Diebold got sued

Electronic Voting Firm Sued Over Threats

AP -Tue Nov 4, 8:13 PM ET

SAN JOSE, Calif. - Free speech advocates sued a manufacturer of electronic voting machines Tuesday, demanding it stop sending legal threats to groups that publish company documents leaked by a hacker.

Voting activists who have received the cease-and-desist orders, including students from at least 20 universities, claim the documents raise serious security concerns about Diebold Inc., which has more than 50,000 touchscreen voting terminals nationwide.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation and Stanford University's Cyberlaw Clinic filed for a temporary restraining order in federal court.

Diebold executives could not be reached for comment Tuesday. But spokesman Mike Jacobsen said in late October that the internal documents aren't necessarily authentic.

A hacker broke into Diebold's servers in March using an employee's ID, and copied thousands of company announcements and internal e-mails. Jacobsen said the documents might have been altered afterward.

The hacker e-mailed the data to voting activists, some of whom published stories on their Web logs. A freelance journalist at Wired News also received data and wrote about it in an online story.

All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective companies.

printed from Diebold got sued on 2004-03-23 20:07:35