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Atlanta will be test site for health card
by R.A. Hettinga 08 Nov '04

08 Nov '04

<http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6433571/print/1/displaymode/1098/> MSNBC.com Atlanta will be test site for health card Transaction titan First Data will put credit-card machines in doctors' offices By Justin Rubner Atlanta Business Chronicle Updated: 7:00 p.m. ET Nov. 7, 2004 One of the nation's leading money movers now wants to move your medical information. Denver-based First Data Corp. has picked Atlanta as the first city to test a beefed-up credit-card machine it hopes will do nothing short of revolutionize the health-care industry. The financial transaction titan (NYSE: FDC) plans to start the pilot in January after completing several rounds of focus-group studies here during the next couple of months. The machine eventually would allow a doctor to find out everything about a patient's health benefits -- from claims status to eligibility to co-pay specifics -- with a swipe of a card. The information could then be printed out of the terminal, much like a credit-card receipt. Currently, a doctor or assistant has to photocopy a patient's insurance card and then call the patient's insurance company for specific information, check each insurance provider's Web site for more general information, or flat-out guess. "While the patient is still in care, we can immediately say how much the doctor needs to collect from the patient and the insurance company," said Beverly Kennedy, president of First Data's health-care division. Many in the health-care industry see an automated, nationwide system to process payments and transfer medical records as long overdue. For one, there's the mountain of paper records associated with the current way of doing business. Second, there's more complex government regulations, such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA). Adding to the complexity are increasingly complex health-care plans. Then, the costs of medical administration itself also are rising. Kennedy said $275 billion is spent each year on such administrative costs. Eventually, the hope is, an automated system would reduce such expenses. First Data wouldn't be the first player to attempt such an ambitious project. There is a program in Wyoming, North Dakota and Nevada that uses "smart cards" to store medical records, according to published reports. In addition, First Data competitor HealthTransaction Network Corp. is pushing insurance companies to issue debit cards that would be linked to medical spending accounts. But an inclusive nationwide system has been hard to come by, primarily because of the high number of small, loosely connected doctors' offices. Real-time intelligence First Data's machine, manufactured by Phoenix-based Hypercom Corp. (NYSE: HYC), will have smart-chip technology as well as the familiar magnetic strips. Such chips, which are not being tested in the pilot, allow a greater amount of information to be passed through and allow that information to be stored. There are privacy concerns that need to be ironed out. However, when policy intersects with technology, the terminals will be ready with the chips, which already have been used in Europe, Kennedy said. Insurance companies participating in the program will give their customers special cards to be used at participating health-care facilities. One of the state's biggest insurance companies, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Georgia Inc., could be one such participant. Spokesman Charlie Harman said the company is in talks with First Data but declined to give specifics, saying it was too "proprietary" in nature. "This is an important concept," Harman said. "We need to marry technology to the health-care system." Harman said Blue Cross Blue Shield already is on the cutting edge of technology; for example, it is actively involved with a system that allows physicians to send prescriptions to pharmacists electronically. Some hospitals also are involved with "e-prescribing," including Piedmont Hospital in Atlanta. To make it seemingly risk-free for doctors, First Data will give the terminals away, Kennedy said. But that doesn't mean the company won't make money -- First Data collects transaction fees, as it owns the network the information travels over. First Data, Western Union Financial Services Inc.'s parent company, processes all sorts of financial transactions over its network. The company provides electronic commerce and payment services for approximately 3.1 million merchant locations, 1,400 card issuers and millions of consumers. The terminals will plug into the wall just like the current generation of credit-card terminals and will be easy to use, Kennedy said. "It's got to be 'simple-stupid,' " Kennedy said. "It's got to be intuitive." Initially, the terminals will be tested in medical doctors' offices and will offer only eligibility data. The doctors have not yet been chosen. Eventually, Kennedy said, officials plan to expand the program nationally to opticians and dentists and it would offer a complete suite of medical information -- referrals, authorization, claims status. The "light at the end of the tunnel" would be for the program to offer real-time claims adjudication. Kennedy said Atlanta was a clear choice for the pilot primarily due to its size and diverse mix of insurance companies and government programs. The company wanted a large player -- like Blue Cross Blue Shield -- and a good "sprinkling" of national players and small insurance companies. Another important factor is Atlanta's fairly large number of provider groups, or administrative offices that run several doctors' offices. So far, tests have gone smoothly, the company says. "They absolutely love this," Kennedy said. "They keep asking when they can get their own terminals." ) 2004 Atlanta Business Chronicle -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'

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Re: This Memorable Day
by John Kelsey 08 Nov '04

08 Nov '04

>From: Peter Gutmann <pgut001(a)cs.auckland.ac.nz> >Sent: Nov 6, 2004 2:10 AM >To: cypherpunks(a)al-qaeda.net, ocorrain(a)yahoo.com >Subject: Re: This Memorable Day >The figure that's usually quoted is that 80% of German's military force was >directed against Russia. Of the remaining 20%, a lot had already been engaged >by France, the UK (via the BEF, the RAF, North Africa), Greece, etc etc before >the US got involved in Europe. So the Russians should get most of the credit. Yep. I think to a first approximation, the US defeated Japan and the USSR defeated Germany. My impression is that a lot of the push to do the D-Day invasion was to make sure the USSR didn't end up in possession of all of Europe at the end of the war. (Given how things developed, this was a pretty sensible concern.) >Peter. --John

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Single Field Shapes Quantum Bits
by R.A. Hettinga 08 Nov '04

08 Nov '04

<http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/04/11/rnb_110804.asp?trk=nl> Technology Review Single Field Shapes Quantum Bits November 8, 2005 Quantum computers, which tap the properties of particles like atoms, photons and electrons to carry out computations, could potentially use a variety of schemes: individual photons controlled by optical networks, clouds of atoms linked by laser beams, and electrons trapped in quantum dots embedded in silicon chips. Due to the strange nature of quantum particles, quantum computers are theoretically much faster than ordinary computers at solving certain large problems, like cracking secret codes. Chip-based quantum computers would have a distinct advantage - they could leverage the manufacturing infrastructure of the semiconductor industry. Controlling individual electrons, however, is extremely challenging. Researchers have recently realized that it may be possible to control the electrons in a quantum computer using a single magnetic field rather than having to produce extremely small, precisely focused magnetic fields for each electron. Researchers from the University of Toronto and the University of Wisconsin at Madison have advanced this idea with a scheme that allows individual electrons to serve as the quantum bits that store and process computer information. Electrons have two magnetic orientations, spin up and spin down, which can represent the 1s and 0s of computing. The researchers' scheme relies on the interactions of pairs of electrons. Tiny electrodes positioned near quantum dots -- bits of semiconductor material that can trap single electrons - can draw neighboring electrons near enough that they exchange energy. The researchers' scheme takes a pair of electrons through eleven incremental steps that involve the electron interaction and a global magnetic field to flip one of the bits from a 0 to a 1 or vice versa. The technique could be used practically in 10 to 20 years, according to the researchers. The work appeared in the July 15, 2004 issue of Physical Review Letters. Technology Research News -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'

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Blackbox: Elections fraud in 2004
by J.A. Terranson 08 Nov '04

08 Nov '04

http://www.blackboxvoting.org/ BREAKING -- SUNDAY Nov. 7 2004: Freedom of Information requests at http://www.blackboxvoting.org have unearthed two Ciber certification reports indicating that security and tamperability was NOT TESTED and that several state elections directors, a secretary of state, and computer consultant Dr. Britain Williams signed off on the report anyway, certifying it. Black Box Voting has taken the position that fraud took place in the 2004 election through electronic voting machines. We base this on hard evidence, documents obtained in public records requests, inside information, and other data indicative of manipulation of electronic voting systems. What we do not know is the specific scope of the fraud. We are working now to compile the proof, based not on soft evidence -- red flags, exit polls -- but core documents obtained by Black Box Voting in the most massive Freedom of Information action in history. ----------------------------------------------- SUNDAY Nov. 7 2004: We.re awaiting independent analysis on some pretty crooked-looking elections. In the mean time, here.s something to chew on. Your local elections officials trusted a group called NASED -- the National Association of State Election Directors -- to certify that your voting system is safe. This trust was breached. NASED certified the systems based on the recommendation of an .Independent Testing Authority. (ITA). What no one told local officials was that the ITA did not test for security (and NASED didn.t seem to mind). The ITA reports are considered so secret that even the California Secretary of State.s office had trouble getting its hands on one. The ITA refused to answer any questions about what it does. Imagine our surprise when, due to Freedom of Information requests, a couple of them showed up in our mailbox. The most important test on the ITA report is called the .penetration analysis.. This test is supposed to tell us whether anyone can break into the system to tamper with the votes. .Not applicable,. wrote Shawn Southworth, of Ciber Labs, the ITA that tested the Diebold GEMS central tabulator software. .Did not test.. Shawn Southworth .tested. whether every candidate on the ballot has a name. But we were shocked to find out that, when asked the most important question -- about vulnerable entry points -- Southworth.s report says .not reviewed.. Ciber .tested.whether the manual gives a description of the voting system. But when asked to identify methods of attack (which we think the American voter would consider pretty important), the top-secret report says .not applicable.. Ciber .tested. whether ballots comply with local regulations, but when Bev Harris asked Shawn Southworth what he thinks about Diebold tabulators accepting large numbers of .minus. votes, he said he didn.t mention that in his report because .the vendors don.t like him to put anything negative. in his report. After all, he said, he is paid by the vendors. Shawn Southworth didn.t do the penetration analysis, but check out what he wrote: .Ciber recommends to the NASED committee that GEMS software version 1.18.15 be certified and assigned NASED certification number N03060011815.. Was this just a one-time oversight? Nope. It appears to be more like a habit. Here is the same Ciber certification section for VoteHere; as you can see, the critical security test, the .penetration analysis. was again marked .not applicable. and was not done. Maybe another ITA did the penetration analysis? Apparently not. We discovered an even more bizarre Wyle Laboratories report. In it, the lab admits the Sequoia voting system has problems, but says that since they were not corrected earlier, Sequoia could continue with the same flaws. At one point the Wyle report omits its testing altogether, hoping the vendor will do the test. Computer Guys: Be your own ITA certifier. Here is a copy of the full Ciber report (part 1, 2, 3, 4) on GEMS 1.18.15. Here is a zip file download for the GEMS 1.18.15 program. Here is a real live Diebold vote database. Compare your findings against the official testing lab and see if you agree with what Ciber says. E-mail us your findings. TIPS: The password for the vote database is .password. and you should place it in the .LocalDB. directory in the GEMS folder, which you.ll find in .program files.. Who the heck is NASED? They are the people who certified this stuff. You.ve gotta ask yourself: Are they nuts? Some of them are computer experts. Well, it seems that several of these people suddenly want to retire, and the whole NASED voting systems board is becoming somewhat defunct, but these are the people responsible for today's shoddy voting systems. If the security of the U.S. electoral system depends on you to certify a voting system, and you get a report that plainly states that security was .not tested. and .not applicable. -- what would you do? Perhaps we should ask them. Go ahead. Let's hold them accountable for the election we just had. (Please, e-mail us their answers) They don't make it very easy to get their e-mail and fax information; when you find it, let us know and we'll post it here. NASED VOTING SYSTEMS/ITA ACCREDITATION BOARD Thomas R. Wilkey, Executive Director, New York State Board of Elections David Elliott, (former) Asst. Director of Elections, Washington State James Hendrix, Executive Director, State Election Commission, South Carolina Denise Lamb, Director, State Bureau of Elections, New Mexico Sandy Steinbach, Director of Elections, Iowa Donetta Davidson, Secretary of State, Colorado Connie Schmidt, Commissioner, Johnson County Election Commission, Kansas (the late) Robert Naegele, President Granite Creek Technology, Pacific Grove, California Brit Williams, Professor, CSIS Dept, Kennesaw State College, Georgia Paul Craft, Computer Audit Analyst, Florida State Division of Elections Florida Steve Freeman, Software Consultant, League City, Texas Jay W. Nispel, Senior Principal Engineer, Computer Sciences Corporation Annapolis Junction, Maryland Yvonne Smith (Member Emeritus), Former Assistant to the Executive Director Illinois State Board of Elections, Illinois Penelope Bonsall, Director, Office of Election Administration, Federal Election Commission, Washington, D.C. Committee Secretariat: The Election Center, R. Doug Lewis, Executive Director Houston, Texas, Tele: 281-293-0101 # # # # # THURSDAY Nov. 4 2004: If you are concerned about what happened Tuesday, Nov. 2, you have found a home with our organization. Help America Audit. Black Box Voting has taken the position that fraud took place in the 2004 election through electronic voting machines. We base this on hard evidence, documents obtained in public records requests, inside information, and other data indicative of manipulation of electronic voting systems. What we do not know is the specific scope of the fraud. We are working now to compile the proof, based not on soft evidence -- red flags, exit polls -- but core documents obtained by Black Box Voting in the most massive Freedom of Information action in history. We need: Lawyers to enforce public records laws. Some counties have already notified us that they plan to stonewall by delaying delivery of the records. We need citizen volunteers for a number of specific actions. We need computer security professionals willing to GO PUBLIC with formal opinions on the evidence we provide, whether or not it involves DMCA complications. We need funds to pay for copies of the evidence. TUESDAY Nov 2 2004: BREAKING NEWS: New information indicates that hackers may have targeted the central computers that are counting our votes. Freedom of Information requests are not free. We need to raise $50,000 as quickly as possible to pay for records and the fees some states charge for them. We launched one major FOIA action last night, and have two more on the way, pell-mell. Now is the time. If you can't donate funds, please donate time. E-mail to join the Cleanup Crew. Important: Watch this 30-minute film clip Voting without auditing. (Are we insane?) SEATTLE, WASHINGTON Nov 3 2004 -- Did the voting machines trump exit polls? There.s a way to find out. Black Box Voting (.ORG) is conducting the largest Freedom of Information action in history. At 8:30 p.m. Election Night, Black Box Voting blanketed the U.S. with the first in a series of public records requests, to obtain internal computer logs and other documents from 3,000 individual counties and townships. Networks called the election before anyone bothered to perform even the most rudimentary audit. America: We have permission to say No to unaudited voting. It is our right. Among the first requests sent to counties (with all kinds of voting systems -- optical scan, touch-screen, and punch card) is a formal records request for internal audit logs, polling place results slips, modem transmission logs, and computer trouble slips. An earlier FOIA is more sensitive, and has not been disclosed here. We will notify you as soon as we can go public with it. Such a request filed in King County, Washington on Sept. 15, following the primary election six weeks ago, uncovered an internal audit log containing a three-hour deletion on election night; .trouble slips. revealing suspicious modem activity; and profound problems with security, including accidental disclosure of critically sensitive remote access information to poll workers, office personnel, and even, in a shocking blunder, to Black Box Voting activists. Black Box Voting is a nonpartisan, nonprofit consumer protection group for elections. You may view the first volley of public records requests here: Freedom of Information requests here Responses from public officials will be posted in the forum, is organized by state and county, so that any news organization or citizens group has access to the information. Black Box Voting will assist in analysis, by providing expertise in evaluating the records. Watch for the records online; Black Box Voting will be posting the results as they come in. And by the way, these are not free. The more donations we get, the more FOIAs we are empowered to do. Time's a'wasting. We look forward to seeing you participate in this process. Join us in evaluating the previously undisclosed inside information about how our voting system works. Play a part in reclaiming transparency. It.s the only way. # # # # # Public Records Request - November 2, 2004 From: Black Box Voting To: Elections division Pursuant to public records law and the spirit of fair, trustworthy, transparent elections, we request the following documents. We are requesting these as a nonprofit, noncommercial group acting in the capacity of a news and consumer interest organization, and ask that if possible, the fees be waived for this request. If this is not possible, please let us know which records will be provided and the cost. Please provide records in electronic form, by e-mail, if possible - crew(a)blackboxvoting.org. We realize you are very, very busy with the elections canvass. To the extent possible, we do ask that you expedite this request, since we are conducting consumer audits and time is of the essence. We request the following records. Item 1. All notes, emails, memos, and other communications pertaining to any and all problems experienced with the voting system, ballots, voter registration, or any component of your elections process, beginning October 12, through November 3, 2004. Item 2. Copies of the results slips from all polling places for the Nov. 2, 2004 election. If you have more than one copy, we would like the copy that is signed by your poll workers and/or election judges. Item 3: The internal audit log for each of your Unity, GEMS, WinEds, Hart Intercivic or other central tabulating machine. Because different manufacturers call this program by different names, for purposes of clarification we mean the programs that tally the composite of votes from all locations. Item 4: If you are in the special category of having Diebold equipment, or the VTS or GEMS tabulator, we request the following additional audit logs: a. The transmission logs for all votes, whether sent by modem or uploaded directly. You will find these logs in the GEMS menu under .Accuvote OS Server. and/or .Accuvote TS Server. b. The .audit log. referred to in Item 3 for Diebold is found in the GEMS menu and is called .Audit Log. c. All .Poster logs.. These can be found in the GEMS menu under .poster. and also in the GEMS directory under Program Files, GEMS, Data, as a text file. Simply print this out and provide it. d. Also in the Data file directory under Program Files, GEMS, Data, please provide any and all logs titled .CCLog,. .PosterLog., and Pserver Log, and any logs found within the .Download,. .Log,. .Poster. or .Results. directories. e. We are also requesting the Election Night Statement of Votes Cast, as of the time you stopped uploading polling place memory cards for Nov. 2, 2004 election. Item 5: We are requesting every iteration of every interim results report, from the time the polls close until 5 p.m. November 3. Item 6: If you are in the special category of counties who have modems attached, whether or not they were used and whether or not they were turned on, we are requesting the following: a. internal logs showing transmission times from each voting machine used in a polling place b. The Windows Event Viewer log. You will find this in administrative tools, Event Viewer, and within that, print a copy of each log beginning October 12, 2004 through Nov. 3, 2004. Item 7: All e-mails, letters, notes, and other correspondence between any employee of your elections division and any other person, pertaining to your voting system, any anomalies or problems with any component of the voting system, any written communications with vendors for any component of your voting system, and any records pertaining to upgrades, improvements, performance enhancement or any other changes to your voting system, between Oct. 12, 2004 and Nov. 3, 2004. Item 8: So that we may efficiently clarify any questions pertaining to your specific county, please provide letterhead for the most recent non-confidential correspondence between your office and your county counsel, or, in lieu of this, just e-mail us the contact information for your county counsel. Because time is of the essence, if you cannot provide all items, please provide them in increments as soon as you have them, and please notify us by telephone (206-335-7747) or email (Bevharrismail(a)aol.com) as soon as you have any portion of the above public records request available for review. Thank you very much, and here.s hoping for a smooth and simple canvass which works out perfectly for you. We very, very much appreciate your help with this, and we do realize how stressful this election has been. If you need a local address, please let me know, and we will provide a local member for this public records request. In the interest of keeping your life simple, we thought it best to coordinate all records through one entity so that you don.t get multiple local requests. # # # # # We now have evidence that certainly looks like altering a computerized voting system during a real election, and it happened just six weeks ago. MONDAY Nov 1 2004: New information indicates that hackers may be targeting the central computers counting our votes tomorrow. All county elections officials who use modems to transfer votes from polling places to the central vote-counting server should disconnect the modems now. There is no down side to removing the modems. Simply drive the vote cartridges from each polling place in to the central vote-counting location by car, instead of transmitting by modem. .Turning off. the modems may not be sufficient. Disconnect the central vote counting server from all modems, INCLUDING PHONE LINES, not just Internet. In a very large county, this will add at most one hour to the vote-counting time, while offering significant protection from outside intrusion. It appears that such an attack may already have taken place, in a primary election 6 weeks ago in King County, Washington -- a large jurisdiction with over one million registered voters. Documents, including internal audit logs for the central vote-counting computer, along with modem .trouble slips. consistent with hacker activity, show that the system may have been hacked on Sept. 14, 2004. Three hours is now missing from the vote-counting computer's "audit log," an automatically generated record, similar to the black box in an airplane, which registers certain kinds of events. COMPUTER FOLKS: Here are the details about remote access vulnerability through the modem connecting polling place voting machines with the central vote-counting server in each county elections office. This applies specifically to all Diebold systems (1,000 counties and townships), and may also apply to other vendors. The prudent course of action is to disconnect all modems, since the downside is small and the danger is significant. The central servers are installed on unpatched, open Windows computers and use RAS (Remote Access Server) to connect to the voting machines through telephone lines. Since RAS is not adequately protected, anyone in the world, even terrorists, who can figure out the server's phone number can change vote totals without being detected by observers. The passwords in many locations are easily guessed, and the access phone numbers can be learned through social engineering or war dialing. ELECTION OFFICIALS: The only way to protect tomorrow's election from this type of attack is to disconnect the servers from the modems now. Under some configurations, attacks by remote access are possible even if the modem appears to be turned off. The modem lines should be physically disconnected. We obtained these documents through a public records request. The video was taken at a press conference held by the King County elections chief Friday Oct 29. The audit log is a computer-generated automatic record similar to the "black box" in an airplane, that automatically records access to the Diebold GEMS central tabulator (unless, of course, you go into it in the clandestine way we demonstrated on September 22 in Washington DC at the National Press club.) The central tabulator audit log is an FEC-required security feature. The kinds of things it detects are the kinds of things you might see if someone was tampering with the votes: Opening the vote file, previewing and/or printing interim results, altering candidate definitions (a method that can be used to flip votes). Three hours is missing altogether from the Sept. 14 Washington State primary held six weeks ago. Here is a copy of the GEMS audit log. Note that all entries from 9:52 p.m. until 1:31 a.m. are missing. One report that GEMS automatically puts in the audit log is the "summary report." This is the interim results report. We obtained the actual Sept. 14 summary reports, printed directly from the King County tabulator GEMS program, because we went there and watched on election night and collected these reports. These reports were also collected by party observers, candidates, and were on the Web site for King County. Here are summary reports which are now missing from the audit log. Note the time and date stamps on the reports. Note also that they are signed by Dean Logan, King County elections chief. We have the original reports signed in ink on election night. What does all this mean? We know that summary reports show up in the audit log. There are other audit logs, like the one that tracks modem transmissions, but this audit log tracks summary reports. Dean Logan held a press conference Friday morning, Oct. 29. Kathleen Wynne, a citizen investigator for Black Box Voting, attended the press conference and asked Dean Logan why three hours are missing from the audit log. Here is a video clip Logan said the empty three hours is because no reports were printed. OK. But we have summary reports from 10:34 p.m., 11:38 p.m., 12:11 a.m., 12:46 a.m., and 1:33 p.m. These reports were during the time he said no reports were run. Either the software malfunctioned, or audit log items were deleted. Because remote access through the modems is possible, the system may have been hacked, audit log deleted, without Logan realizing it. Perhaps there are two of this particular kind of audit log? Perhaps this is an incomplete one? Bev Harris called King County elections office records employee Mary Stoa, asking if perhaps there are any other audit logs at all. Mary Stoa called back, reporting that according to Bill Huennikens of King County elections, the audit log supplied to us in our public records request is the only one and the comprehensive and complete one. Perhaps it is a computer glitch? The audit log is 168 pages long and spans 120 days, and the 3 hours just happen to be missing during the most critical three hours on election night. Diebold says altering the audit log cannot be done. Of course, we know a chimpanzee can't get into an elections office and play with the computer, but to demonstrate how easy it is to delete audit log entries, we taught a chimpanzee to delete audit records using an illicit "back door" to get into the program, Diebold told reporters it was a "magic show." Yet, Diebold's own internal memos show they have known the audit log could be altered since 2001! Here is a Diebold memo from October 2001, titled "Altering the audit log," written by Diebold principal engineer Ken Clark: "King County is famous for it" [altering the audit log] Here is Dean Logan, telling a Channel 5 King-TV News reporter that there were no unexpected problems with the Diebold programs. This was at the "MBOS" central ballot counting facility in King County in the wee hours of Sept. 15, on Election Night. Dean Logan on Election Night, Sept 14 2004 Note that he says there were no problems with modem transmission. When we obtained the trouble slips, in a public records request -- documentation that indeed the modems were not working fine, we were accidentally given the access phone number for King County. Were we so inclined, if we had simply kept this under our hat, we could take control of your central server on election night from our living room. Here are the trouble slips showing problems with modems. Note that King County generously provided us with the "secret" information needed to hack in by remote access. We did redact the specific information that gives this information to you. Here are more trouble tickets. One that is a concern: "OK to format memory card?" (This would wipe out the votes in the electronic ballot box.) Election officials: Disconnect those modems NOW. If you don't: You gotta be replaced. Reporters: Some election officials will lie to you. Show your kids what bravery looks like. Be courageous. Report the truth. Citizens: Please help us by joining the Cleanup Crew. For now, e-mail crew(a)blackboxvoting.org to join, since our signup form has been taken out. Candidates: Make a statement. Do not concede on Election Night. Wait until audits and records can be examined. # # # # # HOW TO MONITOR THE CENTRAL TABULATOR: Black Box Voting developed these guidelines to help you create an audit log, which can then be compared with the FEC-required computer-generated audit log inside the computer. Yes, this is a lot of stuff, and it might feel overwhelming, but whatever you can do -- it is very much appreciated. THINGS TO BRING WITH YOU - A notebook and pen. Preferably a notebook with a sewn binding, if you can find one. Do not take notes on a computer. - A cell phone - Binoculars If you can, also bring these: - A camera - A small tape recorder - A video camera, with a zoom lens if possible Note that some counties will require you to turn off your video camera during the entering of passwords, a valid request. You should, however, be able to videotape the rest. Don.t pull your camera out right away. Avoid confrontation by leaving your video camera in the bag -- better yet, a purse. Pull it out only when there is an event of significance. HUMAN FACTORS You can.t be effective if you make assumptions or let others intimidate you. - Don.t let others make you feel dumb. - Make no assumptions about security. It might be worse than you expect. - Don.t count on the accuracy of anything other people tell you, even if they work for the county or the vendor. - About party observers, techies, or lawyers: Remember that they have not examined the actual software or setup, and they are operating on assumptions, hearsay, or in some cases, may be trying to misdirect your attention. - Vendor contracts prohibit county officials from examining their own software. Elections officials may just be repeating what someone else (the vendor) has told them. YOUR ROLE AS AN OBSERVER: CREATE YOUR OWN AUDIT LOG so it can be compared to the real audit log. Write down the following. For every event, write the date, time, including minutes. 1. NAMES & AFFILIATIONS: Get the names of everyone there. Find out affiliation. 2. WHERE ARE THE COMPUTERS: Establish the number and location of all vote tabulation computers. They call them different things: tabulators, servers. What you want is the computer that adds up all the votes from everywhere in the county. - Some counties have only one. If there are more than one, find out where each one is. If there is more than one tabulator, ask if they are networked together and find out if any of them are in places you can.t observe. 3. SYNCHRONIZE YOUR WATCH with the central vote-tally computer. Ask officials to tell you the time on the computer. If more than one, ask for the time of each and the ID number of each. log the date and time, to the minute, in this format: Nov 02 2004 11:25 p.m. Nov. 03 2004 01:15 a.m. CREATE A LOG FOR THE FOLLOWING: People: Ask names and affiliations for, and log the START and STOP time for: a. Who accesses the terminal (the keyboard and screen) b. Who sits at the terminal c. Who accesses the server (the computer the screen is hooked up to) d. Who enters and leaves the room COMPUTER ACTIVITIES: Log the START and STOP time for the following events and write down the name of the person involved: a. Putting disks, CDs, or any other item in the computer b. Taking disks, CDs, or any other item out of the computer c. Uploading disks, CDs, or any other item d. Viewing a preview of a report e. Putting a report on the Web, even if this is done from another computer f. Printing a report g. NOTE WHAT.S ON THE SCREEN: Use binoculars to view the screen. - Note upload icons. - Use binoculars to read and record error messages. Note the time. - Note indicators of processes, when a status bar shows how much is left to do h. PROGRAM CRASHES: - Watch to see if the program suddenly disappears from the screen (a program crash) or any system error message appears. If so, note the time and other details, and see below for how to record system crashes. - Get the date and time and note who was at the computer - Note whether any results were being transmitted or uploaded at the time the crash occurred. - Did the crash take down the whole computer or did it just close the tabulator program unexpectedly. - Log all activities and conversations that occur just after the crash. If have a tape recorder, leave it in your purse, now is the time to turn it on. But keep making notes regardless of whether you have tape, and trust your gut. What you think might be important is probably important. WRITE DOWN EVERYTHING YOU CAN FIND OUT ABOUT MODEMS. i. Note when, where, and who feeds ballot data into the computer in the central office. Describe what they are feeding the cards into, where the items are located, who does it, and when. j. DISK MANAGEMENT: - Note what kind of data storage device is used to move data around. You are looking for floppy disks, CDs, USB keys (about the size of a pack of gum). - Note where they get the disk from originally (whether it was from the machine, meaning it could have a program or data on it already, or out of a package of new disks). - Track the chain of custody: Where it is taken, and have someone watch it when taken to any other machine, note what programs you can see on the other machine - Note whether (and what time) it comes back and if it is put into the machine again. k. Moving the results: They have to move the results somehow. Ask questions about their procedures. - Is someone coming and going every hour or so with paper results? - Are they moving results to the Internet with a floppy or CD or USB key (looks like a little piece of plastic, about the size of a piece of gum) - If no one is leaving the machine to post the results, chances are they are doing this at the computer, meaning they are probably hooked up to a network or the Internet. Ask questions about the details and record what they say, and the name of the person who says it. l. If you see somebody open a web page or they do something that lets you know there has been Internet access, write it down. m. BEHAVIORAL CUES: - Note whether people look worried or stressed. Log the time it begins and the time it ends and who they are. - A now a word about .wranglers.. Some elections offices appoint a person -- sometimes a party observer they are chummy with -- to act as .wranglers.. They identify any person who might ask troublesome questions, and if an event occurs that could cause embarrassment, the appointed wrangler then goes over to distract the observers. Really. This is an elections procedure in some jurisdictions. They actually call it a wrangler. - If someone comes over and engages you in conversation, look around, and see if officials have suddenly congregated into an office or people are huddling over a computer. See if you can find out what you are not supposed to see. - Log behavior that is distracting, noting the time and person. - Log time and people involved in other distraction events, for example: The lights suddenly go out; a fire alarm goes off; someone spills something, loud noises, someone knocks something over. RECORDS TO REQUEST: Each state has a public records act, but in most cases, you can get records you ask for if you are nice. Here are important records you.ll want: 1. Get a copy of each INTERIM RESULTS REPORT. Stand guard over what you have. If someone comes in to remove or .replace one with a better copy. hang onto the first and take the replacement, marking it. Make sure all interim reports are time-stamped by the computer. If they aren.t, note the exact time you see them appear. 2. Request the COMPUTER AUDIT LOG for Oct. 29-Nov 2 (actually, it is important to get the printout BEFORE YOU LEAVE that night. It will only be a few pages, and can be printed from the vote-tally program.s menu. 3. Ask for a copy of all the POLLING PLACE RESULTS SLIPS. These are sent in with the results cartridges. Try to get copies before you leave that night. If they won.t give copies to you then, put in a public records request and ask how soon you can pick them up. 4. Ask for a copy of THE UPLOAD LOGS. These are on the computer and can be printed out on election night. They list each polling place and the time results were uploaded. 5. There are ADDITIONAL LOGS in the Diebold GEMS programs you can request: >From the GEMS folder .data., ask for the poster logs. There may be folders in the GEMS .data. directory titled .download., .log., .poster. and .results.. Ask for copies of these logs. 6. Here.s a report that is very long but incredibly important and valuable. Ask if you can have the ELECTION NIGHT DETAIL REPORT -- the precinct by precinct results as of the time all memory cards are uploaded from all precincts. Depending on the system, they.ll call it different things -- in Diebold, it is called the Statement of Votes Cast (SOVC) report. 7. Let us know which REPORTS THEY REFUSE to give you on Election Night. We can then put in Freedom of Information (public records) requests formally. Once we have your observation log, and the records you obtain on Election Night, we can start matching up events and data to audit for anomalies. # # # # # Post information in the county and state at BlackBoxVoting.ORG. If the site is hacked out, come back as soon as it is up and post the information. Thank you, and let.s have an orderly election. # # # # # Now, there is a film crew who has been brave enough to capture what's really going on: THIS IS THE ONE: Here's the film that's breaking new ground on voting machine investigations. Includes never before seen footage and information: download 30 minute preview of the upcoming feature film. NOTE: Please give your attention to the real film by the real investigators: Russell Michaels, Simon Ardizzone, and Robert Carrillo Cohen -- they are the real deal. (Someone who ran off with a portion of the proprietary footage has been pitching a similarly named, inferior production which is missing most of the good stuff.) By the way, we've worked with most of the documentary producers out there, and Russell Michaels, Simon Ardizzone and Robert Carrillo Cohen are in a class by themselves -- In my opinion, they are the only filmmakers who have been doing real, in-depth, long-term in-the-field investigations on this issue -- Bev Harris. Remember: - Don't concede: Candidates, make a statement about voting without auditing. Hold off on your concession until the canvass is done - Gotta be replaced: If your county melts down into litigation, hold officials accountable if they chose to ignore warnings and failed to mitigate risks with preventive actions (like disconnecting telephone modems). Note that most voting machine problems will be found between Nov. 3-12, during the canvass, and a few weeks later, when public records requests are obtained.

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Re: Your source code, for sale
by Tyler Durden 08 Nov '04

08 Nov '04

>What if I block the outbound "release the money" message after I >unbundle the images. Sure, I've already committed my money, but you >can't get to it. In effect I've just ripped you off, because I have >usable product and you don't have usable money. Well, yes, but this would be a very significant step forward from the current situation. As t-->infinity the vast majority of non-payments are going to be for the purpose of greed. If the payment is already 'gone', then you need a whole different set of motives for wanting to screw somebody even if you get nothing out of it. So in other words, you have at least solved the payment problem "to the first order", with no 3rd party. With fancier mechanisms I would think you can solve it to 2nd order too. -TD _________________________________________________________________ Check out Election 2004 for up-to-date election news, plus voter tools and more! http://special.msn.com/msn/election2004.armx

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[p2p-hackers] MixMinion vs. onion routing & GNUnet question (fwd from fis@wiwi.hu-berlin.de)
by Eugen Leitl 08 Nov '04

08 Nov '04

----- Forwarded message from fis(a)wiwi.hu-berlin.de -----

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In a Sky Dark With Arrows, Death Rained Down
by R.A. Hettinga 07 Nov '04

07 Nov '04

<http://online.wsj.com/article_print/0,,SB109953591903164550,00.html> The Wall Street Journal November 4, 2004 BOOKS In a Sky Dark With Arrows, Death Rained Down By NED CRABB November 4, 2004; Page D10 The opening slaughter of what came to be known as the Hundred Years' War took place on Aug. 26, 1346, near the village of Crecy in northern France. There King Philip VI's French army bore down on a much smaller English force commanded by Edward III. What happened in the ensuing few hours still lives, in the French national consciousness, as one of the most painful blots on the proud escutcheon of France. As described in Hugh D.H. Soar's "The Crooked Stick" (Westholme Yardley, 241 pages, $24.95), a fascinating study of a forgotten weapon, King Philip's shining knights, encased in magnificent armor and thundering toward the enemy on huge war horses, were practically annihilated by an enormous black cloud of thousands of arrows that rose from the English lines and descended with murderous effect. These were not the sort of sporting arrows skillfully shot toward gayly colored targets by Victorian archery societies (charmingly described by Mr. Soar in later chapters) but heavy "bodkin pointed battle shafts" that went through the armor of man and horse. And the black cloud wasn't just one surge, it kept coming and coming, arching high over the battlefield, as each of the 6,000 archers released an average three or four arrows a minute. For centuries the longbow dominated battle, affecting the fates of nations. Royal blood soaked the ground, and with frightening suddenness King Philip's now much reduced 27,000-man army was in desperate retreat from Edward's 9,000 Englishmen. Sixty-nine years later, at Agincourt, similar clouds of battle shafts released by the archers in Henry V's small, wet, hungry and sick army devastated a French army so badly that scores of ancient aristocratic lineages were ended in a few hours of battle. The English longbowman had emerged from centuries of hunting in the dark forests of his native land and into the glare of battle to end the dominance of the mounted knight. The knight and his "destrier" horse, also armored, were the medieval equivalent of an Abrams tank, owning the battlefield for centuries and vulnerable only to other knights and crossbowmen (who had to stop and rewind their weapons) at close range. And now here was this peasant fellow in his hooded cloth shirt, leather jerkin (close-fitting, sleeveless jacket), soft leather boots and crude helmet bringing him down into the mud. Whence came this man, with a great bow taller than himself? As Mr. Soar fascinatingly elucidates, he and his weapon have a long history. Over centuries, the English archer had developed an extra-long bow hewn from the yew tree. Many types of wood possessed the essential power-making qualities of tension and compression, but yew was by far the best. "Though notoriously difficult to work with because of its often tortuous grain," Mr. Soar writes, "yew has an elasticity superior to all other timber." Yew gave the warbow tremendous thrust, sending feathered (fletched) shafts 250 yards, compared with the shorter handbow's 50 or so and the crossbow's 100. To this day, as Mr. Soar shows later when he describes longbow archery's evolution into a garden-party pastime and Olympic sport, no superior wood has been discovered. Examining the longbow's heritage, Mr. Soar takes us to Paleolithic and Neolithic prehistory for a vivid reconstruction of the ancient bowman ancestors of the men who stood at Crecy in 1346. He begins with a typically pithy statement: "Matters were not easy for our early ancestors. It was their fate to be at once both predator and prey. At best, this was an unattractive lifestyle and one fraught with inevitable uncertainty and danger." To improve the odds, early man devised the pointed stick with which to skewer his food and his enemies. From the pointed stick came the spear with its sharp stone point, and then the need to give it propulsion other than by simply throwing it -- and thus, inevitably, the crooked stick with its primitive string of plaited grass, sinew or hemp. Eventually the bow was strengthened by the use of horn on the tips, where the string was either tied or slipped into a groove at the shaft, and sinew and hemp gave way to linen thread or silk, a far more elastic means of projecting arrows. The longbow's supremacy lasted about two centuries, shifting the balance of power mostly to England, whose kings issued royal decrees banning certain "idle" games and demanding that all able-bodied young men in every village and town diligently practice archery. The English were especially deft at instituting battlefield discipline for archers, training them to move in formation on command, usually by horn signals. The French never equaled them in either training longbow archers or in disciplining them in battlefield tactics. Some things never change. It was not until the advent of gunpowder and artillery, with a much longer range and much greater killing power, that the longbow lost its decisive role. It remained a residual weapon in the Tudor era, especially for aristocratic gentleman to demonstrate their athletic prowess at games and tournaments. (King Henry VIII was particularly fond of the longbow, and there are drawings of him shooting.) But on the battlefield, the bow could not compete with the gun, which from the first exceeded the arrow's velocity if not its precision. By the beginning of the 17th century, however, cannons and muskets had found a deadly range and accuracy. The battle of Pinkie Cleugh, in 1547, the last battle to be fought between the Scottish and English royal armies, was also the "last occasion," notes Mr. Soar, "when [the longbow] was used tactically en masse." The Scots suffered defeat, with 15,000 men slain. Mr. Crabb is the Journal's letters editor. URL for this article: http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB109953591903164550,00.html Copyright 2004 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. Distribution and use of this material are governed by our Subscriber Agreement and by copyright law. For non-personal use or to order multiple copies, please contact Dow Jones Reprints at 1-800-843-0008 or visit www.djreprints.com. -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'

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The St. Louis Pledge
by J.A. Terranson 07 Nov '04

07 Nov '04

On Sat, 6 Nov 2004, Jason wrote: > Republican Lists > > http://www.opensecrets.org/parties/contrib.asp?Cmte=RPC&cycle=2004 > http://www.opensecrets.org/parties/contrib.asp?Cmte=RNC&cycle=2004 > http://www.opensecrets.org/parties/contrib.asp?Cmte=NRCC&cycle=2004 > http://www.opensecrets.org/parties/contrib.asp?Cmte=NRSC&cycle=2004 For those of you familiar with the Boulder Pledge against spam (see http://www.panix.com/~tbetz/boulder.shtml) I submit the St. Louis Pledge Against Fascism: "Under no circumstances will I ever purchase anything offered by a contributor to George Bush's campaign. This is my contribution to the survival of freedom in the United States." -- Yours, J.A. Terranson sysadmin(a)mfn.org 0xBD4A95BF "An ill wind is stalking while evil stars whir and all the gold apples go bad to the core" S. Plath, Temper of Time

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Believe it or not, it wasn't just rednecks who voted for Bush
by R.A. Hettinga 07 Nov '04

07 Nov '04

<http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2004/11/07/do070…> The Telegraph Believe it or not, it wasn't just rednecks who voted for Bush By Mark Steyn (Filed: 07/11/2004) The big question after Tuesday was: will it just be more of the same in George W Bush's second term, or will there be a change of tone? And apparently it's the latter. The great European thinkers have decided that instead of doing another four years of lame Bush-is-a-moron cracks they're going to do four years of lame Americans-are-morons cracks. Inaugurating the new second-term outreach was Brian Reade in the Daily Mirror, who attributed the President's victory to: "The self-righteous, gun-totin', military-lovin', sister-marryin', abortion-hatin', gay-loathin', foreigner-despisin', non-passport-ownin' rednecks, who believe God gave America the biggest dick in the world so it could urinate on the rest of us and make their land 'free and strong'." Well, that's certainly why I supported Bush, but I'm not sure it entirely accounts for the other 59,459,765. Forty five per cent of Hispanics voted for the President, as did 25 per cent of Jews, and 23 per cent of gays. And this coalition of common-or-garden rednecks, Hispanic rednecks, sinister Zionist rednecks, and lesbian rednecks who enjoy hitting on their gay-loathin' sisters expanded its share of the vote across the entire country - not just in the Bush states but in the Kerry states, too. In all but six states, the Republican vote went up: the urinating rednecks have increased their number not just in Texas and Mississippi but in Massachusetts and California, both of which have Republican governors. You can drive from coast to coast across the middle of the country and never pass through a single county that voted for John Kerry: it's one continuous cascade of self-righteous urine from sea to shining sea. States that were swing states in 2000 - West Virginia, Arkansas - are now solidly Republican, and once solidly Democrat states - Iowa, Wisconsin - are now swingers. The redneck states push hard up against the Canadian border, where if your neck's red it's frostbite. Bush's incontinent rednecks are everywhere: they're so numerous they're running out of sisters to bunk up with. Who exactly is being self-righteous here? In Britain and Europe, there seem to be two principal strains of Bush-loathing. First, the guys who say, if you disagree with me, you must be an idiot - as in the Mirror headline "How can 59,054,087 people be so DUMB?" Second, the guys who say, if you disagree with me, you must be a Nazi - as in Oliver James, who told The Guardian: "I was too depressed to even speak this morning. I thought of my late mother, who read Mein Kampf when it came out in the 1930s [sic] and thought, 'Why doesn't anyone see where this is leading?' " Mr James is a clinical psychologist. If smug Europeans are going to coast on moron-Fascist sneers indefinitely, they'll be dooming themselves to ever more depressing mornings-after in the 2006 midterms, the 2008 presidential election, 2010, and beyond: America's resistance to the conventional wisdom of the rest of the developed world is likely to intensify in the years ahead. This widening gap is already a point of pride to the likes of B J Kelly of Killiney, who made the following observation on Friday's letters page in The Irish Times: "Here in the EU we objected recently to high office for a man who professed the belief that abortion and gay marriages are essentially evil. Over in the US such an outlook could have won him the presidency." I'm not sure who he means by "we". As with most decisions taken in the corridors of Europower, the views of Killiney and Knokke and Krakow didn't come into it one way or the other. B J Kelly is referring to Rocco Buttiglione, the mooted European commissioner whose views on homosexuality, single parenthood, etc would have been utterly unremarkable for an Italian Catholic 30 years ago. Now Europe's secular elite has decided they're beyond the pale and such a man should have no place in public life. And B J Kelly sees this as evidence of how much more enlightened Europe is than America. That's fine. But what happens if the European elite should decide a whole lot of other stuff is beyond the pale, too, some of it that B J Kelly is quite partial to? In affirming the traditional definition of marriage in 11 state referenda, from darkest Mississippi to progressive enlightened Kerry-supporting Oregon, the American people were not expressing their "gay-loathin' ", so much as declining to go the Kelly route and have their betters tell them what they can think. They're not going to have marriage redefined by four Massachusetts judges and a couple of activist mayors. That doesn't make them Bush theo-zombies marching in lockstep to the gay lynching, just freeborn citizens asserting their right to dissent from today's established church - the stifling coercive theology of political correctness enforced by a secular episcopate. As Americans were voting on marriage and marijuana and other matters, the Rotterdam police were destroying a mural by Chris Ripke that he'd created to express his disgust at the murder of Theo van Gogh by Islamist crazies. Ripke's painting showed an angel and the words "Thou Shalt Not Kill". Unfortunately, his workshop is next to a mosque, and the imam complained that the mural was "racist", so the cops arrived, destroyed it, arrested the television journalists filming it and wiped their tape. Maybe that would ring a bell with Oliver James's mum. The restrictions on expression that B J Kelly sees as evidence of European enlightenment are regarded as profoundly unhealthy by most Americans. When one examines Brian Reade's anatomy of redneck disfigurements - "gun-totin', military-lovin', abortion-hatin' " - most of them are about the will to survive, as individuals and as a society. Americans tote guns because they're assertive citizens, not docile subjects of a permanent governing class. They love their military because they think there's something contemptible about Europeans preening and posing as a great power when they can't even stop some nickel'n'dime Balkan genital-severers piling up hundreds of thousands of corpses on their borders. And, if Americans do "hate abortion", is Mr Reade saying he loves it? It's at least partially responsible for the collapsed birthrates of post-Christian Europe. However superior the EU is to the US, it will only last as long as Mr Reade's generation: the design flaw of the radical secular welfare state is that it depends on a traditionally religious society birthrate to sustain it. True, you can't be a redneck in Spain or Italy: when the birthrates are 1.1 and 1.2 children per couple, there are no sisters to shag. What was revealing about this election campaign was how little the condescending Europeans understand even about the side in American politics they purport to agree with - witness The Guardian's disastrous intervention in Clark County. Simon Schama last week week defined the Bush/Kerry divide as "Godly America" and "Worldly America", hailing the latter as "pragmatic, practical, rational and sceptical". That's exactly the wrong way round: it's Godly America that is rational and sceptical - especially of Euro-delusions. Uncowed by Islamists, undeferential to government, unshrivelled in its birthrates, Bush's redneck America is a more reliable long-term bet. Europe's media would do their readers a service if they stopped condescending to it. -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'

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Re: The Values-Vote Myth
by Tyler Durden 07 Nov '04

07 Nov '04

JAT wrote... >This election *proves* that at least half the electorate, about 60 million >people, are just Useless Eaters, who should be eagerly awaiting their Trip >Up The Chimneys. Ahhhh...I need a cigarette. But I suspect it's far more likely that some large batch of USA-ians will end up having a surprise meeting with Allah as the result of a big ole stinky dirty bomb. And with Iraq II we'll have an endless supply of suicide bombers ready to deliver. The only drawback is that there's a solid chance it'll be set off a few hundred feet from where I work. Ah well. Dems da breaks. We had a good run. -TD _________________________________________________________________ On the road to retirement? Check out MSN Life Events for advice on how to get there! http://lifeevents.msn.com/category.aspx?cid=Retirement

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