Report: Diebold Voting System Has 'Delete' Button for Erasing Audit Logs

[kpete]

Source: Wired

Report: Diebold Voting System Has 'Delete' Button for Erasing Audit Logs
By Kim Zetter EmailMarch 03, 2009 | 7:30:17 PMCategories: E-Voting

Diebold_clear_button


Following three months of investigation, California's secretary of state has released a report examining why a voting system made by Premier Election Solutions (formerly known as Diebold Election Systems) lost about 200 ballots in Humboldt County during the November presidential election.

But the most startling information in the state's 13-page report (.pdf) is not about why the system lost votes, which Threat Level previously covered in detail, but that some versions of Diebold's vote tabulation system, known as the Global Election Management System (GEMS), include a button that allows someone to delete audit logs from the system.

Auditing logs are required under the federal voting system guidelines, which are used to test and qualify voting systems for use in elections. The logs record changes and other events that occur on voting systems to ensure the integrity of elections and help determine what occurred in a system when something goes wrong.

"Deleting a log is something that you would only do in de-commissioning a system you're no longer using or perhaps in a testing scenario," says Princeton University computer scientist Ed Felten, who has studied voting systems extensively. "But in normal operation, the log should always be kept."

Read more: http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2009/03/ca-report-finds.html

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

1. Note Humboldt County very blue.

[HowHasItComeToThis]

26. THE COMPROMISING OF ELECTIONS HAS BEEN GOING ON FOR YEARS

THE REPUBLICAN PARTY IS A GANGSTER ORGANIZATION
:bounce: :bounce: :bounce: :bounce: :bounce: :bounce:

[GreenTea]

27. You have that right....the slimy republican party....truly a "GANGSTER ORGANIZATION"!

[Enthusiast]

36. Nah, you guys......

The asshole Republican Party is more like a quasi-intelligence, dirty tricks squad like that in use during Watergate and Iran - Contra.

[ooglymoogly]

57. I do not believe I have ever seen such a bunch of creepety peeps

gathered under one banner to destroy this country and its democracy; Using organized religion, the evilest force on earth, as its moral authority.

[Stinger2]

41. Verified Voting: Mandatory Manual Audits of Voter-Verified Paper Records

Verified Voting: Mandatory Manual Audits of Voter-Verified Paper Records

Help us complete the legislative push toward reliable, secure, verifiable, and transparent elections! Please visit our action center (click here) to turn the whole country green with voter-verified paper records and mandatory manual audits of those records. Click on the map to see our legislation tracking web page.

http://www.verifiedvoting.org/

[deminks]

2. K n R

:kick:

[Captain Hilts]

3. NOT cool!

ER: Dreadful!

[jb5150]

4. Why am I not surprised

Let's see, we'll design a system with a cheat button................Brillant, give that man a bonus!

[goforit]

5. Chuck Hagel....Where are you sweetheart??? ollie, ollie unkanfree?

[louis-t]

22. I thought it was ollie ollie ox in free.

[superconnected]

45. I thought it was all-come-free but then that was the 70's

we pronounced it like um-come-free

[goclark]

6. Surprise surprise- that's why OBAMA's victory was so amazing

Rove's elves were working big time and yet the voters were so overwhelming voting even they couldn't steal it this time.

That said,I would love to know how many votes were stolen,

K

[jmowreader]

13. Probably about ten percent

I think you can realistically steal about ten percent of a Democrat's vote total.

If you go over that, external signs will point to the idea that Something Ain't Quite Right--the Democratic senator winning election but not the Democratic governor, for example.

[goclark]

47. The Democrats really pulled it out ~

Can you just imagine looking at John McCain.

[valerief]

14. Probably 80% of the Rapublican votes tabulated. (Oh, yes, they're Rapublicans now.) nt

[Kalyan]

7. how convenient ...

how convenient ...

And i take it that the system also doesn't make any effort to record who the someone is? I am unable to believe that an advanced nation cannot make a simple, reliable & robust Electonic voting machine.

May be someone in diebold should check this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_voting_machines

This is one outsourcing project that is worth it's money ....

[nyc 4 Biden]

8. Glad to see some people are still looking into election fraud. n/t

[loudsue]

9. There needs to be a whole lot of someones looking into it. Now that Dems are in charge

where in the hell are they concerning these friggin' voting machines????

Edited because grammar was really breaking all the rules.

[Echo In Light]

16. The phony "oppositional" party is complicit w/all police state tactics

Hence will never truly "investigate" anything that would actually upset the apple cart. Any dem committees designated to "look into this-or-that" re the numerous Bush/Cheney crimes and police state measures will only be going through the motions to feed the illusion that they're on YOUR side.

[loudsue]

31. I wish more people realized how true that is.

It has become more & more apparent with this bailout fiasco that they're all on the same side....the side of corporate-congress corruption.

[inna]

33. yep, it's a "bad cop, good cop" routine, i'm afraid. nt

[benld74]

10. ANY 'Computer System' keeps their log files, especially so with VOTING

[Sancho]

11. Did they find the "switch the vote" command?

I'm sure that Florida machines have one.

[NorthCarolina]

19. I agree, in fact I have a suspicion that the Prop. 8 vote in CA was switched or *flipped*

The major polls preceding election day showed Prop. 8 losing by about 52 to 48, exit polling on election day indicated that Prop. 8 was losing by about 52 to 48, and then lo-and-behold the 52 to 48 tally proved to be accurate except for one small detail, that being Prop. 8 PASSING by roughly 52 to 48. Coincidence?

[defendandprotect]

21. Interesting...and believable. And, I think we have to look at ALL the elections going back

to late 1960's when the electronic voting machines/computers began to come on line.

This will all be questionable until we go back to paper ballots and pen --

and, I think we have to look at the complicity of corporate news in all of this . . .

the large computers which MSM began to use in the mid-1960's for reporting election

results to the public also produced some strange up's and down's with upside down

results after computer "crashes."

Two reporters began investigating the computer results in Florida in the late 1960's --

http://www.constitution.org/vote/votescam__.htm

[SheilaT]

30. Sadly, this is nothing new.

I remember in 8th grade social studies being told tales of vote buying, and ways of knowing -- and punishing -- those who voted "wrong". That's why we got enclosed booths, and why there are supposed to be observers from both parties watching the vote counting.

Those wonderful old voting machines, like the one in the Eleanor Roosevelt picture, were also subject to being tampered with, and apparently tampering was not uncommon.

I don't know if we can ever have a completely open and honest voting system.

[HowHasItComeToThis]

25. BINGO

[valerief]

12. You mean Bush wasn't REALLY elected? My Lord! What a surprise! nt

:sarcasm:

[trthnd4jstc]

15. Anyone Notice the company is now called Premier Election Services.

Too Many Republicans are just plain evil. The Top executives of Diebold, I mean, Premier Election Services ought to be in prison for Election Fraud, and for many counts of such. What a complete load of crap!

[samplegirl]

20. I was not aware they changed their name...

to protect the guilty...thanks for the update!!

[defendandprotect]

23. Yes --- and Blackwater has also had a name change . . . like School of the Americas . . !!!

Rather than using these computers for voting, we should be arresting the CEO's of these

companies and those who gave them government contracts!!!

[Enthusiast]

37. The name change

was in the interest of stealth. SOP for these quasi-intell operatives that have been a Reich Wing tool to control the nation. There are the same ones that would be used to incite right wing violence and do a political assassination in the U.S.

[NikolaC]

17. I wish that I could say that I am shocked by this,

but sadly I am not. Par for the course with these criminals.

[Winterblues]

18. Bush* in 2000 : "Only machines can be trusted, because they are Objective,

People on the other hand are Subjective" This immediately after campaigning on the slogan "I Trust the People"

[paparush]

42. I'm George Orwell, and I approve this message.

[defendandprotect]

24. We have to question every election back to the 1960's . . . begin with Nixon!!

[Patsy Stone]

28. I'd love to say I was surprised

But, I'm not. :mad:

[Nightjock]

29. President Kerry

should let President Obama know what a serious issue this is.
If I live to be 100 years old I will never, EVER forget watching an American presidential election stolen in front of a complacent media. I kept telling everyone, "The truth will come out! Some hungry reporter in the MSM will break this story!"
A very small part of me still believes that someday EVERYONE will know.

[defendandprotect]

32. The public has to begin to understand the role of "media" in this . . .!!!

in front of a complacent media

and their role -- the executives of these news corporations, at least --- goes

back to the mid-1960's when the large computers were obtained by MSM to report

the elections. At the same time, I think any news personnel -- anchors -- who

became suspicious of what was going on resigned or were moved out.

Unfortunately, even among those who understand the computer steals in 2000/2004 ...

they seem to think they began there. No, they began long before 2000.

And there were two reporters who began investigating the computer results at that time --

http://www.constitution.org/vote/votescam__.htm

[margotb822]

34. Interesting that Diebold and Blackwater both change their names

Are we supposed to believe that they're more trustworthy now?? Or that they're "under new management"?

[sellitman]

35. I wonder if their ATM machines have the same cool feature?

Somehow I doubt it.

Bastards!

[Pavulon]

53. OS/390

allows administrators to delete logs. Most banks use these systems along with other databases to store financial transactions.

[antimatter98]

38. Why has the Democratic Party stood by on electronic voting?

People were running around with their hair on fire over Diebold and other voting systems
'forever,' and nothing happens. Why has the Democratic Party not led the fight to remove
electronic screen voting systems? This is akin to everyone drinking poisoned water but
nothing is done, even though the data is obvious.

I 'get' why Republicans love electronic voting machines, full of security holes, but
Democrats? I don't get it.

When will these machines be just simply outlawed? If Congress can press on gun control,
it sure can press on voting machine integrity.

[mod mom]

43. Maybe those in power don't trust angry voters to select their "elected" leaders.

We control all branches of government, have ample evidence that the machines are inaccurate, unreliable and subject to tampering, so either the Dems confront the issue or their part of the problem.

[Butch350]

44. We want our chance to cheat too?

[JohnWxy]

39. WE have to eliminate electronic voting machines. There is no way to prevent election fraud.

This shows even if you have a paper trail generated by the machines you can't be sure that the audit trail is bogus too.

recommended! SAVE DEMOCRACY - KILL ELECTRONIC VOTING.

[roberto]

40. They hijacked this country ...

[superconnected]

46. Gore '00 and Kerry 04 both lost to crooked voting machines. People need to be in prison for this.

A senate investigation needs to be opened.

[asolarski]

48. Calm Down Idiots

Clearing the text box on the screen is not the same as "delete audit logs from the system.". This screen means nothing.

[IdaBriggs]

54. Its not clearing a text box. Its got code behind it that

DELETES THE ENTRIES IN THE TEXT BOX (which happen to be audit trails).

[asolarski]

58. You have no idea what it does.

And how do you know that from the screen we see here? I see no code. I have written similar Windoews apps that log all text to a file but the screen can be cleared if you need. A textbox's text property can only hold 64k before you need to truncate the data. Writing it to a textbox and entering it into to a log file are separate lones of code. Maybe in the same function but separate. Two outputs for one message and the visible one can be cleared. No big deal.

[IdaBriggs]

60. Actually, I have a very good idea of what it does, since I've

looked at the app previously. You can go pull a copy of it if you want. Its written in Microsoft Access (a program in which I am a real live expert). Go pull a copy of the program, and take a look at the code. (You can find it with a google search.)

[trickyguy]

49. Unfortunately, it's understandable how deleting a log works. Even I could probably do it.

[Pavulon]

52. You have to delete logs or build a world to store them forever

mechanisms exist but not on end devices, of any type. syslog servers are one mechanism for log retention. These devices were not on a network of any type.

A log can be anything from a per transaction log that is huge to a high level overview.

Point is no system is designed to keep all logs forever on local storage.

[asolarski]

59. Not if you don't have the authority you can't.

You have no idea where logged messages are written. Are they table entries in a remote SQL server or a local text file? Do you have authority to even get to the folder that holds the file? Any reasonable security setup would say no, not unless you were an admin.

This story means nothing. Let it go before you all look even stupider. Crying wolf does not help us.

[Stinger2]

50. And that, as they say, is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg.

Voting machine fiasco: SAIC, VoteHere and Diebold
. . . Scam to vet software?


Former president, chief operating officer, and vice chairman of SAIC is Admiral Bill Owens, who is now Chairman of the Board for VoteHere. Owens also served as Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and was a senior military assistant to Secretaries of Defense Frank Carlucci and Dick Cheney. Carlucci's company is Carlyle Group, while Vice President Dick Cheney's former employer is Halliburton.

http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/082003Landes/082003landes.html

And that, as they say, is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg.

[Pavulon]

51. Yep, every os has them, so do apps

like Oracle 11g, DB2, every system has a mechanism for clearing logs. Your computer and the server hosting this site do as well.

[rolltideroll]

55. Down goes democracy! Democracy is Down!

[jordi_fanclub]

56. Someone should ARREST these Diebold CRIMINALS!!! (n/t)