In other words: A discussion of The Bush Administration
More proof that the Maryland and Georgia votes are all ready decided
Activists Find More E-Vote FlawsAfter Harris met Thompson at the Defcon hacker conference this year, she asked him to examine the GEMS program. He found he could write a five-line script in the Notepad text editor that would change the vote summaries in GEMS without changing the raw precinct data. The auditing log in GEMS wouldn't record the change because it only tracks changes that occur within GEMS, not changes that occur on the computer outside of GEMS.Well that is reasurring, no one will manipulate the vote because is against the law, and it might be hard to do without others noticing it. Feel better now?!?
After writing the script, Thompson saved it as a Visual Basic file (.vbs) and double-clicked it to execute it.
The command happens in the background where no one can see it. To verify that the changes occurred, Thompson could write another script to display the vote data in a message box after the change. Once the scripts finished their work, they would go into the Recycle Bin, where Thompson could delete them.
When Harris demonstrated the vulnerability to officials in California, she opened the GEMS program to show that the votes changed as the script commanded them to.
"You have to know in advance what you want to change," Thompson said, "but it's pretty easy to write a script to find the data that you want to change. If you want Stan Smith to have more votes than he currently has, you write a line of your script that says select everything in the table where candidate equals Stan Smith, and increment the votes. Then you delete the votes from another candidate by the same amount."
Thompson acknowledged that the hack would take an insider with knowledge of the voting system and election procedures and access to GEMS. But this could include technical people working for a county or Diebold employees who sometimes assist technically challenged election officials on election night. It's unlikely that unsavvy election officials or observers would notice or understand the significance of someone writing five lines of code in Notepad.
...
But speaking generally on the vulnerabilities Harris mentions, Diebold spokesman David Bear said by phone that no one would risk manipulating votes in an election because it's against the law and carries a heavy penalty. He also said that election "policies and procedures dictate that no (single) person has access or is in control of a (voting) system," so it would be impossible for anyone to change votes on a machine without others noticing it.
- rob 5:18 PM - [PermaLink] -
----
TCS Now offers a News Reader Feed
Subscribe to the TCS Feed
Having trouble with some of the poor English
on this site?
Imagine what it looks like when translated by a machine:
This is a "team" blog. We are a bunch of
Americans, whose rising distress
in our leader's decisions brought us together to make this site.
As Bush said, he's a "uniter." Many of us have never even met.
That's the internet for you.
Buy our cool stuff.
And tell everyone what you feel.
We have a little Store
you can visit.
Our store's selection of items is constantly growing. Come
see what we have.
We're also Amazon Associates, so if you want to buy something from Amazon, please search for it below, and we will get a few bucks from the sale.
Static Sky
Tin Foil Caps
The Free Speech Zone
The office of the independent blogger
Buzzflash
Tom The Dancing Bug
VerifiedVoting.org
Get Your War
On
This Modern World
Eschaton / Atrios
Daily Kos
meowpurrmeow
Contribute to America's Future
It is now more important then ever.
Donate to the Democractic Congressional Campaign Committee
Donate to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee
Some More Site Mottos
"To announce that there must be no criticism of the
president, or that we are to stand by the president, right or wrong, is
not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the
American people."
- Teddy Roosevelt
"Government has a final responsibility for the well-being of
its citizenship. If private cooperative endeavor fails to provide work
for willing hands and relief for the unfortunate, those suffering
hardship from no fault of their own have a right to call upon the
Government for aid; and a government worthy of its name must make
fitting response."
- Franklin Delano Roosevelt
"I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and Constitutions, but laws must and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors."
- Thomas Jefferson
"The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home."
"All men having power ought to be distrusted to a certain
degree."
- James Madison
"I believe in human dignity as the source of national purpose, in human liberty as the source of national action, in the human heart as the source of national compassion, and in the human mind as the source of our invention and our ideas. It is, I believe, the faith in our fellow citizens as individuals and as people that lies at the heart of the liberal faith. For liberalism is not so much a party creed or set of fixed platform promises as it is an attitude of mind and heart, a faith in man's ability through the experiences of his reason and judgment to increase for himself and his fellow men the amount of justice and freedom and brotherhood which all human life deserves."
- John F. Kennedy
"Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things. Among them are [a] few other Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or business man from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid."
- Dwight D. Eisenhower
more coming...
