Jim's DIEBOLD PAGE

(or: "how to hack an election"!)

jmarch@prodigy.net


MAJOR UPDATE 11/20/04:

VIDEO OF THE "GEMS HACK" AVAILABLE!

This is similar to the "Dean Demo" still images
published as item 3 in the 11/7 update - but in
full-motion video with audio commentary track.
15.5 minutes running time, 158megs(!) - yes, it
has to be that big for 800x600 video.
Right now it's PC-compatible, probably Linux
too, Mac support...coming.  EMail me for updates.

Full download instructions and links here.


UPDATES 11/7/04:

At present, the two biggest areas of "movement" are:

1) The BlackBoxVoting.org effort to do Public Records Act/FOIA queries for elections data across the nation.  This is NOT about "Kerry WON, dammit!", but rather an effort to perform a proper audit of what actually happened - in all races, and across all types of electronic voting machines.  News reports of "issues" will be combined with eyewitness reports and the public records on machine trouble ticket issues, audit logs, vote database files (GEMS ".MDB" files or their ES&S/Sequoia/etc. equivelents.  See also:

                      http://www.blackboxvoting.org/#foia - and anything connected with the BBV.org "Help America Audit" effort.

2) The Qui Tam/"Whistleblower" lawsuit in California: Bev Harris and I are co-plaintiffs in a lawsuit designed to get Alameda County California a refund on their Diebold gear.  California Attorney General Bill Lockyer has "joined in" this suit, as has the Alameda County attorney's office (county counsel).  Other counties can join in if they want.  Yes, Bev and I could end up splitting a "bounty" on the refund but the real issue here is that while Diebold has violated California Elections Law in marketing utter junk, electronic voting law is new, doesn't have much court precident and is basically "weak".  The laws on ripping off the gov't on contracts is VERY well established and dates back at least to General Washington complaining about a bad batch of muskets.  (Heck, it probably dates to some barbarian king 4,000 years ago complaining about junk flint arrowheads.)  Nailing Diebold for government contract fraud is akin to nailing Al Capone for tax evasion...but the latter worked.  Expect updates on this soon; Diebold will NOT want to do discovery and that's coming up quick unless there's a settlement.

3) More direct data on what's really wrong with GEMS is here - complete with detailed screenshots.  High explosives.

4) It's fair to ask "HOW DO WE FIX THIS!?!" - a very brief essay on where the electronic voting reform movement needs to go.


FLASH 9/19/03: Diebold's lawyers filed a cease'n'desist

against my ISP, requesting that this page be TAKEN DOWN!

www.equalccw.com/liebold.html


Late News 11/03/03: I have a third set of comments to the California Secretary of State up.  There's also HUGE breaking news from the SecState's office today.

Late news 10/24/03: First, my "dieboldtestnotes.html" page is BACK, with the big program/ZIP files fully available for download. Still looking for a permanent home.
Also as of today, Bev Harris' Blackboxvoting.org site is back! The discussion forums there are "ground zero" for public discussion of the Diebold problem and related subjects.
Late News 10/21/03: A group of college kids at Swarthmore are making a full archive of the Diebold internal memos available. I have a variety of excerpts and "best of" collections linked in the yellow table below; specific EMails are cited in my letters to the California Secretary of State and "white papers".
Late news: 9/23/03: Maryland commissioned a study of Diebold's voting software by SAIC, a military contractor/software house. The resulting report is a nightmarish whitewash in that there's not a SINGLE mention that any off-the-shelf copy of the Microsoft Access database eliminates all of the security! And the fraud goes on.

Welcome to a failure of corporate ethics dwarfing Enron and Worldcom.

Introduction:

Basically, Diebold Election Systems have been a bunch of very bad boys (and girls, let's not be sexist!).

They wrote a program to run elections, and didn't bother to tell anybody it can be hacked six ways from Sunday, via security that appears to be deliberately flawed. And then they left copies (plus a pile of various election data files) up on a website and didn't bother to put a password on it.

Latest: they also took steps to evade the Federal Elections Commission software certification/oversight process! See first "white paper" article on Doug Lewis, below right...we finally have smoking-gun proof of crimes.

All of this is based on the reporting of Bev Harris and others. I'm not the leader of this bunch, just one of the diggers.

Build your own Diebold vote-count box!

I'm distributing the actual Diebold code and sample data complete with documentation and test notes - including one set of data that appears to have been stolen from San Luis Obispo County (California) five hours before the polls closed. Complete instructions for downloading and analyzing this stuff can be found here (yes, you can build your OWN vote-count system as used in counties across America, and test it yourself!):

www.equalccw.com/dieboldtestnotes.html

This material is a downloadable equivelent to the "Hack A Vote" CDs mentioned by Bev Harris in the Salon.com article of 9/23/03

HILAROUS ANIMATION :)

www.takebackthemedia.com/voterevolution.html

(OK, so it's a bit unfairly anti-Bush. Oh well.  Still funny as hell, and a good intro to the Diebold scandal.)

LETTERS TO THE CALIFORNIA SECSTATE

These are a good technical introduction to the issue.

This first one is my official comments prior to the meeting of Oct. 9th 2003 (1pm at the SecState's Sacramento HQ):

www.equalccw.com/sscomment.pdf or for HTML click here

The meeting of Oct. 9th was delayed until Oct. 28th; I've submitted follow-up comments dated Oct. 16th at:

www.equalccw.com/sscomments2.pdf or for HTML click here

NEW: A set of comments PLUS a Public Records Act Request to the California Secretary of State dated Nov. 3rd:

www.equalccw.com/sscomments3.pdf or for HTML click here

THE EMAILS!  Diebold's entire internal EMail stash from 1999 to early 2003 has been leaked by an insider. Diebold is playing a game of global wack-a-mole trying to regain control over this damning stuff.

NEW 10/21/03: a FULL ARCHIVE is finally online again, complete with search engine!!!

A good set of excerpts:

www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0309/S00150.htm

http://www.equalccw.com/smokinggun.pdf if you want to see what the most damning of these internal EMails looked like as they originally appeared on Diebold's internal system.

The latest online stash of these things...oh God, they caved in to Diebold's lawyer's latest bluff, so it's down again. It'll be back elsewhere, drop me EMail. There are extensive quotes and citations to them here and here...it's just jaw-dropping.

JIM'S WHITE PAPERS:

These contain our latest theories (with evidence from the EMails to the left!) as to exactly how Diebold insiders could "hack the vote". For a detailed, serious analysis, read these:

REBUTTAL TO DOUG LEWIS of "The Election Center". Lewis appears to be a central figure in the nation's electonic voting infrastructure, but other than his writings in favor of zero-paper-trail systems, we know almost nothing about this guy.

Transcript of a conversation with an Iowa elections official. Mr. Tully appears almost unique in that he's actually interested in information, which is worlds better than most others!

The Infamous Policy Manual from Hell!

www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0309/S00157.htm - Full copy plus the comical highlights of a Diebold internal manual on how to run elections-day procedures, written for the hapless Diebold (Canadian) tech staff. This material was NEVER intended for the public, and in places is drop-dead funny. Wild illegallity and a "corporate culture" that can only be described as "diseased".

www.equalccw.com/ElectionSupportGuide.pdf - same internal manual in it's original, unmodified form complete with corporate logos, fancy formatting and such. If you're going to show a copy to reporters/politicians/etc, use this one as it's clearly genuine.

DIEBOLD SUCKS!!! :)

LINKS:

Finally, all of this is based on the reporting of Bev Harris of WA State. I would highly recommend the following links:

www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0307/S00065.htm - Bev Harris' original report on the grotesque Diebold security flaws.

www.blackboxvoting.com/

www.blackboxvoting.org/ - IT'S BACK!!!  :) And the forums are better than ever, "ground zero" for public discussion of this issue. You can also download the free chapters of Bev Harris' book, which contains SERIOUS high explosives!

NOTE: All Diebold internal manuals, memos programs and data files linked or mentioned here have been confirmed as genuine by the various "cease and desist" nastygrams from Diebold lawyers!

ALAMEDA COUNTY PUBLIC RECORDS ACT

I've also been filing a series of Public Records Act Requests with a nearby Diebold customer, Alameda County (Calif). What follows is a series of links to the entire "exchange" so far between myself and the county:

To view my initial PRAR:

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

To view the county's response to the initial PRAR, see also:

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

My latest follow-up PRAR (dated 8/11/03):

Acrobat PDF version:

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

...and the same in HTML:

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

NEW 9/3/03: Alameda's latest response:

http://www.equalccw.com/alafollowup2.PDF