3 Responses

1. 

   1)

   Dredd said on 7/24/2006 @ 4:34am PT: [Permalink]

   The electronic voting machine (EVM) watchdogs twenty years ago were saying what was said before the committee recently (1988 Article).

   You can shock the hell out of the EVM audience with these quotes from a 1988 official report:

   4.13 Summary Of Problem Types

   4.13.1 Insufficient Pre-election Testing
   4.13.2 Failure to Implement an Adequate Audit Trail
   4.13.3 Failure to Provide for a Partial Manual Recount
   4.13.4 Inadequate Ballots or Ballot-Reader Operation
   4.13.5 Inadequate Security and Management Control
   4.13.6 Inadequate Contingency Planning
   4.13.7 Inadequate System Acceptance Procedures

   …

   Concern had been heightened by a series of articles published in the summer of 1985 in the New York Times. The articles cited statements by two computer experts reporting that a computer program widely used for vote-tallying was vulnerable to tampering. Several elections were identified in which losing candidates claimed that it would be possible to fraudulently alter the computer programs that were used in their contests.

   (NIST Report 1988, bold added).

   No one mentioned that twenty years is enough to have more than “suggested rules” which are admittedly inadequate. Which election war lords are ignoring anyway.

   And who asked why one person certifies the machines no matter how many ITA companies claim to do the certification? Or who sets the standards of the lone ranger doing the testing (The Lone Tester)?

   Doesn’t it appear that either the voting rights movement related to the EVM word has failed … or congress has failed … or perhaps both?

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   Dredd said on 7/24/2006 @ 1:11pm PT: [Permalink]

   John, hacking is becoming a scholarly pursuit in some countries:

   In Dundee, Scotland, Abertay University recently made headlines with the announcement that it is offering a degree in computer hacking! For some, this is like teaching a class in safecracking or burglary. But others strenuously disagree.

   (link here, bold added). I wonder if it is a part of a political science project like EVM hacking is here in the good ole USA? Perhaps the rest of the world figures that is the only way to get rid of the republican dictatorship that is scaring the hell out of the nations of the world?

   Lets take up a collection to reward them for their efforts? Lets call it the November Surprise … cause that is what the US thieves are calling it.

   Some, from “the coalition of the willing” countries are taking a more violent approach:

   “I have a very hard time with this word ‘non-violence’, because I don’t believe that I am non-violent,” said Ms Williams, 64.

   “Right now, I would love to kill George Bush.” Her young audience at the Brisbane City Hall clapped and cheered.

   “I don’t know how I ever got a Nobel Peace Prize, because when I see children die the anger in me is just beyond belief. It’s our duty as human beings, whatever age we are, to become the protectors of human life.”

   (link here). If we consider what those from enemy countries would say, it is obvious that hacking is the better method. No violence, plus it would be easy to hack the vote.

3. 

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   Dredd said on 7/25/2006 @ 5:52am PT: [Permalink]

   I nominate a theme song (“Series of Dreams“) for American elections:

   Thinking of a series of dreams
   Where the time and the tempo fly
   And there’s no exit in any direction
   ‘Cept the one that you can’t see with your eyes
   Wasn’t making any great connection
   Wasn’t falling for any intricate scheme
   Nothing that would pass inspection
   Just thinking of a series of dreams

   (Series Of Dreams, Bob Dylan).