Black Box Notes

To: Paul Krugman

Thank you for addressing this issue, and thank you especially for your mention of Bev Harris, who must be viewed as almost "the grandmother" of this issue. It was perhaps two years ago that she brought me "into the fold" on this, and certainly she had years of work behind her that preceded my entry into this issue.

Please let me assure you that this is not just the fears of a bunch of technophobes. I myself have been into computers for 40 years (vacuum tubes, anyone?) I know what makes computer systems good and bad, and I have myself been inside of the Diebold code. Yes, I am aware that Diebold has said that "our version" of it is out of date, and I have no doubt of that; all computer coding is in a constant state of adaptation. Still, it is my professional opinion that "their version" of it could not be worse, and that nothing short of a total re-design can fix its inherent design flaws. If it were designed with hacking as a requirement, not a single line of code would have to be changed.

I point my fangs at Diebold here because they have made themselves such an obvious target with their "circle the wagons" approach to this conflict. But the fact of the matter is that the entire e-vote industry is rife with cross-breeding, and there is little evidence that Diebold's problems are unique unto itself. Certainly other e-vote companies have responded far more effectively to our concerns (which we appreciate), but there remains among us a well-founded sense that we may have some pretty vulnerable software counting our votes. And this is simply unacceptable.

Many try to phrase this as a partisan issue, given that the e-vote manufacturers are largely Republican owned. I personally reject this framing. I would just as soon toss a Democrat guilty of vote tampering in jail as a Republican. It is after all my vote! It is my most sacred right as a member of a democratic republic. Whether one steals it from me to "help" me or steals it for my opponents, it is stolen nonetheless. I cannot differentiate between the two.

Sincerely,        
Benedict@Large

Well, actually not, but a Diebold attorney promised in a conference call Monday with U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel that it would not sue dozens of students, computer scientists and ISP operators who received cease-and-desist letters from August to October. This is a fantastic (though inevitable) victory for us black box advocates. More than that however, it was simply the right thing for Diebold to do. According to my latest estimates, there were easily a half million copies of the Diebold memo data base downloaded, and as such, continuing their legal approach had really become an exercise in futility.

Were I to guess at this point, this has all the trappings of Diebold corporate coming down on Diebold Election Systems, who had clearly let this issue spin out of their control. It is after all about profits, and not about getting into a cat fight with cats that were not about to give up. Hopefully, this signals a new willingness on the part of Diebold Election Systems to work with us. It is after all about making them have a better product, and that of course is in their long term best interests.

Links:

• Associated Press: Electronic Voting Firm Drops Legal Case (Jim March gets a photo-op!)
• Wired News: Diebold Backs Off Legal Challenge
• The Inquirer, UK: Diebold capitulates to legal threats
• USA Today: E-vote firm backs off case against free speech advocates
• Electronic Frontier Foundation: Links to articles and PDFs relating to the progression of this case
• TalkLeft: Diebold Drops Plans to Sue Internet Critics
• Google News: Latest Headlines

This is big time. All those articles that mentioned the John Hopkins (quite limited) study of the Diebold code, but never mentioned where they got it from or the more advanced work that had been done prior to their study? You remember them. Bev Harris and her cohorts were after all not "experts", and so did not deserve editorial mention. Until now.

How times have changed. In today's New York Times, none other than Paul Krugman puts Bev right in the spotlight in his "Hack the Vote" editorial. We're not on the margins anymore. We are now mainstreamed.

Read the editorial, take a visit to Bev's site, and if you are so inclined, drop her an e-mail to say thank you for all that she has done.

... also pipes in on the Krugman article. Not much from Matt, who admits an aversion to the issue, but the comments (including my rather lengthy one) might be of interest to you.