Diebold Must Die

Reprinted by permission:
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Worst security flaw ever - 3 states invoke Diebold emergency procedures

Permission to reprint or excerpt granted, with link to http://www.blackboxvoting.org

- The Oakland Tribune scooped other newspapers yesterday on the story.
- Pennsylvania's Michael Shamos sequestered all Diebold touch-screens.
- California is invoking emergency procedures.
- The state of Iowa is trying to figure out a way to scrub Diebold clean.

Harri Hursti has just come out with Hursti Report II, a Black Box Voting project.

Here it is:
http://www.blackboxvoting.org/BBVtsxstudy.pdf

A second study with 12 more defects will be released Monday May 15.

WHAT'S DIFFERENT ABOUT THIS?

Back doors were found in three separate levels. They can be used one
at a time or combined for a deep attack that can permanently compromise the
Diebold touch-screens.

Almost nothing will work to ensure that machines that have already been
delivered have not been contaminated -- the very forensic procedures that
MIGHT identify tampering also wipe clean any evidence.

The procedures being used in Pennsylvania, California, and Iowa will not
necessarily work if the system has already been contaminated. Worse, the
very procedure needed to cleanse the system can just as easily re-contaminate
it.

Next week, Black Box Voting will release recommended solutions in conjunction with a
recommendation to pull all Diebold touch-screen machines off the shelf.

For more information, visit the following links:

http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/1954/27675.html

and to see what the Diebold lawyers are trying to do to Bruce Funk, click here:

http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/1954/27671.html
(Scroll past the Georgia cluelessness to a transcript of the retaliatory
meeting held to try to force Funk out of office.)

Diebold lawyers are also retaliating against Stephen Heller, trying to put
him in jail for leaking documents that have been compared in importance to
the actions of famed Pentagon Papers leaker Daniel Ellsburg. Click here
for the latest on Heller:

http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/1954/27423.html

and click here to donate to his defense fund:

http://www.hellerlegaldefensefund.com

(Diebold lawyer's vindictiveness has cost Heller his job and very nearly
his home. His courage in fighting for YOUR right to vote needs your support.

* * * * *

Black Box Voting is a nonprofit nonpartisan 501c(3) organization dedicated to
fighting for your right to accurate and fair elections. We are supported entirely
by citizen donations.

(We realize we just hit you up twice -- But really. Stephen Heller is one of our
personal heroes, and we put him first for a reason. Please read the story about
Diebold's attempt to put him in prison for leaking documents showing they were
planning a criminal defense budget for carrying out actions they had already
been told were illegal.)

If you can support our work (Hursti Reports etc) here's how:

click here: http://www.blackboxvoting.org/donate.html
or mail to:
Black Box Voting, Inc.
330 SW 43rd St Suite K
PMB 547
Renton WA 98055

* * * * *

-Black Box Voting

Stealing Power from Congress

Glenn Greenwald hits it right on the nose. This isn't "just" about tapping phones. This is about usurping Congress' legislative power, and that is a violation of the Constitution.

No need for Congress, no need for courts

This continuous evasion of judicial review by the administration is much more serious and disturbing than has been discussed and realized. By proclaiming the power to ignore Congressional law and to do whatever it wants in the area of national security, it is seizing the powers of the legislative branch.

But it gets worse.

But by blocking courts from ruling on the multiple claims of illegality which have been made against it, the administration is essentially seizing the judicial power as well. It becomes the creator, the executor, and the interpreter of the law. And with that, the powers of all three branches become consolidated in The President, the single greatest nightmare of the founders. [Emphasis added.]

NSA has massive database of Americans' phone calls

This database collection may -- may -- be arguably legal. I don't know. Even though Bush lied and said only international calls were targetted by the NSA. "'In other words,' Bush explained, 'one end of the communication must be outside the United States.'"

But again, and again, the Executive has refused to find out if something is legal. Refused to argue legality before the branch charged with interpreting the law: the courts.

The Legislature makes law, the Executive implements law, and the Judiciary interprets it. That's the way it's supposed to work. And this is not the first time the Bush Administration has tried to circumvent that.

Fun With Surveillance

THE Undergrad Experience

Electron Band Structure In Germanium, My Ass

Abstract: The exponential dependence of resistivity on temperature in germanium is found to be a great big lie. My careful theoretical modeling and painstaking experimentation reveal 1) that my equipment is crap, as are all the available texts on the subject and 2) that this whole exercise was a complete waste of my time.