Hacking Democracy----A Must see
Steverthebeliever
Posts: 159
I don't know if anyone elses hass seen the documentary "Hacking Democracy" on HBO, but you should watch it and tell everyone you know to watch it.
Post edited by Unknown User on
0
Comments
http://www.hbo.com/docs/programs/hackingdemocracy/synopsis.html
Hacking Democracy
Is American democracy safe in the age of computers? This cautionary film looks at the very real risk of hackers altering vote counts in public elections--and exposes the vulnerability of computers which count approximately 80% of America's votes in county, state and federal elections. Filmed in 2004-05, this documentary tells the story of Bev Harris, a Seattle publicist/writer whose watchdog group uncovered evidence of mishandled voting records and suspicious voting machine malfunctions. Harris' crusade took the group--consisting of computer experts, activists and political candidates from both parties--from her home computer (where she found a computer system blueprint accidentally made public) to Tallahassee, FL for a "mini-election" that proved just how easy it is to hack the vote. (TVPG) (AC)
This cautionary documentary exposes the vulnerability of computers - which count approximately 80% of America's votes in county, state and federal elections - suggesting that if our votes aren't safe, then our democracy isn't safe either. Premieres Thursday, November 2 at 9pm. Read more.
HACKING DEMOCRACY
Electronic voting machines count about 87% of the votes cast in America today. But are they reliable? Are they safe from tampering? From a current congressional hearing to persistent media reports that suggest misuse of data and even outright fraud, concerns over the integrity of electronic voting are growing by the day. And if the voting process is not secure, neither is America's democracy. The timely, cautionary documentary HACKING DEMOCRACY exposes gaping holes in the security of America's electronic voting system.
In the 2000 presidential election, an electronic voting machine recorded minus 16,022 votes for Al Gore in Volusia County, Fla. While fraud was never proven, the faulty tally alerted computer scientists, politicians and everyday citizens to the very real possibility of computer hacking during elections.
In 2002, Seattle grandmother and writer Bev Harris asked officials in her county why they had acquired electronic touch screen systems for their elections. Unsatisfied with their explanation, she set out to learn about electronic voting machines on her own. In the course of her research, which unearthed hundreds of reported incidents of mishandled voting information, Harris stumbled across an "online library" of the Diebold Corporation, discovering a treasure trove of information about the inner-workings of the company's voting system.
Harris brought this proprietary "secret" information to computer security expert Dr. Avi Rubin of Johns Hopkins University, who determined that the software lacked the necessary security features to prevent tampering. Her subsequent investigation took her from the trash cans of Texas to the secretary of state of California and finally to Florida, where a "mini-election" to test the vulnerability of the memory cards used in electronic voting produced alarming results.
As the scope of her mission grew, Harris drew on the expertise of other computer- science experts, politicians and activists, among them: Andy Stephenson, candidate for secretary of state in Washington state; Susan Bernecker, Republican candidate in New Orleans; Kathleen Wynne, an activist from Cleveland; Dr. Herbert Thompson, chief security strategist, Security Innovation, Inc.; Ion Sancho, supervisor of elections for Leon County, Fla.; and Harri Hursti, a computer-security analyst. Academics, public officials and others seen in interview footage include: Deanie Lowe, supervisor of elections, Volusia County, Fla.; Mark Radke, marketing director of Diebold; David Cobb, presidential candidate, Green Party; and Rep. Stephanie Tubbs-Jones of Ohio.
Diebold software, or other software like it, is installed in thousands of counties across 32 states. David Dill, professor of computer science at Stanford, says the problem is that there are "lots of people involved in writing the software, and lots of people who could have touched the software before it went into that machine. If one of those people put something malicious in the software and it's distributed to all the machines, then that one person could be responsible for changing tens of thousands of votes, maybe even hundreds of thousands, across the country."
In Florida, Leon County supervisor of elections Ion Sancho presided over a trial "mini-election" to see if the vote could be hacked without being detected. Before votes were actually cast, computer analyst Harri Hursti "stuffed the ballot box" by entering votes on the computer's memory card. Then, after votes were cast, the results displayed when the same memory card was entered in the central tabulating program indicated that fraud was indeed possible. In other words, by accessing a memory card before an election, someone could change the results - a claim Diebold had denied was possible.
Ultimately, Bev Harris' research proved that the top-secret computerized systems counting the votes in America's public elections are not only fallible, but also vulnerable to undetectable hacking, from local school board contests to the presidential race. With the electronic voting machines of three companies - Diebold, ES&S and Sequoia - collectively responsible for around 80 percent of America's votes today, the stakes for democracy are high.
One of the executive producers of HACKING DEMOCRACY is Sarah Teale, whose previous HBO credits include "Dealing Dogs" and "Bellevue: Inside Out."
HACKING DEMOCRACY was directed by Simon Ardizzone and Russell Michaels; produced by Simon Ardizzone, Robert Carrillo Cohen and Russell Michaels; executive producers, Earl Katz, Sarah Teale and Sian Edwards; edited by Sasha Zik. For HBO: supervising producer, John Hoffman; executive producer, Sheila Nevins.
DATE/TIME CHANNEL
Sun 11/5 09:00 AM HBO High Definition - EAST
Sun 11/5 09:00 AM HBO LATINO - EAST
Sun 11/5 09:00 AM HBO - EAST
Sun 11/5 12:00 PM HBO LATINO - WEST
Sun 11/5 12:00 PM HBO High Definition - WEST
Sun 11/5 12:00 PM HBO - WEST
Mon 11/6 02:10 AM HBO LATINO - EAST
Mon 11/6 05:10 AM HBO LATINO - WEST
Tue 11/7 09:00 AM HBO High Definition - EAST
Tue 11/7 09:00 AM HBO - EAST
Tue 11/7 09:00 AM HBO LATINO - EAST
Tue 11/7 12:00 PM HBO LATINO - WEST
Tue 11/7 12:00 PM HBO High Definition - WEST
Tue 11/7 12:00 PM HBO - WEST
Tue 11/7 06:30 PM HBO High Definition - EAST
Tue 11/7 06:30 PM HBO LATINO - EAST
Tue 11/7 06:30 PM HBO - EAST
Tue 11/7 09:30 PM HBO LATINO - WEST
Tue 11/7 09:30 PM HBO High Definition - WEST
Tue 11/7 09:30 PM HBO - WEST
Tue 11/7 11:45 PM HBO2 - EAST
Wed 11/8 02:45 AM HBO2 - WEST
Fri 11/10 06:30 PM HBO2 - EAST
Fri 11/10 09:30 PM HBO2 - WEST
Mon 11/13 12:30 PM HBO High Definition - EAST
Mon 11/13 12:30 PM HBO - EAST
Mon 11/13 12:30 PM HBO LATINO - EAST
Mon 11/13 03:30 PM HBO LATINO - WEST
Mon 11/13 03:30 PM HBO High Definition - WEST
Mon 11/13 03:30 PM HBO - WEST
Mon 11/13 10:00 PM HBO High Definition - EAST
Mon 11/13 10:00 PM HBO - EAST
Tue 11/14 01:00 AM HBO High Definition - WEST
Tue 11/14 01:00 AM HBO - WEST
Wed 11/15 07:30 PM HBO SIGNATURE - EAST
Wed 11/15 10:30 PM HBO SIGNATURE - WEST
Thu 11/16 03:00 AM HBO2 - EAST
Thu 11/16 06:00 AM HBO2 - WEST
Sat 11/18 06:00 PM HBO High Definition - EAST
Sat 11/18 06:00 PM HBO - EAST
Sat 11/18 06:00 PM HBO LATINO - EAST
Sat 11/18 09:00 PM HBO LATINO - WEST
Sat 11/18 09:00 PM HBO High Definition - WEST
Sat 11/18 09:00 PM HBO - WEST
Mon 11/20 06:50 AM HBO LATINO - EAST
Mon 11/20 09:50 AM HBO LATINO - WEST
Tue 11/21 12:00 PM HBO SIGNATURE - EAST
Tue 11/21 03:00 PM HBO SIGNATURE - WEST
Fri 11/24 06:30 PM HBO SIGNATURE - EAST
Fri 11/24 09:30 PM HBO SIGNATURE - WEST
Mon 11/27 01:15 AM HBO High Definition - EAST
Mon 11/27 01:15 AM HBO - EAST
Mon 11/27 01:15 AM HBO LATINO - EAST
Mon 11/27 04:15 AM HBO LATINO - WEST
Mon 11/27 04:15 AM HBO High Definition - WEST
Mon 11/27 04:15 AM HBO - WEST
Wed 11/29 09:00 AM HBO SIGNATURE - EAST
Wed 11/29 12:00 PM HBO SIGNATURE - WEST
Wed 11/29 11:15 PM HBO SIGNATURE - EAST
Thu 11/30 02:15 AM HBO SIGNATURE - WEST
Sat 12/2 06:45 AM HBO2 - EAST
Sat 12/2 09:45 AM HBO2 - WEST
Sat 12/9 09:30 AM HBO SIGNATURE - EAST
Sat 12/9 12:30 PM HBO SIGNATURE - WEST
Sun 12/17 01:45 PM HBO SIGNATURE - EAST
Sun 12/17 04:45 PM HBO SIGNATURE - WEST
Tue 12/19 07:30 PM HBO SIGNATURE - EAST
Tue 12/19 10:30 PM HBO SIGNATURE - WEST
Tue 12/26 03:00 PM HBO2 - EAST
Tue 12/26 06:00 PM HBO2 - WEST
http://www.hbo.com/docs/programs/hackingdemocracy/interview_filmmakers.html
HBO: How did you come to the project, Bev?
Bev Harris: Well, I became interested because of a story I'd written which raised some questions in my mind, and the more I started looking into the questions, and getting answers, and seeing that the answers were the wrong answers, the more interested in it I became. And, that has continued. Literally, every rock you turn over there's something underneath it that you don't really want to see. And this is our election system today.
Some of the things I found, almost on the first day, were corporate records and disclosure documents. So we really weren't looking at anything that someone could spin because we were looking at public records, and actual files. I realized very early on that the thing to do would be to publish the actual documents, publish actual videotapes. Publish things that can't be spun. It doesn't matter if someone listens to me. The records tell the truth.
HBO: Initially, you stumbled onto proprietary code on Diebold 's FTP site. What did you think when you first found it?
Bev Harris: It was stunning. I really couldn't believe what I was looking at. It just doesn't happen when you're trying to get answers to a story. The files were the secret program files for Diebold Election Systems, which is one of the most widely used systems in America.
HBO: What did you do after that?
Bev Harris: I talked to several people that night, and I also downloaded the files and made several copies of them. It took seven CDs to make one set. It was a vast number of files. Forty thousand files. I sent a set overseas, and I sent four copies around the country, and put one in a safe deposit box.
HBO: What compelled you to do all that?
Bev Harris: Well, I knew they had something important in them, and I thought I'd better download these right now and get to the bottom of it, and see what's in them.
HBO: Had you ever had any kind of activism in your past?
Bev Harris: No. I actually was not an activist, I'm a writer. I have familiarity with investigative writing because I had done marketing writing for Jack Anderson who was legendary as an investigative reporter. And he would tell me these wonderful stories about how he dumpster-dived J. Edgar Hoover! [LAUGHS] And he said, that's how he found information many times. He didn't go to the press conferences, he went to the dumpster. And that's actually how we got the idea to do it-- from Jack Anderson.
HBO: What we throw away is quite revealing, isn't it?
Bev Harris: Well, it's pretty symbolic: our democracy is literally lying in the dumpster. These are things that if the government was really running elections, and they weren't privatized, we would have a right to that information. We would have a right to know where every penny went that had anything to do with our elections. It's amazing that we have to dig it out of a dumpster to find out.
HBO: Russ, how did you enter the picture?
Russell Michaels: I found a story on the internet which Bev had broken. And I rang Bev, and we basically swapped stories, and got to know each other over the phone. I realized that if half the stuff that Bev was telling me was true, and it all was true, then, I have stumbled on the most amazing, disturbing story.
HBO: What were some of the obstacles you had to overcome as you continued work on the film?
Bev Harris: One of the most frustrating things is the secrecy part of it. Diebold made everything a proprietary secret. So every time you ask a question, they either ignore you altogether, or say, I'm sorry, that's proprietary. And then when you speculate if something is true, Diebold would say that's not how it works. Well, how does it work? Well, that's a secret. So that was very frustrating. The bottom line of this whole problem is that if we don't have the ability to authenticate our own elections as citizens, we don't live in a democracy.
Russell Michaels: One of the most difficult things was to get answers from the companies that make the voting machines. And sell them. The problem is what is inside the machine. Finding out how it works, and what the company is saying it does. Because that's the secret. It's proprietary, and they own it.
HBO: That seems so wrong. And yet we have laws that protect and back this up?
Bev Harris: When I first found the files and went to scientists to look at the files, they refused because they said they were afraid that they would break the law if they reverse- engineered it. I was told I could be thrown in jail for looking at the computer programs that count our votes.
I learned, [LAUGHS] through firsthand experience, that the role of a whistleblower is really no fun. I don't know how much danger I really was in of going to prison, but there's an awful lot of intimidation that goes on. I got interviewed by the Secret Service at one point. I received three cease and desist orders. And I'm not a person who's ever gotten a cease and desist order ever in my life! That was frightening. Diebold came after a lot of other people too, which, ultimately, was their undoing. When my website was shut down, college students all over the country started publishing the files that Diebold wanted me to shut down the website over. And they ended up serving multiple cease and desist orders on college students. And that ended up being covered in the New York Times. When someone does something they shouldn't, and then they overreach, that's when they really get exposed and fall apart.
Russell Michaels: Before she met the hacker Harri Hersti, Diebold Election Systems put out an explanation of why Bev's research was meaningless. They claimed that this kind of system vulnerability was not true, it couldn't be hacked, there were backups, and that even if something was done to the system, the inconsistencies would be detectable because you'd compare them with other calculations in the voting process afterwards. Well, what we've done is show that that's not true. Everything can add up if you know how to attack it correctly.
HBO: What can someone watching this movie do to change things?
Bev Harris: Well, that's a good question, and I think the movie is going to be very helpful in showing people in a way that's understandable what the real problem is. The next thing we need to do is get people out of their chairs, away from the internet, and teach them to become real participants in their democracy again.
One of the things that Black Box Voting, my organization did, was create a simple toolkit that shows people how to collect evidence. There's no magic wand right now, it's a pretty complex problem. But we need to look at the next election as the biggest citizen evidence- gathering expedition in history; evidence meaning video, audio, photographs, public records. Not stories.
Russell Michaels: It's taken me three years of investigation with my co-producers to ask the right questions. And when you know the right question to ask, and when the wrong answer is clearly telling you a lie, then you know to ask that question again, and again, and again. People have the right to know how their democracy-America's democracy-works. Or doesn't.
i really want to catch it...
in future elections, i think we should just use the "clap if you support x, clap if you support y" method. it would be about the same.
from my window to yours
http://redtape.msnbc.com/2006/11/post.html
It's bad enough to think that your vote might have been changed or discarded after the election, (what many thought happened) but to have it changed even before it was cast is another horror to add onto the pile. I could really relate to the woman who cried at the end when she saw how easily it could be done. I thought back to the middle of the movie, where people stood in line for hours upon hours in the pouring rain to cast their vote and have their voice heard, while its totally possible that the chairman of the board of Diebold, O'Dell, is laughing*all the way to George Bush because his company possibly encrypted the memory cards with false data. You know he promised Ohio to George W. It is just mind blowing. And what was that invoice to the Republican National Committee all about? How many others were there that Bev didn't happen to pick out of the garbage?
"Some of my friends sit around every evening and they worry about the times ahead,
But everybody else is overwhelmed by indifference and the promise of an early bed..."-- Elvis Costello
Go back to sleep.