I'm really beginning to hate all things yellow. On top of my "hate list" now is this "yellow fever" infecting the nation. What's with that, really? A revered democracy icon dies and her son suddenly becomes a top choice for the presidency. Where's the logic in that?

Anyway, yesterday I found out about a so-called "yellow button hack" while I was in my favorite barbershop. No, I didn't hear about it from my favorite barber nor from any of the customers who were there at that time so in all fairness this wasn't exactly just another "kwentong barbero." As I said, I was waiting for my turn and since I was in no mood to watch the variety show that was playing on TV I asked for some reading materials. The receptionist handed me a copy of a men's magazine, which I thoroughly enjoyed, and yesterday's edition of The Daily Tribune. As a poll automation supporter, I was immediately sucked in by the title of Raval's column piece. I read it with much interest and some concern. I must admit I muttered a few invectives while reading the whole thing.

Here's the online version of Raval's column piece titled "Comelec, Take This Seriously" lifted in whole from www.tribune.net. The boldface highlights are all mine.

ENQUIRY
Demaree J. B. Raval
11/22/2009

The Commission on Elections (Comelec) could have a big problem in its hands, if these observations of Dan Pinto, a computer maniac — “mitidor” is how he describes himself — prove to be true:

On Oct. 28, 2009, Bev Harris, the board administrator of BlackBoxVoting.org, made this post: “Smartmatic used to be associated with Sequoia in some way, didn’t it? Does anyone know the current status? A Sequoia rep contacted me to complain that we had listed Sequoia as foreign-owned in our anti-trust complaint letter, but when I asked him who DOES own Sequoia, he never answered.”

Now, here’s a question Filipinos might want answered: Isn’t Smartmatic the other half of the joint venture that the Comelec chose to supply the automated election machines for next year’s polls? Smartmatic-TIM has recently said it would hire other logistics and transport firms to deliver the equipment and personnel needed for the May 2010 elections to the country’s various regions.

Note the emphasis on equipment and personnel. I fervently hope that among the automated election machines will not be ones from Sequoia Voting Systems, which have a yellow button at the back. With this particular equipment, all a hacker-voter has to do once inside the booth is kill some time pretending he is having difficulty in choosing his candidates. Then he would reach around the back of the machine where the yellow button is located. Now, here’s the scary part: What if the hacker is part of the personnel that’s supposed to administer the elections? What if it’s an insider? Then we’ll have no use for Garci substitutes, I guess. Anyone could be a Garci for any party he chooses!

Harris goes on to explain:

Anyone who can get at the yellow button can ruin the election. It takes no password, no computer knowledge, no equipment.

Sequoia agreed it could be done, but claimed it would be difficult to do unnoticed (they focused more on voters doing it than the idea of an insider doing it).

Additional steps should be considered, and Sequoia now has joined Diebold as a company that produces provably insecure voting systems that should be recalled. Both the WinEDS central tabulator deployed by Sequoia and the Sequoia touch-screens with the yellow buttons are insecure.

While it may be caught if extra votes are entered using the yellow button hack, which ones would be thrown out if there are too many?

Here is how the “Yellow Button Hack” is done:

1. Go to the back of the voting machine. Press and hold the yellow activate button (about 3 seconds). Release when the screen says “waiting for next voter.”

2. Press and hold the yellow button again until the screen says “change to manual activation?”

3. Touch the “Yes” button on the screen.

4. At that point there will be a message on the screen that says “Manual activate voting enabled” (this is just displayed briefly).

5. Next message will read “Waiting for the next voter” When you see that you touch the message that says “start voting” or “resume voting” located in the lower right of the screen The AVC Edge is now set up for poll worker activation mode.

Here is the sequence:

1. Once you’ve touched the start or resume the “waiting for next voter” appears.

2. Activate the ballot by pressing and releasing the yellow activate button

3. Activate the correct party for the voter and press the yellow activate button using the keypad on the display screen

4. Select the voter’s language if appropriate.

5. Vote. (Once the voter has completed voting and cast his ballot, prepare the Edge for the next voter. If the next voter is a regular voter repeat steps 1 and 4). You can now vote as many times as you want to.

Pinto had been badgering anyone who would care to listen or read, but he has been largely ignored. If his observations prove to be true, we could have mayhem in May 2010. In short, failure of elections. And who else would benefit from this? Your guess is as good as saying what is the obverse side of the P200 bill.

I could debunk this "yellow button hack" with one simple fact, which Raval and this Pinto guy obviously don't know about or deliberately omitted, but where's the fun in that? Besides I'm in the mood for some sleuthing. So here goes.

First off, I'd like to point out that Raval's column piece is slightly confusing. It wasn't made clear where Pinto's quote ends and where Raval's own take on the matter begins. This is not exactly a minor issue since it impacts the context of the post. To get a better grasp of the column's context I went online and did some research and found these:

1. The original comment of Bev Harris, which basically served as Pinto's basis for his question about the Smartmatic-Sequoia connection. Here's the link.
2. A very old report about a "yellow button" on Sequoia Voting Systems' touch-screen machines. I don't know if this is where Pinto got this whole idea about a "yellow button hack" but it sure looks like it. Here's the link.
3. Bev Harris' intriguing explanation on how the hack works. Here's the link.
4. A Wikipedia entry that sheds light on Smartmatic's connection to Sequoia. Here's the link.

At the very least, Raval's column piece is a hodgepodge of information that includes some from as far back as 2006. In my opinion, this old information may not even be relevant anymore.

So, is this "yellow button hack" a real threat to the integrity of the Automated Elections in 2010? Is it even real at all? The simple answer to both questions is a big NO. This "yellow button hack" is a hoax plain and simple because there is no yellow button in any of the PCOS machines from Smartmatic. Don't believe me? Then take a look at the pretty pictures in this link. I hope Pinto and Raval see this.