[CTRL] Fwd: [cia-drugs] Diebold stumbles into 'a minefield' of voting machines

[Kris Millegan]

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http://www.dailystar.com/dailystar/business/37048.php

 

Diebold stumbles into 'a minefield' of voting machines View additional images...   The problem   ● The Diebold Inc. electronic voting station, right, has been identified by computer security experts as vulnerable to vote rigging.   l Security concerns and operating flaws have led to a ban on their use in November in parts of California and Ohio.   • Email this Story • Printer friendly version • Write a letter to the Editor Related articles: • Phillip S. Warf: Electronic vote machine too easily corrupted • Letters • George F. Will: Arizona a major player in 2004 race • Calif. electronic voting assailed • After primaries, states wary of electronic voting By Bob Drummond BLOOMBERG NEWS   Diebold Inc. got a fast start in the voting-machine industry two years ago, but sales have dropped as the company stumbles over technical and political hurdles.   After almost 150 years of making safes, bank vaults, jailhouse doors and, more recently, automated teller machines, Diebold bought Global Election Systems Inc. and its AccuVote line of computerized voting terminals in 2002.   In a little more than three months, Diebold snared the biggest U.S. voting machine contract ever: a $54 million deal with the state of Georgia.   "It was successful beyond our wildest dreams, initially," said Diebold CEO Walden O'Dell.   As the 2004 elections near, the euphoria has faded. Computer security experts at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and Rice University in Houston say Diebold's touch-screen voting machines are vulnerable to vote rigging; security concerns and operating flaws have led to a ban on their use in November in parts of California and Ohio.   Diebold's election-system sales are headed for a second straight drop, to a company forecast of $75 million to $85 million, from $100 million in 2003 and $111 million in 2002.   Diebold, based in North Canton, Ohio, learned it's tough to profit from elections.   "We walked into a minefield," said O'Dell, 59.   After punch-card ballots from outmoded voting machines in Florida threw the 2000 presidential election into chaos, Congress planned to spend almost $4 billion for improvements.   Some of the biggest U.S. companies were among dozens angling for new products, partners or investments: Unisys Corp. had forged a voting machine partnership with Dell Inc. and Microsoft Corp., and Cisco Systems Inc. and Compaq Computer Corp. invested in the development of an Internet voting system.   Yet Diebold, a Standard & Poor's Midcap 400 Index company with an often-mispronounced name (DEE-bold, not DIE-bold) and about $2 billion in annual sales, had gotten a jump on them all.   Diebold is still waiting to be paid $38 million by San Diego and two other California counties that bought touch-screen voting machines, according to an August company filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.   Those bills may have to be written off after California Secretary of State Kevin Shelley barred the use of Diebold machines in the November balloting, the filing says.   In the March primary, about a third of 1,600 polling places in San Diego County opened late because batteries in Diebold machines ran low, Shelley said in a news release.   Ohio officials have also sidelined Diebold's machines in some counties after at least five private and government-sponsored studies raised questions about whether software in its touch-screen voting systems can be rigged to fix outcomes.   More than 20 states share a concern voiced by election officials in California and Ohio: that touch-screen voting machines work without any paper or ballot receipt, leaving no tangible trail for an audit or recount. The states say they might require paper trails for all machines.   O'Dell said he wants to help the country solve a serious problem, not to help mischief- makers fix elections.   Diebold's publicly available software was reviewed by computer security experts at Johns Hopkins and Rice, including a team that made headlines in 2001 by cracking the encryption method that protects wireless computer networks.   Aviel Rubin, 36, technical director of Johns Hopkins' Information Security Institute, says computerized voting presents security threats more significant than the familiar notion of a cigar-chomping ward boss stuffing a ballot box.   "It's possible to program a machine to cheat and not leave behind any evidence," Rubin said.   Rubin produced a report citing what he called basic security shortcomings with Diebold touch-screen machines. One was that the password for access by election workers was permanently set at 1111 on every Diebold machine, a quirk that the company has fixed.   Politics got into the volatile mix because O'Dell is a Republican Pioneer, meaning he has raised at least $100,000 for President Bush. In a fund-raising letter he sent in August 2003, O'Dell said he was "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president."   O'Dell said he should have been aware of potential objections to his political activities, which predate his company's entry into voting machines.

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www.ctrl.org DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds—is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply.

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