Sometimes the power of Google just makes me feel warm all over
Actually, it should be the power of Google, WHOIS (to look up who owns internet domains), opensecrets.org (follow the campaign money), MP3 streaming audio, a brief discussion on persistant memory, Mapquest (determines, among other things, distances between points), a plain old low-tech phone call and a discussion about what kind of data could be lost if a CMOS battery died on a DOS system. It makes an old-school geek weep.
Let me explain.
It's another Daily Kos Diary, this one about a Triad (vote counting and tabulation) employee who apparently futzed with a tabulating machine, had it lose its memory somehow, swapped some parts and got it running again. The tech indicated that the election officials should post a crib sheet of the count somewhere so they could report it and have it match the previously reported count exactly.
Read it - it might be true, it might not. I work around computers and computer people, many of whom fall far short of being competent at their trade. It's entirely reasonable to me that this guy is some schlub who managed to screw up a machine, feared losing his job and tried to cover his tracks. In fact, I can even see the machine's CMOS battery dying, the machine losing the information on how many sectors were on the drive, and the tech going into a state of panic and doing something really stupid. Of course, something more sinister might be afoot.
But what really amazed me is the power of the Internet to provide information for people to sniff out the truth on this. To summarize the posts:
"Hey - I found where all of the text files containing the data are stored."
"Look! These Triad people actually host the board of elections websites."
"The son of they guy who wrote the counting software registered the board of election's website."
"They host the websites of a lot of county election boards."
"Dad gave a fair chunk of change to Dubya."
"They're all in a group/club with the Alabama elections administrator."
"Here's the audio of the original news report in MP3 format."
"They know who the technician was but are withholding it pending further investigation."
"The story is on David Cobb's (the Green candidate behind the recount) website."
"How can a dead battery destroy data stored on a hard drive." (followed by the discussion of CMOS and BIOS.)
"The Greene county board of elections is only three miles from Triad's headquarters."
"Forensic computing can tell if the technician replaced the hard drive."
"I called the president of Triad and he shed some light on the procedure for a recount."
From a related diary, the software was DOS based and written in FoxPro. (Editor's note: I used to code in FoxPro. The DOS version of FoxPro (and Dos itself) pretty much disappeared from wide use about 12 years ago. If nothing else, Triad has seriously milked the election cash cow for some time now.)
Of course, the comments contained the usual criticism of Kos because he doesn't soil his reputation with such things until they're safely out of the Tinfoil Hat realm.
And all of this in less than 24 hours from the original post.
And that's exactly my point. The Internet has made each of us an armchair Sherlock Holmes. Some, maybe all of these leads will turn out to be coincidence or red herrings. But if there is incontravertible proof of fraud out there, rest assured that it will be found by bloggers and activists following the affiliations, the meetings, the security logs and the money.
And should anyone dare to overlook it, we have long memories. If you shill for the president, it might be a bad idea to commit statuatory rape or have a nanny problem/mob ties/warrants for your arrest/multiple mistresses/who vetted this guy anyway?
Let me explain.
It's another Daily Kos Diary, this one about a Triad (vote counting and tabulation) employee who apparently futzed with a tabulating machine, had it lose its memory somehow, swapped some parts and got it running again. The tech indicated that the election officials should post a crib sheet of the count somewhere so they could report it and have it match the previously reported count exactly.
Read it - it might be true, it might not. I work around computers and computer people, many of whom fall far short of being competent at their trade. It's entirely reasonable to me that this guy is some schlub who managed to screw up a machine, feared losing his job and tried to cover his tracks. In fact, I can even see the machine's CMOS battery dying, the machine losing the information on how many sectors were on the drive, and the tech going into a state of panic and doing something really stupid. Of course, something more sinister might be afoot.
But what really amazed me is the power of the Internet to provide information for people to sniff out the truth on this. To summarize the posts:
"Hey - I found where all of the text files containing the data are stored."
"Look! These Triad people actually host the board of elections websites."
"The son of they guy who wrote the counting software registered the board of election's website."
"They host the websites of a lot of county election boards."
"Dad gave a fair chunk of change to Dubya."
"They're all in a group/club with the Alabama elections administrator."
"Here's the audio of the original news report in MP3 format."
"They know who the technician was but are withholding it pending further investigation."
"The story is on David Cobb's (the Green candidate behind the recount) website."
"How can a dead battery destroy data stored on a hard drive." (followed by the discussion of CMOS and BIOS.)
"The Greene county board of elections is only three miles from Triad's headquarters."
"Forensic computing can tell if the technician replaced the hard drive."
"I called the president of Triad and he shed some light on the procedure for a recount."
From a related diary, the software was DOS based and written in FoxPro. (Editor's note: I used to code in FoxPro. The DOS version of FoxPro (and Dos itself) pretty much disappeared from wide use about 12 years ago. If nothing else, Triad has seriously milked the election cash cow for some time now.)
Of course, the comments contained the usual criticism of Kos because he doesn't soil his reputation with such things until they're safely out of the Tinfoil Hat realm.
And all of this in less than 24 hours from the original post.
And that's exactly my point. The Internet has made each of us an armchair Sherlock Holmes. Some, maybe all of these leads will turn out to be coincidence or red herrings. But if there is incontravertible proof of fraud out there, rest assured that it will be found by bloggers and activists following the affiliations, the meetings, the security logs and the money.
And should anyone dare to overlook it, we have long memories. If you shill for the president, it might be a bad idea to commit statuatory rape or have a nanny problem/mob ties/warrants for your arrest/multiple mistresses/who vetted this guy anyway?
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