Diebold Application Update
After some wrangling I was able to view 626 redacted pages of the th application packet submitted by Diebold as part of the company application to be approved to sell voting equiptment in Wisconsin. The redactions were to protect the alleged trade secrets contained in the documents.
The most interesting results of this 1 hour inspection is the discovery that there were at least 12 documents missing from the application packet. There was not a single users manual, technical manual, election supervisors's manual or traing manual included in the package of material submited to the Wisconsin State Elections Board. Yet, all 12 of the missing documents are listed in the report by Ciber, Inc. purporting to document the Diebold AccuVote TSx System is qualified under the NASED/EAC 2002 Voluntary Voting System Guidelines. All 12 are required by the adminstraive rules in ElBd7.01. No one on the staff of the WI SEB noticed the absence between August 29, 2005 and my notification to them of the ommision on November 1, 2005. Two months is a long time to do "testing" without any manuals describing the system under test.
Even better is the fact the qualification number, N-1-6-22-22-001 (2002), was issued a month prior to the completion of the testing by the independent test authorities. The qualification number, N-1-6-22-22-001 (2002), for some unspecified AccuVote TSx system was issued on June 27, 2005. The 3 by ITA reports prepared Wylie labs where created on August 4, 2005. The ITA report by Ciber Inc was created on August 3, 2005. If you want to ask questions on this, I direct you to: Brian Hancock, the ITA Secretariat at bhancock@eac.gov or (866) 747-1471.
The remark about unspecified is because none of the ITA reports give a specific description of the system tested and qualified under the number N-1-6-22-22-001 (2002). The descriptions given are so incomplete the WI State Elections Board has no way to know if the system submitted for approval is or is not a system covered by the qualification number, N-1-056-22-22-001 (2002). For example the official, ITA description for the GEMS 1.18.24 central tabulator software is listed by Ciber as GEMS.EXE 5/13/2005.
That is it!!
In other words ANY file named GEMS.EXE which has a date of 5/13/2005 and whose version number as returned by a call to GetFileVersionInfo() is 1.18.24, MUST be the correct version of the central tabulation software used on ALL Diebold systems. Not even the nearly useless CRC-32 value of this EXE was recorded!! Moreover, not a single one of the supporting DLL's linked to GEMS.EXE was listed, documented or apparently tested.
If I were a DESI shareholder I would be annoyed Diebold Election Systems, Inc. paid for such shoddy work from Ciber, Inc.
The most interesting results of this 1 hour inspection is the discovery that there were at least 12 documents missing from the application packet. There was not a single users manual, technical manual, election supervisors's manual or traing manual included in the package of material submited to the Wisconsin State Elections Board. Yet, all 12 of the missing documents are listed in the report by Ciber, Inc. purporting to document the Diebold AccuVote TSx System is qualified under the NASED/EAC 2002 Voluntary Voting System Guidelines. All 12 are required by the adminstraive rules in ElBd7.01. No one on the staff of the WI SEB noticed the absence between August 29, 2005 and my notification to them of the ommision on November 1, 2005. Two months is a long time to do "testing" without any manuals describing the system under test.
Even better is the fact the qualification number, N-1-6-22-22-001 (2002), was issued a month prior to the completion of the testing by the independent test authorities. The qualification number, N-1-6-22-22-001 (2002), for some unspecified AccuVote TSx system was issued on June 27, 2005. The 3 by ITA reports prepared Wylie labs where created on August 4, 2005. The ITA report by Ciber Inc was created on August 3, 2005. If you want to ask questions on this, I direct you to: Brian Hancock, the ITA Secretariat at bhancock@eac.gov or (866) 747-1471.
The remark about unspecified is because none of the ITA reports give a specific description of the system tested and qualified under the number N-1-6-22-22-001 (2002). The descriptions given are so incomplete the WI State Elections Board has no way to know if the system submitted for approval is or is not a system covered by the qualification number, N-1-056-22-22-001 (2002). For example the official, ITA description for the GEMS 1.18.24 central tabulator software is listed by Ciber as GEMS.EXE 5/13/2005.
That is it!!
In other words ANY file named GEMS.EXE which has a date of 5/13/2005 and whose version number as returned by a call to GetFileVersionInfo() is 1.18.24, MUST be the correct version of the central tabulation software used on ALL Diebold systems. Not even the nearly useless CRC-32 value of this EXE was recorded!! Moreover, not a single one of the supporting DLL's linked to GEMS.EXE was listed, documented or apparently tested.
If I were a DESI shareholder I would be annoyed Diebold Election Systems, Inc. paid for such shoddy work from Ciber, Inc.
posted by John Washburn | 7:19 AM
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