[IP] Response to recent disinformation - please circulate
Delivered-To: dfarber+@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Wed, 31 Mar 2004 15:35:40 -0500
From: Avi Rubin <rubin@xxxxxxx>
Subject: Response to recent disinformation - please circulate
To: Dave Farber <dave@xxxxxxxxxx>
It has been brought to my attention that some people are taking recent comments
of mine about my experience as an election judge out of context and
misrepresenting
my position. In particular, I was told that someone said I had reversed my
position
on the security of the Diebold electronic voting machines. I would like to
make it
very clear that nothing could be further from the truth. After serving as
an election
judge in a precinct that used the Diebold Accuvote TS voting machines in
the March 2
primary in Baltimore County, I now believe even more strongly than before
that these
machines are fundamentally flawed.
Those who incorrectly attribute comments to me about my position on the
security
and reliability of these machines by referencing my statements written after I
returned home on March 2 would have done well to reference my entire statement.
In particular, quoting from my original text:
"I continue to believe that the Diebold voting machines represent a huge
threat to our
democracy. I fundamentally believe that we have thrown our trust in the
outcome of our
elections in the hands of a handful of companies (Diebold, Sequoia, ES&S,
Hart) who are in a
position to control the final outcomes of our elections. I also believe
that the outcomes
can be changed without any knowledge by election judges or anyone else.
Furthermore,
meaningful recounts are impossible with these machines."
I do not see how that could be used to honestly state that I have reversed
my position.
In my report about election day, I did acknowledge that I now had a better
understanding
of some of the threats, and of the dozen or so attacks and security flaws
that we pointed
out in our report, that perhaps one of them might be harder to carry out in
practice, but
I also described new and more serious attacks that I discovered by working
as a judge.
My full accounting is still available unchanged on the web at
http://avirubin.com/judge.html
Anybody who states that I have reversed my position on this matter is being
willfullly
dishonest, or is at best misinformed. I have never stated anything to that
effect, and in fact, every
public and private statement I have made since our original reporton July
23 has been consistent
with the position that the Diebold electronic voting machines are a danger
to our democracy.
Avi Rubin
-------------------------------------
You are subscribed as roessler@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
To manage your subscription, go to
http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip
Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/