Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Grace Lee Boggs Chooses Kucinich

Again, another great interview with Grace Lee Boggs. (For the full interview see http://www.democracynow.org/2008/1/22/ive_never_had_this_much_hope)
 
I noticed on the DemocracyNow/Google site that she had been inteviewed several times by Amy.
Grace was also featured by Bill Moyers Journal.
 
Ms. Boggs of oriental, descent, married an Afro-american activist and was involved in the civil rights movement early on.
Grace was an amazing woman who inspires from amazing times. Though she was not close to Dr. King, she did know Malcom X and was quiet torn on the path to civil justice on whether violence was an answer. She had learned well from Dr. King because already, so much violence existed and obviously solved nothing.
 
There are many who have experienced a great deal in the "progressive" movement in the past that we can learn from.
another is Bill Mandel, another unsung hero.
 
 
AMY GOODMAN: We're talking to Grace Lee Boggs. She is in Detroit, Michigan. You are not usually deeply involved in electoral politics, yet here you are deeply believing in the significance of what's happening this year. What has changed? And did you ever have hope in other electoral years, in other presidential—times of presidential elections?
 
GRACE LEE BOGGS: I've never had this much hope. I've never had—because I think this one is unique. You know, policy-wise, I think Dennis Kucinich is much more on the right track. In fact, I support him. But he does not have that particular combination of a Kenyan father and a Kansas mother that can help unleash different energies. You know, sometimes—he can't help it, of course, but sometimes it takes a certain person to do that. And I don't think—it's not—to me, it's not so important, the electoral politics. How they will develop, I don't know. But when I felt that energy of young people, and I feel it around here, and I think of what Fanon said about each generation emerging out of obscurity must define its mission and fulfill or betray it. We're living at one of those tide times.

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Question to Brunner Via radio show from Philly

question to Brunner Via radio show from Philly, http://mysite.verizon.net/resq4lzq/cvi/index.html
 
Ohio HB3 passed the republican legislature. This bill contained a provision that allows counties to cage votes. The republican party got caught and prosecuted for this years ago. From an article on this subject linked below:
"Litigation arising from voter caging and challenges will be discussed during the survey of state
challenge campaigns and in a detailed litigation section that follows. The Democratic National
Committee and state Democratic parties fought against illegal caging and challenge campaigns by
the GOP in state and federal courts. Two of the most important cases stemmed from GOP caging
efforts in New Jersey during the 1980's and led to consent decrees that are still in effect. Under
the consent decrees, the RNC has agreed to restrictions to bring its activities into compliance
with the Constitution and federal law. As the RNC has pointed out in subsequent lawsuits, only
the RNC is bound by the decrees, not the state Republican parties."
             
How do you plan to address this in your plans to protect the voter?

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

MSNBC Exceeds Donation Limitations By Allowing The Candidates Free On Air Time

4:03:05 PM nation_of_gandhis: If MSNBC is treating the Debates as a "Private" matter, then wouldn't the air time be considered a
major donation extending beyond corporate limitations, considering the cost of commercials therein?!?!?!?

Tuesday, January 8, 2008

THE CAT THAT CONTROLS NEW HAMPSHIRE ELECTION PROGRAMMING

A YouTube video from Black Box Voting that you won't soon forget:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PiiaBqwqkXs



THE CAT THAT CONTROLS NEW HAMPSHIRE ELECTION PROGRAMMING

John Silvestro and his small private business, LHS Associates, has exclusive programming contracts for ALL New Hampshire voting machines, which combined will count about 81 percent of the vote in the primary. And as to Super Tuesday and beyond: Silvestro also has the programming contracts for the states of Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Vermont.

Silvestro IS the New Hampshire chain of custody in New England -- Or at least, a very large component in it.

Last fall, with the help of citizens like you, Black Box Voting began working on "Chain of Custody" projects, in which we identified some of the areas of concern that might affect many jurisdictions at once. First on the list for the Northeast U.S. is LHS Associates, a vendor with inside access to every memory card, as well as to the chips containing the "brain" of the Diebold optical scan machines.

RARE VIDEO FOOTAGE

In an unusual confluence of available video, we obtained footage of Silvestro grappling with Harri Hursti, the master hacker who had his way with the Diebold optical scans in Leon County, Florida in the famous exploit that was showcased in the film Hacking Democracy.

The exact same make, model and version hacked in the Black Box Voting project in Leon County is used throughout New Hampshire, where about 45 percent of elections administrators hand count paper ballots at the polling place, with the remaining locations all using the Diebold version 1.94w optical scan machine. Because the voting machine locations tend to be urban, this represents about 81 percent of the New Hampshire voters.

The video shows Harri Hursti testifying on Sept. 19 before the New Hampshire legislature, attempting to explain significant vulnerabilities requiring urgent mitigations; throughout his testimony, Silvestro inserted his own comments, opinions, misstatements and speculations.

VOTING MACHINE CHECKUP

One area of disagreement between Hursti and Silvestro was the amount of expertise needed to exploit the Diebold 1.94w optical scan system. Silvestro claimed (in a strange contortion of reasoning) that he doesn't hire very skilled programmers, implying that this makes New Hampshire elections more secure.

Hursti pointed out that hiring programmers with a lack of knowledge is generally not considered a security feature, and also that an average high schooler can learn to exploit the system in two days to two weeks.

WE THINK IT DOESN'T TAKE THAT LONG

Black Box Voting purchased a Diebold optical scan with 1.94w firmware, and chose a computer repair shop out of the phone book, took it in, grabbed the first available technician. It took him less than 10 minutes to zero in on the memory card as a point of critical vulnerability -- and oh my, did he point out some other intersting things!

NEW HAMPSHIRE HASN'T UPGRADED SYSTEM SECURITY

Silvestro tries to claim that the security problems have been fixed in newer editions. Whether or not they have been, it's a moot point in New Hampshire where the upgrade is not made unless the Ballot Law Commission meets, and they have not met for ages.

Silvestro then points to extraordinary measures taken by other states to enact special procedural safeguards, but of course none of those were implemented in New Hampshire either, because the Ballot Law Commission has not bothered to meet since March 2006.

IN FACT, NEW HAMPSHIRE HAS NOT IMPLEMENTED MITIGATIONS FOR KNOWN RISKS

Not only that, they have turned all the programming over to a sole source private company, taking vote counting for 81 percent of New Hampshire citizens out of the public domain.

LHS is not subject to public records requirements, as the government is, at least, not in New Hampshire. The control over memory card contents is absolute; when cards malfunction or get lost, LHS brings the replacements.

CONTROL OVER THE "BRAINS" OF THE MACHINE: ACCESS TO THE CHIP

Since LHS maintains the machines, repairs the machines, and replaces the machines -- often on Election Day -- when they malfunction, they have intimate access to the chips, sockets, ports, communications devices and other electronic components.

Silvestro stated that the chip has "read only memory" and cannot be reprogrammed without frying it under ultraviolet light overnight.

Hursti never had a chance to examine the hardware, nor have most of the recent university studies had access. But our friendly neighborhood computer repair guy differed with Silvestro on the point of plug & play reprogramming of the guts of the machine.

After I push the button to send this message out to the media and the citizenry, I'll work on getting a short YouTube video of the Accuvote checkup by our local computer repairman. And before you say, "But wait! He's not a world class expert!" -- That's just the point.

Our local computer repairman may hit or miss on some of his analyses. You'll all be able to try your hand at second guessing him as soon as the next video is up. But if he hits even one of his ideas for how to exploit the machine to steal votes, that's all it takes. From someone who is not, certainly, a world class hacker or even a hacker at all.

I'll post the link to that in a follow up here: http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/1954/71200.html?1199744175 , and invite you techs to weigh in.

Please feel free to distribute, reprint or excerpt, with link to Black Box Voting and the video link above.

Bev Harris
Black Box Voting
bev@blackboxvoting.org


* * * * *

This is the year to support Election protection actions: http://www.blackboxvoting.org/donate.html
or mail to:
Black Box Voting
330 SW 43rd St Suite K
PMB 547
Renton WA 98057

R.D. Laing

R.D. Laing
Speaking on Autonomy