Computer forensics on CF cards
When you listen to these prevaricators of Smartmatic, the Commission on Elections (Comelec) and the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV), it’s as if computer fraud were a only simple matter and any layman could see through such schemes with ease. When they claim that their automated election system (AES) and precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machines cannot be hacked, they forget that no less than the world’s most secure computer system in the Pentagon has twice been hacked in a span of just two years. One incident in September 2007, which the US blamed on the Chinese military and which was naturally denied by the latter’s government, had this account from the Pentagon: “These hacking attacks go on everyday but this was a more complicated attack with more sophisticated technology that broke through the current firewalls… It’s a constant game of cat and mouse. This was a wake-up call for us.” The second major incident in April 2009 had hackers breaking into the $300-billion F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Project and then stealing several terabytes of data including maintenance, defense, and other design systems. Again, the Pentagon suspected Chinese hackers — another charge denied by China. The attacks were so sophisticated that the Bush administration had planned to spend $17 billion over the years on a new online security program, which the Obama administration promptly indicated it will be expanding. Compared to the automated voting machine system in the recent Philippine elections, the Pentagon computer system’s computer firewall is already like the Maginot Line the French built before World War II. Still, if the Pentagon’s computer defenses were breached, how can Smartmatic and Comelec, neither of which are really computer savvy, stand up to expert hackers? While the Comelec, PPCRV and their media hacks continue with their PCOS “praise releases,” dedicated and determined computer forensics conducted by Halalang Marangal’s Engr. Obet Versola (a UP Electronics Engineering trailblazer and maker of the first Filipino computer) seeks to convert html and pdf formatted Smartmatic election returns (ERs) from the compact flash (CF) cards to a more readable format in a week’s time. Last Friday, Versola texted me to “request all the protesting candidates to get a printed certified true copy of the file slog.text in the cfcards then to e-mail them to rversola@gn.apc.org for analysis.” I was told that Mathematics-IT expert Vivienne Tan (University of San Francisco) is also helping decipher the data. Now, knowing how much technical knowhow and time is required to minutely analyze the CF card ERs, I wonder how Comelec and PPCRV can say everything is honky-dory. We’re happy that Rep. Teddy “Boy” Locsin finally blew his top at Smartmatic after testing his patience for days on end with their circumlocutions about the PCOS. Finally, Locsin made the point: While Smartmatic has been assuring everybody that the AES, using their PCOS, would be literally error free with a “0.005 percent error rate,” it’s been an empty claim all along with the many demonstrated flaws cropping up. It seems Locsin put his irascible temper to good use this time (even if just for show). For many citizens, it is the same feeling for Smartmatic, the Comelec and even the PPCRV for hurrying everybody to conclude that the PCOS is so great and its critics are just sore losers. Since we have mentioned PPCRV, we might as well prod its lady chief, Tita de Villa, to dispel text allegations that a relation of hers made P400 million in supplying Smartmatic with vital computer paraphernalia. While Obet Versola and others like him are doing their analyses of the data sent to them by protesting candidates, may we beseech the Comelec, PPCRV (and I should now add Lente, another one of the usual Church-linked NGOs, which on the Internet is accusing critics of “speculation”) and their hacks to refrain from claiming “success” about the AES? It is very likely that eventually the investigation of the CF cards data will reveal, as it is being suspected now, that Smartmatic’s Heider Garcia is the new Garci — albeit a high-tech e-Garci. It will take cyberforensics, “the application of computer investigation and analysis techniques to gather evidence suitable for presentation in a court of law” with Obet Versola and company to get to the bottom of the Hocus-PCOS. Anything less is allowing any thief of our elections to go scot free. The use of computer and electronic voting is championed mainly by the Big Business class in all countries, and this has led to the belief that it’s the billionaire corporations that are plotting to institutionalize computerization of all elections to control as many societies as they can. If Mussolini and Hitler originated fascism, the alliance of Big Business and political bureaucrats, through use of force (and deception) in stealing the people’s acquiescence, is the modern version of fascism. Here, even with an absence of force but with the most subtle preprogramming of voting machines, the people are to be ushered into an almost undetectable imposition of fascism without them knowing it. Thus, none would be the wiser to it — until the cyber-sleuths break the code in the CF cards and find the smoking gun. (Tune in to 1098AM, Sulo ng Pilipino, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, 6 p.m. to 7 p.m.; Global News Network, Destiny Cable Channel 21, Talk News TV, Tuesday, 8:15 p.m. to 9 p.m. on “The Philippine Political-Economy Post-GMA Regime;” also visit http://hermantiulaurel.blogspot.com) ' (Reprinted with permission from Mr. Herman Tiu-Laurel) Source: The Daily Tribune URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20100524com4.html |
|
0 comments
Post a Comment