests in publicly traded and private emerging technology companies. SAIC Venture Capital’s portfolio includes alliances with key telecommunications and e-commerce partners.
Examples of companies in the VCC technology portfolio include:

Actional
Agilix
Aventail
ClearCube Technology
CoManage
Comnitel Technologies
CosmoCom
CYBERPLEX
Daleen Technologies
DigiLens
eHealthContracts
Fast-Talk Communications
Geoworks
Granite Systems
Intrusion.com
LGC Wireless
LifeSpan BioSciences
MountainTop Technologies
NetNumber
NextEngine
Nuance Communications
Nuera Communications
PacketVideo
Pingtel
Predictive Systems
Tellium
Ultra-Scan
VocalData
Webraska Mobile Technologies
WebTone Technologies
Wisor Telecom

[Ozirus]

232. What can an SAIC employee do for you...?

I work for SAIC. Let me know what I can do for you.

- Ozirus -

[BevHarris]

47. What DU can do: 2nd thing: CRACKERS (Hackers in white hats)

I need as many crackers as possible to prepare for a demonstration on live TV. They cannot be minors. They can be wonky game-playing phreakin' purple-haired geeks covered with facial pierces, the better to scare the shit out of middle class America. One of my cracker sources said he believes there are as many as 200 ways to get into this system. Let's set up a bunch of nearly-identical simulators and do it.

We need these crackers because we have a massive security breach that has yet to be publicized that has to get out there BEFORE the SAIC review comes out.

I can only accept cracker recommendations from trusted sources who have already been supporters on this. PM me and comments on list are fine.

Thanks,

Bev

[Junkdrawer]

63. Let's see:

1.) Digging up dirt on SAIC? - Good Idea

2.) Getting Dill/Mercuri/Rubin to discredit/preemptively define the SAIC investigation? - Good Idea

3.) Getting crackers to crack voting machines on live TV - Well...It would certainly create a buzz, but couldn't it be used to justify increasing the secrecy surrounding voting machine certification? And wasn't one of the main points of the Johns Hopkins paper that security through secrecy was one of the main problems of the current certification process? I'm not saying it's a bad idea, but let's think this one through.

[BevHarris]

73. NO. This will illustrate a hack that cannot be considered

anything but nefarious. A large chunk of Windows was rewritten large to allow anonymous remote access. Not only that, people were posting same to newsgroups during the process. See post #64.

Bev

[Junkdrawer]

77. I don't doubt that you are sitting on a huge story..

and last I heard you were frustrated trying to find someone with the proper credentials to break it, but I worry that the press and public will be given the image that "wonky game-playing phreakin' purple-haired geeks covered with facial pierces" comprise the opponents of unauditable computerized voting.

[BevHarris]

85. Guess what: watching people hack is more convincing

than reading about a source code analysis.

The academics don't know Windows. Find me one who does understand Windows and has the guts to do this and we'll go that route, but in the mean time, this needs to get out.

[Junkdrawer]

98. My last post on this...

The question will be: Who is protecting the voters and who are the cheaters. Please try to script a scenario where the answers aren't "Diebold and the FEC protects your vote from the BBV hackers".

As for academics that know Windows, as you're no doubt finding out, people who spend their careers digging deep into the bowels of Windows tend to be people with a decidedly commercial attitude. Rebels and computer science purists tend to distain Windows and Microsoft.

Peace. :hippie:

[BevHarris]

103. Okay, that's a confusing answer.

You are so concerned about appearances -- so what are we supposed to do? I get it, just say "I give up."

Did you even read this?
""Hi all! I need to make one thing. I have one Win CE PC - it's a server, and another Windows NT/2000 PC - it's a client. Through CoCreateInstanceEx() i'm trying to get an interface i need. Winthout any restrictions and authentications, i need the free access to my server from anyones..."

BBV hackers didn't write an interface "without any restrictions and authentications" for free access to the server (touchscreen and/or county network computer) "from anyones."

Who rewrote the Windows files? Oh yeah, Diebold.

Do you want this story to break or not? You haven't offered any alternative suggestions. What are your suggestions?

Bev

[Junkdrawer]

114. Ok, I thought it was going to be my last post on this...

As for appearances: You're saying that images are more important than words - I'm saying be careful how those images can be spun.

As for how to get this story out: As we've seen, the "write it up and post it on Scoop" approach is a mixed bag - lots of eyeballs (even Slashdot!), but little mainstream follow-up. The Johns Hopkins report, as tame and as BBV dismissive as it was, has had the most impact to date. I agree it would be ideal to get a Rubin-type character to break "the big one". The problem is that Windows knowledgeable academics tend to be rare and very conservative, to say the least.

Have you asked Dill et al if they would find someone to at least review a write-up if it came with all supporting proof and code excerpts? I know CERT reviews Windows code all the time – there are academic Windows experts out there. As for me, I've never done any COM remote access programming - I use Java RMI for that kind of work.

It's really a tough nut to crack. Saying "That may be a bad way to go" is not the same as saying "Give up".

[Junkdrawer]

118. PS: TahitiNut has said he has some experience...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=17661&mesg_id=17661#18717

[BevHarris]

122. Thanks, JD -- good input n/t

.

[juajen]

165. Bev

I think that's a great idea. If the techies with purples hair and piercings everywhere don't scare the sheeple, what will? They will suspect great mayhem with their votes. Any way to get good voting machines with paper records is good in my mind. I don't care if it's dems suspecting vote-stealing pugs, or pugs suspecting dems, if we get good machines. What's wrong with getting some pug support on this? I'm sure a lot of them want accurate vote counts. Show them the possibility of us stealing their vote. Should scare a number of them anyway.

[TrogL]

76. me me me

I wanna do it!

[aquart]

173. Is your hair purple?

Are you willing to dye it purple?

[HFishbine]

79. Beware!

Michael S Lancaster: Assistant Director Strategic Assessment Center, SAIC and author of "FBI Assessment of Cyber Protest with upcoming events in US and Australia, others"
(http://www.nettime.org/Lists-Archives/nettime-l-0008/msg00032.html)

[hang a left]

179. also telcordia technologies

is a subsidiary of saic

[alfredo]

13. Contact all media outlets in Maryland and all Dem candidates.

any publicity you can get is important. Plant seeds of doubt about the impartiality of SAIC in this matter. You have the list of members, use it to show possible conflicts of interest.

[shance]

18. Great idea - and the title of this thread would be GREAT header***

or

"Military Contractor to Whitewash Voting Machine Manufacturer?"

[jpgray]

14. Yikes. This will drive away media like nothing else.

All I can suggest is what you've likely thought of already. You can either respond directly to the report (which will be predictably vague), or start insisting on evaluation by a trusted third party, perhaps Johns Hopkins?

Painting military contractors as having an interest in meddling with elections is something the major media will avoid like the plague. Maybe I'm missing something, but an "everything-is-fine" report from SAIC will deal a significant blow to the story's viability in major media.

Good luck! I can't think of any similar media situations offhand, but I will look around and ask some friends who would know. I'll come back if I find any useful precedents for combating this sort of thing.

[Ouabache]

54. a trusted third party, perhaps Johns Hopkins? You are kidding ?

Come on Johns Hopkins ?? You're kidding. That's where many PNACers hibernated and incubated their plots while Clinton was President.

[jpgray]

62. They have done a good review of the extant Diebold software already (nt)

[shance]

16. What about the presidential candidates? They would have to be concerned

Is there anyone high profile who has expressed concern about this and would be willing to bring it to light?

[BevHarris]

17. Good suggestion. Dean. Kucinich. I don't know if others have...

If Kerry would get on the stick it would sure help. If he does not get behind this, as important is it has become, he will have defined himself.

Of course, there's always Larry Flynt :)


Bev

[Junkdrawer]

21. Say what you want about Larry, but he knows who his biggest....

opponent is...

[alaine]

178. Edwards is aware of it, I have been sending him the

articles.

In an e-mail I got from him yesterday he said that voting irregularities are a serious matter "that need to be looked into by law enforcement authorities, and if necessary, Congress."

I don't know whether SAIC is the law enforcement agency he means since they are so close to CIA, and I don't know how he means Congress will come into play, except with the Rush Holt bill.

I don't know if this is just appeasement coming from Edwards or if there is anything to this statement.

[ParanoidPat]

53. Al Gore would!

And he's got a speech coming up in New York tomorrow! :evilgrin:
Anyone here going?

[NewYorkerfromMass]

58. Best idea here

and it will put Al's integrity to the test. He's supposed to be a WONK and a GEEK anyway so he does have some "cred" here.

[jagguy]

150. forget Al, take t to the Big Dog

it will just sound like sour grapes part 2 coming from him.

If Bill's to hard to come by, try Mr Peanut Farmer. He's probably got time on his hands and the bully pulpit of Ex-Prez and SAIC can hardly hurt him.

[ieoeja]

19. Wish "this" were true.

This is just to shut people up. SAIC = Military.


No. SAIC is an independant military contractor. I would feel pretty good if military personnel -- even civilian government employees of the military -- were looking into this. Contractors, however, I don't trust an inch.

[BevHarris]

22. Oh, here, let's make it worse: They've got ties to VoteHere

and the CIA. Happy-happy joy-joy, I brought Dagmark's contribution over from LBN:

DagmarK
SAIC= owns monopoly on internet domains (InterNIC)
NETWORKING WITH SPOOKS (COVERT ACTION QUARTERLY)

http://mediafilter.org/caq/internic

THE INTERNET IS CHANGING FROM A PUBLIC RESOURCE TO A LUCRATIVE
OPERATION INFLUENCED BY SPOOKS AND FORMER PENTAGON OFFICIALS.
OPEN ACCESS AND INFORMATION ARE INCREASINGLY CONTROLLED.

SNIP

In September 1995, NSI instituted the fee system.

A few months earlier, it had been bought out by Science Applications International Corp. (SAIC). This privately held company with 20,000 employees and 450 offices around the globe has close ties to the Defense Department and intelligence agencies. Its current board of directors includes former National Security Agency chief Bobby Inman, former Defense Secretary Melvin Laird, and the former head of research and development for the Pentagon, Donald Hicks. Ex-CIA Director Robert Gates, (Bev's note: He's on Bd of Dir. for VoteHere) Secretary of Defense William Perry, and CIA Director John Deutch have been past members. Eighty-three percent of the company's $2 billion annual revenue comes from government contracts, including defense, intelligence, and law enforcement contracts. It is designing new information systems for the Pentagon, helping to automate the FBI's computerized fingerprint identification system, and last year won a $200 million contract to provide "information support'' to the Internal Revenue Service.

Some of these contracts, along with the company's strong intelligence and defense links, raise fears that SAIC will abuse the information it controls through its key "I don't want a spook corporation,particularly a private spook corporation,
to be anywhere near a control point on the global cooperative Internet,'' said James Warren, a writer and Internet civil liberties activist. But McCandlish of the Electronic Frontier Foundation described SAIC's ownership of Network Solution as a "non issue.'' "The Internet itself was a Defense Advanced Research Project Agency project. It's been true for a long time. It's not some big secret.''

CAN WE JUST CONCLUDE THAT SAIC IS THE 3RD ARM OF HOMELAND SECURITY AND BE DONE WITH IT?!!!

[Junkdrawer]

26. VoteHere just keeps turning up like a bad penny...

The VoteHere depends on uncrackable encryption. And the rumor mill has it the many "uncrackable" encryption methods are routinely cracked by the CIA.

[grasswire]

27. preempt it with a press release

Detail all the SAIC ties.

Bullet point all the reasons SAIC could whitewash this, including all the insider ties and any past incidents that lead to this conclusion.

Try to get a couple of urgent quotes from officials or candidates or politicians on the matter.

Get ahead of it. Frame the conversation now. Put them in the position of having to convince the press that they aren't whitewashing.

[grasswire]

28. how about Jesse Jackson?

Or Maxine Waters? Or Al Sharpton?

Playing the civil rights issue will garner press.

[MuseRider]

30. I like this idea

Bev, YOU frame the debate. Are you ready? Make this news, be out front. I know you are already at some risk here. I don't know but if we let them make the first move now it is over.

[Eloriel]

40. Well, a high risk possibility (maybe a possibility)

Given THIS news, would be a pre-emptive strike on the issue of conflict of interest with their ties with VoteHere.

I can't say how crestfallen I am. Is there no way out from under these fascists?

Edit: I see the idea hit a bunch of us at once.

Eloriel

[shance]

43. Thats a good idea Eloriel***

And on a sidenote, I can see how you are involved in the Dean campaign,Im a Deanocrat too** and I think Dean mentioned that he was concerned about this. Hell, I would think they all would be!

Do you know which candidates have even addressed the issue and would you have any ideas on how to proceed in addressing this with the candidates?

[stickdog]

96. Story of how SAIC used govt connects to make a killing on domain names

http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2002/07/02/gilmore/index.html

GREAT ARTICLE!!!

[librechik]

139. absolutely agree--it explains everything. MUST READ!

It's a 2002 interview with John Gilmore, one of the "inventors" of the internet, and his experience with ICANN which is owned by SAIC. You have to read down to page 2 to find the SAIC material.

excerpt

"Your question is like asking how one honest person could have turned around the Nixon White House. There was one such person, who kept calling reporters in the middle of the night to blow the whistle. She was Martha Mitchell, wife of the attorney general. She didn't turn it around. "Deep Throat" didn't either -- but at least Deep Throat brought it down, so it could be replaced. Of course, the U.S. had the benefit of elections, to pick Nixon's successors. ICANN has abolished those..."

creepy, huh?

[shance]

23. What about what we could do at DU?

Suggestions??

[Lostnote03]

31. Russ Holt!!!

....Maybe a few thousand emails to this Congressman will help out!!!For the life of me I cannot understand why a prominent Georgia Attorney has not latched onto this issue....In any case with a deadline looming it appears that something large needs to occur to highlight the importence of this issue....I have forgotten the Dem/GOP ratio of governors as well as Sec's of State however it seems that someone needs to sponsor a mass mailing to all of these offices nationwide to keep the sunshine on the issue....keep the faith!!!

[shance]

36. Reading my mind*** Voice for change sent me an email earlier

Anyone have contacts to Moveon, True Majority. We need to figure an email campaigning strategy out on this.

[Bushfire]

59. Rush Holt contact info

District Office
50 Washington Rd.
West Windsor, NJ 08550

Phone - [phone] Fax - [phone]

as this would be a time sensitive issue, and congress is in recess I will only post his NJ info. If I'm wrong, and/or you know of any other way to contact him please post.

[shance]

65. Question 2: Synopsis or overall summary to relay to others?

We have limited time to get in front of folks, be it legislators, aides, journalists, whoEVER whether in person, via phone or fax.

The most precise and effective words of course would be best. So Bev or anyone who can help us out here, a synopsis would rock.

[DrBB]

32. The one inkling of an idea that I have

There's one piece sticking out here that you might be able to grab hold of, to wit...

What precipitated this current move--the blow that really got through to Diebold and people like the MD Sec. of State--was the report from Avi Rubin's group. At least that's my clear impression. Diebold et al were doing okay brushing it all off, but Rubin's bona fides and access to the actual code was a double whammy they couldn't ignore. I think that cachet is still there to be drawn on if it could be done quickly and if the Hacker Heros were willing to do it.

My thought: Is there any way to get out a joint statement from Rubin, Dill and whoever else seems appropriate declaring just what THEY would require in such a test to feel that their misgivings had been adequately addressed? I.e., use their current level of credibility with the media that are following the story to preempt the SAIC investigation--make sure that the SAIC investigation will lack credibility if it doesn't address the concerns of the hackers who really broke through the wall on this story, something along those lines.

Does that make any sense?

edit: pronoun trouble

[grasswire]

38. might work

Give them a double or triple punch. A "backgrounder" on SAIC, and then a set of standards for a review authored by Dill et al, and then a release on statements of voting rights leaders "HOPING" this won't be a whitewash.

[librechik]

68. How about the League of Women Voters?

just an idea--or maybe AARP.

[BevHarris]

74. I assume you know that both groups came out in favor of voting companies

How much money changed hands, I do not know. There is no excuse for it.

[librechik]

93. wishful thinking, I guess. How about Bill Clinton?

He's a good man with a hopeless project. Or Jimmy Carter?

If you haven't already, try the folks at MoveOn.Org.

You need a task force with a few very big and trustworthy names to look into this.

[DagmarK]

210. I love Clinton, but he is total Tri-lateral Comm & so is GHWB........

And Clinton just issued a plea to the people for a blank check to G.W. Bush. Clinton is OUT when it comes to the people. Sorry.

[NewYorkerfromMass]

34. Yeah, and the Patriot missile was 100% effective

:eyes: Yeah, and that MIT professor was lying when he said Raytheon was full of shit.

Since when are defense contractors beyond question?????????????

[ParanoidPat]

37. BREAKING! Weasels appoint foxes to assess chicken coop security!

Numbers, numbers, numbers, we need to get our numbers (the people) armed with the Government numbers (Military Budget figures) and the chosen reviewers numbers (Dollar amounts of contracts awarded to the participants) to make as strong a case of 'conflict of interest' as possible! At the same time, we must demand that 'the people' (academia) be allowed the right to examine any system that we will use to select our representatives!

In the 2000 election 6 million Americans were disenfranchised by the poor performance of our elected representatives to protect their fundamental right to participate in our electoral process. Now those same officials are attempting to disenfranchise ALL Americans from participating in examining the means by which that process is carried out! Considering the fact that the largest portion of the United States budget goes to the very sector chosen to examine the system by which the drafters of that budget get their positions, the 'conflict of interest' is undeniable.

Our elections to choose our representatives should NEVER be left in the hands of the Government and the Military / Industrial complex! x(

Each of us needs to get this message out to as many outlets as possible!

Bev, can you get a press release together that can be forwarded to sites like MoveOn, LWV, etc.?

I'll do all I can to help get it spread around! :)

We need to make this a movement! :evilgrin:

[shance]

41. Yes we do!

We also need to be aware that there could be some very seedy people out there trying to keep us off track and even intimidate us. I think we need to come up with a list or even buddy system to ensure that we all can know one another and keep account of what we are doing.

[MuseRider]

42. Well, I say

bring em on. I am sick to death of this shit. I sat here and cried when I read this. I HATE these guys and it really has become the time to take them on. My husband is sitting on the other computer looking for places to move with my boys. I am NOT leaving. This stinks. Sorry. Lets do this thing.

[shance]

46. I agree Muse***

I guess the first thing would be to throw out as many ideas as possible. Get as many things out as we can and have Bev and others involved take a look at all the thoughts and take it from there.

The more we get the message out the better to let people know what is now taking place.

Keep moving folks****

[shance]

39. Amy Goodman - Democracy Now

[NewYorkerfromMass]

44. Democracy... When?

she needs to change the name of the show :-(

[MuseRider]

45. Bev, how many of our

representatives have shown any interest in this issue? Do you have a list that you could post? We need to hit them hard with this. We need to hit anyone with any interest hard. The more of us there are the harder we will be to ignore. Any names that you could pull out for us? It would be a small beginning.

[BevHarris]

48. URGENT: Please see post # 47 and immediately before it.

Thanks, Bev

[ianbruce]

49. ACLU? They've got some of the best lawyers in the biz...

... and if this isn't an attack on civil liberties, I don't know what is.

[grasswire]

51. contact William Cohen?

He's a board member of SAIC. I wonder if he would be sympathetic to oversight.

The Cohen Group
1200 19th Street, NW
Suite 400
Washington, DC 20036
202-689-7900 voice
202-689-7910 fax

[nomatrix]

52. Alcee Hasting (D) FL

I remember election 2000, he said all the voting machines should be impounded before anyone else touches them.

[Jawja]

56. KICK

:kick: :kick:

[jpgray]

57. Well, SAIC certified Windows NT 4.0 as secure in 2000--how good are they?

http://www.saic.com/news/jan00/news01-20-00.html

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 20, 2000

SAIC Announces Successful Windows NT C2 Evaluation

(SAN DIEGO) – Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) today announced that Microsoft Windows NT Server and Workstation 4.0 have been successfully evaluated at the C2 level according to the Trusted Computer System Evaluation Criteria (TCSEC).

The TCSEC, more commonly known as the "Orange Book," is perhaps the best-known governmental evaluation criteria for information technology (IT) systems. The evaluation was performed at SAIC's Center for Information Security Technology Trust Technology Assessment Program (TTAP) laboratory in Columbia, Md.

SAIC worked with Microsoft Corp. to ensure that the Windows NT 4.0 operating system passed its C2 network security evaluation as overseen by the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA). The Windows NT 4.0 evaluation included servers and workstations operating in both networked and stand-alone modes.

"We are very pleased to provide our customers with this independent proof point to Microsoft's commitment to keeping customers' information secure," said Steve Lipner, manager of the Security Response Team at Microsoft Corp. "The evaluation of Windows NT 4.0 by SAIC's Center for Information Security Technology was a team effort by Microsoft and SAIC, and will have direct benefits for users in the government and commercial sectors."

"This success demonstrates SAIC's ability to work with clients to improve and demonstrate the security of their products," said James Arnold, technical director of SAIC's TTAP laboratory. "We are adapting our TTAP evaluation laboratory to operate within the new National Information Assurance Partnership (NIAP) program to ensure that we will experience similar evaluation successes with future clients."

The C2 security level is widely accepted as the level of operating system security required by most commercial and unclassified government sectors. Under the TTAP program, a C2 security rating is awarded only after a commercial laboratory evaluation team, with U.S. government oversight, conducts extensive analysis and testing of the operating system security features.

"Our evaluation team is justifiably proud of its successful effort with Microsoft to make Windows NT certifiably C2 secure," said Frank Simmons, vice president at SAIC's Center for Information Security Technology. "We are continuing our relationship with Microsoft and we look forward to the prospect of evaluating other Microsoft products under the international Common Criteria standards of the International Standards Organization (ISO)."


Here's the info on the security flaw from the Microsoft site:

http://www.microsoft.com/security/security_bulletins/ms03-026.asp

July 16, 2003

Related Resources
Security and Privacy Glossary

Why We Are Issuing This Update
A security issue has been identified that could allow an attacker to compromise a computer running Microsoft® Windows® and gain control over it. You can help protect your computer by installing this update from Microsoft.

Products Affected by This Update
The following products require updating:

Microsoft Windows NT® 4.0
Microsoft Windows 2000
Microsoft Windows XP
Microsoft Windows Server™ 2003

[BevHarris]

60. Refer to post #47: the new massive security flaw we found

was done through Windows, and Microsoft knows what we are working on. They knew what I had before the hatchet job was assigned to Slate, and then stuck on MSNBC's web site (which they also own). Originally, MS had this assigned to their rapid response team. Then I suddenly got an email that said "we can't help you, call Diebold."

Diebold rewrote a hunk of the Windows operating system. What they did opened a massive hole.

We need crackers to do a little on-camera demonstration. PM me if you know such people, this is getting urgent.

Bev

[BevHarris]

64. This oughta paint the picture of what the Windows rewrite does

posting on newsgroup from Dmitry:

"Hi all!
"I need to make one thing. I have one Win CE PC - it's a server, and
another Windows NT/2000 PC - it's a client. Through CoCreateInstanceEx() i'm trying to get an interface i need. Winthout any restrictions and authentications, i need the free access to my server from anyones..."

We have both the code itself and a whole series of posts on newsgroups that support exactly what we found.

Bev

[Paulie]

111. LOL Orange Book!!!

Orange Book means it's certified secure in a locked room with NO NETWORK CONNECTION TO THE OUTSIDE WORLD! It's a joke, a way for Microsoft to put "C2 Certified" on the box. C2 certification is also only in regards to a specific set of hardware, specific version of firmware and specific software run with specific settings.

If putting a network card in an NT 4 system invalidated the configuration, what good is it in regards to network systems? :)

[shance]

61. Question: how many mainstream stories have been written

about computerized voting in the last month?

Or, after the New York Times story came out on computerized fraud July 18th? Anyone know?

[ibegurpard]

70. They know this story will continue to grow unless they do something

to nip it in the bud. I can't tell how many stories I've seen about it but more and more of them continue to pop up. FAR more than before the Johns Hopkins report.

[matt819]

66. You would think that Maryland taxpayers and voters would be outraged

I read the report by the Johns Hopkins programmers/analysts. The faults they point out, which are, in effect, those BH brought to light first at DU, are truly astounding. You would think that Maryland taxpayers would be outraged that their government approved the expenditure of more than $55 million for a system that is, in effect, no more secure than the average home pc. You would think that Maryland voters, of all political stripes, would be outraged by the possibility that their votes will not be accurately counted.

Surely there are groups in MD and GA that can begin to mount grassroots efforts!?

[HFishbine]

67. I Smell PNAC/Republican Stink all Over This

---------------------------------------------------------------
Signators to the PNAC manifesto "Rebuilding America's Defnses."
---------------------------------------------------------------
(http://www.newamericancentury.org/RebuildingAmericasDefenses.pdf)

David Kay (you know, the CIA man digging up those WMDs in Iraq): Former senior VP of SAIC.
(xymphora.blogspot.com/2003_06_01_xymphora_archive.html)

Phil Meilinger Deputy director of the Air and Space Center at Science Applications International Corporation.

------------------------------------------
Other SAIC People of Interest
------------------------------------------

Duane P. Andrews: Member, Rumsfeld Commission II; Chairman, Science Applications International Corp. (SAIC)

William Owens: Sits on US Defense Policy Advisory Committee. Previously president, chief operating officer and vice chair of Science Applications International Corporation.
(http://anginsuara.blogspot.com/2003_03_23_anginsuara_archive.html)

Ryan Henry: Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Policy and currently the Corporate Vice President for Strategic Assessment and Development at Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC).
(http://www.transnational.org/pressinf/2003/pf183_AmericansInIraqPart3.html)

Steven Hatfill: (The antrax suspect) also worked for SAIC.

Michael S Lancaster: Assistant Director Strategic Assessment Center, SAIC and author of "FBI Assessment of Cyber Protest with upcoming events in US and Australia, others" (Watch out DUers)
(http://www.nettime.org/Lists-Archives/nettime-l-0008/msg00032.html)

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

Considering the BILLIONS in defense contracts awarded to SAIC by the Bush administration;

considering that SAIC benefits from a war-hungry administration;

considering that SAIC provides computer services to the republican national committee;

considering their paid involvement in devloping the largely republican Star Wars fantasy;

considering that the SAIC political action committee has given $84,500 in campaign contribution to republican candidates this year alone (twice as much as to dems);

considering that SAIC spent $580,000 lobbying congress last year;

is it appropriate that they should be investigating this issue? Can't they find someone with a little less vested interest?

[grasswire]

71. this attempt to cover up...

...could be the biggest mistake the bad guys could ever make. Look at this as an opportunity to grab the gonads.

[ElementaryPenguin]

81. I've always suspected that SAIC was behind the anthrax attacks

I think they intentionally set-up Hatfield as the fall guy - Oswald style - or perhaps, Hatfield was involved - through them.

[Zan_of_Texas]

128. Um, actually

There is another military contractor/spook connection here.

The people contracted to do the software for the murky Voter News Service in the mid-term, 2002 election, are Battelle Memorial Institute. Of Ohio. They were supposed to get us exit poll results, for the entire consortium of major news organizations (ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, Fox, AP), on the last major election day. The whole thing melted down, supposedly. On election night VNS said, well, gee, maybe in a week or two, you'll have the exit poll results. After that, maybe another few weeks. Eventually, there were ZERO exit poll results for the mid-term, meaning that that potential rough check of election results did not exist. It also meant that aside from winning elections, the winners got to basically make up why they won -- "Oh, we got the suburbs" "Oh, we did well among Hispanics" "Oh, angry white men who are mad and look forward to war for the next fifty years turned out in great numbers." Whatever.

Battelle is closely connected with the military, and has a presence at Fort Detrick, Md. and Dugway, Utah, both places with the Ames strain of anthrax. Battelle makes biochemical "defensive" weapons.

So, SAIC's close ties with the military are not all that surprising to me. More of a confirmation.

One more caveat -- the Hopkins/Rice university team did a fine job, and I salute them. But remember that the government, including the military has MANY fingers in universities, and so do corporations. Enron had a very convenient outpost at Harvard which it used shamelessly to convince legislatures to go for deregulation. Also, one of the largest universities in Texas, Texas A&M, is now headed by a former head of the CIA.

I am not trying to be depressing, just trying to avoid stepping on the alligators lying everywhere.

[Junkdrawer]

132. Did you see the recent Moyers NOW piece on the Military Industrial...

Complex? 2 - 4 trillion dollars that went to the Pentagon that the Pentagon can't/won't account for. That's 2 - 4 million million dollars.

Some here say the BFEE runs the country. How about a military industrial complex bent on self-preservation? We build a colossus to protect us and that colossus comes to rule us.

[Zan_of_Texas]

137. Yup.

I missed the show, JD, but I've quoted that number and another here often.

Not that I have anything against the color black -- just secrets from the people.

You've got black ops. Black holes, where the money goes. Now, black box voting machines. It fits.

~~~~~~~~~
The stats, if ya missed 'em:

Pentagon vs. Worldcom Accounting Mess
The Pentagon seems to be generating bigger accounting mistakes than all of Corporate America combined. The GAO and the Defense Department’s own Inspector General found that $2.3 trillion in accounting entries were simply not supported by “adequate audit trails” or “sufficient evidence” in the books they audited. That makes Worldcom’s recent admissions of 7 billion mis-stated dollars seem like a rounding error. -- according to True Majority


What is the defense budget for 2003 (not including Iraq, for which no estimate has been made)? $396 billion

What agency's financial books almost makes Enron and WorldCom look like models of transparency and accuracy? The Defense Department.

The Defense Department can't account for one-quarter of its money in any given year. Now, that's getting close to $100 billion, lost, we don't know where, in one year. That doesn't even include overcharges and waste -- we're talking MISSING. That dwarfs many of the big bankruptcies that rocked the nation. (See CBS News <http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/01/29/eveningnews/printable325985.shtml)>

The Pentagon's own inspector general recently admitted that the department could not account for more than a trillion dollars of past spending. A congressional investigation reported that inventory management in the army was so weak it had lost track of 56 airplanes, 32 tanks, and 36 missile launchers.
"There's no accountability," said Danielle Brian, head of the Washington budget watchdog, Project on Government Oversight. (The Guardian, May 22, 2003)

[Eloriel]

141. The BFEE *IS* the Military-Industrial Complex

Part of it, or the drivers of it, or the political arm of it -- however you want to describe it. AND, with Carlyle of course, part owners of it.

Remember, George Bush was CIA director. Remember he was in Dallas when JFK was killed. Remember oh, SO many things.

In fact, I just posted this in another thread, but I'll repost here:

REALITY 501 - A DU Course Syllabus
http://www.democraticunderground.com/cgi-bin/duforum/duboard.cgi?az=show_thread&om=6920&forum=DCForumID70&archive=

Realilty 501: Syllabus UPDATE
(Read this first because it's got links and text while the original thread is just outline form with few if any links)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/cgi-bin/duforum/duboard.cgi?az=show_thread&om=8535&forum=DCForumID70&archive=

The US, the Saudis, and oil (a piece of Eloriel's Big Picture)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/cgi-bin/duforum/duboard.cgi?az=show_thread&om=8558&forum=DCForumID70&archive=


"ABC and the Rise of Rush Limbaugh"
(CIA, Wm. Casey, Capitol Cities, FCC, etc.)
http://www.public.iastate.edu/~jonvwill/resurgent/L-libmedia.htm


Bush, Nazis, Eugenics, and more - LINKS galore (also added to 501 UPDATE)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/cgi-bin/duforum/duboard.cgi?az=show_thread&om=3101&forum=DCForumID12&archive=


14 Characteristics of Fascism (booley)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/cgi-bin/duforum/duboard.cgi?az=show_thread&om=8123&forum=DCForumID70&archive=

[InkAddict]

207. Question?

Don't get mad Steve, get even!

[stickdog]

83. BILL OWENS IS CHAIRMAN OF VOTEHERE.!!!

VoteHere (Bellevue, Washington) www.votehere.net

"VoteHere is a pioneer in developing secure e-voting technology that simplifies the election process, while adding increased security and reliability over traditional voting methods. Additionally, the cost of the election and voter appeal are equal considerations in adopting new election methods."

Admiral Bill Owens, Chairman "Admiral Bill Owens serves as the Company's Chairman. Currently, Bill Owens is Co-CEO and Vice Chairman of Teledesic, a global broadband networking company. Previously, he was President, Chief Operating Officer and Vice Chairman of Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), the nation’s largest employee-owned high-technology company. During his distinguished military career, Bill Owens held the rank of four-star Admiral in the US Navy and served as Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He also served as the deputy chief of Naval Operations for Resources, Warfare Requirements and Assessments, commander of the US Sixth Fleet, senior military assistant to Secretaries of Defense Frank Carlucci and Dick Cheney and director of the Office of Program Appraisal for the Secretary of the Navy."

[MuseRider]

89. Has anyone ever

put together a big list showing all the interconnections of all these groups? I mean really, that should be all it would take to show everyone how bad this is. Of course that would be in a normal world.

[ElementaryPenguin]

72. SAIC = BFEE!!!! SAIC = Anthrax sender!! SAIC = Cheney!!!

SAIC is the military contractor hitman for the Bush Crime Family and the PNAC Mob!! This couldn't be any more obvious that the BushCo and the Cheap Labor Party is determined to rig this next election!! Not surprising, since it's the only way they can win!! THIS IS OUTRAGEOUS!!!

[HFishbine]

78. Campaign Contributions

I'm not sure who the players are that you would be looking for (not sure who's on what committees), but here are some that catch my eye:

2002 Cycle
----------
HASTERT, J DENNIS - Dist 14 REP $6,000
SHELBY, RICHARD C - Senate REP $7,000
STEVENS, THEODORE F (TED) - Senate REP $10,000
GEPHARDT, RICHARD A - Dist 03 DEM $2,000

2004 Cycle
----------
DASCHLE, THOMAS A - Senate DEM $1,000
SPECTER, ARLEN - Senate REP $2,000
ISSA, DARRELL E - Dist 49 REP $4,000
ROBERTS, PAT - Senate REP $2,000
MORAN, JAMES P JR - Dist 08 DEM $7,000

More here:
http://www.tray.com/cgi-win/x_pacpg.exe?DoFn=C0030041804

[gristy]

82. reply to post #61

how many mainstream stories have been written about computerized voting in the last month? Or, after the New York Times story came out on computerized fraud July 18th? Anyone know?

Searching for "electronic voting" on Google News gives hundreds of relevant hits, all in the past couple weeks. This story is everywhere.

[grasswire]

88. SAIC covered up this too

...troop exposure to chemicals in Gulf War!

The snip below is from a Hartford Courant story of June 2003. I found it on a google cache. Lots more at the link; it is probably available from the Courant's archives too.

Science Applications International Corp. of San Diego, Calif. - the company
that helped predict that U.S. airstrikes in Iraq in 1991 would not result
in dangerous chemical fallout on U.S. and allied troops - was asked by the
CIA in 1996 to assess whether its findings were wrong. After months of
study, the company, assisted by CIA and Defense Department officials,
asserted its earlier findings were correct in spite of numerous federal
inquiries that suggested otherwise.

During the war, John M. Deutch was one of the company's directors. He
resigned as a director in 1993 before becoming a high-ranking Defense
Department official. Deutch later became director of the CIA and was in
charge when the CIA retained SAIC to re-evaluate its earlier findings on
bomb fallout from chemical bunkers.

Deutch and former Secretary of Defense William J. Perry, who also had been
an SAIC director, had been consistently outspoken in maintaining that the
troops did not become ill from chemical or biological warfare.

(snip regarding stock holdings of Deutsch and Perry)

Critics charged that SAIC could not conduct an impartial review for the CIA
of its own past findings for the Defense Department. If the company decided
that it was originally wrong, and that dangerous fallout did drop on the
troops, it might lose credibility or expose itself to lawsuits, critics
said.

A SAIC spokesman, Jason McIntosh, said he tried for two days without
success to find a company official who would comment on the GAO report. The
CIA declined comment on the studies.

Defense Department spokesman James Turner said: "The Department of Defense
is confident that the conclusions reached in its analysis of the Khamisiyah
demolition of chemical munitions represents the best possible assessment of
the projected hazard area created when explosives placed by U.S. troops
destroyed those munitions."

http://www.boardreader.com/scripts/texis.exe/viewpost?query=SAIC&postid=3ee86baf9ac

[Junkdrawer]

91. The more you read about SAIC, the more desperate...

the people who are thinking of hiring them must be.

[shance]

92. Thanks ***

n/t

[stickdog]

90. SAIC's Vern Williams was the Security Task Group Leader of IEEE-1583

http://grouper.ieee.org/groups/scc38/1583/

http://grouper.ieee.org/groups/scc38/1583/documents_-_p1583/P1583%20-%20Membership%20List%207-25-2003.xls

Also, SAIC Senior VP Charley Zumba is listed as an "interested party."

[stickdog]

94. HUGE CONFLICT OF INTEREST: They sell voting machines as well!!!

From:

http://216.239.57.104/search?q=cache:ZMuz9DlRkxQJ:www.thebell.net/archives/thebell2.1.pdf

The Election Technology Expo held in Sacramento on January 16, 2001 was a first of its kind opportunity for election officials, members of County Boards of Supervisors, County Executive Officers, political party leaders, members of the legislature, officials from other states, and other interested parties to get some hands-on experience with the kinds of voting technology that’s available today or on the cutting-edge for use in the future. Three panels ran concurrently with the Expo and hearings were held by the Assembly Elections &
Reapportionment Committee on January 16-17. This is a brief report of the highlights of these events.

Exposition

The 2000 Election Technology Exposition in Sacramento, sponsored by California Secretary of State Bill Jones, was well-attended by over 300 people interested in getting some hands-on experience with both current voting technology and systems on the cutting-edge for use in the future. The exhibitors included AtPac, Booz-Allen & Hamilton, Compaq Computer Corporation, Computer Resources Group, Data Information Management Systems, Inc., DFM Associates, Diebold, Inc., Diverse Integrated Systems, Inc., Drake Communications, Inc., election.com, Election Systems & Software, Electric Lightwave, Inc., ExecuTrain of Sacramento, Global Election Systems, Hart InterCivic, Services, Inc., League of Women Voters, Los Angeles County, Natoma Technologies, Quad Media, SacWeb, Safevote, Inc., Science Applications International Corporation, Secretary of State, Sequoia Pacific Systems, The Benton Company, The SMR Group, Inc., Transcend, Unilect Corporation, Unisys Corporation, US Postal Service, Validity Systems, Verify First Technologies, VoiceVoting.com, VOTEC Corporation, VoteHere, Inc., and WEBVOTE, Inc.

[BevHarris]

97. Well. So much for impartial sources

This is getting very, very disturbing.

[punpirate]

100. No, not exactly....

See their 2001 annual report for what they do provide:

http://www.saic.com/news/pdf/ar2001.pdf

They are actually providing voter registration and voter database management software.

Cheers.

[gristy]

101. oh, well then

I feel much better now. NOT!

[stickdog]

104. Their man rubber stamped the IEEE project as SECURITY TEAM LEADER

with the tacit approval of one of their senior VP's.

If that makes them independent on this controversy, then I personally brought down Wellstone's plane.

[lazarus]

155. according to your interpretation

League of Women Voters and Los Angeles County and the US Postal Service also sell voting machines.

[stickdog]

222. You're 100% right.

And 0% meaningful.

[DrBlix]

95. Received this email message

Sorry didn't read all posts but how can they overcome all this info.
=====
Voting Company Reverses Stand: Flawed software WAS used NEWS RELEASE
.
Voting Company Reverses Stand: Flawed software WAS used in Georgia and other elections
- Diebold official: There are "kinks" in touch screen According to an Aug. 4 article in Wired.com: Diebold company spokesman Mike Jacobsen "confirmed that the source code Rubin's team examined was last used in November 2002 general elections in Georgia, Maryland and in counties in California and Kansas."
(http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,59874,00.html)
.
Actually, the software may have been used in as many as 13 states and 197 counties, according to Diebold documents given to Santa Clara County in Feb. 2003 (http://www.blackboxvoting.org/mfr.pdf) - list of counties at bottom.
.
Earlier, Diebold had told reporters that the software which contained "stunning security flaws" that made hacking easy, was an older version and never used in any election.
.
Yet it was used, and provably so. The Diebold software version was easily verifiable:
- The FEC requires certification of voting machine software by version number
- The certified version number matches what was studied by the Johns Hopkins scientists.
.
STILL "KINKS" IN THE TOUCH SCREENS: John Silvestro, Diebold's representative in Boston, said the touch-screen system would cost the city about six times as much money as optical scan machines which have a paper audit trail, and that companies like his are still working the kinks out of the touch-screen machines. Silvestro told the Boston City Council that Boston was better off with optical scanners. (http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/214/metro/Menino_OK_s_new_voting_machines+.shtml)
.
Georgia, perhaps hardest hit by the growing Diebold scandal, is now facing renewed questions about missing memory cards and other irregularities. On election night during the 2002 general election, 67 memory cards, containing thousands of votes, went missing in Fulton County. Also, according to documents provided to Santa Clara County, Diebold machines experienced "buffer overrun" problems during the election, requiring poll workers to turn them on and off, and if not done properly, this can also cause loss of votes.
.
Georgia officials, responding to a Freedom of Information Act request by Georgia voters, admitted that they did not have any of the certification documents clearing use of the machines following a series of unexamined program patches put on the machines right before the election. Georgia law requires that any time software is updated, it must be recertified, but the patches were never examined by testing labs. No one really knows what was on the patches; Diebold denied that patches were done. (http://www.blackboxvoting.org/lies.htm)
.
According to technicians (http://www.blackboxvoting.org/robgeorgia.htm) who administered the patches, they were told to download them directly off the Internet from the Diebold ftp site, rather than getting them from Microsoft (as they would if they were Windows patches) or from the Independent Testing Authority (as the Georgia examiner for voting machines, Dr. Brit Williams --
http://www.blackboxvoting.org/Williams.htm -- describes the required
procedure).
In a new controversy, researchers with BlackBoxVoting.org say they have discovered that changes were made in the Windows operating system used with the voting machines.
.
According to Dr. Doug Jones, a member of the Iowa Board of Examiners for Elections and an expert congressional witness on electronic voting: "The FEC/NASED Voting System Standards require that all software used in voting systems be passed through a source-code audit, but there is an exemption, in both the 1990 and 2002 editions of this standard, for UNMODIFIED third-party 'COTS' software, that is, commercial off-the-shelf software produced by a third party THAT HAS NOT BEEN MODIFIED for use in the voting context. Use of Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office clearly qualifies for this exemption." (http://www.cs.uiowa.edu/~jones/voting/dieboldftp.html)
.
Jones says that Diebold made representations to him that they made no changes whatsoever to the Windows operating system, yet new information from Black Box Voting indicates that significant changes to Windows were made.
.
"Source code files clearly show that Windows source code was modified." says Bev Harris, author of 'Black Box Voting.' A new Freedom of Information Act is now being filed in Georgia seeking to clarify whether changes in Windows were disclosed and authorized, and Black Box Voting researchers are examining what impact the changes have on the voting program and its security.
OTHER STORY ANGLES:
- Experts point to secrecy, flaws in certification system
- Following the money trail: Lobbying, kickbacks and contributions
.
- More on original story: http://avirubin.com/vote/response.html COUNTIES THAT USE DIEBOLD TOUCH SCREENS
Alameda County, California
Kern County, California
Los Angeles County, California
Marin County, California
Modoc County, California
Plumas County, California
San Diego County, California
San Joaquin County, California
Solano County, California
Tulare County, California
El Paso County, Colorado
Saguache County, Colorado
Weld County, Colorado
===========================
GEORGIA: All 159 counties
===========================
Tippecanoe County, Indiana
Johnson County, Kansas
Jefferson County, Kentucky
Allegany County, Maryland
Dorchester County, Maryland
Montgomery County, Maryland
Prince Georges County, Maryland
===============================
MARYLAND: All counties in Maryland have purchased Diebold touch screen
machines
===============================
Gaston County, North Carolina
Rowan County, North Carolina
Douglas County, Nebraska
Lancaster County, Nebraska
===============================
OHIO: Most of Ohio is considering purchase of Diebold machines
===============================
Bradley County, Tennessee
Rutherford County, Tennessee
Shelby County, Tennessee
El Paso County, Texas
Franklin County, Texas
Guadalupe County, Texas
City of Norfolk, Virginia

[Gordon25]

99. Bev, just a thought

I noticed they are only asking for a report on the touch screen machines. All their public responses have been to the Rubin Report. To my knowledge, no one from Diebold has responded to your reports of flaws in the optical scan GEMS software, which to me are equally, if not more, damning. Particularly if the Windows code rewrite allowing anonymous remote access you mentioned involves the optical scan system.

Is it possible all this noise about the DRE's is to distract attention from GEMS?

I like your idea about tv demonstrations. It will establish the terms of the debate. It throws the onus of proving it can't happen back on Diebold and any other authority they invoke. Not a single thing they can say will change a single line of code that was exploited. And the demonstration will "prove" that the system fails to meet even the 1990 NASED certification standards which, as you point out, only allows unmodified off the shelf software to escape line by line source code examination in the certification process.

I am not surprised about Microsoft's response. They put out a press release a few months back announcing their new Vice President of Homeland Security who was supposed to be working out of an office in the Pentagon.

Don't let them get you down. It's only in the past couple months, since you broke the story on Scoop, that I have felt there was any hope at all, even though I've been working on the issue for a couple years. I just couldn't stand the thought of having to admit to my grandkids and great grandkids that I didn't at least try. Now, your work and that of so many other dedicated patriots working on this issue around the county have Diebold on the defensive and on the run, calling for allies. The extent of the ongoing revelations and the work being done nationally in forums such as this and locally all over the country, is like a tidal wave building inexorably under the placid surface and drawing ever closer to the beach where it will crest. When it does, there will be nowhere to hide thier deeds or intent.

Keep the faith. We're gonna have a victory party yet.

Gordon25

[grasswire]

105. former SAIC board member....

...George Herbert Walker Bush.

[grasswire]

108. punpirate?

Is it possible for you to copy the section of the annual report having to do with elections bidness and post it here for those of us who can't open pdf files for firewall reasons?

And is that a separate subsidiary and if so what is it called?

[punpirate]

113. Easily done...

"Our systems improve voter registration and
campaign disclosure. For the state of Illinois,
SAIC is designing a more efficient system to store,
maintain, and access up-to-date voter registration
information. In Canada, an SAIC-developed
system reduced the cost of voter registration by
an estimated $30 million in Canadian dollars per
event and won an award for our client, Elections
Canada. In the state of Massachusetts, the
public can monitor campaign contributions
to political candidates through an SAIC-developed
Internet system."

Mentioned elsewhere on the net, they're doing motor voter stuff for the state of Michigan, and I think, voter registration programs for parts of California.

I don't see a specific division, but they describe it as part of their "e-Government" business.

Cheers.

[4dog]

136. Voter registration info? Repeat of FL 2000?

Just want to plant this idea, though it's off the main topic. Computerized voter registration is part of HAVA. No one has yet figured how this can be used to help steal in 2004, but FL 2000 provides a precedent, so you bright guys might think about it.

[BevHarris]

109. Are you serious? Source?

Poppy Bush on the board?

[grasswire]

116. GHWB former board member

found it on a newsgroup, am looking for a primary cite.

[Vadem]

219. Found a reference to Poppy on SAIC Board

http://www.centrexnews.com/columnists/skousen/2002/0329.html

/snip/

MORE BAD NEWS FOR PRIVACY: PGP GONE BAD


NAI, makers of McAfee Virus software, bought Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) for $35 mil in 1997. Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) then bought NAI. Both George H. W. Bush and Bobby Inman, the Naval admiral and former NSA chief involved with the Iran-Contra affair and other dark side government affairs, are former directors of SAIC. So is Clinton Secretary of Defense William Perry. SAIC has so many links to the Pentagon that, like Dyncorp, it is considered by many to be a government shill. With so many dealings with government the buyout of PGP by SAIC should be viewed as extremely suspicious. Bobby Inman was a big promoter of the concept that Government must control all encryption. PGP was the only private holdout for years and is good enough to cause government spooks much lost sleep. Phil Zimmerman, the anti-government creator of PGP says that copies of its encryption software which were sold before Fall 2001, when he left NAI, are solid, but future versions may be tainted. So beware. If you have existing copies of PGP obtained prior to fall of last year, do not upgrade to any new versions.
/snip/

Don't know how reliable this Joel Skousen is. His home page says he was a member of several conservative organizations.

:shrug:

[punpirate]

221. I think it certain that it's an error....

Think about it. SAIC did not come into existence until 1969. At that time, GHWB was beginning his second term in the House. He lost the election for the Senate in 1970 and left the House at the end of 1970. From there, he was appointed as Ambassador to the United Nations, Chairman of the Republican National Committee, Chief of the U. S. Liaison Office in the People's Republic of China during Nixon's second term, and Director of the Central Intelligence Agency in the Ford administration.

In most of that time, SAIC was quite small (they started out with about $20 million in contracts). For practical purposes, that leaves just two windows for him to be on the board of directors of SAIC--1976-1979 (since he was campaigning against or for Reagan in 1980, was VP or President from 1981-1993) or 1993-present, and he was pretty much occupied with Carlyle and being Syung Yung Moon's paid speech whore after he left the presidency.

If he had been on the SAIC board, it would not have been for long, or it would have showed up in EDGAR records at the SEC. And, what has that got to do with the current issue of them involved with voting? He's not a board member now.

Cheers.

[BevHarris]

107. Gordon, I cannot tell you how much I appreciate what you just posted

And guess what? King County finally called me today for a meeting on their Diebold optical scan machines. And yes, the Windows rewrites appear to affect all elements of the system, though that will need to be traced in a fairly painstaking way.

Oh, and guess what?

"Rob Georgia: we did not need to certify those patches, they were only to the WINDOWS OPERATING SYSTEM." It would be poetic if a Windows hack was found in the rob-georgia.zip file too. Wouldn't that be a tidy ending:

rob-georgia? did it rob Georgia?
Oh. Rob was a good guy. Rob was the technician from Georgia who told the truth.
(But maybe?) And the rob-Georgia patch had a file to rob Georgia.

Bev

[jimmynochad]

106. Has anyone checked this out about Votehere????

Hello all,

Back from the fun and adventure that is the elections game. I purposely do not say business because there are a lot of games going on...

I have yet to see anyone make note that Avi Rubin is on the Advisory Board of VoteHere. Check out the address here: http://www.votehere.net/ada_compliant/leadership/avirubin.html. Yes, sports fans, this is the same Avi Rubin of the Hopkins paper fame.

HMMM, VoteHere has rumored to be working with Sequoia for at least a year (they were to bid together on the SERVE program).

Let's try on this tin foil hat for size....

Sequoia needs to find a way to beat Diebold. Jim Adler (one who loves to hear his own voice) comes along to work with Diebold. Sequoia needs to impress their new owners (De La Rue - by the way, not an American Company) with some progress because even though Sequoia had the first big implementation and also had very little press, has not been winning many contracts. The Santa Clara contract put them behind the eight ball because they have to do the voter verifiable paper record for FREE if demanded by the county (and even if other companies have the patent).

So Jim and Seq butt heads and come up with an idea. There is this code lying out in the ether waiting for exploitation. Now the competition can not analyze it so who can they get who will be on their side??? Try Avi and his team of wunderkind programmers.

Need some inkling, look at Sequoia's response to the report at http://www.sequoiavote.com/articleDetail.php?articleId=50. Sequoia is quoting Rebecca Mercuri?!? (an ardent critic of Sequoia and who has been in on at least two law suits against their machines). Sequoia also happens to have the security that Hopkins recommends.

Sequoia has laid the arguments well to look good. They still rely on a proprietary operating system which is not any better than using Windows. They should use a trusted operating system and they should sign their code and have it compiled by an independent authority using a "blind buy" compiler, etc. etc.

I must also in closing please emphasize that the 100% driver in this industry is your tax dollars. I know these vendors and they would sell to Chinese Communists if they could make a buck. I would refer to this site's hated counterpart, freerepublic, where four years ago the same people said that the then new voting machines were going to favor the then in power democrats. Diebold's biggest customer is a democrat (Cathy Cox). The former MD SOS who supervised the first purchase is also a democrat. These guys have lobbyists on all sides working hard to call in every favor to get this big accounts.

Cheers,
JNC

P.S. Where is comments from Howard Van Pelt on the Diebold story? He was the guy who started Global. He had final say on the original design. He now works for Advanced Voting (the renamed Shoup family voting company).

[BevHarris]

112. Thanks Jimmy. A small correction...

Global was actually always a Canadian company that pretended it was a Texas company. Actually, it was on the Toronto stock exchange and ran the business out of Vancouver, Canada, at that time well known as kind of a financial scam capital where Americans and Eastern Europeans ran front operations.

Global Election Systems set up Global USA as a subsidiary. It operated out of McKinney Texas, and Howard Van Pelt was the CEO, but he was never the owner. The owners were whatever group held stock in the Canadian firm, and they included Tab Iredale, who continued as a key programmer at least into Feb. 2003.

The architecture of the software came from Bob Urosevich and Tab Iredale.

Your theory is really interesting.

[jimmynochad]

115. Howard did own part of Global

Howard told me personally that he had a lot of shares. He was shopping around for investors to buy Global two years ago.

Hindsight really sucks - I could have bought Diebold for $7 million (to pay off a note to Diebold) plus less than $0.80 a share to buy the stock...

[stickdog]

110. Bev, I can't stress to you strongly enough just how bad SAIC is.

They are the very heart of the military/intelligence mafia.

They will do WHATEVER it takes to bury this.

Reputation, morality, human rights and even human lives simply have no bearing on the cold blooded ruthlessness of this organization.

SAIC is truly the worst of the worst.

[Zan_of_Texas]

117. well

You guys and gals are having quite a research party here!

Dang!

I had posted this elsewhere at DU a couple of hours ago, where it was announced that Maryland would entrust its voting systems to SAIC.

The bit below about Africa is very damning -- includes hints that SAIC, DynCorp (another company that manages to get in all sorts of trouble spots and trouble) and a couple of others were outsourced to do an assassation of a head of state in Africa, but it's not from a news source, rather some sort of website focusing on Africa. Maybe someone who has a bit of a handle of recent African history can see if they can get closer to a conventional news source.


Science Application International Corp. (SAIC) privately-held

SAIC is tight with the Department of Defense.

They have a DARPA contract. http://www.ausa-ft-mon.org/techWinter2002.htm

One website implies that SAIC was one of a "Pentagon chorus" contracted to overthrow a government in Africa. http://webnetarts.com/socialjustice/rwarchv2.html

They have a Saudi Arabian partner. And, see what they specialize in.

http://www.ap.com.sa/aboutus.htm
Assets Protection Company is a division of Saudi Petro Gas Company, which was established in 1998 by the owners of the International Development Group (IDG) and NAF Group. It is 100% Saudi Arabian owned.

<snip> The company achieved its goal by entering into a syndicated agreement with Science Application International Corp. (SAIC), a U.S. based company represented by its local partner, Saudi Science Application International (SSAI). SAIC, is a global leader of security and safety services and products specializing in US Certified Security Training, Alarm Monitoring Systems, Identification Security Systems, Automated Fingerprinting Identification, Real-Time Facial Recognition Systems, Protective Services and Fire Protection and Safety Systems.

[Zan_of_Texas]

119. Hicks

Meanwhile, the name of SAIC board member that you guys found above has popped out at me:

the former head of research and development for the Pentagon, Donald Hicks


Do we know anything more about this Donald Hicks?

Because the name Hicks rings several bells here in Texas.

Tom Hicks of Dallas has a long history of bidness dealings with the Bush family in Texas, such as the Texas Rangers baseball team, and UTIMCO, a university fund that I consider a major scandal but that has never gotten much traction. Hicks, Muse, Tate & Furst Inc may ring a bell. Tom Hicks is vice chair of Clear Channel.

Brother Steve Hicks of Austin is chair of Capstar Partners, LLC. It merged with Chancellor Media Corp. It's hard to follow all the names, but I think it's now called AMFM Inc. He co-founded SFX Broadcasting. Radio Ink magazine called him one of the 10 Most Powerful People in Radio.

Okay, and I have no information that would tie the following to Tom and Steve, but ...

Darlene Hicks, who lives with John M. Hicks in New Braunfels, Texas is the head of the League of Women Voters of Texas.

So, it would be interesting to see if the above Donald is related to either the radio czars Tom & Steve, or to Darlene of LWV.

[Vadem]

184. Hicks and Assocs. a subsidiary of SAIC:

I found this on the SAIC.com site by going through all their press releases and annual reports looking for GHWB on board of directors; one of the releases mentions a contract with Halliburton, and quotes Cheney; OMG, SAIC is into everything, even cancer research. Also several contracts with Maryland; the press releases are worth looking at.

http://www.hicksandassociates.com/history.htm

I don't know how to copy more than one link at a time or I would have done so.

[Ozirus]

231. As an SAIC employee...

I have to say you are way off the mark there. Where do you get your information from to base these allegations on? Conspiracy theory websites? Get a grip. I am a die-hard democrat and I have worked for SAIC for 7 years and have never encountered any cold blooded ruthlessness from this company. You watch too many movies.

- Ozirus -

[stickdog]

233. Why don't you get a grip on just what your company does?

It's a big organization. The vast majority of SAIC employees are reasonable, well meaning souls just trying to make a living.

The same thing could be said about the vast majority of Germans between 1938 AND 1945.

Do you think it's a good thing that your company recommends fraud-made-easy voting/slot machines specifically designed without any audit trails as secure?

[stickdog]

120. SAIC Hired By Diversified Dynamics To Make SYSTEM 5 DVRS Voting Machine

http://www.divdyn.com/howworks.htm

Working in collaboration with SAIC, a world leader in systems development and integration, we developed the 5Plus! Election Management Software program. With its foundation in advanced research, SAIC was the natural choice to help develop Diversified Dynamics’ vision of building the world’s most dynamic electronic voting system.

The 5 Plus! program is used to create ballots, tally results and generate reports. The software is 100% Microsoft Windows® compatible and is designed to be easy to operate, intuitive and user friendly, yet comprehensive and versatile.

http://www.divdyn.com/electsoft.htm

5 Plus! Election
Management Software

5 PLUS! Election Management Software is an integral part of our System 5 DVRS. This user-friendly PC Windowstm based application program is purely intuitive with on-screen “Wizard” help commands. No special skill, or training, is required for creating custom ballots. With ballot creation time reduced by as much as 80% compared with other methods of preparation, last minute on-site changes can be made quickly and easily. The 5 PLUS! software quickly and efficiently tallies election results and allows for instant customized reports to be generated. Election results data can be analyzed and tailored to define useful patterns and trends.

http://www.fec.gov/pages/vendors.htm

Diversified Dynamics,Inc. (DRE)

700 East Main St, Ste1623

Richmond, VA 23219

CONTACT: Thomas ‘Tom’ G. Davis

PHONE: [phone]

FAX: [phone]

EMAIL: [email protected]

WEWBSITE: http://www.divdyn.com/

(Note: SAIC/Litton designed DRE system)

[grasswire]

124. excellent

Diversified Dynamics chairman of the board is Doug Wilder.

A subsidiary of DD is iPaper LLC. Isn't that a CIA front? Why does it ring a bell?

[SharonAnn]

181. Cool, robotic voting. No voter needed!

I'd be ROTFL if it weren't so frightening.

"The 5 Plus! program is used to create ballots, tally results and generate reports." All they need to do is insert the phrase "mark ballots" and it's a totally robotic voting process. It would read like this:

"The 5 Plus! program is used to create ballots, (mark ballots), tally results and generate reports".

Unbelievable!

Though depressing, all this information about SAIC makes me even angrier. I WANT MY COUNTRY BACK!

[stickdog]

121. SAIC & Anthrax

http://www.sunspot.net/bal-te.anthrax27jun27,0,6510790.story

Scientist theorized anthrax mail attack
FBI searched apartment of expert linked to study By Scott Shane
Sun Staff
Originally published June 27, 2002

Dr. Steven J. Hatfill, the former Fort Detrick biodefense researcher whose Frederick apartment was searched Tuesday by the FBI, commissioned a 1999 study that described a fictional terrorist attack in which an envelope containing weapons-grade anthrax is opened in an office. The study, written by a veteran of the old U.S. bioweapons program, was submitted to Hatfill and a colleague at Science Applications International Corp., the McLean, Va., defense contractor where he then worked.

It discusses the danger of anthrax spores spreading through the air and the requirements for decontamination after various kinds of attacks. The author, William C. Patrick III, describes placing 2.5 grams of Bacillus globigii, an anthrax simulant, in a standard business envelope - slightly more than the estimated amount of anthrax in each of the letters that killed five people last fall.

The study, portions of which were read to The Sun by a person who has a copy, illustrates the central paradox of the FBI's nine-month quest for the anthrax mailer: The perpetrator could be a respected American scientist in the biodefense field, where he acquired the skills he then used to kill.

The study discussing the mail attack, for instance, was written as a scientific exercise to draw on Patrick's expertise and help improve defenses against bioterrorism. But the FBI must consider the possibility that such a document could have planted the seed for a terrorist plot. The traits of a top-notch specialist in biodefense are the same as those of the likely perpetrator of the mail attacks: knowledge of anthrax and how it can be turned into a potent weapon; access to a lab where anthrax is stored; vaccination against anthrax; even very strong views about the threat of bioterrorism.

[stickdog]

123. SAIC & Nuke Waste Conflict of Interest

http://www.dasbistro.com/pipermail/nvgreen/2001-December/000296.html

The PEIS process itself has not been without problems. In early 2000 the DOE hired Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) to perform the environmental review. SAIC had previously been terminated by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) for a substantial conflict of interest because it had a financial interest in a quarter-billion dollar contract to recycle radioactive metal from the DOE's Oak Ridge, Tenn., complex, and at the same time was creating a report for the NRC to use as a guide for releasing and recycling radioactive materials from its own facilities.

After Public Citizen, NIRS and other public interest groups met with DOE
officials in July and pointed out SAIC's questionable record, DOE revoked its contract with SAIC to perform the environmental review.

[grasswire]

125. so SAIC is involved in making voting machines and software

....and it IS a direct conflict of interest to do this review. Doesn't make sense for Diebold to pick a competitor to do the review. (Unless they're all on the same team ultimately.)

[grasswire]

127. Bev, can't confirm GHWB director SAIC

Can't find another source for that, so I'll assume the poster got it wrong.

[DagmarK]

160. Grasswire: SEARCH old SEC statements -it lists DIRECTORS!!!!

**

[stickdog]

126. An SAIC Consultant Who Looks To Be On Our Side

http://www.cs.ucl.ac.uk/staff/I.Brown/

Ian Brown

My main professional interests are in networking and information security and related policy issues. We recently finished off the PIMMS project at UCL, where I am an honorary research fellow. I am the director of the Foundation for Information Policy Research. I also consult for companies such as JP Morgan, Credit Suisse and SAIC.

Cryptix strong crypto I helped write the Cryptix freeware crypto library for Java, upon which my e-mail encryption program Enigma is based. I also take an active part in network and security protocol development in the IETF.

[Zan_of_Texas]

133. Um

Where do you see he is "on our side"?

JP Morgan and Credit Suisse are on my list of financial institutions that continually pop up where there is trouble. Like, big trouble, most of which hasn't made its way into the headlines. JPM (and Citi) were two of the most involved with Enron's finagling. I could go on but I'll spare you.

[stickdog]

138. Just read his webpage

Is Privacy International a front?

How about University College London?

Is he trying to suck us in with his free open source JAVA cryptographic library?

Let's see.

As a programmer, I'd say no. How about you?

[Zan_of_Texas]

147. Hey

I'm only qualified on stuff I know about.

JP Morgan is one I know something about.

You're pulling in some great posts, Stickdog.

And, everybody! Awesome display!

[stickdog]

129. Chalabi's Iraqi Exile Crew: Selected by Wolfy, 'Hired' by SAIC

http://bnfp.org/article_archive/article_archive002.htm

Pentagon Sending a Team of Exiles to Help Run Iraq

by Douglas Jehl with Jane Perlez
NY Times
April 26, 2003

The Pentagon has begun sending a team of Iraqi exiles to Baghdad to be part of a temporary American-led government there, senior administration officials said today.

The team of Iraqi technocrats was selected by Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz but is officially employed by a defense contractor, SAIC, the officials said.

'The idea is that you want to have a legitimate Iraqi interim authority in place because it makes all the issues move forward more quickly, including the pumping of oil,' a State Department official said."

[Rose Siding]

145. SAIC *is* the Iraqi interim govt

Garner was to have turned over all the ministries to them, including oil.
The whole NYT article is linked here

http://www.enrongate.com/news/index.asp?id=176047

[starroute]

174. SAIC is also running the US-sponsored radio station in Iraq

> A second role that SAIC has in Iraq is as behind the "Voice of the New
> Iraq", the radio station established on 15 April 2003 at Umm Qasr, as the
> US government propaganda outlet.

http://www.casi.org.uk/discuss/2003/msg02353.html

[ConsAreLiars]

130. This is just a diversion???

Don't get dragged into a debate over SAIC's creds.

Maybe treat it like this:

"Whether or not some some small group of people in the security field say they found no problems, or only small ones, doesn't really matter. The only way to be sure is if the voter sees the ballot and the ballot is counted and the accuracy of the count can be verified by comparing the machine counts to the actual ballots." Maybe also "SAIC's certification of Windows as a secure system didn't keep it from being hacked is all sorts of nasty ways."

Maybe a second front about the coverup involved in assigning this review to a politically well-connected and financially compromised company that is better known for hiding secrets than uncovering them. Demand assigning this job to an independent group of experts whose work and work product is all carried out in the open. Focs on the cover-up rather than the cover-upper.

The least important discussions (as in PR generated buzz) would be about the crimes and connections of SAIC in general, although having that discussion here is important.

[stickdog]

131. Crimes just for here. Conflicts of interest, on the other hand (NT)

[Zan_of_Texas]

146. Good for us to know though

The Hopkins/Rice guys said there was no way the Diebold code they looked at (the portion they looked at) could be tweaked into something secure. You design security from the ground up, they said.

They started finding flaws within, what, 45 minutes or something. Found them everywhere they looked. Called them things their Computer Security 101 class would NOT get wrong.

And, this is without even looking at the majority of the code.

Separately, David Dill of Stanford says, in a radio interview, when asked

Q: Diebold has something like 800,000 lines of software code in their proprietary software. Is it realistic to expect a certification board to go through and find any problems?

Answer by David Dill: It is practically impossible for someone to review software of any length at all -- even 10,000 or maybe even 1500 -- lines of code to make sure that's 100% error-free. The certification is done by organizations called independent testing authorities. They couldn't do it, no matter how hard they tried. Now, from what I have learned, they don't try hard enough. There are claims that the code is inspected line by line. I know that that is not sufficient to find bugs and certainly not to find tampering that is deliberately hidden in that software. In fact, the tampering may not even be in the software that's presented to the independent testing authority. So far as I can determine, the review conducted by independent testing authorities may not actually include a human being who inspects the code line by line. What I've heard from certain vendors and people who've talked to some of these independent testing authorities, is that they actually just use other computer programs to inspect the code -- submitted to them by the vendors-- and those computer programs are very much like style checkers in Microsoft Word or something. They'll check the spelling of individual things, make sure that your English usage is okay. But they won't make sure that your document is saying the right thing, because only you know that. So, I think that the current inspection process is completely inadequate for ensuring reliability and certainly computer security. I think that the problem is basically unsolvable without an independent audit trail.

~~~~~~~~~~

So, no matter what the software of Diebold is, it seems clear to me that it cannot meet the high standard required, including confidentiality for the voter, plus absolute accuracy and flawless programming and machines that are only used one a year performing flawlessly. Then, you add in the concept of threat analysis. Meaning, you're not just running critical software, you're trying to protect it from people with no scruples who want the huge pot of goodies that can be won from cheating. This is not a fifty cent bag of potato chips in a vending machine, this is, for instance, a Senate race where millions of dollars will be spent to win it.

Computer experts say nope, it is an UNSOLVABLE problem. Computer alone can't do it. Ya gotta have paper too, or some equivalent that has not yet been developed.

At this point, I'm wondering if we've just been sold a bill of goods completely on the computers' place in voting. What would be wrong with using computers at the polling place something like a word processor with a printer -- help by pulling up the right ballot, easy to read, in different languages as necessary. Or, for the sight impaired, provide a booth with sound. The only thing the computers would do is help the voter see/hear the ballot, and print out a paper ballot with their choices. The paper ballot is the vote. Period. The end. The computer does nothing in the way of counting. Nothing zero. No modems. Count the paper at the precinct. Post the results at the precinct, where all counters and all citizens can see them. Call the results in. Impound the paper ballots under lock and key after counting.

[Whack_A_Mole]

135. Might I suggest

that in future dealings with reporters or others of like ilk that you openly tape record the conversation? I'm not a media professional but it may be a way to easily stop distortions happening between interview-ee and media.

Hope the tome is published soon.

W_A_M

[starroute]

140. SAIC -- "shadow ruling-class within the Pentagon"

From a 1994 piece on the resignation of Clinton's Defense Secretary, Bobby Ray Inman. Pretty tinfoil, but strange enought to be intriguing:

In related news, the Los Angeles Times published a feature a week prior to Inman's exit showing links to a nation spanning consulting firm - Science Applications - which seems to exist as a shadow ruling-class within the Pentagon.

Science Applications International Corporation, of which Inman is a director, has many members in top spots within the Pentagon.

The Pentagon, in standard behavior-mode, refused to comment to the Times on anything concerning Science Applications. William J. Perry, the current second in command at the Pentagon and the man who has replaced Inman as nominee, was a director of Science Applications until he was elevated to his current position in 1993. Like Inman, Perry is a military-industrial complex insider, steeped in the Strangelovian traditions of Cold War secrecy and superweapons development.

<snip>

Other Science Applications directors - John Deutch and Anita Jones - currently serve as undersecretary for acquisition and technology and contracting deputy for defense, respectively.

All three former Science Applications directors are in position to influence awarding of Pentagon contracts, including bids from Science Applications, constituting a clear and rather glaring conflict of interest. In pro forma statements, officials at Science Applications denied to the Times that the presence of company directors in key positions at the Pentagon would have any influence - other than negative - on the company's bids.

During the Bush administration, Inman, Perry and Deutch - while directors of Science Applications, were also members of the National Foreign Intelligence Board (NFIB), an advisory group reporting to the President and the director of Central Intelligence, which deals with production, review and coordination of foreign intelligence.

http://www.soci.niu.edu/~crypt/other/saic2.htm

[ParanoidPat]

143. Welcome to the front lines of the second civil war!

:scared: :evilgrin:

[starroute]

176. SAIC is closely tied to the CIA

This is apparently no secret -- I've found it mentioned in several places, and one site even said SAIC is sometimes known jokingly as S-CIA. A piece from The Progressive says, "Another U.S. company involved in the mercenary business in the Balkans is Science Applications International Corporation, a contractor that counts many former CIA and National Security Agency types in its ranks as military personnel."

http://www.findarticles.com/cf_dls/m1295/8_6/55309049/p4/article.jhtml?term=


SAIC was even involved in a project to do psychic spying for the CIA!

"Between 1972 and 1995 hundreds of "remote viewing" (RV) experiments took place at the Stanford Research Institute (SRI) in America, and later at Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC). The CIA funded them. In July 1995 the CIA declassified documents revealing its research. There had been many claimed leaks about such programmes, with exotic names such as Sunstreak and Star Gate, but this is the first admission by the intelligence community."

<snip>

"Many successful experiments were also conducted at SAIC. One found that when subjects were being unknowingly observed on video, galvanic skin response increased. (Interestingly, the response was much greater if the subject was observed by a person of the opposite sex!) In another experiment subjects tried to guess one of a set of four images looked at by a viewer. The average "hit" rate was well over 30%, when chance would have given 25%."

http://www.innerpotential.org/pages/article/spooks.html

[alfredo]

142. Kick

All the way to the top

[JohnOneillsMemory]

144. SAIC site touts abiliy to control chaos.

The SAIC homepage refers to Chaos Theory in physics as one of their cutting edge technology strengths but read the opening paragraph on the topic and you'll wonder if what we at DU smell is being inferred or implied:

"Controlling Chaos
A major new development in ideas for controlling chaos involves applying tiny disturbances to a chaotic system. Chaotic systems have the potential to behave in many different ways. If disturbances are applied at just the right time, the system can be made to exhibit one of its regular or more predictable behaviors."

I think I know what kind of disturbances they specialize in.

[Eloriel]

148. Of course!

And they do it very well, don't they? Predictable behaviors for sure.

Eloriel

[scarletwoman]

149. So, they "apply disturbances" to order outcomes.

That pretty much spells it out...

Our corporate-feudal lords are so confident and arrogant they actually publish what they're up to, knowing full well that the ignorant, illeducated, permanently distracted, mind-controlled "consumer" masses won't have a clue about what's going on -- and furthermore, don't want to know.

sw

[shance]

151. Yesterday I was comparing the recall to

Republicans shaking up (or swinging a bat) at a hornets nest. Guess we know now its true!


All these things to keep us scurrying around in reaction to them.

[scarletwoman]

156. It means we have to deploy strategically.

Focus like a laser on key issues and ORGANIZE.

sw

[DagmarK]

152. Solution: MAJOR protest outside Maryland Gov's Mansion.......

And not one day.....

Basically.....get 1000s of people to protest the use of SAIC starting tomorrow and not ending until the Maryland Gov gets real.

You are right, Bev. The final results that are clearly already written up will be impossible to debunk.

We have to have SAIC removed from this project.

The positive thing is that the GOV has gone on the record saying that it is imperative for the preservation of democracy that the machines be checked out. We hold him to it....but we make him get REAL!!!

This should be a public test with experts from all over the place, I guess. The Johns Hopkins guys.....the Spillane group...even through in a few SAIC folks...and whatever engineering groups are out there.

A totally open inspection of the systems.

But to get that......it will take a helluva lot of noise and racket.........

I have to hand it to Rove, Rummy, and Cheney -- this was a smooth propogandic move.....really smooth. They probably call it: Operation put-ee to bed-ee!

[scarletwoman]

157. Not a "solution" -- but a good TACTIC.

It's ONE front to cover -- and an excellent one too! Pulling it off will take LOTS of educating and organizing. Are you in Maryland? (I'm far away in Minnesota)

sw

[DagmarK]

161. Protesting THE decision maker (MD Gov) Is more than a tactic........

Look at this way......

THE GOV is ONE PERSON. One guy...........

Instead of trying to convince the entirety of the United States of America (which we should try to do.....) that SAIC is an appropriate choice to test the machines....... WE FOCUS ALL OF THIS ON ONE GUY.....the final decision maker.

I don't care who has bought him off........5000 people who won't go home until he gets honest...... I am telling you guys, it will work. We only have to pressure/convince ONE PERSON on this earth to change his mind about using SAIC.

ONE PERSON.............

No matter what the hell the gov decides.....no matter what...he can keep SAIC on it..and no matter what SAIC 'concludes', the FIRE associated with this GOV's reckless use of conflict-laden subcontractor WILL defuse the SAIC conclusion.

but I am thinking......these fucking thugs in office: the one thing they CAN'T TAKE is public grilling. They can't take it. It's their weak spot.


I live in friggin Oregon...and I will drive to Maryland TOMORROW! For this......I would do it.

[shance]

166. I think what Scarlet was saying (if I may*)

was that the Maryland protest is one part of a larger part of things and events that need to take place.

And it is a great idea. AND it needs to happen pretty quickly. Unfortunately I live in California.** But like SW said, there are alot of things to look at doing.

[DagmarK]

164. Folks, this IS our Boston Tea Party...........it really, really, really IS

I read about this earlier today and I just went numb.........

We either stand up now......or we can forget it........

[lazarus]

154. One question

Are there any companies out there with the resources and reputation to do this sort of report that don't have contracts with the military or the government? What are the options?

[scarletwoman]

159. Why not academics? Why not civilian science organizations?

Why not some unemployed computer techs? Why does it need to be a "company"?

sw

[lazarus]

167. Well

Unemployed computer techs will likely either be dismissed for being unemployed or, at some point in their lives, will have worked for a company that had some links to some evil company somewhere.

Which university would you have in mind to take this on?

[BevHarris]

170. Those selected below are from the list of the top-rated computer science

schools. A select panel from each, and you must add qualified Windows hackers, who work in teams and are pretty impressive (and some groups are very well known.) Unfortunately, most academics do not know much about Windows, the platform on which Diebold built its voting system, and the platform it made significant rewrites to in order to ... do exactly what?

This remains to be exposed. You cannot make changes to the Windows operating system, according to FEC regulations, unless you disclose it and have your changes tested. According to Doug Jones, on the Iowa Board of Examiners, they said they used Windows as is, "off the shelf." Yet they made significant changes in it. This cannot be considered "accidental" or "a flaw" but instead is deliberate, and the purpose of those changes can only be evaluated in that context.

Bev

[DagmarK]

175. Heck, if I were in Seattle...I would march right over to MicroSoft......

and sit in the waiting room until Bill Gates became willing to talk to me. (that's if I understood this stuff well enough to discuss it).

And I would give him the biggest pitch of his life:

1. what is democracy? (defined by free elections, primarily)

2. what is HIS duty in regard to democracy if his product that has reaped him billions of dollars is being used.

3. Explain the the flaws to him

4. And PLEAD with him to do the right thing (for HIM to arrange a panel of academics and his trouble-shooting/hacking prevention teams to go over these machines at NO COST TO THE PEOPLE).

5. HIS ACE in the hole -- if he really wants his product to be part of this billion dollar business......then it is incumbent upon him to make damn sure it works like it's supposed to. If it does.......then he gets to make billions.

This is a guy who was a pimply-faced computer nerd in the 70s working out of a garage in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

And for ADDED benefit, I would find his liberal father and take him with me to the meeting!

That's what I would do. Something really outside the box......(outside the black box!)

On second thought: I would have BEV, Dillane, Mercurio, and the Hopkins dudes march right into Bill Gates' office.

[scarletwoman]

172. Why not a panel composed of researchers from several Universities?

Surely there are computer science departments of sufficient prestige at more than one University.

I'm not the one to solve this, I merely wanted to put the question out there. Who funds whom, who's connected to what -- there will be entanglements no matter who's involved. Therefore, it seems to me, that one would hope to see the appraisel made by as wide-ranging a group as possible.

Just my .02...

sw

[stickdog]

224. Yeah, open source guru-geeks are pure evil.

And so are college CPS professors.

They are generally much less trustworthy and have far greater conflicts of interest than SAIC, the ultimate insider mil/intel giant.

Again, what world do you live in?

[BevHarris]

168. Lazarus: Your answer: M.I.T. Stanford. UC Berkeley. Carnegie Mellon

University of Illinois Urbana/Champaign. Columbia University.

Voting is PUBLIC domain and should be evaluated by an independent panel of scientists who represent academia. Add to these, experts from three or four of the top hacking groups -- these are groups who practice getting in and out of systems using remote access, and especially delight in bypassing Microsoft Windows.

A consortium that combines the best of academia and phreaking, both of whom have reputations they actually care about.

The study should be publicly available and widely reported.

But then, I suppose you may have been one that said Halliburton deserved the Iraq contracts because they were the only one "big enough."

This is our democracy. Fight for it or say good-bye to it.

Bev

P.S. All this fuss about a simple paper trail. The machines already have printers in them. Do you know how much it will cost the average precinct to put paper in the printer?

$15.

Instead, we are spending millions upon millions to throw away the only real evidence trail.

[lazarus]

180. Interesting

I ask a question, and suddenly I'm a Halliburton shill? If you don't want anyone to ask questions, you're in the wrong place.

FWIW, SAIC has connections to MIT, Stanford, and Columbia University. That took me exactly 23 seconds to find out. So, when those universities are used as the pool to select a panel of researchers, are we going to hear about their evil connections to the evil SAIC?

Okay, I just checked. The other three organisations you listed are also connected to SAIC.

The world is frightfully connected. That's the point I'm trying to make. And when you break down into one specific field, you're going to find that all the companies in that field are connected. So, which branch, specifically, of SAIC is involved in this study?

I agree completely that we should have a paper trail. But everything I've read indicates that the machines from Diebold and ES&S would take about $500 to add a printer to.

http://www.msnbc.com/news/946708.asp?0si=-

Adding a ballot-printing option to electronic machines should be an easy fix, but unless Congress mandates that elections have a paper trail, don’t expect local governments to line up behind the idea. ES&S claims it will be able to add a printer to existing machines for $500 each — a 10 percent markup. And a Diebold spokesman told me, “While Diebold is certainly capable of producing receipt printers, we currently have no plans to manufacture receipt printers primarily because our customers haven’t requested it.” HAVA passed without requiring a voter-verified audit trail, and a bill to amend it hasn’t gone far in the House. Unless that changes, if you don’t like next November’s election results, at least you’ll be able to blame the computer.

BTW, Johns Hopkins University has connections to SAIC, as well. Just an FYI.

Edited to add:

The man who led the research at Johns Hopkins University is Aviel Rubin. His webpage is here. You can see in his biography that he used to work at Bellcore, which is now Telcordia

If you go to their website, you will see that Telcordia is "An SAIC company."

[BevHarris]

183. The machines already have printers in them

They print reports when the polls close.

"Adding a printer would cost $500" -- if that's what was said -- is just another in a large pile of lies.

The printers are already in the machines and it would cost about $15 to provide paper per precinct.

Now, you say you are for a paper trail, but I would like to assure you, you are not going to get a paper trail. Not unless you personally start taking some action.

This is a fight that the organizations are not carrying the ball on (in fact, many are fighting against a paper trail).

The issue with having universities do the study has much to do with academic principles -- still, most academics are interested in the truth.

I am vehemently opposed to selling off the public commons. By assigning things like analysis of the security of our vote to a private entity, we are privatizing a function that should absolutely be public.

In fact, the whole thing should be public: The source code should be public, the viewing of the vote-counting should be public, and the scrutiny of the voting machine program should be a public process.

Bev

[lazarus]

186. That's what was said

I included a link and a quote. Do you have anything to support your assertion that the printers are already included?

What you don't seem to understand is that the people at the universities probably worked at, or will work at, SAIC or a subsidiary. Just as Avi Rubin did. Many of the grad students will be interning at SAIC. SAIC will be involved in the university computer science departments.

And you don't know what action I, personally, may or may not be taking in this issue.

[jimmynochad]

188. The printer issue and Avi's interests

Avi is an adviser to a competitor to Diebold. That makes his motives very fishy to me. I say, to make it fair, one uses a double blind analysis of the codes and compare answers. I personally have nothing against defense contractors. They are after all white collar welfare.

To add a printer to a DRE machine that would provide a real-time voter verifiable paper audit trail would cost about $300 in large volume. The tiny thermal printers that are in the current Diebold machines are not good enough to print out every vote. Anyone see a Cook County ballot with all of those judges? It is over 3 feet by 4 inch roll. The voter must be able to see the paper and not touch it so all of the talked about misconceptions about vote buying, etc. go away. Plus if you talk to enough people, they want to be able to print out multiple records so that if you made a mistake on the first printout, you can print another one out. Also, you have to print the record out in foreign language for voters that do not have the language. You also have to read the paper back to blind voters so you have to license the speech engine.

I do not know why Diebold and others do not demand the printer since it would mean more money to all? Oh that's right, there are several smaller companies with patents that can bring Diebold to their knees.

[BevHarris]

193. And this is very true. Doing a paper trail right is something that

requires study, and the companies that already have been producing this are ahead of the curve. One of the key things is voter psychology: You want to minimize the number of mistakes on the ballot so you don't have a lot of do-overs, and that takes research and programming to dummy-proof the process.

Here's the thing: If it is too costly to buy Diebold machines with proper programming and printing, buy from Avante or AccuPoll or a company that can do the job right for the same amount of money. Gee. Those companies exist. Why not buy from a reputable vendor?

Why not buy from vendors who have already been working on open source, who have already figured out that if they make a paper trail their machines better be damn accurate, who already have tested systems that minimize voter do-overs on the ballot?

It's really pretty straightforward, isn't it?

[BevHarris]

190. Do I have anything to support my assertion?

Yes. Remember the 40,000 files? The ones with all the specs? The manuals? The parts list? The instructions to technicians setting up the system?

All of the above. The machines have printers already in them. They use thermal paper, which is even cheaper than reams of paper for $2.50 a ream.

It is true I don't know what action you are taking in the issue.

Look, at this point it is time to take the evaluation into the public domain, don't you think? I mean, the files have been released and, from what I hear, were downloaded by a few thousand researchers, why not just open the project up full tilt and let the public evaluate it, with awards for those who can produce the most informative and accurate results?

[lazarus]

195. Okay

I agree, let's open it up. I haven't said a single thing that would dispute that. I'd like you to point out anything I've said that could give you that impression.

And I guess I'll just take your word on it about the printers being already installed. It seems a rather clumsy lie on their part, since anybody could just look at one of the machines and see the printer, right?

So, are you at all upset that Avi and the Johns Hopkins research crew are SAIC folks? Does that change in any way their research results? That's been my point all along, this demonisation of SAIC and anybody who is at all tainted by being associated with them is a bit ridiculous given the nature of the industry.

[BevHarris]

205. Answers:

And I guess I'll just take your word on it about the printers being already installed. It seems a rather clumsy lie on their part, since anybody could just look at one of the machines and see the printer, right?

They have a pattern of clumsy lying. Here is the voting machine setup used in Georgia, showing the printer:



They also indicated that "a file" was left "by accident" on an ftp site. They failed to mention it was 40,000 files, about 19,000 of which were source code which had been put there over a period of six years. And they said the ftp site was "old" and not used for downloading. Let's visit their User Manual:




And they said their machines don't hook up to the Internet (hmm; why do you have your tech set up Cute ftp if there is no Internet hookup...). And Dr. Brit Williams said the machines don't connect to any communications mechanism -- Let's take a look at their presentation to the state of Georgia:



And they said that the source code was never used in any election but:

FEC/NASED official certified versions: 4.0.11 and 4.3
Source code version numbers include: 4.0.11 and 4.3


So, are you at all upset that Avi and the Johns Hopkins research crew are SAIC folks?

In Avi Rubin's case, he did not work for one of the defense contractors, the entities with the clearest conflict of interest in this. His relationship to VoteHere is troubling, and if he had a relationship to the voting entities with SAIC (he didn't) that would also be troubling.

[lazarus]

214. And that's the printer

That elsewhere in this thread was pointed out to be insufficient for the purposes of a paper trail, right?

The point with Avi, et al., was simply to point out how a connection to SAIC is not an automatic sign of membership in the BFEE. That's all.

[DEMActivist]

215. It's a receipt printer....

Just like you get at WalMart and the grocery store. In fact, these printers are widely used for POS systems.

As for Avi Rubin and his association with VoteHere, if we tried to defend him, we'd be attacked for that as well. No one is saying there's anything WRONG with the association, just pointing it out.

The Avi Rubin situation is one we'd get slammed for no matter what we had to say about it. It is, however, beside the point. He was one of MANY reviewers from Hopkins and Rice. Moot point - many in academia and the scientific community have also looked at this software are support the Hopkins conclusions. Avi Rubin is only one of many.

[lazarus]

217. And they're all associated

With universities that are associates with the evil SAIC. That's the point.

BTW, that thermal paper is useless for the sort of paper trail you want. If you leave it on your dashboard, it turns black. Heck, if you put it in your pocket it turns black. If it's not treated perfectly, it fades rapidly. Not really what you want. You though chads were bad? Try figuring out thermal paper that's been overhandled some time.

[DEMActivist]

218. Printer specs

Citizen LINE THERMAL PRINTER MECHANISM
MODEL MLT-289

1.1 Features
(1) Compact, light-weight design
(2) Platen Release Lever for improved operability
(3) High printing speed: 500 lines/sec. max.
(4) High resolution: 8 dots/mm
(5) Long operating life print head
(6) Head drive: Single 5V supply or 2 Lithium-ion batteries
(7) Simple, reliable mechanism design

[stickdog]

227. Get a clue. Their conclusions are so PAINFULLY OBVIOUSLY

correct to anyone with an advanced programming background that they'd be laughed out of their own undergraduate classrooms if they tried to lie about this.

On the other hand, SAIC already rubberstamped this crap!!!

[RedEagle]

230. There are Thermal Printers and There are Thermal Printers

If you research thermal printers, you will find that there are different grades, sizes of paper, etc.

Yes, the thermal print you're used to does fade.

You get 7-year non-fading. Yes, it exists, I've researched this.

Paper ballots are not going to be left around subject to sunlight. There's an obvious problem with that, like, what are they doing out of the ballot box?

Apparently, Diebold did just enough to make specs for a permanent paper record and no more.

I've heard that Diebold's problem with much more of a printer then they have is that their platform won't support it.

We just had a demonstration of a Sequoia machine. No, the printer was not obvious.

(And at a conservative 25 minutes, the blind person doing the demo vote still had not completed their vote and I've heard other tales of that kind of time, so the fact that they get to vote independently may just be some of the worst PR out there. Some of them may just give up. Not all systems use Sequoia's method, thank goodness)

If Sequoia has to outrig a printer, hey, they use thermal paper too, and it STAYS ON THE ROLL, it is not cut off into individual ballots. Yet, they claim you cannot make a sequential ID ....

Here's another problem for the big voting companies. Most appear to be behind the curve on the 2002 requirements. Companies like Accupoll and Avante have designed their machines to meet those requirements and will just turn around and recertify. They don't have to redesign to met the specs. States that are buying these machies at 1990 requirements, better be getting upgrades for free, which will have to be certified anyway, because in 2006, all of them will have to meet 2002 specs, no grandfathering. I'd say that any state that purchases these machines right now is not doing due diligence, to say the least.

Not only do they want to avoid an audit trail, they also want to avoid giving any of the market to the new companies. Although given what they spend to influence officials, keeping a legit audit trail at bay seems to be the primary concern.

[stickdog]

226. Dude, what company could possibly be LESS trustworthy

and MORE rife with conflicts of interest in this issue than SAIC other than Diebold itself?

[shance]

202. No we dont Lazarus, but you seem more belligerent than helpful

Frankly.

So are you saying that this is all for naught? If not, whats your overall point?

Why keep hassling Bev?

[lazarus]

204. Hassling? Belligerent?

I asked a simple question, and was accused of being a shill for Halliburton and the Bush admin. And I'm being belligerent?

My point, as I've stated, is simply that this paranoia about SAIC is rather overblown. Virtually anybody qualified to analyse this situation is going to be either directly or indirectly affiliated with SAIC. That's a simple fact.

What's happening here is different from our talk about Carlysle Group or Halliburton. There, we're claiming that the leadership of those companies is involved in unsavory things. Here, accusations are being made that, because some elements of the company are affiliated with the government, individuals working for the company will be willing to falsify data. That's a big jump. Literally hundreds of thousands of people work for SAIC. Over 52 affiliates in just the communications and computer science field, not counting medical and biological research.

Are you honestly claiming that all of these people are corrupt? Because that's what I'm seeing on this thread. Quite likely, many DUers work for SAIC, either directly or indirectly, even if they don't know it, especially since so many DUers work in the computer or communications fields. I doubt they're corrupt. Just as I doubt the vast majority of the workers for SAIC are corrupt. A few may be, indeed, probably are, depending on the contract.

Finally, I can't think of anything more helpful than asking questions. Because the questions asked out there in the real world are going to be a lot harsher than the questions asked here.

[shance]

206. You may want to do some research before you begin making

blanket assumptions as well Lazarus.

All individuals here are doing are attempting to do is what is right in protecting Americans from even further voter fraud.

Why you appear to be defending or siding with those who appear to be doing what they can to keep something as simple as a separate paper ballot apart from the voting machine would lead me to believe it is you who lack any point of trying to look at this objectively. Of course there are people who work for SAIC that have nothing to do with alot of what has been published as fact, and for you to attempt to throw everyone in one basket is an overstatement and overreach.

Let me ask you quite simply - do you want a Democracy Lazarus?

Other than that, theres nothing more to say.

[lazarus]

216. LOL

No, of course I don't want a democracy. That's why I've volunteered to be a moderator on Democratic Republic.

Now, what proof do you have that SAIC is trying to prevent a paper trail from occurring? That's been my point this entire thread. As soon as SAIC was mentioned, somebody found out that some elements of the company do military contracts, and suddenly the entire 400,000+ work force is called into question.

I'm not defending people who commit voter fraud. I'm defending hundreds of thousands of people who have nothing to do with this.

So what blanket assumptions have I made? Nobody's made any distinctions about SAIC before your comment. It's just "SAIC is the ol' debbil" sort of talk. They're part of Homeland Security, I've seen. We may as well give up right now, I've seen. SAIC = the Pentagon, I've seen.

I'm just trying to get y'all to ratchet down the hype a bit, because you're running the risk of alienating people who should be your allies.

So, let me as you quite simply: What evidence is there that SAIC is trying to cover this whole thing up? Because that's the assertion you've made.

Heck, I can't even get anyone to tell me what specific division is involved. So I went looking myself. It's not one of the military divisions, from all appearances, but rather one of the civilian divisions. Involved in security. You do know that SAIC is a pioneer in computer encryption and security, right?

[stickdog]

228. Are you blind or just completely ignorant of this issue?

SAIC's Vern Williams was the Security Task Group Leader of IEEE-1583

http://grouper.ieee.org/groups/scc38/1583/

http://grouper.ieee.org/groups/scc38/1583/documents_-_p1583/P1583%20-%20Membership%20List%207-25-2003.xls

Also, SAIC Senior VP Charley Zumba is listed as an "interested party."

That means SAIC, acting as the HEAD of the SECURITY task group, ALREADY RUBBERSTAMPED WOEFULLY INADEQUATE AND INSECURE VOTING MACHINE METHODS AND PROCEDURES!

Got it now?

[lazarus]

241. Rubberstamped

And you have evidence that it was a rubberstamping? Or just assume so, since it's a person who also works for the evil SAIC who was in charge of the Security task group?

What it means is that SAIC is interested. They're also interested in weather satellite imagery. Suppose the Bush people are controlling our weather now, too?

Do you know what SAIC does? How they started? What their origin is? There's a reason they're involved in all this.

[gristy]

187. Anytime someone calls this piece of paper a "receipt"

?While Diebold is certainly capable of producing receipt printers, we currently have no plans to manufacture receipt printers primarily because our customers haven?t requested it.?

I want to scream.

A "receipt" you take home with you.
A "paper ballot" you put in a ballot box.

I noticed tonight that even Rush Holt calls this damn piece of paper a receipt.

As long as the * cabal can get a sufficient number of people to think of this piece of paper as a "receipt", they are assured that a certain % of voters will walk out of their polling place with it (hell, we all know that's what you do with receipts). It will then be impossible to validate (or invalidate) the electronic totals because the so-called "paper trail" will be incomplete.

And on top of that, rest assured, no state committed to DRE is going to have a chance in hell to count all those damn paper "receipts". Rush Holt's bill does not appear to address the equipment requirements to count these "receipts" in any way at all. States are going to be stuck with piles of paper, the losers (dems) are going to be screaming, and there will be no recount.

Mark my words.

[jimmynochad]

189. You say receipt, I say Record let's call this whole thing instant run-off

To recount paper, have a bar code printed on the paper for first level scanning, then for second level use OCR scanning.

Make the recounter put up money to recount, if they have one vote changed, give them the money back.

[gristy]

199. no, I don't think so.

How does the voter verify a friggin bar code?

If the printed paper ballots are of standardized human-readable format, an optical scanner will have no trouble reading it. Of course, they're already doing that (with paper ballots filled out by hand) in many states.

I must say, though, even David Dill thought (thinks?) bar codes should go on the paper receipt/ballot. I've told him my opinion, too. So you're in good company.

[stickdog]

225. Dude, most "free agent" gurus has reputations within the geek

community that they care about.

Only in the bizarro world of a mil/intel graft processing house like SAIC will your find a crew with the "right credentials" sleazy enough to contradict painfully obvious IT reality in full public view.

[Eloriel]

194. Please use that PS of yours in your next fax blast

It's pretty darned powerful.

Eloriel

[stickdog]

223. What world do you live in?

In my world, the average alphageek programmer has more than enough expertise to easily demonstrate to his informed peers that, without an auditable paper trail, these voting machines might as well be slot machines.

But I see your point in that I can't think of any companies that don't have massive contracts with the military or the government that would risk their reputations to rubber stamp the load of crap fraud-made-easy voting systems that are being foisted on us.

[hunter]

158. DU'ers save this thread...

So you can show it to your grandkids someday and say "I was there."

And until then you will be covering some mighty fine asses!

Maryland just picked exactly the WRONG people to evaluate the Diebold machines.

I've got to sleep on this, but hot damn, it is interesting, a lot more interesting than Arnold saying "yes."



:kick:

[grasswire]

162. from what I saw tonight...

...it appears that SAIC has been the provider of the shadow intelligence for Office of Special Plans. They serve Rummy.

[RedEagle]

177. Judicial Watch?

Lots of ideas here-

What about Judicial Watch? They seem to like to go after Cheney interests.

Get on Senator and Representatives NOW to intervene. It is entirely inappropriate for an organization with:
Military involvement
Conflicts of interest
VoteHere, which stands to win by partnering with Sequoia and
could win by "helping" Diebold
Any connections, however circular, to people about to run for election, like Cheney

I wouldn't ask Rubin and Hopkins to do the analysis again. I think more credibility would be gained from people like Rivest, Schneier, those types. Diebold could always cry that, of course, Hopkins had to defend their original findings. If those findings are repeated by other people, they are dead in the water.

What about contacting the national organization of Governor's? Could we get them to put some pressure on Maryland's governor.

This reeks so bad I don't see how they can defend it. They can ignore it, but not defend it.

Reminds me of the Cheney energy task force.

Wouldn't it take a third party to evaluate the evalutations?

What about that international voting rights group, from Helsinki, I think. Could they weigh in on this?

There is a grass roots campaign here, about "Who do you want to evaluate your voting system- corporate military/industrial special interests, or computer guys?" Ads in newspapers, inserts?

[DagmarK]

163. WAXMAN and BYRD ......these are our congressional contacts!

I think.

[Robbien]

169. Keep Ron Paul in mind

After that Neoconned speech, I believe the man may be willing to participate.

[Zan_of_Texas]

171. a question

How many people in the House and Senate know they were "elected" by bogus election procedures?

I would guess some. Just a guess. And, in all likelihood, not just Rs. Obviously, they aren't likely to be a lot of help.

But, some congressfolks have definitely stuck their necks out during this regime.

Byrd. Waxman. Rush Holt-NJ Russ Feingold-WI. Bernie Sanders-VT. Patty Murray-WA. Sheila Jackson-Lee-TX Lloyd Doggett-TX Carl Levin-MI

What about the ones who lost at the hands of voting machines? Or, even in MN -- Mondale? Even though it might not be ideal for them to carry this flag (could be called "poor losers"), maybe if someone has contacts with those who were ousted by the mid-terms, they could help with ideas for who to contact.

[RedEagle]

182. Democratic candidates

I've always thought, if we could get them ALL to come out about this issue, across the board, it would make a big impact.

They've got to know they can't win if the machines are rigged.

The point is to win, isn't it? Or did I miss something in the last 20 years?

Everyone except maybe Lieberman.

Right now, right away, make it part of their campaign.

[BevHarris]

185. I don't assume that only Republicans benefit from rigged elections

In fact, I'm quite sure that when it comes to taking bribes and allowing elections to be rigged, some Democrats are right there in the mud ruining Democracy for us.

[preciousdove]

192. Dem Kelly beat DFL endorsed Benanav for St Paul Mayor 2002

Kelly had more votes in his district than there were voters. The election was that close, less than 100 votes as I recall, but the cost of the recount and the fact that Kelly was a Democrat abeit a Conservative one made the problem "go away."

The only response I got from email when your story broke in NZ was a call from the head of the Mn DFL Erlandson. I had been up with my grandson all night after he had his 6 month shots and we (he, me and great aunt Darlene) had just gone for a nap in the living room when they called and I could not get my thoughts together to talk to the aide. I asked them to call back but they have not. Since then I was in the hospital with cardiac insufficiency for a few days so have been not moving real fast in action or in thought but it is getting better now.

Guess I will wish and pray that y'all succeed in this but I will keep watching for a chance to jump in again and will try to contact Erlandson again next week when you have had a chance to plot a course in light of this new development.

[shance]

203. Thats probably true, but I would think the ratio would be much

wider with Republicans over Dems.

[DEMActivist]

191. First hand experience in Georgia

Cathy Cox (D) - Secretary of State won't come near us after repeated requests for meetings. Her Deputy, Michael Barnes, told us in February that her schedule was booked until July and if we needed to deal with this issue, we would have to meet with him.

Mark Taylor (D) - Lt. Governor. I got one reply from his office via email and now they won't even return my calls.

Max Cleland (D) - defeated Senator from Georgia. He won't even return emails from Mark Crispin Miller on this subject.

Roy Barnes (D) - defeated Governor from Georgia. Hung up the phone on me when I told him about Rob of rob-georgia. "Thank you for letting me know." CLICK

Tom Murphy (D) - defeated Speaker of the State House of Georgia. Longest sitting state house speaker in history (34 years) defeated by these machines. The only Democrat in the entire state who tried to help us get a meeting with Cathy Cox. See the first paragraph above - that was their reply to Speaker Murphy's request for her to meet with us.

Various current sitting state Senators and Congressmen - won't even return our calls.

Georgia Democratic party headquarters - "call the Secretary of State's office with these questions."

The Georgia ACLU - their reply was "where's the harm?"

The Democrats are no help here. In fact, many actions point to a concerted effort to halt our efforts to uncover this fraud.

[Eloriel]

196. Small correction

Not GA ACLU but the Voting Rights Project of the (National) ACLU. GA ACLU would have merely passed us right back to the Voting Rights Project, which is precisely what the National ACLU did. And that guy -- I'll name him: Lachlin McDonald -- was useless, or worse.

And a clarification: The "Where's the harm" question was about trying to pin down the legal "harm." Who's harmed and by how much (in dollars) so damages could be assessed. Millions of GA voters not having a safe, secure and clean election, and spending $54 million for it, isn't enough "harm" for the law, apparently.

The Voting Rights Project also said it would be too expensive -- too many expert witnesses needed, yada yada.

Eloriel

[grasswire]

197. what about Jimmy Carter?

Has anyone sent him anything about this mess?

[DEMActivist]

200. Yes, early on...and his office was supportive, but...

One of the problems with The Carter Center is this - their mandate regarding elections is for international elections only.

They felt that without an "international hook" they would be legally prevented from intervening in domestic elections.

I suspect that concern may be tossed aside now.

[DagmarK]

211. Re Carter: then FINE, then we we go through the UN to get to Carter.......

Honestly, that was his primary weakness as president -- he just thought he could blow off the US congress. Everyone has their tragic greek flaw, and when it comes to Carter it IS issues directly and solely relating to the US people. It's confounding.

Fine. We go through Kofi Anna and the election oversight committee to get to Carter............

[DEMActivist]

213. See this page...

http://www.blackboxvoting.org/petition.htm

We'll deliver the letter to President Carter. I'm sure he will listen to the evidence and become involved now.

[moondust]

198. I'd still like to see a video

of some hackers performing tricks on the voting machines. That would seem to trump anybody's pseudo-investigation. The professors at Johns Hopkins would surely have the tools to put together a simulation of a fraudulent election. Hell, make a movie!

[DagmarK]

212. Problem with that is........Diebold, MD claiming that what J. Hopkins

Looked at wasn't necessarily what was used in the 2002 elections. The MD gov's position is GOLDEN (he says the hardware and s/w WAS used in MD, GA and FLA.) and we need to test those machines. He (and friends) know it.....so they are turning it over to SAIC: the wolves watching the sheep. Which is why this thread is 200* posts long............

[Robbien]

220. The WashPo has the story on Erlich's request for inquiry

The article is approximately the same as reported in this thread, but it had this interesting additional paragraph

Montgomery County Council member Howard A. Denis (R-Potomac-Bethesda) is so upset that he is calling for a meeting of the Hopkins scientists, state election officials and the council. If he's not satisfied, he said he will consider asking the state for a waiver, to take the Diebold machines that were used in the county's 2002 election out of circulation. "I don't want a situation where some 15-year-old kid could elect Ben Affleck to county executive," Denis said. "I'm very concerned about this. It goes to the heart of the integrity of our elections."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A25673-2003Aug6.html

[glitch]

238. it's interesting that they are concerned with external hackers

and not the companies themselves. If anything I imagine SAIC will recommend making the boxes even blacker, rather than going for the accountability of open source.

[ParanoidPat]

239. Who cares what they ask for.....

......let your representatives know what you want! :evilgrin:
Just click here and scroll down to your state! :)

[preciousdove]

229. kick

:kick:

[loudsue]

234. I just found this thread by searching Bev's name...

through the DU "search" function. I hadn't seen any of Bev's work for a while, and was starting to wonder if DU had completely gone over to the side of the trolls.

Thank gawd I searched! What a thread!!

Kicking it for the other cubies, like me, who have had their heads buried, doing the work of 5 or 10 people since Corporate Rule took over in what was formerly America.

Thanks DUers for fighting this fight!! We'll keep hounding our congresscritters until they holler "uncle".

:kick::kick::kick::kick::kick::kick::kick::kick::kick::kick::kick:

[hedda_foil]

235. Badabump Badaboom!

Keeping the thread kicked for democracy.

[glitch]

236. if you like mp3s there is an excellent talk on Unwelcome Guests

radio show at http://www.radio4all.net/proginfo.php?id=7459

UG intro:
Free and fair elections are the basis for America's claim to democracy. Our electoral process is manipulated in a variety of ways that result in a government that arguably fails to reflect the needs of most of us. Reformers who seek to redress this state of affairs hang their hopes on somehow being able to wrest elections back from the corporate money stream. Now, even the slender hope of changing the country's direction through the ballot box could be extinguished by the machine that records your vote, or more to the point, doesn't record your vote.

During the tense months of wrangling that follwed the 2000 elextion, the corporate press steered clear of the allegations that election fraud was committed by the Bush campaign and focussed instead on the mechanics of voting equipment, hanging chads and pregnant chads. Congress, taking a cue from the press, instead of focussing on the misconduct of officails from the lowest level to the people on the top court, decided to foreveer vanquish the hanging chad by drafting a piece of legislation called The Help America Vote Act, HAVA that would fund the installation of high- tech touch screen voting machines across the nation. These machines are touted as cost effective and labor saving, as well as being a boon to blind people or those who would prefer a ballot in a language other than English.

But computer scientists are raising the alarm that these voting machines' most salient feature is the ease with which elections could be rigged and the difficulity of detecting tamperingr before or after the fact.

In the first hour computer scientist Barbara Simons explains the dangers of computerised voting.

[ParanoidPat]

237. Thanks for posting that....

.....great link! :evilgrin: :thumbsup:

[angka]

240. this is as bad as kissinger being appointed

to head the 9/11 probe. only difference is there's no smoking hole to remind us of this tragedy. only a metaphorical one, where our democracy used to be.

the truth is the only weapon left.