Diebold and such, ATM's & Banks

[rumpel]

News is slow today for ERD on the net -

but I found that technology is not quite up to par with ATM's and banks either:
I have tried to find, also on Japanese sites, who provides software and hardware for these banks in Japan, but of course could not. But that just does not matter, whether it's Diebold, Hitachi or any other company.

On May 9, Citibank Japan had major problems and on May 13 Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi followed a similar fate. Of course, computers handle massive data at once - so errors are compounded.

Who do we trust with something as important as elections?

Glitch Causes Woes at World's Biggest Bank
By Associated Press
Published May 13, 2006, 2:22 AM CDT

TOKYO -- A computer system glitch caused ATM troubles at the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ affecting transactions early Saturday.

The trouble began at around 1:17 a.m. Saturday rejecting online and ATM transactions, but the glitch has been fixed by around 9 a.m., the world's largest bank said in a statement.

It said that a hard-disk trouble of the company's host computer may have caused the problem, but the company is still investigating.

Kyodo News agency said that the trouble affected some 21,000 ATMs -- 2,000 at bank branches and 19,000 installed at convenience stores -- and the bank received about 3,600 reports in which users said they were unable to withdraw cash.

The bank debuted in January as the world's biggest bank by assets following the merger between Mitsubishi Tokyo Financial Group Inc. and UFJ Holdings Inc.

and

Citibank Glitch Misplaces Transactions


(AP) - TOKYO-A computer glitch at Japanese branches of Citibank caused 274,800 misplaced bank transactions over the past week and Citibank is working to fix the errors, the company said.

The problem affected transactions made between May 2 and May 8. In some cases, the transactions were double-booked against accounts, while in others the transactions were processed but not reflected in statements, Citibank said Tuesday in a statement.

"Currently, Citibank is working diligently to recover the effects of this incident in a timely manner," said the company, a division of Citigroup Inc., the world's largest bank. "The bank is taking necessary measures to prevent future occurrence."

The glitch affected yen savings accounts, U.S. dollar savings accounts, checking accounts, international loan cards and money advances. Citibank said it was still investigating the cause of the incident.

2006-05-09T23:51:01Z

[napi21]

1. Sure, errors do happen, but you really can't compare ATM's and voting

machines. Computer errors, no matter what the business are able to be researched and corrected BECAUSE there's always a source document.

With voting, BECAUSE of the secret ballot, there's NOTHING! No way to go somewhere else to verify anything. The ONLY answer I can see with the voting machines is the one machine technology I read about Sequoia. They have an addon option where the voter casts a ballot and a printed copy appears under a glass, and inside of a sealed compartment where the voter can see it and be assured that YES that is how they wanted to vote. The printed ballot then drops down into a sealed bin. The votes can still be tabulated via the computer, but IF there is a question, you have a source document to go back a hand count.

A system like that could be randomly audited for accuracy, and of course the paper ballots could be recounted in the even of a challenge.

[stellanoir]

2. It's so frigging absurd.

They were initially rationalizing that they couldn't generate a paper trail because of potential paper jams. HOW OFTEN HAS ANYONE SEEN A PAPER JAM AT AN ATM??? (sorry for yellin') It's just such total bull.

Sometime over the last couple years I went to my drive through at my bank. I was waiting for my transaction to be complete and I noticed my vision had become transfixed upon the DIEBOLD logo. I had a devious urge to graffitize it with the words "steals elections."

To quote the immortal words of Bart Simpson, "I didn't do it."

Upon later reflection I thought if one was to write "steals elections" on a piece of masking tape and apply it to the DIEBOLD logo would they be liable for desecration of property when it wouldn't qualify in any way shape or form as permanant damage???

Understand anyone reading this must be mindful that at drive through banking establishments one is under constant surveillance.

I posted back then about this silly notion of non violent civil disobedience. But John Q public is totally ignorant about how compromised our last several elections have been. So it would be one simple way of stealthfully get the reality out there during this reprehensible "American Blackout" which is making my 13th generational American blood boil and has done so for 5 & 1/2 years.

[rumpel]

3. Several years back, I made a deposit at an ATM, when

I later found out it was never credited, even though I had a print out receipt from the machine, date time, account # and all.
I went to the teller when I found out about it and requested they check what happened. As she returned, she accused me of having made a deposit into the checking account and not savings. I showed her the ATM receipt again, and she still insisted that I made an entry error at the machine.

Sounds very much like the "voter fraud" vs. "election fraud" issue doesn't it.

I closed all accounts on the spot and went to another bank. However, as things go these days - banks merge, banks eat banks - it probably won't make any difference.

In short it does not matter whether I have a print out or not - what happens thereafter needs to be transparent and verifiable and the people on the other side can not have a bias.
If the deposit was a large amount, I would have lost a lot of interest for the days it was not credited - of course admitting an error on their end would be to their disadvantage

Technically I have that right in elections to be able to verify- but, likewise, people like Blackwell, who have an agenda prevent voters from such verfication- and certainly proprietary software used denies me that right, too.

It is getting far to complicated - when I think further, I start thinking: a voter should be able then, to access the data him/herself later and check whether his ballot, is in fact, in the total tally, before the State certifies the outcome (online banking concept). But this then will open another whole bunch of security issues. If NSA can splice and duplicate -who is to assure me no one will tamper, from inside or even outside of the country?

It looks to me it will end up being the never ending cat and mouse game we are playing with identity theft, phishing, viruses, adware, tracking and such these days.

Don't get me wrong, I love all these new technologies and inventions -

I just feel, it is a sad footnote of our modern society to have produced so many morally and ethically bankrupt beings, and I believe it is because we have taken the "human" out of the process. No accountability, simply blame it on a computer glitch.