There’s been quite a hullaballoo both here and elsewhere since I posted my exclusive interview with DIEB-THROAT last Thursday pointing to the Cyber Alert from the arm of the U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security which warned about Diebold’s hackable machines prior to last November’s election. That’s good. Without noise and vigilance from the citizenry, the story of what has happened and continues to happen to our Electoral System in this country will be drowned out by those who have an interest in the system remaining as is…and real democracy in America will drown along with it.
It is up to you to make sure that something is done now about what DIEB-THROAT described as “one of the greatest threats democracy has ever known.” Here’s a link you can use right away to alert your Congressional Representatives (both Dem and Rep!) about the problem, and ask them to support at least one piece of legislation — Rep. Rush Holt’s HR 550 — that attempts to deal with at least some of the problems in the current disastrous system. Holt’s bill has over 100 co-sponsors now, including some Republicans as we understand, and thus it has the best chance of seeing the light of day in Congress at this time. It’s worth supporting.
Several Mainstream Media organizations have contacted me since publishing Thursday’s story to get more info and/or interviews with DIEB-THROAT. I’ve done everything I can to accommodate them, and hopefully we’ll be seeing more on this story soon. Then again, I was also contacted by many MSM’ers after I broke the amazing Clint Curtis story, and we’re still waiting for those exposes to appear in the MSM. So we’ll see what happens. Don’t wait for them! Make noise yourself right now!
Amongst the notable noise out there on the net was this coverage by Mako Yamakura at the Detroit News and Free Press weblog site. Yamakura does a fine job of explaining — in laymen’s terms — the significance of the US-CERT Cyber Alert discussed in my original article.
Over at BlackBoxVoting.org where the backdoor vulnerability to Diebold’s central tabulation software was originally discovered more than a year ago, there is a thread discussing our article, its ramifications and a great deal of additional information along with both kudos and critiques for yours truly. To be frank, I was a bit surprised there wasn’t more appreciation for the story originally over there, since it provided independent corroboration to so much of what they’ve been trying to get folks to pay attention to for so long. Nonethess, I’m glad that folks are talking about it.
A few of the notable links found via BBV’s thread would include:
I’m also reminded that you can watch Howard Dean hack the Diebold GEMS Central Tabulator in 90 seconds in a video clip from CNBC’s Topic A with Tina Brown where Dean guest-hosted with BBV’s Bev Harris as his guest.
That demonstration is also used in the short Special Edition of the Votergate documentary film still in production by our friend Russ Michaels. If you haven’t seen this version of his film, released to the net prior to last November’s Election, you’re in for an eye-opener! Go watch it!
Also, McCamy Taylor was moved enough by our article to do up a quickie cartoon strip on DIEB-THROAT over at the Grand Theft Election Ohio website.
Lastly, for those folks who are just now waking up to unaccountable, unverifiable, untransparent privatization of America’s elections by Diebold (the Halliburton of the Voting World) and others, I would recommend you:
Wanna Do Something About All of This?
Other than linking to our DIEB-THROAT article, emailing it around, and writing letters to the editor at your local newspaper about both that story and other reasons to be greatly concerned about what has happened to America’s Electoral System, you can help light a fire under some Congressional feet! Both Dems and Reps! They must get to work and pass some legislation that begins to deal with this incredible threat to our Democracy! VelvetRevolution.us has made it easy to SEND A LETTER TO YOUR CONGRESSIONAL REPRESENTATIVES demanding that they support Congressman Rush Holt’s “Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act” (H.R. 550). Click here now to do it! It’ll just take a minute of your time! And thanks for giving a damn!
P.S. I’ll be on Pacifica’s Sunday Monitor program out of KPFT 90.1 FM in Houston to discuss all of this today (Sunday, natch) at 4:15p PT if you want to listen in…
P.P.S. Arianna has asked me for a piece on this as well for Huffington Post which I hope will be posted soon over there is now posted here!
Yay BRAD! You da MAN! Excellent article with lots of great links for either first timers or refresher for those of us who’ve been following this for months or years.
KUDOS again, Brad! Wahoo!
These neocons are disgusting, its time to make this meet critical mass!!!!
The SICK FREAK NEOCONS don’t want to elect any republicans or democrats ever, and have taken over the counting machines.
They don’t want any conservatives or liberals since they all get in "THE WAY"
They want to elect ONLY NEOCONS TO EVERY POSITION, WAKE UP AMERICA!!!!
Its time to get bi-partisan approval and shove HR 550 through!!! Verified paper ballots for EVERY single vote! It should be demanded by everyone!
ROMNEY
I just love the way VR has these petitions set up, makes it so easy and quick. Beautiful job!
It seems like years to me Kira, I had forgotten about Rep. Holt’s H.R. 550.
Go Brad!
BRAD – OT, sorta kinda, and since this is, at the moment, the top link, I’ll post it here:
Can you give us some idea of the number of hits on this website? On this thread?
Is there any way to tell the increase in visitors over the past 12 months (or any given time period)?
I’m just curious.
I think there are a lot of folks like me, who read as much and as often as they can here, but only post on a few threads every now and then because basically, we’ve already said (or someone ELSE has already said) all we need to say at the moment.
I also want to believe that the general public is waking up and that many, many people have become aware of things in the past month or so of which they weren’t aware before. But, I’d like to see numbers to verify that (and I don’t mean just poll numbers, I’m wary of polls.)
Also, if anybody’s interested –
You can make your views known…Join Zogby
JOIN ZOGBY POLLS
Thanks y’all.
BTW, Brad and Winter Patriot – let me know if y’all ever make it to Huntsville, Alabama (just across the state line from me :0)
Kestrel – I don’t like to publish numbers about how many visit the site at any given time, frankly, because I do enjoy being "misunderestimated" 🙂 Suffice to say that at least "6 or 7" read the site regularly 😉
But to give you an idea of how things have changed here since the first 18 days of Sept ’04 to the first 18 days of Sept ’05, the number of page loads and unique users has increased by approximately %2,500 or so.
In other words…the message is getting out.
I might also point you to some of the reporting of Chris Bowers at MyDD.com who has been studying the Liberal and Conservative Blogosphere and comparing it to the Mainstream Media, and how things have been changing over the past year or so in these regards…
· Liberal Blogosphere Surpasses Cable News
· Aristocratic Right Wing Blogosphere Stagnating
· Yet More on the Two Spheres
· The Death of the Mainstream Media
Excellent work Brad. We all need to keep the heat on. The links provided are instrumental in making patiotism easy.
BTW, I hope after you become filthy famous for being recognized as a journalistic giant among us mere mortals, you drop us a line now and again.
Hey Brad,
You are doing a hell of a job for all of us……still.
Thanks for making it easy for us to support Rep.Holt and all our Reps and Sens. On the Diebthroat story. I hope this person will feel confident and safe enough to step further into the light or even get some support from others like him/her. How amazing it would be to see this finally go somewhere and all thanks to your hard work. You have my deepest respect. I know I’ve kinda drifted away from here but I still read most if not all that you write. Just so you know.
Btw, are any of you 6 or 7 going to Washington on the 24th? I’ll be there with some others from Booman Tribune. It’d be great to see some of the famous 6 or 7 there.
Anyway, keep up the excellent work and hello up there to Kestrel
Hey Supersoling,
JPentz and I will be there. Maybe we should carry a sign with http://WWW.BRADBLOG.COM !!!
Hope a MILLION COME!
Hi Kira,
thats great. We need all of us out there for this one don’t we? Maybe someone will have some kind of Bradblog shirt or sign so I can find you guys. But if I don’t see you guys it’ll be heartwarming just knowing that we’ll be there, somewhere, together.
You people rock. I admire how hard you all keep going at it and Brad leads the way.
Hoping we really make a difference in DC. I’m feeling like we will.
Hey, in case you guys don’t know it, Brad’s Diebold story is up at HuffingtonPost :O)
Oh man!
Brad…your post at Huffington is absolutely your best work ever, hands down. We are so in need of more in your face, no bullshit truth. Keep hammering at them.
Brad #5 Wow. I sent my first e-mail/letter/protest here to Dr Paster. I will never forget I must have been one of the 6 or 7.
We love Dieb-throat!
Click this to read Brad’s Diebold DIEB-THROAT article at Huffington
Hi, Brad & crew,
Brad — kudos for your story. Yes, we do appreciate the corroboration. Your unnamed source is corroborated by many unnamed sources of our own, as well as much documentation.
A point of some importance: We have by now sat at many GEMS central tabulator terminals in real elections offices, and an update is in order (the CERT story referred to something we published about 13 months ago).
Most elections offices have removed MS Access from their central tabulators. The MS Access program was used to get into the back door.
I wondered whether removing MS Access would therefore prevent use of a GEMS back door. So, I contacted Dr. Herbert Thompson. The precise back door identified in the CERT report is now difficult, without an MS Access compatible program on the GEMS computer. Therefore, an update is important. The California secretary of state ordered MS Access to be removed from GEMS computers in 2004, and most locations even in other states appear to have complied with that.
Is the backdoor now closed, then?
No. Not at all. It just requires an actual hack, not a simple edit and type process like I demonstrated to Howard Dean.
What Dr. Thompson demonstrated on Feb 14 and again on May 2, in Florida, is that Windows inherently supports the GEMS tabulator. There is no way to disable the functionalities used to get in the back door (using a script) without also disabling GEMS. He changed 100,000 votes on a real system, in less than 60 seconds.
Another thing about the updated back door "proof of concept" by Dr. Thompson: It is easier to invoke with remote access than the original hack. That’s because all you need to do is install it anywhere in any directory of Windows. The original back door required actually entering the GEMS database through the back door; Thompson’s script enters it automatically, invisibly, and is quite versatile.
Could Thompson’s script exe from a memory card?
Kira, JPentz, Supersoling,
I just booked a flight to DC for the protest & will be wearing my Bradblog shirt. I’ll be staying at the Braxton Hotel, which I chose because it’s 5 blocks from the White House. Think George will invite us to tea?
I’ll be lookin’ for ya, guys…
Thank you Brad, for giving us a way to focus our efforts. I hope this really stirs the pot and we get some traction from these recent events. I signed onto the petition and drafted this quickie note in the comments section:
"Dear Elected Representative:
We live in a time where we are faced with the biggest threat to democracy that the United States has ever faced. Never before in our history have we been faced with electoral fraud on the scale that is available today to the criminal element in our nation. Just look around and study the actions of the individuals currently holding the highest offices in our government today and it’s obvious that these individuals are NOT representing we, the people.
The computerized voting systems used in Ohio, Florida and many other states offer an easy way for criminally intent politicians to cheat their way into office. This has become quite obvious in the elections held in 2000, 2002 and 2004. There is more than enough proof (Please read the brief submitted in January 2005 by Rep. John Conyers-D-MI “Preserving Democracy, What Went Wrong in Ohio”) of fraud on a scale that baffles the imagination, yet nothing is being done to prevent this fraud from continuing.
Black Box Voting (Blackboxvoting.org), an organization led by Bev Harris has documented how easy it is to hack the election systems of Diebold, ES&S & Sequoia election systems. These systems have supposedly been certified by our government, yet Black Box Voting has proven over and over that these certifications are a sham, and nothing has been done to prevent this fraud from continuing to be perpetrated upon the citizens and voters of our great nation.
Recently an employee of Diebold Election Systems verified the vulnerability of their system to Brad Friedman, a freelance journalist who has been investigating and reporting about election fraud in earnest since the election of 2004. I suggest you read about the revelations this employee shared with Mr. Friedman at his blog (Bradblog.com).
I am writing to urge that you support The Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act (H.R. 550) legislation currently being proposed by Rep. Rush Holt (D-NJ). In fact, I believe that there is no issue being considered by any body of government in this country that is more important than this issue, because election fraud tears at the very seams of our democracy, and “we the people” have zero confidence in our current electoral systems.
As my elected representative, I demand that you act to fix our country’s electoral systems, and I believe that the bill mentioned above is a good start. Ignoring this problem is no longer acceptable.
Sincerely,
Jeff J."
Thanks again Brad, for all you do!
re: could Thompson’s script execute from a memory card?
Not from the precinct-based optical scan memory card. It can execute from Windows. The systems that use Windows include the Diebold GEMS central tabulator, the Diebold touch-screens, and the Diebold high speed central count (absentee votes & recounts). Also, the Sequoia WinEDS central tabulator.
The GEMS backdoor in the article here isn’t as dangerous as other exploits, because there are ways to catch it — as long as those procedures are employed. It is dangerous as a short-term quick fix in an emergency, but in most jurisdictions would require additional clean-up when the election enters the canvassing phase.
However, the Hursti hack combined with the Thompson script is deadly, and the Hursti "integer overflow" hack on the memory card is a one-stop fraud mechanism that will never be caught, and can be implemented in just seconds.
The technical report on that is here:
http://www.blackboxvoting.org/BBVreport.pdf
Brad – I absolutely understand what you mean about liking to be "misunderestimated" – me too 😉
Oh I soooooo want to go to DC!!!
Hey, y’all take lots of pictures! For this particular rally I’m living vicariously through the rest of the 6 or 7, and I would LOVE to see BUNCHES of bradblog t-shirts!
SUPERSOLING!! Glad to see you back! Can I contact you (or you contact me) offlist? There’s some stuff going on in Nashville that’s totally unrelated to anything on this blog I wanted to tell you about (especially if you like Celtic music)
Brad,
Your piece on the Huffington Post is brilliant, as I expected it would be. YOU are brilliant.
You almost make me believe something is possible. I know I’m speaking from a despairing place in myself right now, & maybe I’ll snap out of it but…
I saw a movie yesterday, ‘Lord of War’, that describes pretty well, beautifully & horrifically, one aspect of the monolithic Goliath we are up against. A typical Hollywood movie. Movie stars & explosions, ‘based on true events’, complete with a few amusing jabs at the president.
Added to everything, it was supremely demoralizing.
But I couldn’t NOT go to Washington, after all you & so many others have done & are doing. At least I can do that.
I don’t think it will touch them, but I hope this is the biggest goddamn protest in the history of the world.
Hi all,
I just heard a good teaser about Diebthroat on the Stephanie Miller Show on radio. Says she’ll have the full story tomorrow. Way to get it out there Brad.
Kestrel #21
You sure can contact me. Just click on my screen name for email. I think that’s how it works. If not, Brad has my address and I give him my permission to give it to you. And how did you know that I like/LOVE Celtic music?
Bev Harris kicks butt!
Bev Harris kicks butt!
Bev Harris kicks butt!
Bev – Thanks for the added info here (and for the input on the Baker/Carter sham in the other thread as well).
We’ll keep banging the drum…someone’s bound to hear it eventually…
Joan, email me. We will get together.
donotconcede2@comcast.net
Brad, I’ve been looking everywhere for even the slightest mention of DIEB-THROAT in the mainstream media — in vain, of course. In my opinion, this problem will never be addressed though the usual channels. It’s time to fight fire with fire. The only solution is for Democrat hackers to hack into the system and suceed in turning the tide toward the Democratic candidate in a close congressional race. Only then will the vulnerability of the Diebold system become a "problem" for the Redstones and the Murdochs who decide what the larger public gets to see and hear.
Wouldn’t it be great if the hacker was out of the country, even? The winner of the election has to be someone or something utterly fantastic. Maybe Mr. Ed?
We’ll keep banging the drum…someone’s bound to hear it eventually…