BBV: Slashdot & Inquirer Pick Up Diebold Backdoor Story...

[althecat]

Not sure if this is a dupe as the search facility seems to be Fuxxored...

Slashdot
http://slashdot.org/articles/04/08/30/2322208.shtml?tid=172&tid=219&tid=1&tid=218

The inquirer
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=18189

have both linked to http://www.blackboxvoting.org/?q=node/view/78

I'll bet that that slashdot post (with nine links to BBV.org - a huge honour in geek world BTW) will have sent the BBV.Org server into a spin.

The following post from the thread was too funny not to lift and post here...

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In other news... (Score:5, Funny)
by VeryProfessional (805174) on Monday August 30, @08:39PM (#10113614)
It has been discovered that Paper(tm), a voting system planned to be widely deployed in the coming elections, suffers from numerous vulnerabilities.

A security assessment taskforce has found that the system, in which a stylus is used to infuse chemical dyes onto a thin cellulose-based wafer, is vulnerable to a Denial Of Service attack in which the wafer is exposed to heat until fully oxidised. This renders the results unreadable. Furthermore, the wafers are unencrypted, which makes them vulnerable to replay and other man-in-the-middle attacks. Another attack involves exposing the wafers to lateral force until they are compressed, rendering them easier to dispose. This is known as the 'scrunch-it-and-trash-it' attack, which was made famous in the underground hacker classic Election , starring Matthew Broderick and Reese Witherspoon.

Members of the security community are said to be flabbergasted at the general level of public apathy towards these vulnerabilities, which the taskforce has given its highest threat rating.

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Slashdot's position in geek world means that this cat is out of the bag now and I expect mainstream media will be forced to follow it up. I have posted a Scoop.co.nz version of Bev's latest expose Here so am doing my own wee bit. (hope this is ok Bev.. if not I will kill it)

It strikes me that releasing the bit of source code where the backdoor entry is coded would not do any harm at all.... certainly geekworld would love to have a gander - plus the manner of the coding would settle the debate that raged on Slashdot about it being a bug.... that said this character sort of slam dunked that argument already...

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Wow. What a perfect "mistake" -- it functions! (Score:5, Interesting)
by CFD339 (795926) <[e-mail]> on Monday August 30, @07:51PM (#10113342)
(http://www.thenorth.com/apblog)
So let me understand. Entirely by accident, if you enter a specific code at the machine, a transparent and highly successful process takes the existing collected data and makes a duplicate of that data which can be altered and fed into the combining and counting process.

Someone must have REALLY misspelled an important constant, no? I mean, what are the odds? When I screw up, the code usually just fails to compile or takes out the vm. Someone needs to find the guy who "accidentally" did that and get him to buy lottery tickets for all of us.

wow.

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[annabanana]

1. Isn't this the "feature,not error" that Bev Harris

Demonstrated on AAR this afternoon?

[althecat]

2. Yip it is.... she telegraphed her NYC appointments earlier in the week

[annabanana]

4. Everybody...... call Oprah!

AAR suggested that she might be convinced to help secure all the African American votes that are about to be stolen!

http://www.oprah.com/email/reach/email_reach_fromu.jhtml

[ParanoidPat]

3. Bev reported 2.2 million hits yesterday.......

.....Totally slash/.dotted and farked up! :evilgrin: :toast:

[bpilgrim]

5. It probably really doesn't matter but the dismantling of the Republic

Re:George III (Score:4, Interesting)
by demachina (71715) on Tuesday August 31, @12:13AM (#10115001)

It probably really doesn't matter but the dismantling of the Republic and the creation of the Empire will probably move along more smoothly under Bush with a Republican dominated Congress, and if the current Neocons reamin in control of the Pentagon. Its lost on everyone but Kerry and Bush have nearly the same position on all the volatile issues of the day. Both are fans of the Patriot Act, both support the Iraq war, Kerry is just quibbling on implementation details because he has to to keep the Democratic base happy.

I need to do some research on what happened in Iowa. I gather a dozen or so wealthy people funded attack ads that ran only in Iowa that associated Dean with Bin Laden and started his slide in Iowa. His slide in Iowa finished him before the media finished him off over the "I have a scream" speech. Chances are the Democratic nomination was decided by a dozen people with some money and well placed attacked ad, much like the November election may well be decided by a handful of Republican's funding attack ads like the Swift boat ads. As nearly as I can tell our government is chosen by a few wealthy people, with a few well placed attack ads, which precipitate a media stampede and the American people just follow the ring in their nose.

Its even stranger that Dean is a Yale grad too though I don't think he is Skull and Bones. It kind of shows how the moneyed elite that sits in Connecticut and around Yale had locked up the Presidency before the American people were even consulted.

And then Dick Cheney was also groomed for Yale but he barely survived two years there, his grade were apparently so bad he probably would have flunked out if he hadn't left voluntarily. Don't think he had the family connections George W. had to insure he got passing grades since he was as apparently as intellectually challenged as Cheney was at Yale. George W.'s grandfather Prescott was a former Senator from Connecticut, Yale's home state, insuring George W. would never be flunked no matter how bad his academics sucked there.

more...
http://slashdot.org/articles/04/08/30/2322208.shtml?tid=172&tid=219&tid=1&tid=218

some very interesting comments up there...

peace

[BevHarris]

6. Thanks, everyone -- just a note

We discussed the overall effect of having our site down for weeks and weeks last fall, with everyone freely copying my work over to their own sites for distribution.

This time around (web site was out three times in the last 24 hours, only once due to high traffic) -- this time we ask that you do NOT copy the material to your own site without prior permission.

The mainstream press is very aware of BlackBoxVoting.org and the importance of the material on it. We believe that, this time around, when the site goes down it is better to have major press, legal people, etc. looking at exactly why the site went down and who is responsible. There is more pressure to get to the bottom of it when they can only find our original research one place: BlackBoxVoting.org.

Last fall when my site was taken out, there were other sites that benefited greatly by picking up all of the mainstream press, the migration of our membership, all new members, all the incoming tips, and all the calls from reporters for several weeks.

Until a similarly named site takes my name off of it, or, alternatively, publishes a disclaimer at the top of the page (and identifies the first and last name of the actual individual who writes the articles -- and, when using personal pronouns, uses "I" instead of "we."), Black Box Voting will maintain the policy of prohibiting any other site from using our copyrighted material. Unfortunately, this applies also to althecat's site and to posting our material on IndyMedia, though it is not directed at him or that site.

Hopefully this will be a temporary situation. This decision was not made lightly. I have had four major news sources put the wrong web site into their print articles recently. Many times each week, as I correct the press while they are on the wrong site, they express astonishment that it is not mine. "But it has your name at the top," they say. "But it has your phone number." "But it says 'we.'"

It is a simple matter to properly identify each site. Until the other site does that we absolutely cannot have our original content floating all over the web as we experience new and sometimes unexplained shutdowns.

We're simply taking short term steps to undo some of the damage done last fall. That was, frankly, devastating. It has taken a long, long time to rebuild everything from scratch, and yesterday was a painful reminder of just how quickly our original research can be hijacked or silenced.

Thanks so much for your understanding of this temporary situation.

Bev Harris

[althecat]

7. Question answered

[loudsue]

8. I sure hope the media goes into a frenzy about this....

:yourock: This is nailing the whole scam!!

Good Gawd, althecat: I sure hope you're spot on with this prediction:

"Slashdot's position in geek world means that this cat is out of the bag now and I expect mainstream media will be forced to follow it up."

O8) From your lips to God's ears!!!! O8)

Now...can someone :pals: link me to the earlier thread about what happened today?? I was gone most of the day!

Keep up the great work, you guys! God I love you guys!!

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

[althecat]

9. Me too loudsue...

me too... and a big ups to Bev and her team of intrepid investigators.

[loudsue]

10. And to you too, Althecat...

You've really done a great job!

:kick::kick::kick:

[leftchick]

11. thank you Al....

this needs to spread FAST! :)