Chapter 7
Contents
1. Barnes You d have to talk to Dr Williams and he s out of town He s in Lincoln Dr Williams is on the National Associa tion of State Election Directors NASED certification and think he s also at Kennesaw University He does the certifica tion for the State of Georgia Harris Was this new patch tested with a Logic and Accu racy test or was it tested by looking at the code line by line Barnes Logic and Accuracy and also they verify that our version is identical and also any software is tested through Ciber and Wyle Harris But Wyle decided not to test the patch you say Was this patch put on all the machines or just some of the machines 128 Barnes All the machines Harris So every machine in Georgia got this program up date Barnes Yes every one of the machines used on election day in November If it had been sent out to counties prior already Diebold and their technicians went out and manu ally touched every machine Some of the machines were still at the manufacturer they did the patches on those Harris How long did it take to do patches on what was it around 22 000 machines Barnes It took about a month to go back out and touch the systems Harris Can you tell me about the procedure used to install the patches Barnes The actual installation was a matter of putting in a new memory card memory card like a floppy d2. Harris Since no one at the state level looks at the source code if the federal lab doesn t examine the source code line by line we have a problem wouldn t you agree Dr Williams Yes But wait a minute feel you are going to write a conspiracy article Harris What I m looking at is the security of the system itself specifically what procedures are in place to make sure an insider cannot insert malicious code into the sys tem Dr Williams There are external procedures involved that prevent that Harris This is exactly what want to know If you know what procedures would prevent that could you explain them to me Dr Williams We have the source code How can they pre vent us from reviewing it have copies of source code that I ve certified Harris But you said you do not examine the source code Dr Williams Yes but the ITA did it The ITA when they finish certifying the system get it from the ITA someone would have to tamper with the source code before it goes to the ITA and the ITA would have to not catch it Of course they just told us that the ITA never examined the program modi fications made to 22 000 machines in Georgia Let s consider a few points here 1 Tiny programs can be added to any program modification The file Setup exe launches many of these some of which are dll files which stands for dynamic link l
3. Josh Gardner and Kerry Martin I kept asking if anyone knew who Rob was Everyone told me there was no employee named Rob in Georgia Perhaps rob was a verb rob georgia is a zip file with whole bunch more files inside it It seems to be some sort of a program modification which is a great way to slip any damn thing you want into a voting machine without anybody noticing Here s what I saw when I clicked it Ea rob georgia zip Place the contents in the Gems Folder Replace what is in the Gems Folder with these Run this program Install To C Winnt System32 Instructions txt 124 Why did they replace voting machine stuff Did they replace voting machine files Googling around with various Georgia voting machine Diebold search words here s what popped out 16 Sep 2002 Memo from Chris Riggall press secretary for Georgia Secretary of State Cathy Cox Diebold program mers developed a patch which was applied to the units de ployed in Hall and Marion counties and we were pleased that not one freeze was reported among the tens of thou sands of votes cast there Unfortunately we simply did not have the time to apply the patch to the demo units but that is now occurring to all units in all counties and the last incre ment of shipments from Diebold had this fix loaded before leaving the factory A program modification was needed because the touch screens were freez ing up crashing the machines Mak
4. http www commondreams org views03 0131 01 htm Thom Hartmann is the author of Unequal Protection The Rise of Corporate Domi nance and the Theft of Human Rights www unequalprotection com 2 PUBLIC RECORD ACT REQUEST Responding Agency Alameda County Registrar of Voters filed by Jim March on July 29 2003 http www equalccw com voteprar html 3 PUBLIC RECORD ACT REPLY Responding Agency Alameda County Registrar of Voters filed Aug 8 2003 http www equalccw com alamedafollowup pdf 4 The Palm Beach Post 17 Sept 2002 Reno consults electronic voting foe 5 Unpublished interview of three experts on electronic voting by William Rivers Pitt author of The Greatest Sedition is Silence Excerpted on Demo cratic Underground Aug 1 2003 Pitt also wrote War in Iraq and Our Flag Too The Paradox of Patriotism 6 The Risks Digest Vol 22 Issue 25 Monday 23 September 2002 Memo from Chris Riggal press secretary for Cathy Cox Georgia Secretary of State 7 Georgia Secretary of State Press Office Media Backgrounder Multi level Equipment Testing Program Designed to Assure Accuracy amp Reli ability of Touch Screen Voting System 8 Diebold AccuTouch Technical Data Package TSx final certification Ap pendix D Quality Control Manual and Appendix E Testing Procedures submitted to Wyle Laboratories for certification in Jan 2003 9 RFP Sec 3 28 Schedule for Deployment submitted by
5. Authorities ITAs declined to answer 120 We wanted to know what these ITAs If you go to their Web do said Dill So we invited them to speak to us They refused to come visit us They were also too busy to join us in a phone con ference Finally out of frustration I wrote up ten or fifteen questions and sent it to them via the Secretary of State s office They didn t feel like answering those questions either pages it says If you d like to know something about us please go to hell in the nicest possible way Dr David Dill Stanford Univ If the ITAs won t answer questions what about the manufacturers What testing do the manufacturers do asks Dill If you go to their web pages it says If you d like to know something about us please go to hell in the nicest possible way TK OOK OK CK k You can t examine a machine or even look at a manual David Allen one of the many computer techs who helped coach me through the writing of this book also happens to be my publisher These things are so secret we re supposed to just guess whether we can trust them he said We ve got to get our hands on a technical manual some how I promised him somewhat doubtfully that I d try calling some programmers to see if I could find one to cooperate I was most interested in ES amp S at that time I hadn t done much work at all on Diebold Election Sys
6. a different ver sion of Windows and did not have this problem Harris So the program was certified by the federal labs even when it ran on different versions of the operating sys tem Dr Williams Yes they don t go into the operating system Harris There was an unprotected FTP site which contained software and hardware specifications some source code and lots of files One file on that site was called rob georgia and this file contained files with instructions to replace GEMS files with these and replace Windows files with these and run program Does this concern you Dr Williams I m not familiar with that FTP site Harris Is there a utility which reports the signature Who checks this and how close to Election Day Dr Williams We do that when we do acceptance testing That would be before election testing Harris What way would there be to make sure nothing had changed between the time that you took delivery and the election Dr Williams Well there wouldn t there s no way that you can be absolutely sure that nothing has changed Harris Wouldn t it help to check that digital signature or checksum or whatever right before the election 134 Dr Williams Well that is outside of the scope of what some of the people there can do can t think of any way anyone could come in and replace those files before the election
7. contains details on procedures and security measures take with a grain of salt TK OOK OK CK k It would be helpful to play with elections in the comfort of your own home Not a problem full installation versions of almost all of the Diebold voting programs were on the Web site e BallotStation exe vote recording and precinct tallying found in the BS folders e GEMS exe county level tallying of all the precincts found in the GEMS folders e VCProgrammer exe programs to sign in and validate voter cards Just about every version of the Diebold programs ever certified and hun dreds that were never certified were available fRlaccuvote Ts Users Guide 4 1 pdf Blav tsx Power Supply Printer Plic3_getting_started pdf Plic3_lanquage_reference pdf ic3_programmers_quide pdf PJic31_release_notes pdf icmoa0 0130 5 pdf E imacapRep pdf IndustrialGradeATA_1 0 pdF TE LANDiagram pdf T LQ150x1DG11 pdf Tl wireless ethernet PCMCIA EY Touch Screen E77225 000 pdf B YRemoteTables txt Pe accuvote TSx 2 02 System Overview pdf PelAccuvate T5x 2 03 System Functionality Description pdf PelAccuvate T5x 2 04 System Hardware Specifications pdf PelAccuvote T5x 2 05 Software Design and Specification pdf PelAccuvate T5x 2 06 System Security Specifications pdf PelAccuvate T5x 2 07 System Test and Verification Specificati PelAccuvate T5x 2 08 System Operations Procedures pdf e Accuvote TSx 2 09 System Maintenance Procedures p
8. night when they plug it into the phone details on prepara tion of vote databases Harris Having the screens freeze up is a pretty severe er ror how did 5 of the machines get out of the factory with that How did they get through Wyle testing labs Barnes All know is that the machines were repaired Harris How do you know that the software in the machines is what was certified at the labs Barnes There is a build date and a version number that you can verify Kennesaw University did an extensive audit of the signature feature Dr Williams and his team went out and tested every machine afterwards to make sure noth ing was installed on them that shouldn t have been Harris They tested every one of 22 000 machines Barnes They did a random sampling Feb 12 2003 Interview with Dr Britain Williams Kennesaw Election Center an organization funded by the Georgia Secretary of State Harris have questions regarding your certification of the machines used in Georgia during the last election Dr Williams For the state of Georgia don t do certifica 130 tion The law gives the Secretary of State the authority to say what systems are certified and what are not What do is an evaluation of the system details on certification Harris What was your involvement in certifying the pro gram patch that was put on Did you actually certify the pat
9. read should divest you once and for all of the idea that we can trust secret voting systems created by corpo rations Trust us Here is the official statement from Diebold issued by fax on Feb 19 2003 The old Global Election Systems site has been taken down because it contained old out of date material The Diebold FTP site contained com puter files for systems marketed by The facts According to Diebold Election Systems and before that whois sc the site was actually owned by Diebold and this old site had been taken down only days earlier and some of its old files were date stamped just three weeks before Diebold issued this statement Global Election Systems These voting sys tems were used in real elections There is no reason to believe that other manufacturers such as ES amp S and Sequoia are any better than Diebold in fact one of the founders of the original 137 ES amp S system Bob Urosevich also oversaw a development of the original software now used rob georgia zip by Diebold Election Systems Anonymous FTP access LOL unbelievable This is beyond ridiculous these people couldn t be trusted to secure your granny s system Because voting systems except AccuPoll which is open source are kept secret Iam focusing on Diebold in the next several chapters only because we can t find out anything about the other vendors system
10. the polling place when the polls close The same GEMS program handles both touch screens and optical scan machines If you were to select any of the many vote databases tagged to cities or counties you could practice tampering with elections using real software and real vote databases Any computer that has Windows seems to work but meticulous people would follow the instructions left on the FTP site and put the GEMS program on a Dell PC with Windows NT 2k installed So many versions of the GEMS program so little time A good version to start with would be GEMS 1 17 17 according to NASED documents posted on the Internet by The Election Center that was the officially certified version of GEMS during the general election in November 2002 A folder called Pima Upgrade might be a good choice for a hacker living in Tucson and the new 1 18 series was also available An even newer program FS seedstO0ecurentelecton 2p a ccunties GAH Da seredaiiitpimarydstabass 5p Mi daecon ty election zao UE siarada general abection 1102 20 E Dorchester Engichi 2ip E alegar Ereghsh je zip T Dorchester Screen Shots cg D degan Screen Shots 2ip Ea berchasberAucho zin E Alegarryfudio 2ip EX dorchecter froed dp E cobb comrected L001 02 backup zip ebeso 2p H cobbCountygeneral zip Sepetia c Ea monbgomery_65_Shyles ain ES Final adegans 4 10 02prinary13 02ver ihanin z Ea MentgomeryAucbot ip Bfinal allegany 9 10 02 primary B L
11. us There s so many specks and balances in thie They trust the system because they process Linda H Lamone think that someone else is minding the store secretaries of state for ex Maryland State ample or state election directors But i als PeciensiBoand none of that makes any difference if the innards of your voting system including The facts Poll worker training the passwords IP information and mo won t compensate for insecure dem configurations have been available or flawed computer programs to crackers for six years As yov ll see our certification sys tem is fundamentally broken The system is secret relies on a few cronies and is accountable to no one Worse the certifiers have clearly given a passing grade to 139 software so flawed that it miscounts loses votes and invites people to come in the back door to make illicit changes to anything they want But even this inadequate certification system would be better than what we discovered is really hap pening Diebold has been using software directly off DEMActivist its FTP site without submitting it for certification at all Are you serious Please tell me you re not serious here What a cracker could do with the files on the FTP site If you want to tamper with an election through electronic voting machines you want to play with Ballot configuration Switch the position of candidates A vote for one candi
12. used to show that no changes in the soft ware were done Dr Williams That s part of the test that involves looking at the software putting the patch on wouldn t change the digital signature Harris But if you put in a program patch wouldn t that show that a change has been made Dr Williams No because the patch was only in the Win dows portion there was no digital signature check on the operating system discussion of how a digital signature works Dr Williams They write the source code and the source code is submitted to the federal lab When it passes the lab they freeze the source code at that point it s archived Any change after that is subject to retesting Harris What was the security around the creation of the 133 cards used to implement the patch Dr Williams That s a real good question Like say we were in the heat of the election Some of the things we did we probably compromised security a little bit Let me empha size we ve gone back since the election and done extensive testing on all this Harris Based on your knowledge of what that patch did would it have been needed for all the machines of same make model and program Including machines sold to Maryland and Kansas that were built and shipped around the same time Dr Williams Yeah but now the key phrase is with the same system Maryland ran a similar version with
13. your Social Security number The files on the FTP site were a hodge podge During the writing of this chapter I tried to take a more complete inventory Tucked into one folder buried about three deep in the directories was a file that contained personal information for 310 000 Texans People have a right to privacy even in the Internet age Any woman who has an abusive ex boyfriend will tell you that she doesn t want her apartment number published on an open web site Child custody cases can get nasty Thieves who find a database like the one left in the open by Diebold may try to sell the information In this file were birthdays First middle and last names Street addresses Apartment numbers School districts Political affiliations Voting habits Yes I assume they will say it was some kind of voter registration file but it doesn t look quite precisely like one Each kind of information name zip code etc is called a field This file had 167 fields which included data from about three dozen elections logged in over a period of several years by many different people Ninety five thousand people from Plano are in this file and a couple hundred thousand more from Richardson McKinney Wylie Dallas and sur rounding areas Because of this file I know that Bob L of Plano is a Republican and likes to do early voting and that he and his wife are the same age But does Bob know that Diebold hung his undies out the window f
14. Chapter 7 Black Box Voting Ballot Tampering in the 21st Century by Bev Harris with David Allen Edited by Lex Alexander Cover Art by Brad Guigar SOME RIGHTS RESERVED creative commons This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License with the follow ing additional provisos 1 You must place the text f you would like to support the author and publisher of this work please go to www blackboxvoting com support htm on the same page as the download or on the first or last page on which the PNG images appear 2 The notice This book is available for purchase in paperback from Plan Nine Publishing www plan9 org Must appear on the download page or on the first or last page of the PNG images If you have any questions about this license or posting our work to your own web site call Plan Nine Publishing at 336 454 7766 1 The first public look ever into a secret voting system Author and historian Thom Hartmann writes You d think in an open democracy that the government answerable to all its citizens rather than a handful of corpo rate officers and stockholders would program repair and control the voting machines You d think the computers that handle our cherished ballots would be open and their soft ware and programming available for public scrutiny You d be wrong If America still is a democratic republic then We The People still own our government And the way our owner
15. Diebold Elec tion Systems to the state of Georgia in March 2002 10 Feb 11 2002 Interview of Michael Barnes Assistant Director of Elec tions for the state of Georgia by Bev Harris Full unabridged interview can be found in the library at www blackboxvoting org 11 Feb 12 2002 Interview of Dr Britain Williams NASED certfication board official voting machine certifier for the states of Georgia Maryland 152 and Virginia by Bev Harris Full unabridged interview can be found in the library at www blackboxvoting org 12 The Register February 2003 republished Aug 2 2003 Computer ballot outfit perverts Senate race theorist says by Thomas C Greene http www theregister co uk content 55 29247 html and read also http www theregister co uk content 35 29262 html 13 AccuPoll voting system http www accupoll com Products Top10 index html Non proprietary hardware and open source software significantly reduce both initial acquisition and ongoing maintenance costs 13a Diebold internal Email 4 April 1999 From Ian Piper to Talbot Iredale 14 The Baltimore City Paper 19 February 2003 Ballot Check Computer ized Voting Comes Under Fire in Georgia and California by Van Smith and Salon com 20 February 2003 Hacking Democracy http www salon com tech feature 2003 02 20 voting_machines 15 The Baltimore Sun 25 July 2003 New Study Says Maryland s Voting Machines A
16. I 0F ver 1 30 H notok election zip final skazany 310402 primary zip E oskdendn9 20 02 2ip Dina montgomery 9 10 02 primary 14 02 Verl 2p i offidalt elpsso zip fionda ballot station 4 3 certification general zip Hapa and alegar maryland databases nio Pp orsythCoNC3 2 20 EA prnaupgrade zi _ Ta Forsythcohic_cathi zip 145 version 1 19 was put on the FTP site on January 26 2003 just three days before it was taken down Faking your own touch screen machine Suppose you wanted to simulate an actual touch screen voting machine You need to activate those with a smart card and the average desktop computer isn t set up for that Put the word votercard into a text search on the Diebold files and this pops up in a file called votercard cpp v v3 10 19 1 5 v3 10 18 1 5 bi 1 3 votercard hack 1 5 0 4 v3 10 17 1 5 v3 10 16 1 5 we INe1Gse 1 Well what the heck is this file What kind of file is a cpp The suffix cpp stands for C and these files are source code Source code contains the commands given to the computer that tell it how to execute the program Many people are surprised to learn that source code files consist of English like programming commands that people can read After software engi neers write the program in this case in C language it is then compiled to make it machine readable The cvs tar file that Diebold left on its Web Ronen site was a source code tree for
17. Luis Obispo County California were date stamped on an election day curiously five hours before the polls closed The Diebold easy password method 29 x110700 pimageneral zip password pima E norfolk election zip password norfolk E docs zip password voter EI ChrisBellis zip password bellisc E wyle zip password wyle99 EJ JuanR zip password juan Guessing passwords is easy Many files are named for Diebold employees and many passwords are just employee names 142 The supervisor password for voting machines at the polling place was 1111 When I saw this in the manual it reminded me of buying a new briefcase It comes with a default combination but of course se 4 Insert the Manager card into the card you change the combination as soon as you reader a start using the briefcase 2 Enter the password 1 1 1 1 and touch OK 3 Remove card when instructed For some reason Diebold s voting 4 When the screen below appears press the machines were less secure than your brief End Election button case That s because programmers hard wired the password into the source code That way no one could change the password and anyone inside the polling place the janitor a crooked politician could pretend to be a supervisor by entering 1111 In case you need a fancy password the files called passwd might come in handy I don t know if anyone found a use for the Diebold programmer
18. NEWTYPE_ CARD CVoterInfo writeVoter Info writeVoterInfo m_CardType VOTER CARD writeVoterInfo m Version VCI VERSIONI writeVoterInfo m ElectionKey pVCardInfo gt m_ElectionId writeVoterInfo m VCenter C Center pVCardInfo gt m_VCenterId writeVoterInfo m DLVersion pVCardInfo gt m_DLVersion writeVoterInfo m Reportunit CDistrict p VCardInfo gt m_PrecinctId writeVoterInfo m Baseunit CBaseunit pVCardInfo gt m PortionId writeVoterInfo m CounterGroup CCounterGroup pVCardInfo gt m_GroupId writeVoterInfo m VGroupl Cy Group pVCardInfo gt m_VGroup1Id writeVoteriInfo m VGroup2 CVGroup pVCardiInfo gt m_VGroup2Z Id strcpy writeVoterInfo m PIN 1111 strcpy writeVoterInfo m Description writeVoterInfo m Flagsl UCHAR pVCardInfo gt m_ Flags 0x07 writeVoteriInfo m Flags2 USHORT pVCardInfo gt m_ Flags gt gt 4 writeVoteriInfo m VoterSN pVCardInfo gt m_VoterId if m_CardReader Write writeVoterInfo SMC_OK st VC_FAILEDWRITE else st VC_OKAY if fm CardReader IsOnen li 144 Perhaps we should run some elections A cracker who wants to pretend he is the county elections supervisor might start by installing one of the GEMS vote tallying programs on his home computer GEMS is on the central computer at the county elections office This is the soft ware that creates the ballots before the election and it also tabulates the incoming votes from
19. V from Diebold web site They re talking about what they could do if they had access to the computer program code But they re not going to get ac cess to that code Even if they did we d detect it 19 Dr Britain Williams 150 Our ongoing investigation has found no merit to the insinuations of security breaches in our election solutions 2 Joe Richardson Diebold spokesman Feb 2003 Harris follow up question So if there were 20 000 files including hardware software specs testing protocols source code you do not feel that is a security breach Richardson shuffling papers Our ongoing investigation has found no merit to the insinuations of security breaches in our election solutions 2 The scientists are undermining people s confidence in democracy Townsend said None of the critics is giving any credence to the extensive system of checks and balances that we employ internally Mischelle Townsend Registrar of Voters Riverside County CA Associated Press 8 17 03 It is all fine and well to upload results over the internet but we don t exactly have a lot of experience in internet security in this company and government computers are crackers favorite targets Barry Herron Diebold Regional Manager Diebold internal E mail 2 3 99 151 Chapter 8 footnotes 1 If You Want To Win An Election Just Control The Voting Machines by Thom Hartmann
20. ch or did you determine that it was not necessary Dr Williams Part of our testing program is when these machines are delivered we look at the machines and see that they comply And in the process of doing that repre sentatives of Kennesaw University did this we found about 4 5 percent of the machines were rejected not all because of screen freezes but that was one of the problems Harris It was the screen freezes that caused them to issue a program patch Dr Williams Yes The vendor Diebold created a patch addressing the screen freezing It made it better but didn t completely alleviate the problem Harris Did you do a line by line examination of the original source code Dr Williams For the original no We don t look at the source code anyway that s something done by the federal ITAs Harris Did you do a line by line examination of the patch Dr Williams The patch was to the operating system not to the program per se Harris It only changed Windows files Do you know that it didn t change anything in the other program Did you exam ine that Dr Williams We were assured by the vendor that the patch did not impact any of the things that we had previously tested on the machine Harris Did anyone look at what was contained in the re placement files 131 Dr Williams We don t look at source code on the operat i
21. ches the moment Diebold modified them they became subject to certification They did not come from Microsoft They came directly from Diebold Therefore they were not as is off the shelf Someone should have looked at these too 4 The rob georgia zip file contains two folders full of files that are not for Windows GEMS is not part of the Windows operating system You don t need to be acomputer scientist to see this Just look at the file names which instruct the user to alter the GEMS program Someone should have looked at these 5 According to Dr Williams no one at the state level looked at these modi fications and according to Michael Barnes no one at the national level looked at 136 them either In fact no one has any idea what was on those Georgia voting machines on Nov 5 2002 Georgia certified an illegal election Now what X OOK OK OK k As word spread about voting machine files found on an open FTP site it became a favorite topic of conversation on internet discussion forums This could make Watergate look like a game of tiddlywinks Get a good seat This could be quite a long ride TruthIsAll Best disinfectant for secret vote counting Sunlight Public examination of those files is the best thing that could have happened It s the only way we can engage in an informed debate about voting machines I m glad we got a look inside but what we found was shocking What you are about to
22. d Peloed Hore Samsch Neecape Fmi ar Bakina Line alse Ape lp DESH pm F FRGADURUA insanthessage E woa A lcan A He took one look at the page and snorted in credulously Incredible stupidity Click Pub he suggested We did and began wandering through the files What follows is the first detailed look ever into a secret vot ing system Current directory is Op co higher level director fen nga Ee Theeming o1a El teeeeines Elri Pub 122 Noun or verb rob georgia zip What do you do when you find 40 000 secret files on an unprotected file transfer site on the Internet Probably just look and go away But what if you have pledged allegiance to the United States and to the republic for which it stands What if you knew that the devil went down to Georgia on Nov 5 2002 and handed that state an election with six upsets tossing triple amputee war veteran Max Cleland out of the U S senate in favor of a candidate who ran ads calling Cleland unpatriotic Suppose you knew that in Georgia the first Republican gov ernor in 134 years had been elected despite being behind in every poll and that African American candidates fared poorly even in their own districts Knowing this suppose you saw a file called rob georgia looked inside and found in structions to replace the Georgia voting program files with something unknown I don t know about you but I m a 52 y
23. date goes to the other This would be useful in precincts that favor one party or candidate over another Vote recording Record votes electronically for the wrong candidate or stuff the electronic ballot box Vote tallying Incorrectly add up the votes or substitute a bogus vote tally for the real one or change the vote tally while it is being counted eallotStation 4 3June11 pdf Pinte 2eF1 28 Strata Flash 33 odF op Torte T Sbrstaflash Memory Specificatian Chang lpwtraining pdf PE Lancisgam pdi TE GEMS Users Guide 1 17 15 pdf Bi rradspec dec Fl gemsmanuals2002 pdf fa cemsProtocol pf You Found it doc E rel_AccuTouch txt BA Using CProgrammer doc E CLLMAN pat Y Socket Communications Ethernet PCMCIA CEOpersting System Features Hm Leer AccuTouch pF E BallotImageDatastructure xls E BALLOTS LOG Fsecure Tech Smart Card Reader ST 201F pdf Hikka Software Configuration Guide doc Placcuvote Vversion1 94HardwareGuideRevision1 2 E insockStabes tet laccuvote Ts Users Guide 4 1 pdf Pel Driver Designade pdf 140 You d want to find out as much as you could about procedures No problem the Web site contained the Ballot Station user manual the Poll Worker Train ing Guide and at least two versions of the GEMS User Manual along with the Voter Card Programming manual and hardware configuration manuals for the Accu Vote touch screen system The Technical Data Package for the new AccuVote TSx system
24. df lAccuVote T5x 2 10 Personnel Deployment and Training Rec PlAccuvote T5x 2 11 Configuration Management Plan pdf lAccuvote T5x 2 12 Quality Assurance Program pdf Pe accuvote TSx 2 13 System Change Notes pdf PlAccuvote T5x Hardware Guide Rev 1 0 pdf 141 You d want to know how to use the programs You cannot build an so besides having all the installation and user idiot proof voting system manuals all the readme files were available too because idiots are so os It might be helpful also to know what kind of ingenious testing the voting system goes through especially the details on the highly touted Logic and Accu racy testing done right before and after the elec tion After all you d want to make sure that what ever you do doesn t get caught Not only testing procedures but testing samples and instructions on how to do the testing were also provided on the Diebold FTP site ctdonath2 You d want to see some typical ballot configurations or better yet get the data files created for actual elections That way you d know the positioning of the candidates on the ballot and you could even get the candidate I D number used by the computers to assign votes You could do test runs using real election files On the FTP site were files designated for counties in California Maryland Arizona Kentucky Colorado Texas Georgia North Carolina Kansas and Vir ginia Some files like one for San
25. e testing they claim to have done Call me a skeptic I want to see the payroll records on that What does all that modifying at the last minute do to security Wait don t program modifications need to be recertified How many people had to get ac cess to these machines to do this Was this legal And what exactly was in rob georgia zip With so many unanswered questions we decided to ask the public officials responsible for voting systems in the state of Georgia about these program modifications 127 Feb 11 2003 Interview with Michael Barnes Assistant Director of Elections for the state of Georgia Harris want to ask you about the program update that was done on all the machines shortly before the election Barnes All right Harris Was that patch certified Barnes Yes Harris By whom Barnes Before we put anything on our equipment we run through state certification labs and then in addition to that we forwarded the patch to Wyle labs in Huntsville Wyle said it did not affect the certification elements So it did not need to be certified Harris Where s the written report from Wyle on that Can have a copy Barnes I d have to look for it don t know if there was ever a written report by Wyle It might have been by phone Also in Georgia we test independently at Kennesaw University a state university Harris Can see that report
26. ear old grandma and I never expected to have to make a choice like this I wanted someone else to take care of it We need investigators like Woodward and Bernstein I thought so I called the Washington Post Of course Carl Bernstein isn t there any more but I left a spicy message on Bob Woodward s voicemail Never heard from anyone I learned that Washington Post reporter Dan Keating was doing a story on voting ma chines so I called him So will you call Diebold and find out what rob georgia is I asked No Why not Because I don t think rob georgia could possibly mean rob Georgia he said 123 I left a somewhat more agitated message on Bob Woodward s voicemail and submitted my experience to a Web site called Media Whores Online These files might contain evidence These files might go away I called people in various places around the world and urged them to go look at rob georgia I thought long and hard And then I downloaded the files all 40 000 of them It took 44 hours nonstop I gave them to someone I trust who put them in a safe deposit box and there they sit to this day Why in the world would an ATM manufacturer like Diebold leave sensitive files hanging out there on an unprotected Internet site I made a few phone calls which confirmed that Diebold knew the site was unprotected and found out that the site had been there for years See appendix for interviews with Guy Lancaster
27. el Confidential pertaining to microprocessor development for personal PCs was on the FTP site along with the Merlin PPC Sourcekit for personal PCs and the Intel Cotulla devel opment kit and board support packages for Microsoft Windows CE NET and PocketPC 2002 So Diebold expects us to trust them with our vote yet they are quite cavalier with other people s intellectual property and as we will see in the next section with people s personal information Parked on the Diebold FTP site Private info on 310 000 Texans Johnny May perhaps the nation s leading expert on identity theft has sober ing information for you about the Internet and your security Identity thieves can work anonymously from anywhere in the world and armed with your social secu EEA pancetecegetinal aip EJA 41 State 2p Da E ESA STATT MAO ran in e ip Uriona esa STATE MEAG dari ip i dopisa ae teary Sree op DE yra oo eee san ban Chope rip E Tieng a segak 0 DE Ts P lemery p i ioeo oe SMiracotal et p Eh efferent op Stoning regi Ge sini U itenni pep aired op Giefferentccrethaudocp IE hitro re Ej jehararlard Fira ip El petararpared ip Gietichenondiateester p Droniga ed Dhene op aopa p H Montanas ariary zone DEOL zabt jF M4 y toda SAT e T ELA abl PE hed Arche gera F 148 rity number and a few other details can quite literally ruin your life And all they need is your name address and birthday to get
28. es sense The problem must be a big one to justify modifying the progam on all 22 000 voting machines in Georgia But wait a minute Before being considered for acquisition in Georgia states the Media Backgrounder put out by the Georgia Secretary of State Press Office soft ware is examined for reliability and hardware is subjected to a variety of torture tests The state testing examines both hardware and software for accuracy and reliability and mock elections are conducted on the equip ment witnessed by county election officials The document names Wyle Labo ratories and Ciber Inc citing their extensive experience in NASA related test ing So how did these NASA testing labs miss something so obvious that all 22 000 voting machines had to have a program modification to keep them from crashing It is Diebold Election Systems Inc policy that the only acceptable level of conformance is Zero Defects Diebold wrote to certifier Wyle Laboratories in its latest touch screen certification documents Okay we all know that zero defects is one of those terms that sounds good and doesn t happen But we ought to at least hold Diebold to this The manufacturing test location test date and inspector initials will be recorded on a label on every voting machine 125 Whose initials from the factory are on the Georgia machines Anyone s 1 Hardware testing Wyle Labs In its RFP solic
29. ibary These are small files that hide inside executable pro grams and can launch various functions whatever the programmer tells them to do They can be set up to delay their launch until a triggering event occurs There is nothing wrong with dll files but there is something very wrong with putting new dll files into a voting machine if no one has examined them 135 Other files such as nk bin also contain executables that can literally re write the way the system works The nk bin file is sort of like a mini Windows operating system If a programmer from Diebold modifies the nk bin file and these modified files are put on the voting machine without being examined the truth is we have no idea what that machine is doing Also any time you do a program modification you can introduce a small trojan horse or virus that can corrupt the election Hey What s this H EJ ClockFix zip NK bin BIN File 7 16 2002 8 48 PM ClockFix zip 2 The rob georgia zip folder includes a file called setup exe that was never examined by certifiers It contains many dll files The clockfix zip file is an nk bin file Someone should have looked at these 3 Windows operating system In order to use COTS software Commer cial Off The Shelf without having certifiers examine it the commercial software must be used as is with no modifications If the patches that Barnes and Will iams referred to were Windows pat
30. isk but shaped like a credit card Sometimes called PCMCIA card It took about one and a half minutes to boot up discussion of slots and memory cards They take the PCMCIA card in stall it and in the booting up process the upgrade is installed Harris Where did the actual cards come from Barnes Diebold gave a physical card one card that acti vates each machine There were about 20 teams of techni cians They line the machines up install the card turn on boot up take that card out move on then test the machine Harris Were people driving around the state putting the patches on the machines Barnes Yes Harris What comment do you have on the unprotected FTP site Barnes That FTP site did not affect us in any way shape or form because we did not do any file transferring from it None of the servers ever connected so no one could have trans 129 ferred files from it No files were transferred relating to state elections Harris How do you know that no one pulled files from the FTP site Barnes One voting machine calls the servers and uploads the info We don t allow the counties to hook up their servers to a network line Harris notice that one of the things the network builder put on the county machines was a modem Barnes The only time you use the modem is on election night That is the only time the unit was used was election
31. iting purchase by 2 Software testing Ciber Inc the state of Georgia Diebold submit 3 Every machine tested at ted the following in its Schedule for Diebold factories Deployment 4 Rigorous testing on arrival at the G i h Prior to our GEMS hard ear Meera ware installation at each Georgia 5 Testing when delivered to county the hardware will be each of Georgia s 159 coun staged in McKinney Texas for i software integration and testing As part of the installation process Diebold promised that all software and drivers small programs which drive specific pieces of hardware such as print ers touch screens modems would be loaded prior to being shipped to Georgia and according to the Georgia Secretary of State Media Backgrounder Before leaving the factory each touch screen terminal receives a diag nostic test If they staged the hardware and did software integration and testing and loaded everything and then tested each voting machine before shipping it to Geor gia why did every one of the machines need modifications in order not to crash after they reached Georgia The machines were shipped to Georgia in June 2002 And once they arrived we are told there was more testing Upon arrival at Diebold s central warehouse in Atlanta each unit was put through a diagnostic sequence to test a variety of functions including the card reader serial port printer the internal clock a
32. le and secure program with a voter verified paper ballot to back it up Australia has developed an open source voting program and so has AccuPoll 138 Instead Diebold allowed only a small handful of programmers to look at its software Then they put all the software along with passwords and encryption keys on an open Web site and left it there for several years where crackers could download it and people interested in elections could find out about it but respectable experts and citizens groups were not told of its existence or allowed to examine anything I m glad the files became available but putting that kind of material on an unprotected Web site was a major security stuff up by anyone s reckoning That s how Thomas C Greene of The Register describes what Diebold did and he s right Diebold s entire secret election system was available to any hacker with a laptop Did leaving these files on an unprotected Web site jeopardize elections Yes If your elections officials tell you they still trust the system give them a copy of this book They were never made aware of the risks Your congressperson may be equally unaware In fact well meaning election supervisors and con gressmen generally know diddly about C programming Microsoft Windows code or remote access security Even if they looked at the source code which they are prohibited from doing they don t have the expertise to evaluate it Trust
33. nd the calibration of the touch screen itself These tests were audited by experts from Kennesaw State University s Center for Election Systems This statement on Georgia Secretary of State letterhead remains posted on the state s Web site as of the writing of this book 126 After shipment to each of Georgia s 159 counties county acceptance testing which consists of the same types of diagnostic procedures was per formed by KSU staff on each voting terminal Was this testing rigorous Yes rigorous they promised According to the Media Backgrounder Georgia s multi tiered election equipment testing pro gram among the most rigorous in the nation Could someone take a moment to do the math with me If this testing is rigorous might we expect them to invest say 10 minutes per machine The testing described by Diebold and Secretary of State documents adds up to every touch screen unit being tested three times before it gets to the renowned logic and accuracy test 22 000 machines x 10 minutes 220 000 minutes 220 000 minutes x 3 times 660 000 minutes Divide by 60 minutes 11 000 hours Divide by 40 hour work week 275 work weeks or 68 months 68 months divided by 12 5 7 years Amount of time available for acceptance testing 4 months NOW ADD PEOPLE 68 months divided by 4 17 people working 40 hours per week for 4 months doing nothing but rigorous testing Do you believe they did all th
34. ng system anyway On our level we don t look at the source code that s the federal certification labs that do that Harris Did you issue a written report to the Secretary of State indicating that it was not necessary to look at the patch Dr Williams It was informal not a report we were in the heat of trying to get an election off the ground A lot was done by e mails Harris What month did you install that program patch Dr Williams When we took delivery we were seeing that the patch was on there Harris have a memo from the Secretary of State s office that is dated in August Sept 16 actually and it says that due to a problem with the screens freezing a patch was go ing to be put on all the machines in Georgia It references a Rebecca Mercuri report Dr Williams discusses Dr Mercuri Harris Apparently someone had already taken delivery on these machines and they had already been shipped out around the state before the patch was applied is that right Dr Williams The patches were done while we were doing acceptance testing One of the things we looked for during acceptance testing was to make sure the patch was put in Harris But as understand it a team of people went around the state putting these patches on Dr Williams By the time they put the patches in the ma jority of the machines had been delivered Actually it was going
35. on at the same time When they started putting the patches in around the state we tested the machines where they did that put the patches in at the factory Harris When spoke with Michael Barnes he said that you tested all the machines or a random sampling of the ma chines after the patch was put on Dr Williams We had five or six teams of people with a test 132 script that they ran on each machine Harris The test script did what Dr Williams The test script was generic It was in two parts One part tested the functionality of the machine It was a hardware diagnostic it primarily tested that the printer worked that the serial port worked that the card reader worked tested the date and time in the machine and to an extent checked calibration of the machine Then if it passed all of those it tested the election We loaded a small sample election in the same as the one used during certification test ing and we ran a pattern of votes on there Harris You mean a Logic and Accuracy test Dr Williams Yes A little miniature election If the machine passed we wrote it up and sent the report back to the of fice If it failed if it froze up or there were other failures and there were some of those like the card reader was bro ken or the case was broken then we didn t pass it Harris Can you tell me about the digital signature A digi tal signature is
36. or all to see Yes I know Someone will explain to me that you can buy voter registra tion files for a nominal fee But that doesn t mean you can buy those lists and stick them on the Internet and what was Diebold doing with this information anyway And does Bob Urosevich the President of Diebold Election Systems know that his wife and daughter had their private information on that web site too And what do Diebold and the other guardians of our vote have to say about this 149 We protect the Bill of Rights the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence We protect the Hope Diamond Now we protect the most sacred treasure we have our secret ballot Diebold CEO Wally O Dell For 144 years Diebold has been synonymous with security and we take security very seriously in all of our products and services Diebold web site Sometimes our customers use the FTP site to transfer their own files It has been up quite some years People go there from counties cities sometimes there is stuff there for state certification boards federal certification a lot of test material gets passed around Guy Lancaster Diebold contractor 2 03 the current group of computer wizards who are so shrilly attacking are no longer behaving like constructive critics but rather as irresponsible alarmists and it s getting a little old Dan Burk Registrar of Voters Washoe County N
37. pass words but these were sitting there E passwd 4 ken Cx4drK4Q4uebk passwd guy APHrbSVeB5WQ6 ken Cx4JrK4Q4uebk tri GwbhsaUF5T1090 Eri UEGND UAiLROK whitman KnSet wE DYtuM admitry dyNCBK1IMDVDU nel 187 xesCmmxBu whitman gSPENseGdSio6 mike XS5oEayCPicxN kponti b t1lxLFSaVUVE toma h skrG2aFiuqg denisel b t1lxLFSaVUVE bill 6bFseyII9RxVY ataaib t1xLFSaVUVE guest cZmBUdvosgzyec josh ZHwPOhdASis3JE At the county election supervisor s office the results from all the polling places are tabulated using a program called GEMS and the password was in the user manual The election supervisor can change GEMSUSER but later I ll show you how even a ten year old could change it right back 143 Enter your ssar kagon name and passeard j a GEMELUISER Al this piini Wlindows will slari The password for the Setting System Date and Tine GEMS program is GEMSUSER Akor Winders sorts fi ibe bottom right comer of fhe suroan is the eysiam Supervisor access at the polling place CAFX_DATA_INIT CSmartCardEmuD 1g m_ByAccLevel 0 is granted by the password 1111 m ID _1T 01234867890 Instead of allowing supervisors to m_Levell 1 wigs i F m_ Level lt 1 control the password it is written into m Level3 lt 1 the source code and printed in the m Party 1 manuals ADMIN_CARD m PIN _T 1111 m_ Type VOTER_CARD RFX_DATA_INIT st VC_NOACCESS else
38. re Vulnerable to Hackers 16 The Guide to Identity Theft Prevention by Johnny May CPP Statistics on identity theft are available from the Federal Trade Commission Identity Theft Data Clearinghouse Figures and Trends on Identity Theft in Texas http www consumer gov idtheft statemap texas pdf 2001 and http www consumer gov sentinel pubs Top10Fraud_2002 pdf 2002 17 Cleveland Plain Dealer May 2002 interview with Wally O Dell Sent out as a company press release in Sept 2003 18 Interview with Guy Lancaster 4 Feb 2003 According to Lancaster s web site he was in charge of the site for Global Election Systems Lancaster has a small computer consulting firm and was under contract to Global Elec tion Systems When Diebold bought Global in Jan 2002 they transferred re sponsibilities for the site to a full time Diebold employee but kept Lancaster on under a new contract 19 Washington Post 28 March 2003 New Voting Systems Assailed Com puter Experts Cite Fraud Potential 20 Interview with Joe Richardson Diebold spokesman by Bev Harris Feb 2003 153
39. s quimby We do know that according to internal memos from Diebold employees ES amp S was said to have a patent lawsuit pending against Diebold predecessor Global Election Systems at one time That is not surprising because ES amp S founder Bob Urosevich brought technology over to Global Election Systems If a patent lawsuit was filed that would indicate that some part of the system was alleged to be identical Also Chapter 2 shows that Diebold Sequoia and ES amp S have all miscounted elections many times A word about open source Very reputable programs such as the Linux operating system have been developed through open source letting the whole world examine the system and suggest improvements Some advocates confuse what happened with Diebold s unprotected FTP site with open source What Diebold did though is quite differ ent If you never obtain public feedback to improve your software what you have is horrific security not an open source system Hundreds of people have by now examined the Diebold files but it s still not open source because no one has the slightest idea what Diebold has done to correct the flaws if anything If the Diebold system had allowed everyone with expertise in security en cryption hacking and database design to critique the software during develop ment and then showed how it corrected the flaws that would be open source Such a procedure would no doubt arrive at a very simp
40. set of development tools for building a Windows CE operating system into customized gadgets You are supposed to have a license to use it and according to Bill Cullinan of Venturcom Inc a Waltham Massachussetts based Windows CE distributor and developer the kit is certainly not free The Platform Builder development kit for the new Windows CE net runs about 995 he told me Earlier the cost was up over 2 000 i z appendix f acceptance test specifications doc E cCTest exe amp z appendix e tp4 supervisor test procedure htm O Appendix E Testing Procedures m appendix b5 sample test plan doc Em ForsythTEST zip m 2 appendix b4 sample test procedure doc 2 ciber BRC Results Import zip jz appendix b3 test incident report doc E Penn certification docs zip m2 appendix b2 test log doc m secretary of state testing final zip mz appendix b1 test standards doc E wyle zip a PixEZ testwork zip testb Frm testc Frm 147 Any cracker in the world could access the pricey Microsoft developer s platforms through the Diebold FTP site Stupid or evil Though many companies maintain FTP sites not many I am aware of store source code and customer files in plain sight Atraides Despite a notice that says You may not copy the Hewlett Packard Software onto any public network copies of the Hewlett Packard software were on the public FTP site hosted by Diebold A document marked Int
41. ship and management of our common government and its assets is asserted is through the vote Many citizens believe however that turning the program ming and maintenance of voting over to private for profit corporations answerable only to their owners officers and stockholders puts democracy itself at peril K CK GK ck ck Historians will remind us of a concept called the public commons Public ownership and public funding of things that are essential to everyone means we get public scrutiny and a say in how things are run When you privatize a thing like the vote strange things happen For example you can t ask any questions Jim March a California Republican filed a public records request in Alameda County California to ask about the voting machines they had entrusted with his vote The county s reply 119 Please be advised that the county will not provide the infor mation you requested The County will not allow access or disclose any information regarding the Diebold election sys tem as any information relating to that system is exempted from the PRA Public Records Act The system provided by Diebold Election Systems Inc DESI is a proprietary sys tem that is recognized as such in the contract between the County and DESI The County contends that the official information privilege in section 1040 of the Evidence Code is applicable because the information requested was acquired b
42. tems I entered essvote com into the Google search engine looking for e mails which might give me names I could contact and found a few dozen employees who work for ES amp S I felt cowardly about calling them What would I say Hey let me see a manual So I stalled by convincing myself that I should find as many names as possible I got some from Sequoia Then I entered Global Election Systems and found some old documents with e mails ending in gesn com On page 15 of Google looking for anything with gesn in it I found a Web page You can still find this page at www archive org for GESN com The FTP link still appears 121 gt O B GEOBAL ELEC TION SYSTEMS W elcome to the Global Election System Network GESN Home af the highly acclaimed Accuvote Optical Scan Voting System and AcceVote TS The TouchScreen System Global Election Systems is dedicated to providing convienient voting methods for the voting public and increasing voter turnout by introducing advanced technology to the election process INVESTOR RELATIONS FTP oes eee I clicked press releases to see what kind of claims this company was mak ing Then I clicked all the links I clicked the link called FTP and it took me to a page full of files Icalled my publisher _ David Allen Hreno Hitap Efe bo Mea go Sonmuccair H What am I looking 2 at 4 a A 2 m amp Bak Fee
43. the program Gaaccuvete used to cast votes on touch screens The tree contains more than program commands it in CO Votercard cludes the history of Diebold s software devel il Yotercard cpp opment process going back all the way back to Bob Urosevich s original company I Mark Systems through Global Election Sys tems and including 2002 programming under Diebold Election Systems The Votercard cpp v file is found in a directory called Votercard in a cvs tar directory called Accu Vote 146 Now if I m a cracker and I get the Votercard cpp v file off the Diebold Web site and I m running a computer that really isn t a voting machine but want to figure out how it works here it is a neat little program that can cancel out the card reader entirely Diebold handed me the road map and helped me find it by naming it votercard hack Any moderately skilled programmer will know how to paste it into the latest touch screen source code recompile install and start playing around Votercard hack takes you straight to the source code commands you need Leaving other people s pants unzipped It s bad enough when you leave your own sensitive stuff on the Web But Diebold exposed other people s confidential information also Diebold left 15 900 of Microsoft s proprietary Windows CE source code files on its public web site ready to assemble like a set of legos The Microsoft Windows CE Platform Builder is a
44. y the County in confidence and the County is required to maintain its confi dentiality Any copying or disclosing of such information would violate the license agreements When I called ES amp S to ask the names of its owners the company simply declined to take my call When former Boca Raton Florida mayor Emil Danciu requested that Dr Rebecca Mercuri perhaps the best known expert on electronic voting in America be allowed to examine the inner workings of Palm Beach County s Sequoia ma chines the judge denied the request ruling that neither Mercuri nor anyone else would be allowed to see the code to render an opinion When best selling author William Rivers Pitt interviewed Dr David Dill a professor of computer science at Stanford University about his experience with voting machines Pitt got an earful about secrecy Dr Dill says that when he started asking questions he got answers that made no sense It is frustrating because claims are made about these systems how they are designed how they work that frankly I don t believe says Dill In some cases I don t believe it because the claims they are making are impos sible I am limited in my ability to refute these impossible claims because all the data is hidden behind a veil of secrecy When members of the California Task Force on Electronic Voting tried to find out how the machines were tested Wyle and Ciber the primary Indepen dent Testing
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