Sunday, September 18, 2005

"Dieb-Throat"

"It's all over but the counting, and we'll take care of the counting."

--
Rep. Peter King (R-NY), Summer 2003

Pointing to a little-noticed "Cyber Security Alert" issued by the United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT), a division of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the source inside Diebold -- who "for the time being" is requesting anonymity due to a continuing sensitive relationship with the company -- is charging that Diebold's technicians, including at least one of its lead programmers, knew about the security flaw and that the company instructed them to keep quiet about it.

"Diebold threatened violators with immediate dismissal ... In 2005, after one newly hired member of Diebold's technical staff pointed out the security flaw, he was criticized and isolated."

(The source) confirmed that the matters were well known within the company, but that a "culture of fear" had been developed to assure that employees, including technicians, vendors and programmers kept those issues to themselves.


You surprised?

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