Java Error

Some evidence of lack of impartiality on the part of COMELEC:

COMELEC’S GUIA: DOMINANT MINORITY PART SHOULD COME FROM OPPOSITION

By: Darryl John Esguerra - Reporter / @DJEsguerraINQ

INQUIRER.net / 06:40 PM May 10, 2019

MANILA, Philippines — The dominant minority party in the May 13 elections should come from the “opposition.”

This was the gist of Commission on Elections (Comelec) Commissioner Luie Tito Guia’s position paper on the poll body’s selection of dominant majority and minority parties in the midterm elections.

On May 8, a Comelec en banc resolution gave Nacionalista Party (NP) the dominant minority party status while President Rodrigo Duterte’s PDP-Laban was named dominant majority party.

This means that PDP-Laban and NP are entitled to the following: the fifth and sixth copies of election returns (ERs), respectively, from the vote counting machines; electronically-transmitted precinct results; the seventh and eighth copies of the Certificates of Canvass (COCs), respectively; and official watchers in every polling place and canvassing center.

But the Villar-led NP is a known ally of Duterte.

While Guia said he has “no objection” on the criteria and formula used in ranking parties on their dominance, he asserted “the Dominant Minority Party should logically come from the minority,” which is a group “that stand opposite the majority.”

He cited Section 274 of the Omnibus Election Code, which states that “the dominant opposition party shall be that political party, group or organization or coalition of major national or regional political parties opposed to the majority party which has the capability to wage bona fide nationwide campaign as shown by the extent of its organization.”

“Obviously, the second most dominant party would not necessarily belong to the minority,” Guia pointed out.

The purpose of determining which are the “dominant majority party” and “dominant minority party” is to ensure fairness in treating contending or opposing political groups, the poll body official said.

This purpose, however, will not be served if the Dominant Minority Party also comes from the majority, he added.

Guia then suggested that the Comelec should first determine which parties belong to the majority and to the minority.

“Thereafter, the most dominant party in each of the two categories will be selected,” he said.

“With the current polarized political climate, it is not hard to divide which group belongs to the majority or minority,” Guia added. (Editor: Katherine G. Adraneda)

Read more: https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1116635/comelecs-guia-dominant-minority-party-should-come-from-opposition#ixzz5oYJgdENv

JAVA ERROR

NATIONAL CITIZENS’ MOVEMENT FOR FREE ELECTIONS (NAMFREL)

Room 601, DMG Center, Domingo M. Guevara St.,

Barangay Mauway, Mandaluyong City 1550

Philippines

PRESS STATEMENT

MAY 16, 2019, 12:00H

COMELEC should disclose full details of the problems encountered with the automated election system used in the 2019 Midterm Elections

As we speak, NAMFREL volunteers in far flung areas are still waiting for replacement vote counting machines or SD cards so that the vote of the people in those areas can be truthfully counted.

We have all been witnesses to the many problems that attended the conduct of the midterm elections on May 13, 2019. While the count of the VCMs that broke down or malfunctioned, corrupted SD cards and the problematic Voter Registration and Verification Machines in pilot areas continue to tick, we have yet to determine the full impact of those problems on the voters, especially in remote areas of the country. Did those problems result to disenfranchisement of voters? This, we have yet to determine.

What everyone saw are VCMs in voting precincts, VRVMs in selected voting precincts, and canvassing servers at the city or municipal canvassing centers. A limited number of citizens saw and witnessed the operations at the Pope Pius Center that hosted the Transparency Server. Hidden behind the cloak of secrecy are the COMELEC’s Central Server and its backup as well as what is referred to as the “transmission router” which in reality is a network of computers and devices through which all election results transmissions were routed.

The transparency server data outage on the night of Election Day was worrisome for stakeholders, especially among candidates, causing them to wonder the possibility of data manipulation. The data outage cast doubt on the integrity and credibility of election results.

Following this fiasco are issues raised – the secrecy of the location of COMELEC’s Central Server and, again, the “meet-me-room” operations.

It is now time for COMELEC to come forward and lay down the cards for full transparency:

- We call on the COMELEC to fully explain the Java error which caused the delivery of election returns to various recipients to stall;

- We reiterate our request for access to the logs of all machines used in the automated election system, without restrictions and consistent with Open Data Principles;

- We call on COMELEC to reveal the location of its Central Server and its backup and who are managing their operations;

-  We call on COMELEC to fully disclose and explain the “transmission router” or the “meet-me-room” network set up, how it operates, and who are behind its operations;

Lift the veil of secrecy and let the people know. ###

LIBERAL PARTY ASKS COMELEC FOR INDEPENDENT PROBE ON POLL GLITCHES

By CNN Philippines Staff

Updated May 17, 2019 4:31:54 PM

Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, May 17) — The Liberal Party (LP) has asked the Commission on Elections (COMELEC) to look into the glitches during the midterm elections.

In a manifestation and motion filed Thursday, LP formally asked COMELEC to create an independent body which would investigate the alleged poll irregularities, particularly the seven-hour data outage of the transparency servers.

Monday’s election was marred by technical glitches including defective vote-counting machines (VCM), malfunctioning secure digital (SD) cards, and a delay in the transmission of votes. These prompted some groups to speak up on election officials’ alleged “mishandling” of the poll tasks.

The political party, through the document released Friday, also asked the poll body to identify the areas where the machines and SD cards were deployed.

It also sought for the release of transparency servers’ audit and system logs, as well as the full technical report of the technical glitches.

Link: http://www.cnnphilippines.com/news/2019/5/17/Liberal-Party-Comelec-probe-elections-2019.html

A STEAMY ‘MEET-ME-ROOM’

BusinessWorld

May 19, 2019 | 11:46 pm              

Amelia H. C. Ylagan

Corporate Watch

It may summon lurid thoughts of a clandestine tryst at some secluded nest, where forbidden lovers unleash steamy passion. It must be very secret — imagine if the wronged wife (or husband) discovered and witnessed the unfaithfulness.

…“meet-me-room” was ceremoniously ushered into the lingua franca of the Filipino after the mid-term elections just last week. … “A meet-me-room (MMR) is the space in a colocation data center where carriers and clients interconnect or cross-connect with one another” (digitalrealty.com Aug 1, 2014). The National Citizen’s Movement for Free Elections (NAMFREL) asked the Commission on Elections (Comelec) to, among others, fully disclose and explain the transmission router or the “meet-me-room” network set up, how it operates, and who are behind its operations (GMA News May 18, 2019).

The seven-hour gap between the first two transmissions of the poll results to the transparency server made the election “losers” and the public anxious. Sen. Francis Pangilinan, president of the opposition Liberal Party, said the Comelec should come up with a clear explanation for what had happened to the transparency server. “The public’s concerns and doubts about the true results of the election just grew because of your silence. Are you (the Comelec) cooking up something that the public must not know?” Pangilinan asked (Philippine Daily Inquirer May 15, 2019).

How difficult it is to believe that not one of the opposition Liberal Party’s “Otso Diretso” candidates were in the “magic 12” (winning candidates) for Senator in the preliminary canvass, while ranks 1- 12 were all Duterte political allies or with the administration-friendly majority blocs at the Senate and House of Representatives. 12 – 0? “The midterm elections show that the Filipino electorate wants a Senate supportive of the President’s agenda,” Presidential spokesman Salvador Panelo said (ABS-CBN News May 14, 2019).

…“On top of the suspicious 7-hour delay, the number of election returns processed was already 92.89% as of 5:20 a.m. Tuesday, but suddenly went down to 49.76% around 6:21 a.m. same morning. Election Commissioner Marlon Casquejo said this was merely a “java app error” that affected all media networks and organizations getting data from the transparency server. “It was corrected again by just turning it off and on, or reset.” He explained away the 7-hour delay as “a bottleneck” in the transparency server and the data being sent to media networks, overwhelmed by the deluge of transmitted results (inquirer.net May 15, 2019).

Who can do things with the servers? In “Future Perfect”, Tony Velasquez’ technology talk show, he interviewed Dr. Nelson Celis, spokesperson of Automated Election System Watch (AES Watch) and Mr. Nice Quilantang of Kaspersky Lab on glitches in the May 13 fully automated midterm elections (ABS-CBN May 15 2019). Celis said the “meet-me-room” was an unauthorized intervention that transgressed the law (Omnibus Election Code / Republic Act No. 9369, which amended the Automated Election Law). These MMRs host undeclared servers and intercept data from the vote counting machines to the Commission on Election servers, he said. The VCMs should be directly sending election returns direct to the municipal board of canvassers. He added that as early as March, the Senate President in two privilege speeches identified irregularities, one of which is the queuing server, and the early transmissions” (Ibid.).

In the same TV discussion, Quilantang pointed out that the File Transport Photo (FTP) system is not good for large volume data transfer…and is vulnerable — there is urgent need to secure (encryption) data being moved (Ibid.). In other words, there has to be accountability and responsibility for such data being moved (or changed?) and a record (log) of what was done. Celis seemed particularly agitated that the transmission logs were immediately deleted (though there is nothing in the law that prohibits this), when in regular IT practice, the audit logs are kept for 3-5 years. Imagine if banks and their branches junked these very precious transaction records! (Ibid.).

In a separate personal interview with a “retired” AES advocate (an IT expert), he reinforced the concerns of Celis and Quilantang, particularly on the audit trail of movements and changes if any, between and among servers, electronically collocated in that “meet-me-room.” The most important thing is the “private digital key,” he said, which is unique to each election official/inspector/anyone who has access, that positively identifies where the transmission is coming from, and ensures that such transmission is not being altered. There is no such private digital key to keep the Comelec honest, as of now. But the double-trouble is that the present system allows and accepts transmissions from anonymous machines which the servers automatically recognize. There is loose control among the central server, the various unrestricted servers, and the “Transparency server.”

So, what transparency are we talking about? From the start, concerned citizens knowledgeable with IT have been harping on the controls and accountabilities in electronic voting, such that an open row erupted between these election watchdogs and the Comelec Commissioner then, Sixto Brillantes Jr. The AES Watch (Dr. Celis et al.) asked the Joint Congressional Oversight Committee on AES to secure all PCOS machines, CCS software, ballot boxes, and other election paraphernalia needed for auditing the (2013) mid-term election system and subjecting it to forensics scrutiny. “Why were the major safeguards disregarded and removed – independent source code review, installation of the industry prescribed digital signatures, voter verification, and the WORM (write-once-read many) CF cards up to the unconscionable expenses on the unbundled election paraphernalia, warehousing, and the PCOS purchase itself?” the AES Watch asked (inquirer.net May 25, 2013).

Namfrel National Chairman Augusto “Gus” Lagman, a former Comelec commissioner and a political analyst, said many countries have discarded automated vote-counting because the process is not transparent and is not observable by the voters. He said the integrity of the midterm elections would not have been doubted had the Comelec not automated the counting of votes at the precincts (manilatimes.net May 19, 2019). Lagman suggested that automation could be employed while the votes are being counted manually, or, at least, immediately after. That way, the transmission of the results from precincts to canvassing points can be done electronically and the three levels of canvassing could be fully automated (Ibid.).

And there should be no more those mysterious, steamy “meet-me-rooms” where a lot of hanky-panky goes on.

Amelia H. C. Ylagan is a Doctor of Business Administration from the University of the Philippines.

ahcylagan@yahoo.com

Link: https://www.bworldonline.com/a-steamy-meet-me-room/?fbclid=IwAR3NdSZYh-toJrMVTSHQuizsCAT3PMqrSg6O2awWMIGHIQk1L-mPoKj3ia8

FROM DR. PABLO MANALASTAS, ADMU:

Java Error in Transparency Server

This explanation of “Java error” causing a reduction in tally percentage is made so that normal folks do not question Comelec, and to calm down people. But the explanation of a generic Java error is just not acceptable to the community of source code reviewers and the community of Filipino computer programmers, who have become acquainted with the EMS, VCM, CCS, and the Transmission Router (Queue Server) code. It is true that the Transparency Server (CCS) program is written in Enterprise Java, but to say “Java error” is to say that the CCS program did not work. Not providing details of the error, is the same as saying that “we do not know what happened.”

What is the actual error, Comelec? What are you trying to hide?

We know that when the VCM transmits its election results to the municipal CCS, the Comelec Central CCS, and to the Transparency Server CCS, it actually transmits to only one destination: the Transmission Router (Queue Server), which is a store-and-forward server, to ensure that if any of the three destinations is not able to receive the election results, the Transmission Router will temporarily store it until the destination is ready to receive. So did this Java error happen only in the Transparency Server, or also in the Comelec Central Server? We need to be enlightened. Comelec, please enlighten us.

FROM OTSO DERETSO SUPPORT GROUP:

My theory is that the tampering happened at the backend. Not in the precincts. First, they allowed the counting in the LGU level and have the local officials proclaimed. Hence, the .04% transmission from friendly baluartes to set the initial trend and condition public's mind. Second, they stop transmission to transparency server yet continue to receive the returns in the main server until they know the final results. Hence, the 8 hour delay. Once they get the results, they tamper only the senatorial results. This is very easy because it is simply like manipulating numbers, adding and subtracting from one candidate to another. Digital dagdag bawas. Third, they transmit the results to the transparency server. Remember, they have full control of the main servers and the access to transparency server too. Fourth, they clean their tracks by having SD cards rendered defective so there is no way of auditing the results. Just my theory.

***

Java error - Comelec lackey spilled coffee while doctoring the Senate election results

***

               

The facts are:

+ Absence of an independent, non-partisan audit

+ Absence of an adequate audit on the part of the political opposition as a necessary check and balance

+ Ready falsification of the election results through technological manipulation

+ An administration that has a blatant record of abusing power

Put all the above together and the conclusion is:

- The strong motivation to falsify the election results exists

- The opportunity exists

- The perpetrator shows a long record of breaking the rules

Therefore, the strong probability is that the election is fraudulent.

In the absence of any realistic audit, the election is fraudulent - the logical conclusion. It is an empirical and logical claim. Disprove it if you disagree.

***

The only way you can guarantee a manipulation-free result is a systems and technical audit by an independent, non-partisan, expert group. Under the current political climate, you cannot trust COMELEC. This audit should be done before and after the elections, ensuring that there are electronic footprints that the auditors can monitor and verify. Needless to say, this kind of effective audit does not exist. Indeed, COMELEC shows itself to be biased, uncooperative, and obdurate.

As someone who tracks the news from multiple reputable news sources daily and also with a formal IT background, my logical conclusion is that the election results lack credibility.