Brad, you are a true gumshoe. Watch your back.

Looks like some of your hard work is going to pay off, Brad, in this lifetime even! You know how important what you're doing is. You hang in there. With Debra Bowen taking this lead, maybe, just maybe, the country stands a chance of surviving the current nightmare. Maybe! And, ditto to Hearya --- watch your back!

Reporting from the belly of the beast . . .

As Brad said, Diebold's newest systems have not been certified in CA, so they were not reviewed as part of the Top to Bottom Review.

However, that new systems were submitted for certification in Florida, and a source code review was conducted there by Alec Yasinsac and his SAIT Lab, with a team that overlapped with the California team.

The Florida review was limited to the question of whether over 100 previously-identified security vulnerabilities in Diebold's code had been corrected. They were not looking for any new problems. The findings were mixed: some had been corrected; some had been partially corrected; some remained uncorrected, and some attempted corrections were done wrong or introduced new problems. For the full report see

election.dos.state.fl.us

The Florida SoS Kurt Browning responded, in a letter linked to from the same page, by declining to certify the TSx system, and also requiring multiple changes to the firmware of the optical scan system by August 17 or he would not proceed with certification of it either. This latter possibility is a very serious matter because Florida must certify optical scan systems in order to move forward in its plan to switch from DREs to optical scan statewide.

The door is green ...

MIDNIGHT, ONE MORE NIGHT WITHOUT SLEEPIN'
WATCHIN' TILL THE MORNIN' COMES CREEPIN'
GREEN DOOR, WHAT'S THAT SECRET YOU'RE KEEPIN?

THERE'S AN OLD [EVM] AND THEY PLAY IT HOT BEHIND THE GREEN DOOR

DON'T KNOW WHAT THEY'RE DOIN' BUT THEY LAUGH A LOT BEHIND THE GREEN DOOR

WISH THEY'D LET ME IN SO I COULD FIND OUT WHAT'S BEHIND THE GREEN DOOR

KNOCKED ONCE, TRIED TO TELL THEM I'D BEEN THERE
DOOR SLAMMED, HOSPITALITY'S THIN THERE

WONDER JUST WHAT'S GOIN' ON IN THERE

SAW AN EYEBALL PEEPIN' THROUGH A SMOKY CLOUD BEHIND THE GREEN DOOR

WHEN I SAID "[BLACKWELL] SENT ME" SOMEONE LAUGHED OUT LOUD BEHIND THE GREEN DOOR

ALL I WANT TO DO IS [JAIL] THE HAPPY CROWD BEHIND THE GREEN DOOR

(Green Door, DESI Version).

David Jefferson -

Thanks for mentioning the Florida business! I had actually meant to do so myself as part of my response to Diebold's nonsense on that point, but by the time I finished raging about all the other garbage in their press release, I had forgotten to hit that point.

So, thank you. As well for your great work on the California audit report section of Bowen's T2B Review!

{Comment deleted. Spam. - BF}

Dear Brad,

Thank you, thank you, thank you for the work you are doing attempting to take back America from the fascists who stole it in 2000. There is nothing more important that any American can be involved in right now. This nightmare election theft operation must be stopped, and hopefully dozens, if not hundreds, of America-hating vermin involved in it will find themselves behind bars for a loooooong time. America is (at least was) a great country and we must find a way to resurrect it out of the sewer its been dragged into.

Patriot

Brad, I am so glad you are spending your vacation time (ha-ha) traveling through Texas (which is bad enough) and visiting various places of interest, such as the Diebold warehouse. How does it compare to Disneyland?

While there, here is something I have suspected for a long time, but have never read anything about, and am dying to know if I am correct. I suspect that every single one of these companies is an offshoot of one big company that began as a group of business buddies who got together to figure out a way to get their grubby gloves into the HAVA stream of public money, and figured out right from the get-go that if they didn't break up and present themselves as non-related entities, the heist would never go down.

These companies do not act as if they are in competition with each other, which is what would theoretically happen in a free market with monopoly regulation. Nobody's trying to get another's market share, by responding productively to consumer complaints. Instead, they're all backing each other up.

[NOTE: This comment was deleted for violation of posting rules and common decency. - JG]

Hey Fred, You kiss your mother with that mouth? We can see by your wonderful comment what a knuckle dragger you are and will proceed accordingly... ignoring your ignorance!

By the way ...Thanks Brad. I hope you are enjoying your vacation. I found this petition of support for Debra Bowen today. If your so inclined Please sign http://www.couragecampai...g/page/s/secureelections

Yikes! Brad, You are living up to your quote. "Never afraid"
Wally O'Dell has you on camera now, in their shop of horrors? Yikes again.

I agree with Hearya, Brad. Watch your back. I think there is no depth to which these people will not sink to stifle dissent and honest information about their shitty machines. I believe they would attempt to destroy you (or anyone) personally, professionally, financially and/or physically to protect their 100s of millions of dollars in government contracts. There's nothing more dangerous than a wounded animal, except a wounded Diebold Election Systems in fear for it's big money contracts.

A few years ago, if someone had offered the above warning, I'd have thought they were having paranoid delusions. But no more. For the past 6 1/2 years pretty much everything we progressives have predicted has come true, even our worst fears, even BEYOND our worst fears. At this point I think these wingnuts are capable of just about anything.

So be careful, my friend.

Fred, here let me break it down so your poor little pea brain understands:

Electronic voting systems decertified Paul Wellersdick
Article Launched: 08/07/2007 01:00:00 AM PDT

dictionary definition of decertified

Oh, Gosh, maybe you need this also:

certify

Just a *bfg*

We're winning. Y'all realize that, don't you? And DAMN it feels good!

Has anybody sent the link to this thread to Keith Olberman and Jon Stewart yet? (And wouldn't all of us love to see Brad on the Daily Show?)

Brad,

:)

Linda asked:

Brad, I am so glad you are spending your vacation time (ha-ha) traveling through Texas (which is bad enough) and visiting various places of interest, such as the Diebold warehouse. How does it compare to Disneyland?

The security is better at Disneyland.

As to my "vacation", what vacation?

You're kidding me. You mean you just walked in, unchallenged, into the warehouse? You could have opened any of those cases and maybe have had hours to play with it on the spot? Maybe taken them home, messed with them, and then returned them?

You got big cojones Brad. That address at Diebold reminds me of the movie Shakes the Clown... da,1253,big dog;on my face.

Wait a minute! I want the rest of the story of the belly of the beast!

You got in? You (of all people on the whole planet) got into an unlocked warehouse at Diebold?!!

On a non-business day evening?

With a camera?!

Were you using your mini-bar key?!!

And David Bear discredits Bowen's decertification by insinuating that "complete and unlimited access" doesn't normally happen?

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA

Did you run into anybody? Were you ever asked who you were and what the hell you were doing there?

Is the entire company a bigger version of the voting machine itself??!!

This. . . is perfect.

P.S. Hey, were you, by chance, videotaping?

Robert Greenwald at BraveNewFilms.org is really pushing teeny-tiny viral documentaries as the way for "longterm social change."

Hey Brad, congratulations!

For meritorious late-night clandestine operations in search of honesty in our elections, you are hereby officially admitted to the esteemed and elite legion of "electoral terrorist of the highest order" with all rights and privileges thereto.

;-)

LOL --- good find!

Marybeth

-------
Marybeth Kuznik
www.VotePA.us

Brad,

Thanks for the great investigative reporting.

You and Greg Palast are in a league of your own.

Troubled Texan

Hey Brad,

Just a thought but, if you've got a couple hours to spare while you're in Texas, email me.

I'd like to do an interview with you.

Troubled Texan

Any person can create unfettered access to a TSx in minutes or seconds (if the person was a technician already working on the unit). That access could be continuous for years. That access could be installed by an assembler at the Diebold plant where they put the TSx units together with the motherboard made in China (shipped with the flash memory chips already installed). It could be installed by any technician hired by Diebold or a county to prepare units upon delivery. Or a technician hired to repair a unit. It could be installed by any poll worker who takes the units home prior to the election, and without disturbing the seals.

How?

Slip a wireless capable SD card into the hidden SD slot on the motherboard. Or have a malicious program already resident on that SD card. Begging the question of why a hidden SD card slot is there in the first place.

The studies already established that the Diebold system, from the original TSx unit that is penetrated (becoming a Trojan horse), can then transfer malicious code to the central server containing the GEMS election management system. All memory cards and their contents are downloaded into GEMS. Then GEMS is used to program all the TSx units for the next election.

Chances of becoming caught: Virtually ZERO.

While the units are powered up (such as on election day), anyone can use a laptop to activate or manipulate the TSx unit. They also could use the SD card to download custom code when the unit is powered up, not even requiring any contact.

I am absolutely disgusted with the lies and deceitful spin being spewed by election officials. They are acting as shills for the vendors and betraying their public trust. They need to get it through their arrogant brain that it is their defending the indefensible that has created public mistrust, not Secretary Bowen doing her job. They have sided with the vendors instead of their constituencies and should be ashamed.

People who have truth on their side do not need to lie or spin.

This is not an issue of right or left, Republican or Democrat, or allegations or conspiracies. It is a proven fact these voting systems are unreliable, insecure, vulnerable to manipulation, error prone, and cost the taxpayer much more than claimed. All of those statements can be backed up by hard evidence. I challenge anyone to prove otherwise.

Too many election officials engaged in unsafe intercourse with the vendors and now want the taxpayers and voters of this country to pay for the treatments.

Brad - I contacted Jon Stewart and Keith Olbermann. Hope something comes of this, it'd be funny if it weren't so damned sad.

RE post #5

The green door I am talking about is the Diebold front door the photo shows Brad about to enter ...

Sometimes things can have a contradictory look and feel to them:

"The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything."

("Joseph Stalin" quoted on Bradblog banner), compared with:

"Stalin and company actually presided over many thousands of perfectly honest elections with untampered ballots"

(Bradblog poster). But even if Stalin was providing purrfeckt elections, he was a bad guy:

A giant cross commemorating the victims of Stalinist purges in the 1930s has been erected at a ceremony near Moscow.

The wooden cross - 12.5m high (41 ft) and 7.6m wide (25 ft) - was placed in Butovo, at the site of a former execution ground.

At least 20,000 people were killed there by Stalin's secret police, the NKVD. The first killings occurred exactly 70 years ago.

(In Memoriam, emphasis added). Good guys or bad guys, if the above is true, can bring "good elections" can't they?

And so to focus on the inanimate aspect may be problematic. It is like saying what a bad gun it was that murdered the innocent victim, but forgetting about the person who pulled the trigger.

Can you remember the "purple finger elections" in Iraq that were touted as the end of WMD tyranny unhappiness water shortages electrical shortages violence whatever in Iraq?

Was it the good guys doing those purple finger elections or was it the bad guys?

It must give democracy a bad name to see a few purple fingers in the midst of masses of bloody fingers.

After the widely touted purple finger elections, which were to teach Iraqis "good democracy" (bushie demockcrazy) from "bad democracy" (Iran), the purple fingered government said:

"Until our armed forces and border guards are strong enough, we believe we need the Iranians to help us do that at this stage and to stand by us.

"We also need them [Iran] to talk to some neighbouring countries with whom Iran has strong relations to maintain security within Iraq. As you know, some of the terrorists infiltrate into Iraq from neighbouring countries."

(Iraqi PM on 8/8/07, emphasis added). No mention of those who spent 1.5 trillion dollars on Iraq. Bushie Iraq policy is like a whore who pays her johns to do her instead of the other way around.

So, if we do not also focus on the government that is providing the good or bad elections, we may be paying the government to do us with the best available.

Dear Brad, you are totally full of shit. I used to think that all of the looney idealogues were on the right. There are just as many on the left and you are one of them. You have no idea how elections are conducted and how many safeguards are in place, including human oversight. But, facts don't matter to ideologues, so I'm probably wasting my time. To think that many of your paranoid fellow travellers would actually think that the hand counting of paper ballots is nirvana just shows how deluded you and they are. I work for LHS Associates in New England. We are distributors for Diebold and while I have many reasons to criticize things that the company has done over the past few years, the thought that there is a company wide culture of fraud and deception is ludicrous. But, as I said, facts don't matter to you. Stop blaming the vendors and look to the incompetence and cowardice of the Democratic party for its failures. Couple that with the criminal activities of the GOP relative to vote suppression and you've got your answers. It's not the machines that are the cause of our problems, it's the people. I challenged Bev Harris and Harri Hursti a couple of years ago and they backed off. I issue the same challenge to you. Pick a forum and I'd be happy to discuss how we run elections in New England and how difficult,if not impossible it is to game the system. Bring it on.

I accept your challenge Mr. Hajjar. And further reply to to the above ill-conceived screed in full right here.

Ken Hajjar said: I challenged Bev Harris and Harri Hursti a couple of years ago and they backed off.

Horseshit.

You, Mr. Hajjar, are not only a paid ideologue (the worst kind). You are also a liar. Kindly post details of your "challenge" and the subsequent "backing off" for our audience, here.

I'm sure this post will de deleted because it is not positive kudos but here goes.

What do you need donations for Mr. Brad? I've yet to see activist that are not in it for the funding money. So you complain about this and complain about that --- do you have any possible solutions? Of course you don't. Your gimmick is to get funding in any way possible, solutions is not your business, complaining is.

Fact of the matter is that there is no system, be it manual or electronic, which is completely safe for those with criminal intent. Brad, you know this very well and make a good living because of it. What you call "exposing" this companies security failures is no more than self serving sensationalism. Why not use your time an effort to suggest 100% secure, anti-criminal act solutions. Of course you won’t because there is none.

Well, Anthony, my motto is now

BLOGGING IS NOT DOING

though there is value in letting people know about this stuff. But what's the point in suggesting Brad spend his time on an exercise you already think is futile? Exposing this stuff is wonderful only if people use it to inform their action to stop the criminality, but I don't think your suggestion is helpful in the least. In fact, it seems to me to be just as "self-serving" as you accuse Brad of being.