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.
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
Informant: Russ Hallberg
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Bev Harris: New Hampshire Recount a "Criminal Enterprise"
Vote fraud expert convinced chain of custody is corrupt
Paul Joseph Watson Prison Planet
Monday, January 28, 2008
Fresh from her confrontations in New Hampshire during which public officials were grilled about slapdash chain of custody and ballot box tampering issues, Bev Harris is now convinced that a "criminal enterprise" is running the primary recount.
Harris was fundamental in the vetting and production of the HBO special Hacking Democracy, and has contributed towards bringing charges against vote fraudsters who cheated in Ohio in 2004.
Harris traveled to New Hampshire personally to discover for herself the disgraceful lapses in chain of custody for the memory cards and ballot boxes used in the recent primary.
(Article continues below)
Harris is featured in the video below (uploaded today) asking public officials about slits in ballot boxes as they bizarrely deny that the slits are big enough to allow tampering, amongst a myriad of other disturbing questions about chain of custody.
Die Energie- und Klimawochenschau: Die Staatsfonds der Öl- und Gasförderländer erobern die Finanzwelt. Der Ölpreis beschert den großen Förderländern prall gefüllte Kassen. Geld mit dem sie auf Einkaufstour gehen und sich im Großmaßstab in die Wirtschaft der Industriestaaten einkaufen.
Mike Huckabee propagiert eine neue US-Außenpolitik. Tatsächlich will der ehemalige Baptistenprediger als Präsident den Kurs von George W. Bush fortsetzen, ihn aber besser erklären.
Justin Rood, reporting for ABC News, writes, "The Defense Department's top watchdog has declined to investigate allegations that an American woman working under an Army contract in Iraq was raped by her co-workers."
Andrew Taylor, reporting for The Associated Press, writes, "The federal budget deficit inched up in the first quarter of the fiscal year, congressional budget estimators said Monday, as the growth in tax revenues slowed along with the softening economy."
When Congress returns to Washington on 1/15, Congressman Robert Wexler plans to present his fellow members of the House Judiciary Committee with the list of signatures on his petition at http://www.wexlerwantshearings.com and a request to join him in signing a letter to Chairman John Conyers asking for Cheney impeachment hearings to begin.
We're trying to organize all pro-impeachment organizations to Email their members on 1/15 or in the morning on 1/16 asking them to make 1/16 a national call-in day on impeachment. We need everyone to call their member of Congress, especially if their member is on the House Judiciary Committee, and ask for support for Cheney impeachment hearings.
It's an easier ask than signing onto articles of impeachment or introducing new ones, but we'd love for them to do both of those things. It's a harder ask than just more pointless non-impeachment investigations. The investigations have been done. The high crimes and misdemeanors are known and established. What we need is for every member of Congress to ask Chairman John Conyers to begin the Cheney impeachment hearings right away.
Optional: Ask your members once they've made that phone call to also phone and Email the media to ask for coverage of the impeachment movement.
Can you help? Can your organization send out this call?
A tech company with ties to a school district plans to test a tracking system by putting computer chips on grade-schoolers’ backpacks, an experiment the ACLU ripped Monday as invasive and unnecessary. The pilot program set to start next week in the Middletown school district would have about 80 children put tags containing radio frequency identification chips, or RFID chips, on their schoolbags. It would also equip two buses with global positioning systems, or GPS devices. The school and parents will be able to track students on the bus, and the district hopes the program will improve busing efficiency, Superintendent Rosemarie Kraeger said. The devices are intended to record only when students enter and exit the bus, and the GPS would show where the bus was on its route...
President Bush said Monday that if Congress doesn’t reauthorize the No Child Left Behind education law, he’ll make as many changes as he can on his own. Bush also said that if Congress does renew the law but weakens it in the process, he’d ’strongly oppose it and veto it’...
Über 1000 km zu Fuß, von Dortmund nach München. 30 Konzerte in 30 verschiedenen Städten der Republik. Zu Gunsten von Wohnungslosen und gegen die soziale Härte: Heinz Ratz läuft vom 22.01. - 22.02. den Lauf gegen die Kälte 2008.
„«Rathauskümmerer» bewachen Gemeinnützig - mit göttlichen Segen von Caritas und Diakonie. Auch im neuen Jahr kommt Köln bei Hartz IV nicht zur Ruhe. Heute wurde die Rekrutierung von Ein-Euro-Jobbern der Kölner Gesellschaft für Arbeits- und Berufsförderung (KGAB) ad absurdum geführt.
(…) Lediglich zwei(!) eingeladene Personen waren pünktlich erschienen, acht weitere hatten sich selbst eingeladen und outeten sich als durchaus interessierte AktivistInnen der «Agenturschluss»-Bewegung. Unterdessen hissen zwei weitere engagierte Erwerbslose ein Transparent vor der Tür des Gebäudes, um auch den Besuchern der gegenüberliegenden ARGE Süd in Köln auf «Zwangsarbeit» bei der KGAB aufmerksam zu machen…“ Bericht vom 7. Januar 2008 beim Elo-Forum http://www.elo-forum.net/aktionen/aktionen/-200801071563.html
59 per cent of respondents have a negative view of the way the current administration has fought terrorism, and 57 per cent are dissatisfied with how it has protected civil liberties.
Kenya's violent crisis threatens to destabilise one of the United States' key counter-terrorism partners in Africa and could influence Washington's decision on where to site its new military command for the continent.
US President George W Bush will not win any support for military action against Iran when he visits four Gulf Arab allies later this month, political analysts in the region say.
Most Pakistanis want their country to be a democratic Islamic state but are deeply distrustful of the United States and its war on terrorism, according to a poll released on Sunday.
Today's New York Times features another of the in-depth reports for which Tim Golden has become famous; this one looks into conditions in the massive prison facility at Bagram built by the Soviets and continued by the United States.
The death rate in Iraq in the past 12 months has been the second highest in any year since the invasion, according to figures that appear to contradict American claims that the troop "surge" has dramatically reduced the level of violence across the country.
"The war is not against Bin Laden. We are the enemy"
- Audio -
Interview with investigator and author, Daniel Estulin, on his book, "The True Story of the Bilderberg Group", which describes an annual gathering where the European and American political elite, and the wealthiest CEOs of the world, all come together to discuss the economic and political future of humanity. Highly secretive, the press has never been allowed to attend, nor have statements ever been released on the group's conclusions or discussions. Also discussed are the Council on Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commission.
In The Nation, Max Fraser says, "This past September, the National Labor Relations Board issued a startling sixty-one decisions in a legal blitzkrieg on working Americans. The NLRB has been led by a pro-business majority of Bush appointees since 2002. Its bias was never more apparent than during this latest round of decisions, labeled a 'September massacre' by the AFL-CIO."
An editorial in The San Francisco Chronicle states that "The Environmental Protection Agency can't say it wasn't warned. By denying California - and another 16 states - a chance to set tailpipe limits on greenhouse gas emissions, the fumbling feds are lining up for a painful ordeal in the courtroom and on Capitol Hill."
Deborah Zabarenko of Reuters reports: "The US government will soon decide whether polar bears are in danger because global warming is melting their icy habitat. But last week, the government offered some of that habitat as a place to drill for oil."
Oil Leases Cited in US Delay on Polar Bear's Status
The San Francisco Chronicle's Jane Kay writes: "Environmental groups fear that political meddling and a rush to sell oil leases in Arctic waters are behind the Bush administration's announcement Monday that it will miss a legal deadline to determine whether to list the polar bear under the Endangered Species Act."
The Boston Globe's Anna Badkhen says, "No mortar rounds slam into Kim Luce's two-story house in Central Massachusetts. No medevac helicopters throb outside at 3 a.m. No wounded soldiers moan to get her attention. After a year as a chief ward master for an American military hospital in Iraq, Army Reserve Master Sergeant Luce is back in her spacious Shrewsbury home."
That the Establishment would hate Ron Paul should not surprise us. It does not even surprise me that many pastors and Christians despise Ron Paul. (After all, many of them still worship at the altar of George W. Bush.) What is yet to be seen is, How will the American people receive him? His strong showing in Iowa surprised most of the "experts." I believe he will do even better in New Hampshire today. How Dr. Paul's campaign fares in future primaries is still to be seen.
A colleague has just posted a very important video on a very important topic.
There is pending legislation in the US that would criminalize speech on topics the government deems "threatening."
The law is called H.R. 1955.
It goes by the Orwellian name: "The violent radicalization and homegrown terrorism prevention act."
It quietly passed the House by a 404 to 6 vote and at least one Congressman admits voting for it without reading it.
Language in this bill makes it theoretically possible for government agents to shut down sites like Brasscheck TV by claiming that the information we share *may* insight violence.
Here's how I need your help...
Few Americans even know of the existence of this legislation let alone know what's in it.
The Internet can change that - and your help is needed.
Please go to the site, view the video, and if you are a YouTube member (it's easy to join) rate it, favorite it, and post a comment.
Frequent viewings and frequent posts help.
With enough activity in the next 24 hours, we may be able to make this one of the most popular news videos of the day and raise the profile on this very important subject.
Trump and His Allies...
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2022/06/21/trump-and-his-allies-are-clear-and-present-danger-american-democracy?utm_source=daily_newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=daily_newsletter_op
rudkla - 22. Jun, 05:09
The Republican Party...
https://truthout.org/articles/the-republican-party-is-still-doing-donald-trumps-bidding/?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=804d4873-50dd-4c1b-82a5-f465ac3742ce
rudkla - 26. Apr, 05:36
January 6 Committee Says...
https://truthout.org/articles/jan-6-committee-says-trump-engaged-in-criminal-conspiracy-to-undo-election/?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=552e5725-9297-4a7c-a214-53c8c51615a3
