:: NEWS COCKTAIL aka BlahBlahBlog ::

:: 10.22.2003 ::

:: From Why War? With Love ::

Excerpts from the Diebold Documents :

“Elections are not rocket science. Why is it so hard to get things right! I have never been at any other company that has been so miss [sic] managed.” [source]

“I have become increasingly concerned about the apparent lack of concern over the practice of writing contracts to provide products and services which do not exist and then attempting to build these items on an unreasonable timetable with no written plan, little to no time for testing, and minimal resources. It also seems to be an accepted practice to exaggerate our progress and functionality to our customers and ourselves then make excuses at delivery time when these products and services do not meet expectations.” [source]

“I feel that over the next year, if the current management team stays in place, the Global [Election Management System] working environment will continue to be a chaotic mess. Global management has and will be doing the best to keep their jobs at the expense of employees. Unrealistic goals will be placed on current employees, they will fail to achieve them. If Diebold wants to keep things the same for the time being, this will only compound an already dysfunctional company. Due to the lack of leadership, vision, and self-preserving nature of the current management, the future growth of this company will continue to stagnate until change comes.” [source]

“[T]he bugzilla historic data recovery process is complete. Some bugs were irrecoverably lost and they will have to be re-found and re-submitted, but overall the loss was relatively minor.” [source]

“28 of 114 or about 1 in 4 precincts called in this AM with either memory card issues "please re-insert", units that wouldn't take ballots - even after recycling power, or units that needed to be recycled. We reburned 7 memory cards, 4 of which we didn't need to, but they were far enough away that we didn't know what we'd find when we got there (bad rover communication).” [source]

“If voting could really change things, it would be illegal.” [source]

“I need some answers! Our department is being audited by the County. I have been waiting for someone to give me an explanation as to why Precinct 216 gave Al Gore a minus 16022 when it was uploaded. Will someone please explain this so that I have the information to give the auditor instead of standing here "looking dumb".” [source]

“[...] while reading some of Paranoid Bev’s scribbling.” [source]

“Johnson County, KS will be doing Central Count for their mail in ballots. They will also be processing these ballots in advance of the closing of polls on election day. They would like to log into the Audit Log an entry for Previewing any Election Total Reports. They need this, to prove to the media, as well as, any candidates & lawyers, that they did not view or print any Election Results before the Polls closed. However, if there is a way that we can disable the reporting functionality, that would be even better.” [source] (emphasis added)

“4K Smart cards which had never been previously programmed are being recognized by the Card Manager as manager cards. When a virgin card from CardLogix is inserted into a Spyrus (have tried CM-0-2-9 and CM-1-1-1) the prompt "Upgrade Mgr Card?" is displayed. Pressing the ENTER key creates a valid manager card. This happens in Admin mode and Election mode.” [source]


PRESS RELEASE

DIEBOLD TARGETED WITH ELECTRONIC CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE
Swarthmore, Pa. — Defending the right of a fair, democratic election, Why War? and the Swarthmore Coalition for the Digital Commons (SCDC) announced today that they are rejecting Diebold Elections Systems’ cease and desist orders and are initiating a legal electronic civil disobedience campaign that will ensure permanent public access to the controversial leaked memos.

dieboldes.com

Diebold voting machines are used in 37 states and provide zero security against election fraud.

Earlier this week, the Electronic Frontier Foundation announced that it will defend the right of Online Privacy Group, the Internet service provider for San Francisco Indymedia, to host links to the controversial memos. Going one step further, Why War? and SCDC members are the first to publicly refuse to comply with Diebold’s cease and desist order by continually providing access to the documents.

“These memos indicate that Diebold, which counts the votes in 37 states, knowingly created an electronic system which allows anyone with access to the machines to add and delete votes without detection,” Why War? member Micah explained.
Although the reasons for individual engagement in the civil disobedience vary, the consensus between the two groups is that the public availability of these documents must be protected at any cost — they are crucial to the functioning of democracy.
Thus, through active, legal electronic civil disobedience, Why War? and SCDC will bring to light the usually silent acts of suppression and censorship. The result will be a permanent and public mirror of the memos: documents whose public existence challenges the assumed presence of democracy in America.

The documents are currently available here:
http://why-war.com/memos/
More information about the campaign of electronic civil disobedience:
http://why-war.com/features/2003/10/diebold.html
Electronic Frontier Foundation press release:
http://www.eff.org/Legal/ISP_liability/20031016_eff_pr.php
Media inquiries: media@why-war.com

posted by me

:: 2:50:00 PM [+] ::
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