Reply #79: I think we actually agree... [View All]

[BevHarris]

Whether or not this prson is doing anything unscrupulous is something we cannot tell easily, but it seems that unaudited access is allowed to the system. If one person can be their with access to the system what the hell integrity could it possibly have.

That's the issue. According to the news article, apparently the Diebold employee says she would never do such a thing as put that file on the ftp site. Well, we really don't know, but here's how I get a perspective on these things:

- Julie Rodewald was clearly trying to be helpful. She might not know the security hazards she's dealing with -- I find the election officials to be quite naive about both computers and accounting principles -- but I think she was basically giving honest answers, don't you? (I mean, she crawled under a table to find the file, after all.)

- Diebold, on the other hand, has this track record with answers:

* That "file" on the web site was old and out of date
The facts: It was 40,000 files left on the site for six years and the last one was put on the site 12 days before my interview with Joe Richardson from Diebold.

* We have no evidence that any patches were done in Georgia
The facts: At least four sets of patches were done on 22,000 machines each, confirmed by two techs and the Georgia director of elections, and the patches were sent from Vancouver Canada placed on the Diebold unprotected FTP site

* Diebold version 1.0.0: The source code studied by the Hopkins/Rice scientists was never used in any election
* Diebold version 2.1: The source code studied by the Hopkins/Rice scientists was over a year old (not mentioned: The last general election was 10 months ago and it takes 8 months to certify the software)
* Diebold version 3.15.1: The source code studied by the Hopkins/Rice scientists was, after all, used in elections in four states
* Diebold version 4.5.21: The source code studied by the Hopkins/Rice scientists was mostly not used except some of it was
* Diebold version 5.6.13: That is, the source code was used, but it is not important because we have bulletproof physical security and election procedures that would prevent anyone from getting at a file
* Diebold version 6.1.00: I mean, that file was put on a web site and it was from our bulletproof physically secured GEMS server that wasn't connected to anything but we know for sure it wasn't on election day
* Diebold version 6.1.24: And also, we're going to check and find out when it was put on the web because we don't really know
* Diebold version 6.2.11: But our employee would never put a file on a web site even though she was there that day (and only that day) and her name is the password on the file

Who do you believe?