Reply #34: Have you read what Chuck Herrin says about Clint Curtis? Here:

[Amaryllis]

Basically, he says that whether it happened or not is not the important thing; the fact that it COULD have happened should be of major concern to all.


http://www.chuckherrin.com/hackthevoteFAQ.htm

Q: Chuck:
1. This affidavit is circulating on the web today. This guy claims he wrote the software that was used to hack (at least) the Florida vote. I'm enclosing the URL for his sworn affidavit for you to review. You would know if what he says he wrote is possible or if this guy is some kind of a nutcase.

2. Bev Harris (Black Box Voting) is dubious; is it ego talking? I don't believe Curtis said he put the code on/in the machines, only that he gave the code to Feeney. But I'll pass along her comments, some of which are logical questions to ask.

A: 1) What he's written sounds entirely plausible. Diebold is known for using hidden fields in their touch screens, and it is referenced in their field guides ( I remember a section about how to cancel a vote). It would be VERY simple to design a program just like what this guy is saying - that's the whole basis for my arguing against using computers in voting. Since the certification process is a joke and no real source code review is done, what he's saying sounds technically plausible to me.
Whether it's true or not, I don't know, but it's technically quite possible.

(By the way - he never said he wrote software that was used to Hack the Florida vote - he said he wrote a prototype. Read it closely....)

2) Hi - Please don't get me wrong: I'm dubious, too. Please don't interpret my saying that it was plausible to mean that I think he's the "smoking gun" - I mean that it is entirely plausible for a developer to write backdoor software to be placed inside voting systems. Just like you said, I don't remember him saying he had ever actually installed the software or even mentioning vendors, just that he had written something designed to switch votes.

In answer to your original question - "You would know if what he says he wrote is possible or if this guy is some kind of a nutcase" - like I said, it's technically possible, but I don't know if it's true.

It's probably not the way I would have done it, but like I say on my site, if I were an attacker I don't think that I would target the touchscreens at all since that's where I know people are going to look. That doesn't mean it wasn't done.

Many of Bev's points below are valid. But, like you said, I don't recall him saying that he placed the software in the machines, only that he wrote a VB program to flip votes. That part is entirely possible, but may be one of the "grains of truth" Bev mentions below.

I'll be (and I'm sure you will be) very interested to see how this plays out. I don't think it's Bev's ego talking - I think it's a healthy skepticism. Especially about the Qui Tam information - she would know more about that than I would.

There's a lot of disinformation being generated out there about this issue, a lot of sketchy posts on blogs, etc that look like they're designed to throw people off and keep them chasing their tails. Anything that does eventually "blow the lid off" is going to be examined and re-examined, and millions will be spent trying to discredit it, so it really needs to be bulletproof before any MSM reporters will stake their reputations on it.

Good answers to Bev's questions would be a great start, and I'm curious to see what happens.

(One last note - Just because "I wouldn't do it that way" doesn't mean that someone else wouldn't have. If I were Nixon, I wouldn't have kept the tapes. If I were an Enron exec, I would have done a Helluva lot of things differently. If I were Mondale, I wouldn't have made campaign promises to raise taxes. If I were Diebold, I wouldn't have written such sloppy software and left an FTP server open to the world. If I were an Elections Official in Volusia County, I wouldn't have left tapes in the trash on the porch. If I were Mr. Feeney, I wouldn't be a paid lobbyist while in office. If I were the Ohio Secretary of State, I wouldn't Co-Chair the Bush-Cheney campaign. The list goes on.... Just because something's a dumb-ass idea doesn't mean someone who should've known better wouldn't do it. The questions are all worth asking - don't just believe it on blind faith - but don't give people too much credit, either. In hacking investigations and in audit work, I've found that mysteries can often be solved when Human Stupidity is given its proper consideration. Very often, the answer to "He wouldn't be that stupid, would he?" winds up being "Oh, yeah. I guess he was."