EVM-bluetooth mystery: What happened in Porbandar? How did BJP get 210 votes each in Memanwada's 3 polling booths?

By Amaresh Misra*
What happened in Porbandar?
On 9th December 2017, during the first phase of polling in Gujarat, there was a prominent, EVM-Bluetooth scare.
Arjun Modhwadia, the Congress candidate from Porbandar Vidhan Sabha in Saurashtra, told the media that, "we detected...EVMs at three polling booths at Memanwada, a Muslim-dominated area... connected to external devices through Bluetooth...when the Bluetooth of a mobile phone is turned on...a device named 'ECO 105' is shown as available..."
Modhwadia added: "The chips fitted in the EVMs appear to be programmable using Bluetooth, and this raises the possibility of tampering...the voting system should be immune to such connectivity to external devices..."
BB Swain, the Chief Electoral Officer (CFO), Gujarat, sent engineers of BEL, the company that manufactures EVMs.
According to an Indian Express report, denying tampering, the CFO explained that "Election Commission ordered an inquiry... BEL engineers concluded that the signal was emanating from blue-tooth device of mobile phone of one Manoj Singrakhiya and not from the EVM. Singarakhiya was a polling agent and his mobile handset of Intexcompany was emanating the signal with device name ECO 105..."
The media did no follow up story on the identity of Manoj Singrakhiya.
Manoj was a BJP Manoj was a BJP polling agent. His name can be seen in the poll register of the three booths of Memwada.
Also, no one tried to tie the dots...the EC confirmed that Manoj, a BJP polling agent, was carrying a mobile device inside a polling booth, which is illegal, that too with a Bluetooth, which is doubly illegal!
Secondly, as per EC, Manoj's device did show 'ECO 105' -- now, which device was this? Why was Manoj's phone showing only ECO 105?
Let's turn to the question whether EVMs can be hacked via bluetooth. The EC denies such a possibility. But experts think otherwise.
To demonstrate whether wireless equipments could hack an EVM, a team of University of Michigan set up 'dishonest display boards', or EVM prototypes.
Then, "to demonstrate the potential for wireless signals", they "implemented a signaling mechanism based on the Bluetooth protocol...wireless signaling could be performed at any time before votes are publicly counted..."
Michigan team further added that, "dishonest display can then store the chosen candidate in the PIC’s non-volatile Flash memory until counting is performed..."
Michigan guys, tested two methods for Bluetooth-based signaling, both of which "can betriggered using ordinary mobile phones...though the use of mobile phones is technically prohibited within 100 meters of polling stations [22, Section XVII.10], this rule is infrequently enforced, and a concealed phone could be discreetly operated inside the polling booth..."
In the first method, "the dishonest display performs a Bluetooth inquiry scan shortly after power on and looks for a device with a name of the form MAGICxx, where MAGIC is some secret word and xx is a pair of digits that are taken to be the number of the favored candidate...the process is extremely simple to implement...however, it carries the risk that a third party might perform his own Bluetooth inquiry scan and detect the...signaling..."
Michigan guys also "developed a more robust signaling method based on the Bluetooth RFCOMM protocol, which provides a reliable stream of communication similar to TCP...."
Their "prototype implementation consists of an application running on an Android phone...it sends a short message to the dishonest display via RFCOMM indicating the favored candidate and the proportion of votes to grant that candidate...the application verifies success by waiting for an acknowledgment from the dishonest display..."
The "application does not use any special Android features, so it could be ported to any smartphone platform that supports RFCOMM, such as the iPhone or Windows Mobile..."
The screenshot below exhibits results of Porbandar seat. Babulal Bokhiriya of BJP polled 72,430 votes. Arjun Modhwadia got 70, 575 votes. BJP won by a slender margin of 1,855 votes.

In the 2012 elections, in the three booths of Memanwada, BJP got 112, 93 an 134 votes.
In the 2017 elections, in the three booths of Memanwada, BJP got exactly 210, 210, 210 votes...
210 is divisible by 105. The figure showing in Manoj's mobile was "ECO 105'.
I rest my case. Please do not ask me what Congress is doing... If you must, then send a petition directly to 24, Akbar Road, Delhi or to Shri Ashok Gehlot.
This concerns us... we are being made a fool of; we will fight among ourselves. But we will not question to BringBackTheBallot...
# BoycottEVMs
# BringBackTheBallot
---
Source: Amaresh Misra's Facebook timeline

Comments

Green revolution "not sustainable", Bt cotton a failure in India: MS Swaminathan

Counterview Desk
In a recent paper in the journal “Current Science”, distinguished scientist PC Kesaven and his colleague MS Swaminathan, widely regarded as the father of the Green Revolution, have argued that Bt insecticidal cotton, widely regarded as the continuation of the Green Revolution, has been a failure in India and has not provided livelihood security for mainly resource-poor, small and marginal farmers.
Sharply taking on Green Revolution, the authors say, it has not been sustainable largely because of adverse environmental and social impacts, insisting on the need to move away from the simplistic output-yield paradigm that dominates much thinking. Seeking to address the concerns about local food security and sovereignty as well as on-farm and off-farm social and ecological issues associated with the Green Revolution, they argue in favour of what they call sustainable ‘Evergreen Revolution’, based on a ‘systems approach’ and ‘ecoagriculture’.
Pointing out that Evergreen Revol…

Rejoinder: Inescapable to have Central Water Commission as strong technical body in India

By BN Navalawala*
This is with reference to Counterview Blog (December 5, 2018), "Modi govt 'shelves' water reforms report, shows 'no interest' in its recommendations", below mentioned are my comments/observations thereon:
A committee was constituted under the Chairmanship of Dr. Mihir Shah, Former Member, Planning Commission, for restructuring of Central Water Commission (CWC) and Central Ground Water Board (CGWB) for optimal development of water resources in the country in the backdrop of Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM).

Some Hindu bodies in US defending BJP-RSS' divisive, violent activities: Agnivesh

Counterview Desk Last week, Washington DC saw speakers at a religious freedom roundtable, chaired by the US Ambassador for Religious Freedom, Sam Brownback, express concern over "eroding" space for religious freedom in India. Dr Mike Ghouse, executive director, of the Center for Pluralism in Washington DC, referring to the roundtable, said in an email alert that Indian-Americans have "a moral duty to prevent India from being labeled as a Country of Particular Concern by the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF)".

World Bank clarifies: Its 26th rank to India not for universal access to power but for ease of doing business

By Our Representative
In a major embarrassment to the Government of India, the World Bank has reportedly clarified that it has not ranked India 26th out of 130 countries for providing power to its population. The top international banker’s clarification comes following Union Power Minister Piyush Goyal’s claim that India has “improved to 26 position from 99” in access to electricity in just one year.

Preventing childhood deaths: India performs worse than Bangladesh, "equals" Pakistan

By Rajiv Shah
A just-released study, “The Pneumonia and Diarrhea Progress Report 2018”, prepared by the International Vaccine Access Centre (IVAC) at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, has identified India among 15 other countries which are still far off the mark in achieving the targets of the Global Action Plan for the Prevention of Pneumonia and Diarrhea (GAPPD).

India's rewritten textbooks talk of demerits of democracy, praise Hitler, underrate Mughals

Counterview Desk
A detailed, 3,800-word review of the books rewritten under directions of the BJP rulers across India since Prime Minister Narendra Modi came to power in May 2014 has suggested that one of aims of the books is to instill a sense of doubt about India’s democratic polity among the country’s young minds. Reviewed in the prestigious US journal, “The New York Review of Books”, in its latest issue (December 6, 2018) by Alex Traub, the scrutiny insists, the effort has also been to paint Indian history from the angle of “Hindu triumphalism”, even as creating “Islamophobia”.

Govt of India "tarnishing" NGO reputation, dossier leaked selectively: Amnesty

Counterview Desk
Amnesty International India has said that a deliberate attempt is being made to tarnish its reputation by leaking a dossier, supposedly made by investigating agencies, to media without giving it access to any such information. The high profile NGO’s claim follows a Times Now report about proceedings launched by investigative agencies, including Enforcement Directorate (ED) against the rights body for “violations” of rules pertaining to overseas donations.

Four children die after poor UP Dalit, Muslim families forced to flee to forest area: PVCHR

Counterview Desk
Peoples’ Vigilance Committee on Human Rights (PVCHR) has said that the forest department police’s crackdown, allegedly without any prior notice, on Dalit and Muslim households in Dakhin Tola, Churk Bazaar, Sonbhadra district, Uttar Pradesh, beating up “children and old people, women, and men in an inhuman way”, has led to “forced displacement, starvation and discrimination”. This has reportedly affected about 350 people.

Social workers, architects, students, historians, common people come together, protest "politics" of renaming Ahmedabad

By Nandini Oza*
No sooner did the BJP leaders of Gujarat announce the intention of changing the name of Ahmedabad to Karnavati just before Diwali, on November 7, 2018, many people’s mood changed from festivity to heated debate and furor across the state. For many of us, an online petition, initiated by Bandish Soparkar, on change.org protesting name change came to immediate rescue.

Vedanta is out but corporate loot continues in Odisha: Local activists tell NAPM yatra

By Our Representative
Lok Shakti Abhiyan leader Prafulla Samantara, winner of the Goldman Environmental (also known as Green Nobel) Prize in 2017, has regretted that though Sundergarh in Odisha, like other forest areas, is a fifth schedule area, where Forest Rights Act (FRA) and Panchayats (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act (PESA) is applicable, but these laws are being “outrightly violated to facilitate corporate loot.”

Counterview

Search This Blog