In North Carolina, Diebold had been attempting to get a special court order allowing them to get around NC’s law requiring that Voting Machine Companies hand over their source code for their secret software to be kept in escrow in the event of a problem later. North Carolina has had many recently, including the complete loss of some 4500+ votes in Cartaret County during the Nov. ’04 Presidential Election which led to a Re-Vote in the county.
Thanks to efforts by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the court has now ruled against Diebold’s requested dispensation from state law. Now Diebold claims they are going to have to get out of the state entirely. Glad to hear it. If it’s true. Other Voting Machine Companies have complied with the law, apparently, so what’s Diebold’s problem? Do they have something they wish to hide in that source code?
We may never know…AP reports:
…
That’s not possible for Diebold’s machines, which use Microsoft Windows, Hanna said. The company does not have the right to provide Microsoft’s code, he said, adding it would be impossible to provide the names of every programmer who worked on Windows. (MSNBC is a Microsoft – NBC joint venture.)
The State Board of Elections has told potential suppliers to provide code for all available software and explain why some is unavailable. That’s not enough of an assurance for Diebold
You’ll pardon me, but I’m a bit of a computer programmer myself, and I understand the difference between providing source code that one has written versus source code for an entire operating system (like Windows) and/or third-party tools which are used to perform various generic tasks called by the program itself.
If Diebold had nothing to hide or fear, they would simply turn over their full source code to the state to be put into escrow, with the explanation that they do not have the access to (or legal permission to provide, even if they did) the source code to copyrighted third-party software. The state of North Carolina wasn’t asking for that as far as I can tell, and an open admission to that — as allowed by the state law — should more than have covered Diebold from any liabilities concerning that third-party software.
That said, I’m glad to hear of their apparent threats to pull out of North Carolina entirely. And with that, I hope every other state in the union will immediately apply the same requirement in their state and let Diebold get back to the business of making ATM machines with open software which provides a paper record of every transaction. Apparently, they’re quite good at that.
UPDATE: Jamie at IntoxiNation has more along the same lines…
Maybe this sets a precedent for other states as well.
The Windows operating system components that are not altered by Diebold would not have to be escrowed.
Only the modules, typically DLL modules, that have been altered would need to have the modifications escrowed. The source code would typically be small in terms of numbers of lines of code, compared to the whole source code for the operating system.
The unaltered DLL modules can be checked against the Microsoft shipped original modules for that version. Any alterations would show up when a file comparision program is used.
In other words, complaining about having to escrow the source code for the entire Windows operating system was a ruse.
The other vendors, who also used the Windows operating system, were able to comply.
What is Diebold hiding in its software that it does not want known???
What is wrong with you people?
Here we have got American Miracle Technology at its best, and you are running it down?
Never mind the fishies, and the wine, or mundane walking on the water, Diebold can make 4000 votes disappear in one nano second, and or make up 10,000 votes out of a catchment’s area of 600 votes!
You ungracious milli mouthed libbyloons, you………..(fill as applicable), just can’t stand these miracles, coz you are jealous and cannot make anything near miraculous as these voting machines? Fuzzy maths means 1 + 3 equals 2 million four hundred thousand and sixty eight and one half of a vote, now get this going if you can!
(Coultergeist taking over, foaming at the sides of the mouth, all four sides that is including the not air brushed Adam’s apple, who said that it is his apple? it is bloody mine) You muslin speaking, you you you……. (Too powerful of an episode, words cannot make their way on to the keyboard) ought to be bombed, and where are your email addresses so I can print them on my shabby site?
Also if Chewbacca wants to live with Evokes, then I declare Diebold to be an honest voting system that cannot be equalled and everyone ought to have one at home!
That is two major victories for verifiable voting systems!
Good!
The BBV folk also won a case in CA which is still having positive force (link here).
Good!!
IN NC, we DO want Diebold to turn over the operating system. The other vendors have their own operating systems.
Diebold uses Windows CE and the well known convicted felon, Jeffrey Dean who worked for them, also did serious modifications to Windows CE.
Diebold also wanted to be excused for several third party software drivers.
If we excused them for one third party software, what would be to keep them from making everything "third party" software.
Or "shitware" as I saw in some comments at Slashdot.
The fact is, some of their worst secrets may be hidden in that operating system. So don’t discount it.
Also, NC didn’t rerun the election, instead the democratic contender for the Commissioner of Agriculture dropped out.
Brad, thanks for going over this issue.
We owe much to Matt Zimmerman of http://www.EFF.org and also to local counsel, Donald Beskind, who was a real warrior in court for us.
Others who have been our partners –
http://www.votersunite.org , http://www.votetrustusa.org
http://www.verifiedvoting.org , http://www.blackboxvoting.com
(David Allen) Justin Moore of Duke University
and tons of NC activists who are still monitoring the situation.
Diebold almost got away with this, but a leaker saved the day.
The other vendors who are still in the bidding for NC voting machines have their own operating systems.
They do not use Windows.
Several dropped out of the RFP because they
didn’t want to post the bond
didn’t meet 2002 fed standards or couldn’t
didn’t have a VVPB certified or coudn’t
too ashamed of their source code to turn it over.
The remaining 2 besides Diebold have their OWN
OPERATING SYSTEMS.
Not everyone uses microsoft.
A big problem remains vis a vis Diebold and its electronic cousins.
Supposedly (my) Senator Chris Dodd and John Kerry got in an argument recently when Kerry had the gall to say to Dodd, "You know, there’s a problem with these voting machines." Dodd took it personally, maybe because he’d worked on HAVA; the presumption was that everything was copacetic with touch-screen and optical scan equipment. HAVA’s authors never factored in the possibility of widespread corruption, and when Kerry hinted at it, Dodd got angry, so the story goes.
Dodd has an ego the size of the Capitol building. He’s also touchy about integrity questions, maybe because his old man was once censured by a Senate ethics panel. He was quoted as saying, "I looked into (questions of fraud in 2004…there’s nothing there." Oh. John Conyers’ 107-page report is nothing. A mathematically impermissible 5-1/2% discrepancy between exit polls and tablulated votes is nothing. The 57,000 complaints logged in the first 48 hours after 11/2/04 amount to nothing.
We elect these folks, then they forget that they’re accountable to us afterwards. That’s a huge problem, friends. Kerry’s too wimpish to speak out (or he has some arcane strategy we’ve yet to learn about). Dodd’s too arrogant to face the truth. Hillary Clinton is thinking about 2008, while her husband says, "Bush won fair and square." And these are the Democrats!
Well, does NC get verified voting with the remaining contenders–i.e. printed receipts of the voting transaction?
What a great speech today by Bush. Its obvious he has the supporto f the troops behind him. the troops definitly do not like liberals.
The terrorists are trying to break the will of America. You people represent the broken will they love so much. Its a good thing we are stronger people then is represented here, or this country would be lost.
Ricky, when I was in high school I used to read
"Soviet Life" magazine from Russia, and I read a lot
of stuff that came from Mao’s China. Not because I
believed it, but because I was curious.
If you’d read those things then maybe now you could
recognize blatant stupid propaganda when it’s looking
you in the face. Like W’s fantasyland speech today.
It’s embarrassing that he gets away with this cr@p.
People in countries that have better schools than ours
are not fooled for a minute.
Ricky – Poor child, you are wandering off topic again. If you wish to do so because you can’t find a more suitable place to post, please show common courtesy and post an "OFF TOPIC" alert at the beginning of your messages.
I can tell by your posts it’s difficult for you to keep up with the subject of the conversations in here. If you’re having trouble following along on an issue, just ask us, we’ll do our best to try to explain it to you on a level that you’ll understand.
As far as the current topic, maybe this will help –
Diebold bad.
Stealing bad.
Corruption bad.
Open source code good.
Bless your heart.
is this making daily local news in north carolina?
Ricky – It would be appreciated if you could stay on topic. Since I’m loathe to delete your comments, I will instead reply to them, but then ask you to stay on topic when posting here in the future.
Apparently America’s largest group of Iraqi Vets disagrees with your statement. While I have the idea that you — from the comfort of anonymity behind your keyboard — are nothing more than a chickenhawk, perhaps you should pay attention to the people who actually put their lives on the line for *you*.
Here’s their statement this morning stating that Bush’s plan lacks credibility.
Read it. Then perhaps you won’t be so lost.
You’re wrong, #10 – our will can’t even be broken by your willful ignorance.
Man Diebold gives new meaning to the word proprietary copyrights…
Except it should neither be copied nor a right…..What in the world is in that Windows code that has to be protected so much? Hiding something big I bet!
There’s thousands of shareware programs all over the web that have windows code attached to it, and nobody from Microsoft is suing all of them saying they can’t host it. They don’t care its third party software copying or using windows codes…..why should Diebold…
Hmmm the gig is up for this company. Everyone else doesn’t have a problem to do disclosure….
Doug E.
I bet they can’t turn it over because they keep making hidden changes to it and in the future, the original code they provided to the state would not match the currently used code which I would think that would be illegal.
Are you people familiar with the US Constituion at all? Within it is a clause that forbids Congress (and through the fourteenth ammendmant, all states as well) from passing any law "impairing the obligations of contracts" (Article I, section 10).
Since Diebold is using other company’s products within their own, they are bound by the terms of the contract between them and the other companies. Part of that contract includes an absolute requirement that they may not divulge any trade secrets, source code, or other information that would compromise the copyrights of those other companies.
There is no choice on their part in the matter. Unless all of the companies providing the software Diebold is using agree to relinquish those contractual restrictions, Diebold cannot release that information – regardless of what North carolina wants or not.
The poster that claimed that only changes to the M$ code wou;d have to be relinquished, not the M$ code itself, is speaking from ignorance. The law in question requires the disclosure of source code for "all software that is relevant to functionality, setup, configuration, and operation of the voting system." There is no exception to that – all software must be disclosed, not simply the changes made by Diebold.
Since the North Carolina law would require Diebold to violate the legal obligations they have under contract, Diebold cannot proceed with sales in North Carolina.
Personally, I consider Diebold’s eqipment to be flawed. and I certainly do no trust them. Nevertheless, I am intelligent enough to see through the BS posted here and honest enough to speak the truth.
Theres an interesting article on ZDNet blogs about the vulnerabilites of Microsoft and how they wait so long to fix them. It really goes hand in hand with the Diebold story. I blogged on it here:
http://intoxination.blogspot.co...ld-hiding.html
The actual article is here:
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Ou/index.php?p=135
Jamie
http://intoxination.blogspot.com
OOPS linked to the wrong article by me :confused:
http://intoxination.blogspot.co...out-of-nc.html
Jamie
http://intoxination.blogspot.com
"Section. 10. No State shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation; grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal; coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts; pass any Bill of Attainder, ex post facto Law, or Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts, or grant any Title of Nobility"
And, the "law" in NC doesn’t prevent Deibold from making voting machines, it just prevents those machines from being used by the State for it’s elections if Diebold won’t (can’t) comply. The law doesn’t "force" Diebold to break it’s contract, therefore there’s no problem.
It seems to me that if you want to make a REAL and STABLE Voting machine, you use an OpenSource like Linux that isn’t proprietary and has no "secret code" clauses to use. It’s 100% viewable, and a LOT more secure than Microsoft. Seems to me that if you want stable and secure, you avoid Microsoft at all costs. And if you want "State contracts", you use systems that let people see you’re not hiding anything.
re: Nightthief #17… "Nevertheless, I am intelligent enough to see through the BS posted here and honest enough to speak the truth. "
what is that supposed to mean? ’cause it sure reads like you are calling the concerned citizens here idiots and liars. if folks here misunderstand, or are misinformed, your insults are not going to help enlighten them.
it would be a lot simpler to just say what you want to say, without capping it off as you do. such tactics diminish your credibility; if your facts don’t speak for themselves, casually trashing others isn’t going to help.
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It seems to me that if you want to make a REAL and STABLE Voting machine, you use an OpenSource like Linux that isn’t proprietary and has no "secret code" clauses to use. It’s 100% viewable, and a LOT more secure than Microsoft. Seems to me that if you want stable and secure, you avoid Microsoft at all costs. And if you want "State contracts", you use systems that let people see you’re not hiding anything.