Posted on 12/02/2020 7:51:37 AM PST by USA Conservative
There is one tool that Excel has that is unique. It is ASAP Utilities. Talk about a Swiss Arm Knife.
I also like Gnumeric (xml based) spread sheet. It has RegEx tool built right into it. Little or no documentation, but incredibly powerful editing. It also exports excellent HTML output.
Most of the tabulating machines are not online and the only way to get ballots/vote totals from them is some type of memory card. If they aren't networked I'm not sure how else to do it.
In this case it sounds like the servers also didn't have a network connection the laptop could access.
I worked as the IT Database point of contact when Georgia used Diebold as their voting system. All USB ports were disabled and there was no wifi system available.
Everyone is doing Monday Morning Quarterbacking when we need to prepare for the next game. Early voting starts soon for the two Senate seats here in Georgia. What are we going to do about our defense?
Post Mortem on the November 3rd election.
We know what the rat strategy is and how they play the game. We need to counter their efforts.
The rats have access to all ballots. Those that have been placed and those that are available to harvest. They are taking the spreadsheet and completing the non-voting ballots and placing them in the rat category. That is how they knew what ballots to cure and what they could harvest.
If the server and tabulating machines did not have a network connection, then the data had to be on the USB drive. This negates their excuse.
And the OS is Android portable cellular communications based - you just can’t make this stuff up
I don't understand. It sounds to me like the data had been uploaded to the server and was probably on the local network. The Dominion guy wanted to do some analysis or reporting so downloaded some data from the server to move it to the laptop via USB.
Did I miss something?
Problem: distributed computers, ie voting machines, must be air gapped and have no USB ports so how to move the final files to the vote counting machine?
First, the voting machines should be SSD storage. Second, the entire drive should be encrypted. Third, the voting machine is only storing encrypted ballot information and not processing or tabulating them. At the end of the voting day, the machines can only report total ballots stored for matching with number of voters who signed in. Then the machines must be powered down creating a time stamp of when that happened. Also, each ballot would have an encrypted time stamp. No one in outside the few people in the final counting room would have the encryption keys to unlock the stored ballots, the key is unique to registered voting machine. The machines are physically transferred to the counting location. Machines are physically connected to the counting machine which is also air gapped.
Then, each machine must under certification including that it is registered prior to the election, that it contains valid time stamped encrypted ballots, and that the number of ballots contained is appropriate, etc. After certification, the counting server transfers, unencrypts, counts, audits, tabulates each machine’s data.
No reporting is possible until all registered machines are accounted for and certified. At that point, the machine’s data is marked completed, final, and locked. Only then are final reports available, printed, and then scanned into a connected machine. Scanned version is compared to the printed version and certified as identical and results posted.
This example is just thrown together while I typed it, and could certainly be improved, hardened and any issues with what I wrote fixed, but it is just to illustrate that the voting machine problem could be solved. A proper and complete system design could be done in detail with a proper team over a number of months as planning is the most critical step.
A secure system can be created and seriously, what is being done is really not that complex. However, the goal must be fully audited and fully certifiable at each step, and guarantee chain of custody with as absolutely secure steps as humanly possible. None of those is present in this election.
Still have to start with clean voter roles, proof of identity including systematic prevention of a third party voting for another person (especially a poll worker), and the absentee / mail-in ballots have to be addressed. But using USBs, connected machines, moving live files of votes across the internet, making partial results known during the process to anyone is nonsense to the highest degree.
The same thing with the banks I've worked for. The USB ports were locked down on all computers.
Is this more secure than sneakernetting a memory card of some type?
At least for the Dominion machines the tabulator writes the ballot and vote counts to an encrypted memory card. It seems that a proprietary device to read that card and physically transfer the data to a compatible reader on the server would both preserve the original data and isolate and protect the tabulator.
They said they got the data from the net. None of those devices are supposed to be on the net... I am probably wrong, but it sounds iffy to me.
"He downloads data from the Election Management Server onto a USB..."
USB access by definition is a pathway to introduce malware, spyware, viruses both intentional and unintentionally, even boot a separate operating system then mounting the host device to access its files. Once a USB is then separated, it can be substituted or edited in another device or have malware, spyware, viruses introduced during transport.
How many people had the knowledge of the encryption keys? Encryption is not the end all when physical access is possible and especially so when the encryption keys could be compromised.
Well, you need to pick your poison. Connecting the tabulators to another system offers the same chance for compromise.
It seems the safest approach might be to have separate USB drives for each tabulator so a compromised USB drive could only infect one machine.
first:
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don’t you know some “Fact Check” mob would be trying to debunk the Dominion/Xavier Khouri/USB story almost as soon as the video emerged! how bizarre are the quotes by Sterling?
1 Dec: Lead Stories: Fact Check: Election Video Does NOT Show Worker ‘Manipulating’ Data In Gwinnett County, Georgia
Fact Check
by Dana Ford
(Dana Ford is an Atlanta-based reporter and editor. She previously worked as a senior editor at Atlanta Magazine Custom Media and as a writer/ editor for CNN Digital)
(Gabriel Sterling, the Georgia’s voting system implementation manager) addressed that claim during a press conference at the state Capitol on December 1, 2020. He said:
“A 20-something tech in Gwinnett County today has death threats and a noose put out, saying he should be hung for treason because he was transferring a report on batches from an EMS [election management system] to a county computer so he could read it.”
Sterling said that he spoke with representatives of Dominion Voting Systems, who described the worker as “one of the better ones they got.” About the contractor, Sterling said:
“His family is getting harassed now. There’s a noose out there with his name on it. It’s just not right.”...
“This kid took a job. He just took a job, and it’s just wrong. I can’t begin to explain the level of anger I have right now over this. And every American, every Georgian — Republican and Democrat alike — should have that same level of anger.”...
Separately, Dominion spokesperson Michael Steel spoke to allegations of voter fraud during a Fox News interview published on November 22, 2020. Here’s the relevant part from that report:
(Fox excerpt)
When asked if a poll worker could use a USB thumb drive to add votes for a candidate, Steel said that the vote tabulators do not have such access. He also said they are not connected to the internet.
“It’s not physically possible to do what they’re describing,” he reiterated.
Lead Stories has written quite a bit about Dominion since the 2020 election. Here’s a look at our latest coverage LINKS
https://leadstories.com/hoax-alert/2020/12/fact-check-election-video-does-not-show-worker-manipulating-data-in-gwinnett-county-georgia.html
As soon as a USB was inserted into the machine the game was over. If it was already there, and then removed, game it is over.
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