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BBV Admin
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 3032
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? 
Votes: 3 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, December 28, 2005 - 1:49 pm: | 
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Diebold is nearly dead in three states (California, North Carolina and Pennsylvania) and faring poorly in two more (Florida, where two counties have dumped Diebold) and Missouri, where the biggest county (St. Louis) did an abrupt about-face and ditched Diebold voting products.
Unfortunately, Pennsylvania voters have been hurled from the frying pan into the fire by their voting system examiner, Michael Shamos – a legendary promoter of unauditable paperless DREs who is involved in at least 12 states. This leaves Pennsylvania fighting AGAINST a voter verified paper trail. Because of Shamos's involvement in other states, the risk of unauditable elections may spread.
Shamos correctly noted that both ES&S and Diebold designed their paper trails improperly. His bizarre solution was to disallow the paper trail, taking the swing state of Pennsylvania back to paperless, unauditable DREs.
Diebold analysis by Shamos:
http://www.hava.state.pa.us/hava/lib/hava/votingsystemexamination/diebold_report _122205.pdf
ES&S analysis by Shamos:
http://www.hava.state.pa.us/hava/lib/hava/votingsystemexamination/es&s_report_12 2205.pdf
While he pretends to be tough on defects, Shamos inexplicably ignores flaws with both the ES&S central count program and the Diebold GEMS central tabulator program.
The ES&S central count defect was documented in Broward County (FL) in 2004. Public records obtained by the Florida Fair Elections Coalition show that this defect also occurred in Orange County in 2004. The issue is noted in records from Florida Voting Systems Examiner Paul Craft as “ unresolved.”
The Diebold GEMS defect has been thoroughly documented, first by Bev Harris in mid-2003, then by the Aug. 18, 2004 Compuware Report commissioned by Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell (hidden from the public by Blackwell until after the 2004 election); also by Dr. Herbert Thompson using a Visual Basic script. Even Diebold has now admitted this flaw exists. Shamos’s recommendation of GEMS seems to defy any rational explanation.
Diebold:
Shamos did a few things right before submitting his bias–riddled conclusions:
1) He found reliability flaws with Diebold’s entire optical scan product line – the precinct-based scanners and the standard-speed central count for absentee processing.
2) He noted that Harri Hursti’s demonstrated attacks against the optical scan systems in Florida revealed significant security issues with precinct optical scan.
3) He rejected certification on Diebold’s entire optical scan product line. This move will probably prevent use of Diebold touch-screens in Pennsylvania because counties will be unable to process absentee ballots.
4) He noticed that GEMS doesn’t exactly print “ballot images” the way Diebold has always claimed. He found that it often truncates candidate or race names. This indicates that it’s not storing a “ballot image” at all, but is instead regurgitating the “images” from the data. So printing the “ballot images” in order to hand-recount them is an exercise in digital silliness.
5) He pointed out a serious flaw in the way Diebold and ES&S do Voter Verified Paper Audit Trails (“VVPATs”). Another voting machine vendor, Sequoia, pioneered the flawed “toilet paper roll” style VVPAT. The paper comes off of a fairly narrow cash-register-like tape with tiny hard-to-read print. The order of the vote is stored sequentially on a take-up roll, removing voter privacy.
This applies to Sequoia as well: http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/1954/2398.html
6) Shamos also notes the security problems with post-election modem transfer of results, and banned them based on a technical reading of PA law. If California had thought of this they might have disallowed the concept.
What Shamos got wrong
1) He ignores the GEMS central tabulator defects altogether.
2) Like all the other state examinations to date, Shamos did no “red team attacks” (test probes of system security) on Diebold. This is inexcusable given that all previous such testing have found significant problems (RABA report for Maryland, the Ohio Compuware report and Black Box Voting’s Hursti project).
3) His answer to the problems with Diebold’s improperly designed paper trail method is to disallow the paper trail but NOT the touch-screens. Yes, you heard right: He has actually allowed paperless touch-screens, something he has long been promoting.
4) He ignored data from California state examiner Steve Freeman suggesting that Diebold’s touch-screen systems are also vulnerable to the Hursti hack (altering memory cards). Freeman’s report is here:
http://www.ss.ca.gov/elections/voting_systems/consultant_report.pdf - the part that matters starts on page seven, item 13.
5) He notes that all Diebold touch-screens share a total of four keys. Nationwide. All he does is wag a finger at Diebold, hoping they’ll improve this some day.
ES&S:
We can glean some interesting data from this report.
1) This is yet another MS-Windows-based tabulator system (WinXP).
2) Shamos notes that ES&S’s form of VVPAT violates voter secrecy. His solution is mind-boggling: just disable the paper trail.
3) He shows some concern regarding the DRE removable media (ES&S calls them “PEBs”) being “field insertable.” Not enough for Shamos to do anything about it, other than issue a procedural recommendation to the counties. As pointed out before at Black Box Voting, it is improper security to rely on a perimeter defense (people and procedures) to compensate for poor system design.
4) Shamos claims to have done minor security probing at the central tabulator data files, and says he finds it difficult to significantly alter the data. However, he completely omits an evaluation of the problem noted in the central count in Broward and Orange Counties (FL).
The upshot of all this is:
Shamos's selective blindness is inexcusable. He is an excellent example of what’s wrong with the current election system oversight process, and he needs to be removed from the Pennsylvania voting system. Michael Shamos reports to the Pennsylvania Secretary of the Commonwealth, who should be held accountable as well.
PERMISSION TO REPRINT WITH LINK TO http://www.blackboxvoting.org
Tip: If you are perplexed by the behavior of Shamos and other public officials, you will enjoy the upcoming new book to be published by Black Box Voting in 2006: BLACK BOX AMERICA. This book does not focus on voting machines, but uncovers the infrastructure – the people and procedures -- that enabled the current elections system fiasco to happen at all.
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Edward Robles
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Tedeger
Post Number: 25
Registered: 11-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, December 29, 2005 - 3:12 am: |
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Well! The only question about Shamos' actions is, "Is he stupid, or corrupted?" I find it hard to believe that disabling any possibility of physical recount displays a degree of faith in computer systems that is not only unjustifiable, but either naive or venal. I would agree that he needs to be removed from any influence over voting systems. How can that be accomplished? |
Catherine Ansbro
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Catherine_a
Post Number: 1377
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, December 29, 2005 - 3:43 am: |
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Write, phone or call the Pennsylvania Secretary of the Commonwealth.
Contact media outlets in Pennsylvania (talk radio, local newspapers, letters to the editor, etc.).
If you know anyone in Pennsylvania encourage them to do so, as well--or at least let them know what's going on. |
Arnold Peckerman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Arn
Post Number: 121
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, December 29, 2005 - 3:11 pm: |
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I am not really perplexed by the behavior of Shamos, but look forward to the upcoming book nevertheless. The guy is anything but "stupid," and corruption probably does not explain his adoption of this bizarro logic, although he must be benefiting in one way or another from services he provides to the industry through his actions. Who knows why he'd taken this road, but there must be some pretty strong anti-demographic believes that are part of it.
(Message edited by arn on December 29, 2005) |
Catherine Ansbro
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Catherine_a
Post Number: 1384
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, December 29, 2005 - 4:28 pm: |
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Maybe it's because he's an IT guy, and value of IT is part of his core belief system. So naturally he wants an IT-based solution--it's predictable that he proposes something that validates his core beliefs.
Since IT is his chosen profession, why expect Shamos to propose a solution that might not potentially involve his services? Especially if doing so would cast doubt on his core belief in the inherent value of computer systems. |
BBV Admin
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 3042
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, December 29, 2005 - 6:09 pm: |
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Arnold -- What is meant by an "anti-demographic belief"?
Shamos has proposed an IT-based solution that happens to be illegal and would not really suffice anyway. His "solution" involves stuffing the election with bogus votes which are later stripped out. His theory is that this would prevent vote-riggers from knowing how much they have to tamper with the election to win.
One of several fallacies in that logic is that he assumes they are tampering precisely enough to win after seeing incoming results. In fact, he should know better. In the old lever machine days, and Pennsylvania is still full of lever machines, the tampering was not based on that, but based on weighing the odds in favor of a candidate by making the lever machine skip votes for the unlucky candidate.
Pre-work is more likely than tampering during the election, and it will be more plausible to play the odds by shaving or pre-stuffing with negative and positive votes.
I hope Arnold can fill us in on why he does not find the behavior perplexing. I agree that Shamos is not stupid -- he is an impressive speaker, if a bit snake-oily. Pennsylvania is famous for its corruption, and without a better explanation that remains a possible scenario.
Apparently Shamos has "more to come" but we'll see. He is unabashedly vendor-friendly.
Pennsylvania is the home territory of Shoup Voting Systems. One of my sources has brought a bunch of vote-tampering lawsuits in Pennsylvania, going so far as to tote voting machines into the courtroom to show the tampering. His cases usually get thrown out without an examination of the machine, but I don't find it odd at all that Pennsylvania might have a corruption problem. |
Jim March
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Jimmarch
Post Number: 96
Registered: 01-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, December 29, 2005 - 7:10 pm: |
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Ummm...Arnold, did you mean "Democratic" versus "Demographic"?
Anyways. Guessing Shamos's motivations is probably a waste of time. One obvious thought is that with both Diebold and the ITA's credibilities coming unglued, he'd have to be worried about his own. Is that enough to explain this? Maybe. Depends on him.
We do know he's now willing to be the ONLY person in the US backing paperless DREs so what does that say about the guy? |
BBV Admin
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 3044
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, December 29, 2005 - 7:29 pm: |
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Well, Conny McCormack was still backing paperless DREs, at least fairly recently. |
Pat A. Vesely
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Pat_vesely
Post Number: 2047
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, December 29, 2005 - 7:35 pm: |
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Check out this stunning piece of logic from Pennsylvania!
From this article,
Voting machines may need ‘paper trail’ upgrade
http://local.lancasteronline.com/4/19622
"Currently, voter-verified paper trails are not allowed in Pennsylvania, because state officials are concerned voters’ “receipts” may be taken from a polling place."
OY!
PAV ;-) |
John Howard
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Harmonyguy
Post Number: 184
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, December 29, 2005 - 7:38 pm: |
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(Mods-if this is inappropriate, feel free to delete.)
This may be without any real relevance to voting, but for what it's worth there are a number of Shamos patents that show up by reference in many patents related to scanning and scanners.
HOWEVER, the Shamos in question is the late scientist Morris H. Shamos, who according to his obituary had one surviving child - Michael.
HG |
Pat A. Vesely
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Pat_vesely
Post Number: 2048
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, December 29, 2005 - 8:13 pm: |
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John, you never cease to AMAZE me!
They're probably not even related.
Of course we all know that our Michael Shamos would NEVER push a system that utilized licensed technology that he stood to profit by! That would be down right unethical.
But just in case, anyone have a list of patents that the machines he recommends are covered by? This could get very interesting.
PAV ;-) |
John Howard
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Harmonyguy
Post Number: 185
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, December 29, 2005 - 9:35 pm: |
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Whoa on there a second - there's no suggestion of that! (but I'll check)
HG
speculation on motivation edited out by admin -- until finding out whether this Michael Shamos is related to the owner of the patents. That is an important line of examination. |
BBV Admin
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 3048
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, December 29, 2005 - 10:14 pm: |
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Note also that Michael Shamos was one of the first to learn of the code lines on the ballots that trigger executable functions in the optical scanners. Pennsylvania outlaws that type of code, which in effect outlaws optical scanners. |
Catherine Ansbro
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Catherine_a
Post Number: 1387
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Thursday, December 29, 2005 - 11:15 pm: |
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How do you know that "Michael Shamos was one of the first to learn of the code lines on the ballots that trigger executable functions in the optical scanners"? Did he publish a paper on this at some stage? How do you know he knew something at some specific time?
If his father had patents relating to optical scanners this could explain why Michael Shamos might have known a lot about them--family expertise. |
BBV Admin
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 3049
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, December 30, 2005 - 7:44 am: |
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I know about Michael Shamos's awareness of the ballot codes because of information (direct and indirect) from Doug Jones, David Dill, David Jefferson. Michael Shamos found and proved that ES&S ballots (perhaps BRC-derived) can execute functions. This was several years ago. He did not write it up, or if he did, he did not make that public. Hursti was urged to write up his own findings on this. He wrote a draft paper, which I have, but the full Monte should be exposed. Hursti has not had time to do a thorough study. Doug Jones has known about this, and in fact conducted his own experiments with altering codes and running them through voting machines.
You can find information about the Diebold ballot codes in one of the manuals Black Box Voting placed in our document archives: http://www.bbvdocs.org/diebold/diebold-optiscans/cc/CCINST.PDF You will also see that there are undocumented functions. You can also find proof in the Diebold HSCC source code.
And now you see why we at Black Box Voting get so impatient with the fact that U.S. scientists know so much more than they're saying. Why did we have to wait for a guy from Finland to spill the beans? After he tells us this stuff, the other scientists quietly mention it in private meetings. Don't misunderstand me: This is purely an ISSUE complaint, not a personality gripe.
This whole voting systems issue needs to be split open like a ripe cantaloupe. In public. It's our vote. We demand to own it, undertand it, and oversee it ourselves.
Now do you see why Kathleen is so outspoken about making sure the CITIZENS get control of this, rather than ceding our oversight to scientists? They knew about executable and self-modifying code, not just on Diebold but other vendors as well. They knew about ballot codes that can execute functions. Their approach is private meetings and behind closed door negotiations.
You see where this has gotten us: Voting machines running rampant all over the U.S., almost none of them compliant even with the most basic FEC regulations from nearly two decades ago. So much for private negotiations.
When Black Box Voting started opening this stuff up to the general public, what did we get? Character assassination and accusations that we were "irresponsible." We remain the group that is literally prying the top off of Pandora's Box and releasing its contents into the wild.
What is irresponsible is making the most fundamental control of democracy a secret.
We believe, as Thomas Jefferson did, that when a government goes astray it is the citizens who will bring it to its senses.
Bev Harris
"There is only one force in the nation that can be depended upon to keep the government pure and the governors honest, and that is the people themselves.
They alone, if well informed, are capable of preventing the corruption of power, and of restoring the nation to its rightful course if it should go astray.
They alone are the safest depository of the ultimate powers of government."
-- Thomas Jefferson
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Catherine Ansbro
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Catherine_a
Post Number: 1392
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, December 30, 2005 - 8:47 am: |
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This is yet another dynamite revelation.
Is there some way to move the conversation with a more obvious title? (Executable Code on Optical Scanners) |
BBV Admin
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 3051
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, December 30, 2005 - 8:57 am: |
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Catherine -- it will, at some point, become a full-blown article in the investigations section. As soon as we learned about the ballot codes, we made the information public. See the attack trees presentation which we have made available for activists, which has pictures of ballots with arrows pointing to the code on them. |
Catherine Ansbro
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Catherine_a
Post Number: 1394
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, December 30, 2005 - 9:15 am: |
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I remember seeing it in the attack trees presentation, now that you mention it. These products have so many vulnerabilities it is hard to remember them all! |
Michael McCrohon
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Mmiixx
Post Number: 148
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Friday, December 30, 2005 - 4:32 pm: |
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BAN SCANNER SCAMMERS .
LOCKED DOORS ,BACK DOORS THEN THE VOTES NOT YOURS ! |
Inez Smith
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Smittysmits
Post Number: 3
Registered: 07-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Saturday, December 31, 2005 - 8:55 am: |
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QUOTE: "He rejected certification on Diebold’s entire optical scan product line. This move will probably prevent use of Diebold touch-screens in Pennsylvania because counties will be unable to process absentee ballots."
FYI -- Pennsylvania absentees are done on Paper Ballots, Hand Counted. |
Catherine Ansbro
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Catherine_a
Post Number: 1402
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Saturday, December 31, 2005 - 8:59 am: |
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Inez,
How is PA's handling of absentee ballots? Do they subcontract it out? Do they have good secure storage and chain of custody documentation?
What are your own feelings about these developments? |
Inez Smith
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Smittysmits
Post Number: 5
Registered: 07-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Saturday, December 31, 2005 - 10:07 am: |
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They are delivered in sealed envelopes during the election to the polling place by county official.
After polls close, sworn District Officers (poll workers) check the signature on outer envelope to make sure a voter didn't also vote during the day, then the outer envelopes are opened, inner (secrecy) envelopes mixed up, ballots removed from secrecy envelopes, hand-counted by poll workers in full sight of all poll watchers present, recorded on four separate tally sheets, and totals delivered to county with machine totals, as well as posted on the door of the polling place.
What are your feelings about this? It sounds exactly like what BBV wants, to me.
My feelings about the rest of the developments is that if you folks have any goods especially on ES & S you better release them fast, because ES & S is swallowing up much of the state with NO-PAPER iVotronic DREs!
Diebold isn't the big problem; it is ES & S is fighting voter-verified paper in PA like crazy and PA counties are choosing machines now/soon. |
Catherine Ansbro
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Catherine_a
Post Number: 1403
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Saturday, December 31, 2005 - 11:11 am: |
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Inez, it sounds good to me, too (handling of absentee ballots, with excellent protocols in place for hand counting).
I don't understand the difference in handling of absentee ballots vs. postal ballots in PA, and I know that postal voting can be very problemmatic re: subcontracting and chain of custody.
Are PA absentee ballots taken in person to a county official? Or are they mailed? What happens to ballots that go through the mail?
(Message edited by catherine_a on December 31, 2005) |
Arnold Peckerman
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Arn
Post Number: 122
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Saturday, December 31, 2005 - 2:17 pm: |
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Jim, thank you for spotting my typo. You're right in that it's pointless to speculate why someone like Shamos does what he does. My point was really not about him but rather that it is self-evident that electronic voting without a paper record is incompatible with democracy. One can be pro-democracy and not speak up about, for whatever reason. This is just compromising. But it's an entirely different matter when one actively works to sell unverifiable electronic voting. This is anti-democratic.
Now why I was not perplexed by his latest proposal? Surprised would probably be a better word for what I meant, and it was simply because he has a history of coming up with such convoluted schemes in trying to legitimize paperless DREs. |
