Kerry Supporters Running Automated Scripts to "Win" online polls

Poll Fixing - Example from Linux Today ^ | self

[Future Useless Eater]

>>Automated voting scripts are the only thing that would cause such an imbalance so quickly. Its been done before by computer hacks:

Yes, it certainly is possible to do this!

They sure are desperate to be wasting so much energy trying so hard to spin it for their sleazeball

[vbmoneyspender]

how do you know you're not blocking dynamic ip addresses from people logging in via AOL or MSN, etc.

[Anti-Bubba182]

I saw Joe Trippi touting these online polls on MSNBC as evidence Kerry won. Trippi was famous for huge success in fundraising for the Howard Dean campaign using the net.

It appears to me that the democrats are using a Spam bot to rig the online polls and sending their flacks out to tout them as real.

The addition of coordination with TV appearances and rigged polls make the issue more serious.

In the first debate, I noticed I could never get in to vote. This is an indication they are using bots to monopolize the voting in their favor. I never had this problem with these polls before.

[snooker]

You need direct connect to the Internet. That way you can spoof your originating IP. All you need then is a bash script. It's pretty simple to do actually. The direct connect, not through an ISV, is what makes it work right. Colleges usually have such a connection. You don't need a powerful server to run the scripts.

[Gracey]

GREAT idea. Let the kids play with on line polls and win. Adults vote for REAL!!!

[Mo1]

Well that sure would explain how more people voted on the MSNBC polls then watch MSNBC

If this is what is happening .. can the scripts be traced back to who's doing it?

[StJacques]

Salamander wrote:

"What kind of "scripts" do this and why don't websites block them, anyway?"

The "scripts" could actually be compiled code and are usually referred to as "spiders" or "robots" or even "automatons." Microsoft.NET and Visual Basic software developers create them using the Microsoft Internet Transfer Control, other development platforms use different code components.
,br> The way the code components work is that they send out a "page request" ping to the address of the server page that offers a vote and, whenever the server responds, they send a second "page request" ping to the "server response" page address which, under most circumstances, should enter the ping as a vote. Search engines use this kind of technology a lot, polling other search engines for their responses to search keywords for example.

When you ask why web sites don't block them, actually they try, but only to a limited degree. Most of these online polls store a cookie in the folder of the requesting machine to try to stop multiple voting. But you can write code to delete cookies as soon as they are stored. Some of these web sites may even check for the sender's IP address, but even that can be worked around by using a clustered server setup. When you get right down to it, it's not worth the investment on the part of the web sites conducting the online polls to guarantee their fairness.

[armymarinemom]

This has already shown up in my email box.

Two presidential debates and two clear wins. John Kerry is going to be the next president of the United States, and more people know it now than just two short hours ago.

Tonight, George Bush had another chance to make his case to the American people. Again he failed.

• Again, he showed that he is out of touch with reality on Iraq.
• Again, he offered no plan for jobs and no plan for cutting the cost of health care.
• Again, he pretended that our problems don't exist.
• Again, he refused to level with the American people.
• George Bush just doesn't get it, so he can't fix it.

John Kerry held George Bush accountable for the failures of the last four years. He demonstrated the strength and character we need in a president. He made it clear he could lead as commander in chief. John Kerry offered real solutions to real problems. He told America the truth, and offered a plan for a fresh start on the economy, Iraq, and the war on terror. Simply put, he was presidential. Ironically, the president was not. Right now, I'm here on the front lines in St. Louis. Down the hall is what they call the "spin room." It is where Republican operatives are trying to put their best face on what was another clear victory for John Kerry. I've done this a few times before, and I can tell you firsthand that my job is a lot easier when our candidate has a big night like John Kerry did tonight. I know, and more importantly John Kerry knows, how hard YOU are going to work to make sure the Bush campaign doesn't spin this debate.

Here is what you can do:

1) Call into talk radio

http://volunteer.johnkerry.com/speakout

2) Write local newspapers

http://volunteer.johnkerry.com/speakout

Sincerely,

Joe Lockhart

[Gracey]

Vote Kerry...as often and frequently and multiple times as possible. Who cares....

[Southflanknorthpawsis]

[Gracey]

Solve the problem. Vote Kerry over and over and over again on line. Then vote Bush in real life.

[snooker]

And then all you need to do is spoof the IP. It's easy to do.

Most of the polls are getting smart and block the cookie delete and vote scripts. You can't easily block IP spoofing.

A university, which might have 64,000 addresses, vote once for each one :-}.

[Gracey]

Kerrys winning because we're all voting for KERRY. Show the ridiculousness of these on line kids play toys.

[sully777]

Great tagline per se!

[DirtyHarryY2K]

That only proves that the majority of people that rely on cBS for their news are brain dead leftists Kerry-bots.

[ProudVet77]

you couldn't be sure. but for example on one of our clusters we knew we would serve at most 30 ASP pages/sec. Of those 30 at the moist you might have a handful from one IP. If we suddenly got loaded to say 100 pages/sec, and we saw the same IP address for 70 or more of them then we knew.
We also looked up an IP address in WHOIS before permanently stopping them. Most services like AOL actually throttle bandwidth to each user and would actually catch them doing this before we would.

[Peach]

Kerry contradicted himself within a few minutes tonight on Iraq:

At one point he said that he's always thought Saddam was a threat and has never changed that position.

A few minutes later he said the president took his eye off the ball and went after Saddam even though he wasn't a threat to us.

[rolling_stone]

Looks like Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe has the good fortune to have some real good computer support working the case for Kerry's online polls.


too bad Terry didn't have anyone smart enough to use an old typewriter instead of MS Times New Roman...

[Enlightiator]

too bad Terry didn't have anyone smart enough to use an old typewriter instead of MS Times New Roman

I think TrueBlackman has what Terry used, a PC running Microsoft Office '73....

[Enlightiator]

So, what do we do about it? Do we just let the polls implode until everyone knows that they're bogus? Or do we get our own auto - bot systems up and running?

I have no intention of getting drawn into a cheaters dual. Let the polls implode as you say, no one will pay any attention to a 90% to 10% poll except to think the democrats are obviously cheating again.