Tuesday, January 06, 2009
Exclusive: Humboldt's Secret Hart Attack
On December 17 the We Do Not Consent blog broke the story that Humboldt, CA Registrar of Voters Carolyn Crnich had announced to the Election Advisory Committee (EAC) the previous evening her intention to replace Diebold/Premier "election" junk with comparable secret vote counting computers from Hart InterCivic. I've posted a few times about the need for a public due diligence process around multiple Diebold alternatives, including a letter published in the Eureka Times-Standard and another that ran in the North Coast Journal. Both letters were based on the recent news of a Diebold programming failure that secretly deleted 197 ballots and led to inaccurate election results being certified here. Both letters were also written prior to learning about Crnich's proposed switch. Efforts to spark such a community dialog are happening today in multiple forms, and on the heels of a major new development.
In a phone call this morning, Crnich acknowledged that in November she discussed the planned changes with a small number of volunteers who were asked to keep it a secret. Parke Bostrom is an EAC and ETP (Election Transparency Project) volunteer who has also worked closely with Crnich as an election day poll worker and overall observer of the Elections Department. Yesterday Bostrom posted The "Spend Pork Wisely" Petition that begins:Petition calling for public discussion of Humboldt County's plan to purchase $600,000 of Hart InterCivic eScan election equipment.
The full petition text appears here and at the bottom of this post. Crnich has now tried twice without success to get the matter on the Supes agenda. As I noted on 12/17, her first attempt was for the December 16 Supes meeting, which would have done the deed even before fully revealing the secret at that night's EAC meeting - at which Crnich also said she had hoped to take delivery of nearly 80 new machines the next day in order to get a $28,000 discount offered by Hart if the deal could be completed by year's end.
WHEREAS, at the November 18th monthly public meeting of the Humboldt Election Advisory Committee, County Clerk, Recorder and Registrar of Voters Carolyn Crnich announced the Elections Office's plan to stop using the county's Diebold/Premier AccuVote/GEMS elections equipment and replace it with similar Hart InterCivic eScan equipment.
And WHEREAS, County Clerk, Recorder and Registrar of Voters Crnich then asked those attending the public meeting to keep this plan secret until at least mid-December, thereby minimizing the opportunity for public discussion of the plan prior to receiving approval for the plan from the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors.
The Humboldt Board of Supervisors met again today without taking this on, leaving us planning for a January 13 agenda item, but taking action now with outreach to media as well as the Supes and various local City Councils, whose members we hope will encourage the Supes to have a public process. Eureka Councilman Larry Glass encouraged such an approach when I spoke with him this past Saturday evening in his Old Town music store. (Also worth noting: Glass recently made news for heroically rescuing a would-be suicide jumper into Humboldt Bay).
My 12/17 exclusive landed as the top story on that day's Daily Voting News, compiled by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org. Two days later, BradBlog quoted me heavily and advanced Gideon's observation that Hart InterCivic had withdrawn from the federal certification process. Bostrom's petition puts a fine point on this:And WHEREAS, the version of the Hart InterCivic eScan equipment the Elections Office is planning to purchase is also an old version of the eScan system, as Hart InterCivic has been unable to receive certification from the California Secretary of State for the most recent and up-to-date version of the eScan system.
The Times-Standard has followed up twice since I broke the story of the proposed switch. In a quote of note in the December 22 article (archive), Crnich says, "This plan that is proposed pre-dates any of the problems that were found to exist in this election."
And WHEREAS, Hart InterCivic has withdrawn from the certification process and is not currently seeking certification for use in California of the most recent and up-to-date version of the eScan system; and consequently, so long as Hart InterCivic remains disengaged from the certification process, it will not be legally possible to apply any software upgrades that may be necessary to prevent future invisible failures of the old version of the eScan system
The same article also reports Congressman Mike Thompson sent a letter to "federal elections officials," about his concern over the invisible failure. I wonder if he knew then or even knows now that some votes for him were among those deleted (as Bostrom notes in the petition). I am awaiting a call back from Thompson's office in Eureka.
The T-S followed up again on December 29 (archive) reporting Thompson's letter got the attention of Election Assistance Commission Chairwoman Rosemary Rodriguez, who claims her horribly ineffectual board "doesn't have the authority or capacity to launch independent investigations." She does pledge, and seem to want a gold star for, her intention to "disseminate the contents of the Humboldt County report to elections officials from coast to coast [to] prevent similar problems from occurring elsewhere." What a good idea. If only it weren't the repeatedly unfulfilled yet HAVA-mandated purpose for her existence.
Also check out the first half of hour three of the December 19 Peter B. Collins show when I called in to discuss all this with PBC, Brad Friedman, and Harvey Wasserman.
Happenings in the Humboldt Elections Department have been making national news for a while now. Generally speaking, Crnich has earned lots of fans for her willingness to work with the great team of citizen volunteers that have made the ETP happen. In addition to Bostrom, credit, praise and thanks also rightfully go to Kevin Collins, Mitch Trachtenberg, and Tom Pinto.
With such involved interactions and access to Crnich, these guys have gained her trust and confidence, resulting in candid sharing of information. However, Crnich's request for secrecy, and the volunteers' granting of this request, is not the kind of transparency we deserve from our local government, particularly in the context of a so-called Election Transparency Project.
Asked to comment on Bostrom's petition, Crnich told me she is "ready to move forward," and the idea of slowing down for a public due diligence process would be a "serious impediment to progress" because it puts needed training on hold. While Crnich calls the lateral move from Diebold to Hart "progress," I see it as a false alternative.
I have been unable to reach Collins and Trachtenberg for comment on the petition and secrecy issue, however, Pinto provided the following in an e-mail early this morning:In my opinion, citizens are being offered a disappointing menu of choices with regards to election systems. I really hope the CA Sec. of State will offer us the option of using an election system that incorporates open source technology. However, that option is not being offered at this time.
I concede that I missed several consecutive EAC meetings at which Hart equipment was apparently discussed and even demonstrated (Crnich even chided me for this when I arrived at the December meeting). However, I do not think that these small and largely undocumented meetings, of a committee with no formal mandate from the county, constitute a sufficient public process. Pinto notes that "interested persons" have been given an opportunity to weigh in, but not enough has been done to make the community at large aware of the proposed switch to Hart, let alone interested.
I think that CC [Carolyn Crnich] has made an acceptable decision to purchase Hart eScan based upon what is being offered by the State and based upon the age and problems of our existing software. I think CC has researched it sufficiently and she expects it to save [Elections Manager] Kelly [Sanders] a HUGE amount of time. I'm glad the Humboldt County Election Transparency Project is in place to the catch poll worker errors and software bugs (regardless of which proprietary system we're using). I hope that more citizen volunteers will participate in the next audit.
I think CC has done a first rate job of reaching out to citizens to participate. She has given interested persons, such as the ones who attend the EAC meetings, sufficient opportunity to voice any concerns about the eScan. She has also invited the public to inspect these machines. I respectfully question whether there is sufficient need for creating a formal time period for additional public participation. I also doubt that the conclusion of such a comment period would result in any difference the current plan. However, I do not object to the creation of formal public comment period.
Bostrom's petition at least seeks to bridge this gap, also noting that the contract for the proposed switch to Hart has not even been made public yet. That aspect alone deserves rigorous public scrutiny. I'll have more on this developing story in the days ahead.
* * *
Petition calling for public discussion of Humboldt County's plan to purchase $600,000 of Hart InterCivic eScan election equipment.
WHEREAS, at the November 18th monthly public meeting of the Humboldt Election Advisory Committee, County Clerk, Recorder and Registrar of Voters Carolyn Crnich announced the Elections Office's plan to stop using the county's Diebold/Premier AccuVote/GEMS elections equipment and replace it with similar Hart InterCivic eScan equipment.
And WHEREAS, County Clerk, Recorder and Registrar of Voters Crnich then asked those attending the public meeting to keep this plan secret until at least mid-December, thereby minimizing the opportunity for public discussion of the plan prior to receiving approval for the plan from the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors.
And WHEREAS, on the evening of December 16th, at the next monthly public meeting of the Humboldt Election Advisory Committee, after 197 ballots had been invisibly deleted by an invisible failure of the AccuVote/GEMS equipment, when asked what the planned response to the invisible AccuVote/GEMS failure would be, and having been bumped from the overfull agenda of the Board of Supervisors meeting that very morning, County Clerk, Recorder and Registrar of Voters Crnich publicly announced the plan to purchase the eScan equipment.
And WHEREAS, the invisible failure of the AccuVote/GEMS system deleted 114 votes for Representative Mike Thompson; 102 votes for Assembly Member Wes Chesbro; 76 and 148 votes for, respectively, City of Eureka Councilpersons Linda Atkins and Frank Jager; 110 and 84 votes, respectively, for and against California's Proposition 8; 83 and 113 votes, respectively, for and against City of Eureka Measure J.
And WHEREAS, the invisible failure of the AccuVote/GEMS system is believed to be due to a bug in the old version of the GEMS equipment that is claimed to be fixed in the most recent version of GEMS available for use in California.
And WHEREAS, the version of the Hart InterCivic eScan equipment the Elections Office is planning to purchase is also an old version of the eScan system, as Hart InterCivic has been unable to receive certification from the California Secretary of State for the most recent and up-to-date version of the eScan system.
And WHEREAS, Hart InterCivic has withdrawn from the certification process and is not currently seeking certification for use in California of the most recent and up-to-date version of the eScan system; and consequently, so long as Hart InterCivic remains disengaged from the certification process, it will not be legally possible to apply any software upgrades that may be necessary to prevent future invisible failures of the old version of the eScan system.
And WHEREAS, the cost to purchase the old version of the eScan system will be in excess of $600,000 of taxpayer money.
And WHEREAS, as of January 5, 2009, the proposed contract with Hart InterCivic has not been publicly disclosed, and consequently there has not been any open public discussion of the specific plan to purchase the old version of the eScan system.
And WHEREAS, open public discussion of the plan to purchase the old version the eScan system is a reasonable step to take to reduce the likelihood of future invisible failures of election systems.
THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that we, the undersigned concerned citizens call upon County Clerk, Recorder and Registrar of Voters Carolyn Crnich, and also upon the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors to take the following steps to promote public confidence in the outcome of future elections in Humboldt County:
1. The county SHALL issue a press release containing the proposed contract with Hart InterCivic and inviting the public to submit written questions, comments and concerns regarding the planned purchase and use of the old version of the Hart InterCivic eScan system.
2. Following the publication of the press release, the county SHALL give the public at least 2 weeks to submit such written questions, comments, and concerns.
3. At the end of the submission period, the county SHALL publish, in an electronic format, all the questions, comments and concerns submitted by the public.
4. Within a reasonable period of time thereafter, the county SHALL prepare written responses to all the public's questions, comments, and concerns. In preparing said responses, the county may, if it so wishes, consult with Hart InterCivic and/or any other parties.
5. When the county finishes preparing written responses, the county SHALL publish, in an electronic format, the public's questions, comments and concerns together with the county's responses.
6. Following the publication of the county's responses, there SHALL be a period of reflection. The period of reflection of SHALL be at least one week long.
7. Prior to the conclusion of the period of reflection, the Board of Supervisors SHALL NOT approve the purchase of the old version of the eScan system.
8. After the conclusion of the period of reflection, the Board of Supervisors may create an agenda item for an open public hearing of the request to purchase the old version of the eScan system.
9. Additionally, if the Board of Supervisors is interested in considering, in a thoughtful and deliberate manner, alternatives other than the purchase of the old version of the eScan system, we recommend to the board that now, prior to the purchase of the old version of the eScan system, is a very good time to consider any such alternatives.
Sign the Petition
Permalink:
http://wedonotconsent.blogspot.com/2009/01/exclusive-humboldts-secret-hart-attack.html
Labels: Carolyn Crnich, Diebold, Election Advisory Committee, eScan, Hart Intercivic, Kevin Collins, Larry Glass, Mike Thompson, Mitch Trachtenberg, Parke Bostrom, petition, T-S, The Journal, Tom Pinto
Friday, January 04, 2008
From Around The World, Inherent Uncertainty Comes Home To Roost
In his Town Dandy column this week, North Coast Journal editor Hank Sims does an excellent job of tracing the origin of a widely held misconception related to the now famous confrontation a few months ago between Rob Arkley, Eureka's wealthiest businessman, and Larry Glass, a member of the Eureka City Council. The matter has been referred to the state Attorney General. Meanwhile, Glass has taken umbrage at Sims' suggestion that at some point Glass "changed his mind about pressing charges." Glass alleges the confusion stems from erroneous reporting in the Eureka Times-Standard. Sims writes:It seemed to me that Glass' objection called for a bit of research. I'm certain that I'm not the only one who remembered that Glass seemed to originally signal that he was inclined to let the whole Arkley matter fade from memory as quickly as possible, and that he then seemed to have changed his mind. Was that understanding in error? Does it matter? I'm rather inclined to think it doesn't matter: People should be allowed to change their minds without penalty. But it mattered to Glass, and I stood accused of perpetuating a myth. So I figured I owed it to everyone to figure out the truth of the matter.
I say bully for Sims for taking this on. I leave it you, WDNC readers, to go back and follow Sims' trail. Of course it comes as no surprise that Sims' investigation led to the following conclusion:
I was unsuccessful. But here's what I found.So if I had to guess, I'd guess that this small little bit of uncertainty will join all the other, larger, stranger bits of uncertainty attached to that night that Rob Arkley got aggro on Larry Glass, shoving him or not shoving him, threatening to destroy him (or not), all in front of a roomful of society people who carefully and fastidiously failed to witness any of it.
Three sides to every story, right? It amuses me that Sims goes to such great length, doing really responsible journalism, only to reach a conclusion often described here at WDNC as inherent uncertainty. I have discussed this subject with Sims in the past, and he was either unwilling, unable, or incapable of acknowledging that unverifiable elections guarantee inconclusive outcomes, or inherent uncertainty. We see this elsewhere too, such as the "official story" of 9/11, which contains contradictions and scientific impossibilities; and more recently with varied explanations for the assassination of Benazir Bhutto.
Now it turns out that from beyond the grave, Bhutto has opened a whole new case file in the realm of inherent uncertainty. Interviewed by Sir David Frost less than two months prior to her slaying, Bhutto claims that Osama bin Laden was murdered. Frost does not pick up on this comment during the interview though in the past ten days or so this has been widely discussed.
Len Hart, blogging as the Existential Cowboy, has excavated some gems from the memory hole, citing first a Fox News story from 12/26/01 and then a New York Times column from 7/11/02, both reporting the death of bin Laden. Now of course both of these so-called news sources have subsequently published articles about new video or audio tapes supposedly from bin Laden. And certainly no corporate media have called the bluff of the "war on terror."
No, instead we have the intentional creation and perpetuation of inherent uncertainty. It serves the power structure to keep the masses divided. Wedge issues are just the most superficial and obvious ways. More insidious and apparently not as easy to recognize is the rift in the perception of reality created by inherent uncertainty. See Blueprint For Peaceful Revolution for more on this.
Americans have been turned against each other. I have previously described the Manchurian Nation, the support structure for society that has been indoctrinated to demonize dissent and conflate activism with terrorism. At OpEdNews.comtoday, Kathryn Smith raises awareness of one such example, a declassified FBI memo obtained by the ACLU. Under the heading "International Terrorism Matters," the Pittsburgh Division Joint Terrorism Task Force reports on groups planning peaceful protests. Of course this should surprise no one either, assuming you've familiarized yourself with the typical signs of fascism taking over your country.
A couple of other quick notes...following up on the series of posts I did on the DOJ case compelling NY state to comply with HAVA:http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/V/VOTING_MACHINES?SITE=FLTAM&SECTION=US
Also, today, Editor and Publisher (by way of BradBlog) gives a head's up for a "massive" article in this Sunday's New York Times about the problems with electronic voting. Put in perspective, this is not going to be a mea culpa for the Times being years behind the facts, and will instead be yet another way to (justifiably) increase the already (understandably) enormous doubts about election results. In other words, the Times is about to contribute greatly to creating more inherent uncertainty.
Jan 4, 7:42 PM EST
NY Sets Voting-Machine Upgrade Schedule
By RICHARD RICHTMYER
Associated Press Writer
ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) -- The New York Board of Elections on Friday gave a federal judge a timetable under which it plans to replace all of the state's lever-action voting machines by September 2009.
...
The Help America Vote Act requires New York to replace the mechanical pull-lever machines that were introduced in the state more than a century ago with high-tech machines. It also requires the state to provide at least one machine accessible to the disabled at each polling place.
State election officials have said part of the problem is that state requirements for voting machines are stricter than federal ones.
The plan submitted Friday doesn't say what kind of machines New York would use to comply with HAVA, but [election board spokesman, Lee] Daghlian said none of the touch-screen machines currently on the market meet state standards.
(similar AP story in Newsday)
Permalink:
http://wedonotconsent.blogspot.com/2008/01/from-around-world-inherent-uncertainty.html
Labels: 9/11, ACLU, AP, Benazir Bhutto, Existential Cowboy, fascism, Fox News, Hank Sims, inherent uncertainty, Larry Glass, Manchuran Nation, New York Times, Newsday, Rob Arkley, The Journal
Thursday, December 06, 2007
Media Notes
A few days ago I wrote about meeting Marcy Burstiner, an assistant professor of journalism and mass communication at Humboldt State University, who also writes the Media Maven column for the North Coast Journal. I noted that she was expecting some big news about the Eureka Reporter to be announced on Sunday. Sure enough, here is the announcement:Please come and see The Eureka Reporter's new ePaper.
Elsewhere in the paper, Publisher Judi Pollace revealed that the Reporter will stop publishing on Mondays and Tuesdays when 2008 arrives, remaining a free publication five days per week. Burstiner's Media Maven column this week is called "Pray for the Reporter!" Some excerpts:
The ePaper is a free, exact replica of The Eureka Reporter. Readers can log onto any computer with Internet access and view all the text, photos and advertisements exactly as they are printed in the daily paper.Please take a moment to register to access the ePaper.For those who like to bash the Reporter, consider Humboldt County without it. When a newspaper goes from publishing seven days a week to five, that's a sign of hard financial times. There are others. Its reporters are disappearing and more articles in the paper now carry no byline than stories that do carry a byline. (Generally that means that what you think is an article is just a printed press release.)
I got name-dropped in the North Coast Journal by the Media Maven, in the same sentence as Amy Goodman no less (even though she is a left gatekeeper). I'll take that as a feather in the cap, right next to the Journal's January 2006 comment that my previous blog GuvWurld was "gaining some stature in the larger blogosphere."
(snip)
But don't write off the paper yet. It eliminated paper publishing on Mondays and Tuesdays, but it recently added a fourth member to its editorial board: Peter Hannaford, a key adviser to Governor Ronald Reagan and a former partner to former Reagan adviser and lobbyist extraordinaire Micheal Deaver.
It makes for some interesting dynamics on the paper. The way editorials used to work involved a majority vote from the members of the three-person team. That led, at least once, to managing editor Glenn Franco Simmons writing a separate column opposing the paper's stand. If they still use the voice vote, I'd like to see how they get out of a split.
I like having the Eureka Reporter around. It gives jobs to my current and former students. And it prints any opinion out there. For those who see it as a bullhorn for Arkley, they ignore how it prints columns by Amy Goodman, Dave Berman and others. It gives a forum for the 911 Truth folks — those pushing to reopen the investigation into the collapse of the World Trade Centers — who can't get their voices into the North Coast Journal or Times-Standard. My stand isn't whether I support the opinions or not. What I support is the forum for expression. (emphasis added)
As for the ePaper, it is labeled as Beta which means kinks are still being worked out and perhaps some features have yet to be added. My first experience was that I needed to increase magnification so much to read the text that the portion of the text displayed was a fraction of an article. It took me a while to figure out that if I click and drag the image of the paper I can move it around to reveal parts not visible when zoomed in enough to read. It looks kind of snazzy but I'm not sure I like it any better than the regular Reporter site.
Back to Burstiner again. The credits listed above are taken directly from her Media Maven column and omit her role as faculty adviser to the Humboldt State University student newspaper, The Lumberjack. One thing this paper has been steadily following is a faculty-driven "no confidence" campaign directed at University President Rollin C. Richmond. When I met Burstiner last week she encouraged me to submit letters to the Lumberjack and so I saw this all too obvious connection. This week's paper contains a letter I wrote, reprinted in full below (the paper's website is woefully outdated):The Lumberjack, December 5, 2007, Vol. 91 No. 14, Page 22
Voter confidence should count
Dave Berman
Letter to the editor
Dear Lumberjack Editor:
All this talk about a no confidence vote on President Richmond reminds me that many HSU students may be unaware of another no confidence vote that made news here a few years ago.
On July 20, 2005 the Arcata City Council adopted the Voter Confidence Resolution (VCR). This is a statement outlining election conditions around the country, primarily the fact that election results have become unverifiable. From this, the VCR concludes that there is "no basis for confidence" in the results reported. We are instead forced to "trust" the government using secret vote counting machines that produce results we must accept with blind faith.
Votes on a ballot are tangible and should be countable and recountable, indefinitely, reliably producing the same results over and over. Government legitimacy is derived, according to the Declaration of Independence, from the Consent of the Governed. Elections that can't be recounted and results that can't be questioned mean that our Consent is being assumed and taken for granted, rather than sought and freely given.
The Voter Confidence Committee of Humboldt County is committed to improving local election conditions to create transparency, security, and verifiable accuracy as a basis for confidence in the results. We aim to do this by persuading the County Supervisors and Registrar of Voters to get rid of our secret electronic vote counting systems and instead use voters to hand-count paper ballots in the precincts on election night.
This is one of many recommendations in our "Report on Election Conditions in Humboldt County," based on an intensive eight month study of the situation. Readers can find this report, as well as the VCR and many other materials related to our campaign for hand-counting in Humboldt, at www.VoterConfidenceCommittee.org.
If you are registered to vote in Humboldt, please use the sign up form on our site to let us know you are willing to join in the counting. It is important we show the skeptical local government there are in fact enough of us to get the job done. We estimate it will only take about 1% of registered voters.
Dave Berman is the co-founder of the Voter Confidence Committee
Permalink:
http://wedonotconsent.blogspot.com/2007/12/media-notes.html
Labels: ePaper, Eureka Reporter, GuvWurld, Judi Pollace, Lumberjack, Marcy Burstiner, Report on Election Conditions, Rollin Richmond, The Journal, Voter Confidence Committee, Voter Confidence Resolution
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
The End of America, The Book Review
I referenced the book The End of America a few weeks ago in a letter to the NYTimes that I posted here at WDNC. As I said at that time, there is much more to be said about this book. Author Naomi Wolf has been doing the talk show circuit and also posting essays at Huffington Post and Daily Kos. I have a collection of those links coming soon. Below is the book review I wrote in the new issue of the Journal (it is not yet online but I'll post an update with the link when it is available).
Update:
http://www.northcoastjournal.com/102507/review1025.html"The End of America:
Letter of Warning To a Young Patriot"
by Naomi Wolf
North Coast Journal Book Review
By Dave Berman
10/25/07
World renowned feminist and best-selling author of the landmark "The Beauty Myth," Naomi Wolf is back with "The End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot," a brief 155-page look at the historical patterns found in all dictatorial regimes. Extensively footnoted, this book draws out astounding parallels between Stalin, Mussolini, Hitler, Pinochet and more. Laid against the backdrop of 21st century America, Wolf shows those currently in power have followed the playbook closely.
Wolf refers to "historical echoes" when describing such recurrent totalitarian manifestations as secret prisons, mercenary or paramilitary forces, surveillance of ordinary citizens and infiltration of their organizations, restrictions on the press, and speech in general, arbitrary detainment and release of citizens, evocation of a constant internal and external threat, allegations of espionage and treason at critics and dissenters, and subverting the rule of law.
This book is very much the warning the subtitle promises. The introduction of such authoritarian practices typically occurs gradually, and in a similar sequence. Wolf calls this the "fascist shift" and describes tell-tale signs that an open democratic society is being closed down. In other words, you know your government's gone fascist when...
Many in Humboldt know we're already there. "The End of America" provides great context for helping evolve the thinking of un-like-minded neighbors. Thomas Paine, author of the seminal American revolutionary pamphlet Common Sense, wrote that not everyone will recognize the need for revolution simultaneously. There have to be people who get it first and then help others to see. For those who already understand, Wolf offers compelling if not exhaustive material ideal for reframing understanding of the changes our country has undertaken, in our name and without our consent.
For the folks at the other end of the spectrum, the ones who think this premise is exaggerated and inapplicable to present-day America, there is precedent for this. Another echo Wolf traces is the intentionally blurred definition of truth and reality. Fascist governments work hard at perception management, influencing or controlling media, propagandizing, adopting laws that do the opposite what they purport to do. This is never expected to create uniform belief but to disorient and confuse, divisively inhibiting resistance.
What Wolf offers the doubters is a calm and rational assessment of well researched facts and anecdotes, with sources for confirmation. The book is a warning and Wolf's concern comes through genuine and true without being shrill or off-putting to readers perhaps still struggling to admit the extent of America's fascist shift. The hope she conveys is that it is not too late and Americans can come together to restore the Constitution, the rule of law, and the freedoms and liberties envisioned by the Founders.
Permalink:
http://wedonotconsent.blogspot.com/2007/10/end-of-america-book-review.html
Labels: Daily Kos, End of America, Huffington Post, Naomi Wolf, New York Times, The Journal
Thursday, August 16, 2007
Accountability Moment For Eureka Times-Standard
Recently here at WDNC, I have been calling attention to fact-deficient articles in the Eureka Times-Standard (see here and here). Naturally the focus has been on the coverage of "voting machine" news. Today the T-S has published a "My Word" guest opinion column (archive) that pulls it all together. The full text is at the bottom of this post.
But first, I want mention this past Tuesday, when Voter Confidence Committee members Rabbi Les Scharnberg, Ruth Hoke, and I met with the T-S editorial board to discuss the VCC's Report on Election Conditions In Humboldt County, our campaign for hand-counted paper ballots, and of course, their recent dreadful coverage. The meeting was roughly 42 minutes and on the record. A complete recording is here (.mp3). It may not be uniformly exciting, but then we stood our ground several times in challenging their assumptions and rejecting some of their marginalization tactics, and that may be worth hearing.
And one last thing before I get to the My Word column, in case you missed it last night, click here for a letter to the editor which I had published in this week's issue of the Journal.Eureka Times-Standard
Permalink:
Collective amnesia about e-voting safety
Dave Berman
Article Launched: 08/16/2007 04:15:49 AM PDT
Election conditions have figured prominently in recent news, thanks in part to a technical review of the state's voting systems conducted by California Secretary of State Debra Bowen. Bowen's "Red Teams" of computer security experts compromised the security of every system tested, including Diebold and Hart InterCivic equipment used in Humboldt County. The Times-Standard's coverage of this topic deserves serious scrutiny.
On July 28, the T-S ran this headline [on the Web]: "Local election systems may be vulnerable to hackers." This was the first paragraph: "A team of University of California computer scientists were able to hack into several voting systems used by California counties, including the two systems currently used in Humboldt County, the secretary of state announced Friday."
When clearly reporting that election systems are vulnerable ("were able to hack"), why does the T-S headline say they may be vulnerable? [Editor's note: The headline in the print edition said, "Election systems at risk of hacking."]
The T-S quotes Humboldt Registrar of Voters Carolyn Crnich being dismissive of these results, and in a manner extraordinarily similar to corporate propaganda defensively spun by "voting machine" vendors. This phenomenon is afflicting registrars throughout the state. They want the public to believe some new precautions can offset the machines' systemic design flaws.
In a report found on the secretary's website, Bowen's Diebold Source Code Review Team wrote: "Improvements to existing procedures may mitigate some threats in part, but others would be difficult, if not impossible, to remedy procedurally. Consequently, we conclude that the safest way to repair the Diebold system is to reengineer it so that it is secure by design."
On Aug. 7, the T-S presented another distortion: "E-voting order may have little impact here." While I may not think Secretary Bowen went far enough in defining new certification conditions, it is definitely a good thing that she has banned modems from transmitting precinct results to election department headquarters. Memory cards from all precincts will now have to be physically delivered to central HQ, and announcing results on election night may no longer be possible. Little impact?
On Aug. 8, the T-S again created a false impression with the headline: "County election system fares well in review." This headline contradicts previous T-S reporting as well as the facts.
This same article also congratulates the registrar for previously choosing optical scanners over touch screen machines, both of which "count" votes in secret. The T-S is correct to place a premium on paper ballots. But the methods of casting and counting votes must be evaluated separately. Lauding this decision is like feting Ford for new seat belts in response to exploding Pintos.
Why is the T-S shaping news this way, without even a balancing view from within the community? How can the registrar defend previously discredited equipment now again debunked? How could recent test results have strengthened her resolve to use Diebold's optical scanners? Why does the registrar choose to align herself with a company that employs convicted computer fraudsters and faces multiple class action lawsuits from investors, rather than with results of legitimate state-sponsored academic university studies?
Humboldt County's Voter Confidence Committee recently completed an eight-month study and published a "Report on Election Conditions in Humboldt County, California." Over the past several years, Humboldt media have documented numerous breakdowns of "voting machines." Yet somehow, word on the street seems to be that we have never had any problems here. Is there any wonder where such confusion comes from?
Regardless, this report is both an antidote for collective amnesia, and a blueprint for community involvement needed to make our elections transparent, secure, and verifiably accurate. The VCC has developed a spreadsheet tool for creating labor, cost and time estimates for an all hand-counted election. Using the VCC spreadsheet tool, The Journal's Hank Sims "twiddled" with the numbers and found hand-counting "wouldn't be all that time-consuming or costly" ("Town Dandy," Aug. 2).
Publicly counting votes by hand involves the community in its democracy and makes elections a citizen-owned endeavor. The media witnessing and documenting the process would establish the credibility of the reported results.
The VCC tool and report are now available at www.VoterConfidenceCommittee.org. We encourage more public discussion about election conditions, and in particular, what creates a basis for voter confidence without relying on blind trust.
To get involved, e-mail: info@VoterConfidenceCommittee.org or look for our volunteers signing up people who want the county to know they are willing to hand-count paper ballots on election night.
Dave Berman is a founding member of the Voter Confidence Committee. He resides in Eureka. His blog is http://WeDoNotConsent.blogspot.com.
http://wedonotconsent.blogspot.com/2007/08/accountability-moment-for-eureka-times.html
Labels: Debra Bowen, Diebold, Eureka Times-Standard, Humboldt County, Rabbi Les Scharnberg, Report on Election Conditions, Ruth Hoke, The Journal, Voter Confidence Committee
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Diebold's Wobble (LTTE in the Journal)
WDNC readers know I've been closely following the Humboldt media reporting on "voting machines." Hank Sims at the Journal has been doing better than most lately and so I told him so in a letter to the editor published in this week's Journal, at newsstands as of today but not yet online (I don't think they publish letters online anyway, which is too bad). The full text is below.
One other quick note first and that's about the paper with the poorest record lately, the Eureka Times-Standard. Yesterday, along with two other members of the Voter Confidence Committee, I met with the T-S editorial board. I'll have more on that in the morning, when I'm told Thursday's paper will contain a guest opinion (My Word) column I wrote.The Journal
Permalink:
August 16, 2007
Page 4, "Mailbox"
Diebold's Wobble
Dear Editor:
These are words of encouragement for Hank Sims to continue writing about Humboldt County's election conditions. In his last two "Town Dandy" columns (Aug. 2 & 9), Sims made it real for our community that official state-sanctioned computer security experts, aka Red Team hackers, "made mincemeat of the machines, demonstrating a variety of ways to skew the vote." The machines in question are Humboldt's so-called "voting machines," optical scanners made by Diebold.
Sims succinctly summarized that our machines "could be easily jimmied and rendered inoperative." I will not stand by and let people say that all election reporting is as misleading as the Times-Standard's coverage ("County election system fares well in review," Aug. 8).
Sims has it right. He even got a sneak peak at the Voter Confidence Committee's new spreadsheet tool for creating labor, cost and time estimates for an all hand-counted election. This tool is now publicly available in conjunction with the VCC's new "Report on Election Conditions in Humboldt County." Both can be found at www.VoterConfidenceCommittee.org.
When Sims "twiddled" with the numbers, he found hand-counting "wouldn't be all that time-consuming or costly." This addresses a major misconception in the community. But for those who think having election night results is crucial, Sims also notes Secretary of State Debra Bowen's new prohibition on the use of modems to transmit precinct results to the election department headquarters, "which means that we will no longer have election night results."
Could hand-counting be faster, cheaper, and more accurate? Twiddle onward.
Dave Berman, Eureka
http://wedonotconsent.blogspot.com/2007/08/diebolds-wobble-ltte-in-journal.html
Labels: Diebold, Eureka Times-Standard, Hank Sims, The Journal, Voter Confidence Committee
Wednesday, August 08, 2007
What Have We Learned About Elections Lately?
CA Secretary of State Debra Bowen made a dramatic late-night announcement on Friday, August 3, presenting her certification decisions for the state's voting systems. Bowen completely decertified InkaVote, sold by ES&S and formerly used only in Los Angeles, because the source code was not submitted for review. All other equipment was decertified and recertified with new conditions for use, based in part on the reports (lower on same page as above link) of Bowen's Red Teams of computer security experts (see my summaries of the Diebold and Hart Intercivic reports). Some of these terms are vague or confusing, and I'll cover that in a bit.
What is clear to me is that the public is becoming more aware and more concerned about our election conditions. I have observed more people than ever having open discussions about Diebold, Bowen, and hand-counting paper ballots. More than a few people contacted me by e-mail in the past week to ask how to get involved. The increased interest in election integrity feels palpable to me.
While plentiful, Humboldt media coverage has been mixed, at best, while at other times presenting an alternate reality. On July 28, The Times-Standard gave us a headline of "Local election systems may be vulnerable to hackers" above a lede that makes clear local election systems ARE vulnerable to hackers. Today, a T-S headline read, "County election system fares well in review" - despite the Red Team reports of countless exploits found in our Diebold optical scanners.
Hank Sims had a little more on the ball in last week's Town Dandy column in the Journal: "...the hackers basically made mincemeat of the machines, demonstrating a variety of ways to skew the vote...The Red Team also verified that the optical scanning machines found at our precincts could be easily jimmied and rendered inoperative."
Having checked out the amazing calculator tool (.xls) I wrote about last week, Sims went on to address the feasibility of the Voter Confidence Committee's campaign for hand-counted paper ballots:Berman's suggestion: Ditch the machines and go to a pure hand-count of all votes cast. Initial twiddling with the numbers suggests that it wouldn't be all that time-consuming or costly -- and wouldn't you rather wait a few days and spend a little more for a trustworthy count?
I have no objection to being called "obsessive" when the same article makes my case this well. The new issue of the Journal is out but not yet online. Sims again writes about elections, referring to Bowen's "weekend massacre." The problems this will cause Humboldt are "relatively minor," says Sims, contrasting with the newly machine-less LA. True that.
However, I believe Sims understates things when saying that shoring up security for the GEMS central tabulator will merely mean "our elections office will have to change up procedure a bit." I leave it to the reader to re-trace my many prior references to the dangers of GEMS. Here I shall only point to the words from another of the reports provided to Bowen in her Top To Bottom Review (TTBR). This is from the Executive Summary of the Source Code Review of the Diebold Voting System:Vulnerability to malicious insiders
It doesn't get any more devastating than that. All the preening of Humboldt Registrar of Voters Carolyn Crnich is plainly phoney, and the media pandering to her is reprehensible. Sims gets a pass for his support of HCPB, but here is more bad journalism from the T-S ("E-voting order may have little impact here"), and without Rebecca S. Bender it seems the Eureka Reporter has gone mute on this subject, save a great letter to the editor submitted by VCC members Ruth Hoke and George Hurlburt.
The Diebold system lacks adequate controls to ensure that county workers with access to the GEMS central election management system do not exceed their authority. Anyone with access to a county's GEMS server could tamper with ballot definitions or election results and could also introduce malicious software into the GEMS server itself or into the county's voting machines.
Although we present several previously unpublished vulnerabilities, many of the weaknesses that we describe were first identified in previous studies of the Diebold system (e. g., [26], [17], [18], [19], [33], [23], and [14]). Our report confirms that many of the most serious flaws that these studies uncovered have not been fixed in the versions of the software that we studied.
Since many of the vulnerabilities in the Diebold system result from deep architectural flaws, fixing individual defects piecemeal without addressing their underlying causes is unlikely to render the system secure. Systems that are architecturally unsound tend to exhibit "weakness-in-depth"-even as known flaws in them are fixed, new ones tend to be discovered. In this sense, the Diebold software is fragile.
Due to these shortcomings, the security of elections conducted with the Diebold system depends almost entirely on the effectiveness of election procedures. Improvements to existing procedures may mitigate some threats in part, but others would be difficult, if not impossible, to remedy procedurally. Consequently, we conclude that the safest way to repair the Diebold system is to reengineer it so that it is secure by design.
What is happening is that Crnich and other Registrars throughout the state are in a highly defensive posture. Being forced to give up all their equipment would mean maximum uncertainty and the greatest amount of work. Instead, in fine CYA fashion, we see continued apologies for secret vote counting machines. You don't have to look all that closely to see the similarities in the rhetoric of Registrars and machine vendors such as Diebold. It is unconscionable that the results of Bowen's TTBR would make anyone more inclined to support "electronic voting machines." We're past the time of being surprised by such things, including the media's facilitation role. It is time we use these points against them. Ready for the first great example?
As Sims points out in his new column, Bowen has banned the use of modems for transmitting precinct results to the central tabulator. The VCC report addresses the risks of modems and obviously calls for their banishment as they are unnecessary with hand-counting. The beauty of what Sims says:"The machines will have to be physically delivered back to Elections HQ before the counting commences, which means that we will no longer have election night results."
Of course, one of the most common blusters we hear against HCPB is that it will take too long. We are now very close to having definitive proof that HCPB will be faster. The VCC continues to call upon Crnich to help us narrow down the range of estimates plugged into the calculator tool (.xls) for forecasting manpower needs and costs of hand-counting 100% of the paper ballots. And now, thanks to Sims, I believe we should hereby permanently lay to rest the canard of immediate election results being prioritized over accuracy.
Now, regarding Bowen's conditional certification of Diebold, the way she has this posted online, I'm unable to copy and paste text directly out of the document. So, here I'll just re-type brief references and encourage you to read the full document for yourself.
Page 2
"voting systems analyzed were inadequate to ensure accuracy and integrity of the election results...contain serious design flaws...which attackers could exploit to affect election outcomes...Diebold software contains vulnerabilities that could allow an attacker to install malicious software on voting machines and on the election management system, which could cause votes to be recorded incorrectly or to be miscounted, possibly altering election results...due to these shortcomings some threats would be difficult, if not impossible, to remedy with election procedures...with access only to the Windows operating system on the Diebold GEMS election management server supplied by Diebold and without requiring access to Diebold source code [Red Team members] were able to access the Diebold voting system server software and to corrupt the election management system database, which could result in manipulated voter totals or the inability to read election results, rendering an election impossible to complete electronically."
Page 3
"...without accessing Diebold source code, [Red Team members] gained access to the election management server to manipulate and corrupt the election management system database...some of these attacks could be carried out in a manner that is not subject to detection by audit, including review of the software logs."
[WDNC]: the next quote is from page four and it strikes me as contradictory and dangerously hypocritical (sorry Bowen)
Page 4
"...tampering with optical scan equipment...can be readily detected and corrected through hand counting of the optical scan paper ballots marked and directly verified by voters."
[WDNC]: First of all, this begs acceptance of the vulnerability. With various exploits described as difficult or impossible to detect, there is no justification for guaranteeing detection, let alone correction, with opscans. This puts an undue burden on the People whose rights are not being secured here, as a government is charged to do. Rules and regulations trying to promote public oversight must first clear the view with a more transparent method of counting votes.
Page 4
"...studies have shown that many voters do not review VVPAT [Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail] records and that test voters who do review VVPAT records to not detect many discrepancies that have been intentionally introduced..."
Page 5
"In order to provide accessible balloting to voters with disabilities in compliance with HAVA, jurisdictions may use no more than once AccuVote-TSx per polling place on Election Day."
[WDNC]: This refers to the touch screen models, not used in Humboldt. Registrars have been complaining about this and it is easy to understand why. They are either going to have massive logjams of voters all trying to vote on one machine where there used to be several or many, or they will urgently have to buy many new optical scanners, or they will have to resort to hand-counting.
Page 5
Requires "a 100% manual count of all votes cast on an AccuVote-TSx."
[WDNC]: This is astounding. Hand-counting 100% of the votes defeats the purpose of having the machine count them. My assumption is that Bowen's is trying to discourage use of the touch screen machines and so the hope would be for relatively few votes cast this way in need of being hand-counted.
Page 6
"Before any use in the February 5, 2008, Presidential primary election, jurisdictions must reinstall all software and firmware (including reformatting all hard disk drives and reinstalling the operating system where applicable) on all election management system servers and workstations, voting devices and hardware components of the voting system. Voting system application software must be reinstalled using the currently approved version obtained directly from the federal testing laboratory or the Secretary of State."
Page 7
"Within 30 days of the date of this document, the vendor must develop and submit to the Secretary of State for approval, a plan and procedures for timely identification of required security updates (e.g., operating system security patches, security software updates, etc), vendor testing of the updates, and secure distribution and application of vendor-approved security updates."
[WDNC]: Why should we have confidence in the machines in their newly approved form when the expectation is that more security flaws will be found? Avi Rubin makes a similar observation. This page also inexplicably allows for networking, though it does have the modem prohibition. It also makes reference to the two-person rule which I believe goes back to the Feb. 2006 VSTAAB report, which recommends that optical scanners and memory cards never be in anyone's sole possession. This would seem to preclude sleepovers, however, page 9 seems to allow poll workers to take home machines prior to Election Day.
Page 8
"Upon request, members of the public must be permitted to observe and inspect, without physical contact, the integrity of all externally visible security seals used to secure voting equipment in a time and manner that does not interfere with the conduct of the election or the privacy of any voter."
[WDNC]: This is looks great on paper but we've seen Registrars plainly obstruct the access of citizens to their Democracy. This should carry a severe criminal penalty. Page 8 also requires posting of poll tapes, another apparent victory that in reality carries no weight. As the VCC learned last November, precinct poll tapes are useless when the County never provides as a basis for comparison raw precinct scanner data that has not been combined with absentee or other ballots not cast on the scanner in the precinct on Election Day.
Page 8
"Any post-election auditing requirements imposed as a condition of this certification shall be paid for by the vendor. Jurisdiction users are required to conduct the audits and the vendor is required to reimburse the jurisdiction."
[WDNC]: I'm getting near the end now. Just a few more stray notes, such as page 9 continuing the requirement (begun under McPherson?) that counties submit a post-election problem report to the SoS. Page 10 describes how to deal with machines whose security has been compromised, and also machines that have been rebooted or which have rebooted themselves. The bottom of page 11 and the top of page 12 is a bit troublesome. It attempts to put vendors on the hook for warrantying their equipment, but all it really does is say they have to stand by their word and repair equipment at their expense when they have been caught lying again. This is not nearly strict enough. Finally, page 12 expands the requirement for vendors to give the SoS a copy of the source code, in addition to placing a copy in escrow.
So, what have we learned about elections lately?
Permalink:
http://wedonotconsent.blogspot.com/2007/08/what-have-we-learned-about-elections.html
Labels: Carolyn Crnich, Debra Bowen, Diebold, Eureka Reporter, Eureka Times-Standard, hand-counting paper ballots, Hank Sims, The Journal, Voter Confidence Committee, VSTAAB
Monday, July 30, 2007
Bowen Review Lights Up Humboldt Media
Following up on Friday night's post (Bowen's Red Team Compromises Each Voting System Tested) where I excerpted from the Diebold report, (much later) tonight I will present several items from the Hart Intercivic report, which also has relevance here in Humboldt. But first, a check of the local media.
The Eureka Times-Standard was first out of the gate on Saturday morning (archive). There are two things I have to point out about this article. The story's lede, sets the stage:Local election systems may be vulnerable to hackers
I don't know that Faulk could have written a more straight up or accurate intro to this story. It makes it clear that hackers ARE able to hack into Humboldt voting systems. Then why does the headline say merely that the machines MAY be vulnerable to hackers?
James Faulk/The Times-Standard
Article Launched: 07/28/2007 04:21:31 AM PDT
EUREKA -- A team of University of California computer scientists were able to hack into several voting systems used by California counties, including the two systems currently used in Humboldt County, the secretary of state announced Friday.
The second comment I have about this article pertains to the last two paragraphs:Humboldt County Registrar of Voters Carolyn Crnich said it's unclear under what conditions the tests were prepared.
As I noted in the comments on the T-S website, the introduction of this report dismisses the Registrar's dodge:
"It's my understanding that the red team attacks that were made during the top-to-bottom review did not take into consideration the security efforts or guidelines that had been added by former Secretary of State Bruce McPherson -- so whether or not the systems could be penetrated with those other security guidelines in place, I don't know," Crnich said.In developing our attacks, we made no assumptions about constraints on the attackers. "Security through obscurity" – or the practice of assuming a veneer of security by relying on attackers not having access to protocol specifications or of using tools that are perceived to be difficult to acquire – is not an acceptable option for any system that can't afford to have its security compromised. Our study examined what a dedicated attacker could accomplish with all possible kinds of access.
Quoting myself from the T-S site...The greatest threat to our election systems comes not from an individual voter, but rather from insiders at the elections department or working for the machine vendor (Diebold). These are the people with the greatest access to these exploits who can secretly make large scale changes that will never be detected...I go on to say some other things but that's the gist for this post.
Now, the next article to land will be in Tuesday's Eureka Reporter. The story has been online for maybe an hour now. It is kind of strange. There is no byline and I'm the only person quoted other than a Bowen press release. The headline is: "Audit standards review group releases report." This refers to yet another component of Bowen's Top To Bottom Review (TTBR). Check out the 38-page report as a .pdf here. This article is comprised almost entirely of excerpts from the report and then concludes with quotes from me.
I believe the person who called me said her name was Laura. She sounded young and a little uncertain. She told me former elections beat writer Rebecca S. Bender had left the paper as of Friday last week. I knew about this because a few months ago at an Election Advisory Committee meeting, David Cobb inadvertently "outed" Rebecca's planned departure before she really wanted people to know. I had no reason to mention it until now but I do wish her well. So anyway, Laura asked for a comment on this new standards review report that came out today. I declined to comment since I hadn't read it. She then asked about the other related reports and we had a more general conversation about what is happening. Here's what she used:Though he had not yet seen the report, Dave Berman, one of the founding members of the local Voter Confidence Committee, said he is aware that other studies have been conducted recently regarding the voting process in California, and said he looks forward to Bowen's announcement on Friday as to what action she plans to take.
It seemed out of place at the end of this article but then I'm not sure I've ever had a better quote!
Berman said the Voter Confidence Committee promotes the idea of handcounting 100 percent of the ballots the first time around and recounting 10 percent for the audit. He said simply increasing the percentage recounted in the audit is like "putting a Band-Aid on a gunshot wound" when the first count is performed by machines.
Hank Sims from The Journal and also KHUM called me today too, presumably for his Town Dandy column due out on Wednesday. We actually spoke twice, and in between he spoke with Registrar Crnich. That made our second chat very interesting. During that time he also got to look at something I am now making public for the first time.
This is a spreadsheet that allows you to enter different variables, such as how many precincts are in your county and the average number of ballots cast per precinct. All together, the numbers you enter will then estimate how many ballot counters you need and what it will cost to pay them to do an all hand-count election. The Voter Confidence Committee will be incorporating this great new tool into the next iteration of our Report on Election Conditions in Humboldt County, CA. I don't know when that will happen. Meanwhile, election integrity advocates working for HCPB anywhere will find this tool useful. We all owe a debt of gratitude to Nancy Tobi and Democracy For New Hampshire. It is their recent presentation that provided me with the formula for creating the calculator. [NOTE: The presentation was actually made by NH Assistant Secretary of State Anthony Stevens – WNDC regrets the error.]
I have a feeling that after I've heard from a few people about the calculator I'll probably want to make it the centerpiece of another post instead of burying this announcement 80,000 paragraphs under the sea. At any rate, back to Hank Sims.
He asked me if I felt vindicated by these new reports. I told him I would not use that word. It suggests I had previously been thought wrong but now stand affirmed. The truth is that the findings of Bowen's TTBR explicitly state that previous exploits were again confirmed. Anybody coming around to these findings of fact really can't plausibly explain previously thinking otherwise.
Sims informed me that Registrar Crnich took a position with him that was similar to the one she took in the T-S piece above. Having already addressed this once, I realized it wasn't just sounding familiar from the Registrar. Moments before I got the first Sims call, I was looking at a document I had just received from the indefatigable Tom Courbat of Sav-R-Vote in Riverside County, CA. Click here for "the corporate line" by Sequoia, attempting to explain away all the findings of Bowen's Red Team members. I never did finish reading it, but its "those aren't the droids you're looking for" tone pretty much parallels what our Registrar was trying to pull off.
Plain and simple: there is no way to spin these reports to make the machines look good. Their time has passed. We've reached a tipping point of public consciousness where secret vote counting machines are completely unacceptable and public officials who continue to defend them do so at the risk of their own credibility.
Finally, as promised at the beginning of this marathon post, here are excerpts from Bowen's Red Team report on Hart Intercivic. These first two passages are identical to wording in the Diebold report. There are several other passages in common.page 1
In developing our attacks, we made no assumptions about constraints on the attackers. "Security through obscurity" – or the practice of assuming a veneer of security by relying on attackers not having access to protocol specifications or of using tools that are perceived to be difficult to acquire – is not an acceptable option for any system that can't afford to have its security compromised Our study examined what a dedicated attacker could accomplish with all possible kinds of access.
p.10
Our study was constrained by the short time allowed. The vulnerabilities identified in this report should be regarded as a minimal set of vulnerabilities. (emphasis in original)
p.11
The Red Team, working in close conjunction with the 2007 TTBR Hart Source Code Team, discovered that the Hart EMS software implicitly trusts all communication coming from devices appearing to be Hart-branded and neither authenticates the devices nor performs adequate input validation on data transmitted to it by the devices. This allows for the possibility that a compromised device, such as an eScan that had been tampered with at a polling station, could infect the EMS systems. In particular, the Source Code Team discovered a weakness in the code that would allow an eScan to perform a buffer overflow attack and execute arbitrary code on the computer running SERVO.
...
The team was also able to access device-level menus that should be locked with passwords but were not. This access could allow an attacker a vector for altering configuration settings and/or executing a denial of service on the eScan.
Some of the findings from previous studies on precinct count optical scanners were replicated on the eScan, and they allowed the Red Team to maliciously alter vote totals with the potential to affect the outcome of an election. These attacks were low-tech and required tools that could be found in a typical office.
The Red Team implemented an attack devised by the 2007 TTBR Hart Source Code Team that was able to extract election-sensitive information from the eScan and issue administrative commands to the eScan. The leaked information would allow an attacker the ability to execute further attacks, while administrative commands issued to the eScan could erase electronic vote totals and audit records from an eScan while putting it out of service for the remainder of the Election Day. For more details on these attacks, please see the 2007 TTBR Hart Source Code Team report.
3. JBC
The Red Team verified previous findings on the JBC regarding access code generation and also discovered that a surreptitious device could issue commands that caused the JBC to authorize access codes. If the JBC is in early voting mode, it will not print receipts for the access codes issued. If the JBC is in regular election mode, it prints a receipt each time an access code is issued. When in early voting mode, an attacker could attach the surreptitious device to the JBC. (Note: the surreptitious device is easily concealable in one hand.) After waiting for about a minute, while all possible access codes are issued, the attacker could then proceed to cast multiple ballots using any access codes.
Additionally, the team expanded on previous findings that the MBB in the JBC is vulnerable to tampering during an election. Extracting the MBB from within the JBC during an election and tampering with it without detection would probably require poll worker access, but the team was able to prove that this access would be sufficient to alter vote totals – and in such a manner that it would not be detected in the course of normal operation, though a very thorough audit might reveal it. Furthermore, the team found that post-election MBB tampering safeguards (by which we mean only the technological safeguards, not procedural safeguards such as the use of tamper-evident seals) are insufficient to guarantee that such tampering would be detected. Thus, the team is confident that post-election MBB tampering would succeed in many, if not all, instances.
Finally, the Red Team collaborated with the 2007 TTBR Hart Source Code Team to decode the protocol used for communication between the JBC and eSlates. This protocol does not authenticate the devices on the bus (the communication line), so all communication is considered trusted. The teams were able to intercept the communication, but they were unable to get an exploit working to interrupt or manipulate the communication; this, again, was due to time constraints. Full details of this work can be found in the 2007 TTBR Hart Source Code Team report. The teams are confident that, given more time, they could craft a device that could maliciously alter vote totals and violate voter privacy.
p.14
IV. Successful Attack Scenarios
The following attack scenarios were successfully carried out in the laboratory environment of the Secretary of State’s testing facility.
1. Attack Scenario 1
In this scenario, a malicious voter prepares a surreptitious device and brings it with her to the polling station during early voting. She registers as usual and is issued an access code. Before she leaves the registration table, however, she quickly connects her device to the JBC and converses with the poll workers for a brief time—thirty to forty seconds should suffice. She proceeds to an eSlate and casts a ballot normally. She then enters arbitrary access codes and casts ballots at will, continuing to do this for as long as she suspects she will be unchallenged in the voting booth, casting an arbitrary number of ballots. This results in an electronic ballot box stuffing attack.
In an early voting situation, when the JBC doesn't print out a ballot access receipt each time an access code is issued, the Polls Suspended Report (automatically printed by the JBC) will indicate an unusually large number of access codes issued and more ballots cast than voters who checked in at the registration desk when polling concludes. In regular election mode, this problem would likely be detected much sooner, since the JBC is designed to print a ballot access receipt each time an access code is issued by the machine.
2. Attack Scenario 2
In this scenario, a malicious poll worker finds an opportunity after the close of polls to alter the contents of the MBB using his personal laptop. The attacker identifies ballots containing votes for a candidate he doesn't want to win the election and overwrites those ballots with records containing votes for a candidate he does want to be successful. After tampering with the MBB, the attacker replaces it in the expected chain of custody. The technological safeguards for detecting this tampering are insufficient and can, by default, go unobserved. This results in altered vote totals that can only be detected in the event of a manual recount of eSlate VVPAT records.
3. Attack Scenario 3
In this scenario, a malicious observer uses a remote device to capture the audio narration – including the narration associated with a voter's actual voted ballot – from an eSlate with audio capabilities. She is able to observe voters walking up to the eSlate and match them to the audio narration she is capturing, allowing her to violate a voter's right to privacy by linking voters to their vote selections.
...
p. 16
VI. Conclusions
Although the Red Team did not have time to finish exploits for all of the vulnerabilities we discovered, nor to provide a complete evaluation of the Hart voting system (System 6.2.1), we were able to discover attacks for the Hart system that could compromise the accuracy, secrecy, and availability of the voting systems and their auditing mechanisms. That is, the Red Team has developed exploits that – absent procedural mitigation strategies – can alter vote totals, violate the privacy of individual voters, make systems unavailable, and delete audit trails.
Permalink:
http://wedonotconsent.blogspot.com/2007/07/bowen-review-lights-up-humboldt-media.html
Labels: Debra Bowen, Diebold, Eureka Reporter, Eureka Times-Standard, Hank Sims, Hart Intercivic, James Faulk, KHUM, Rebecca S. Bender, The Journal, Voter Confidence Committee
