Review of The Mezonic Agenda: Hacking the Presidency by Dr. Herbert H. Thompson and Spyros Nomikos
This book has an interesting premise. It is a novel, an informational book on computers and voting, and a CD-ROM game. As such, I will review each of these elements of the book separately.
In the novel, Chad Davis, the hero, is an expert in reverse engineering, which is the skill that hackers use to get into computer systems and computer programs and change them. He has been investigating a particular program that will be used for electronic voting and prior to the start of the book, he has found no bugs in the program that would allow the votes or the results to be tampered with. However, at a conference six days before his testimony on this software program, he is presented with a CD from another hacker and told something is seriously wrong with the program. Then, the bodies begin to accumulate: an accountant in China and the hacker who warns Davis. Now Davis is involved in a mystery, which threatens his own life, the lives of his family and the integrity of the voting system in the United States.
The overall tension of the story is fine and the underlying premise of voter manipulation is intriguing. However, stylistically and logically, I have a few problems with the story that kept me from enjoying it as much as I could.
The first problem that I have with the story is that it is told in third person with total omniscience into the male characters’ minds. I found it interesting that the only characters that the authors did not go into the minds and thoughts for were Davis’ ex-wife and his daughter ♦ the only two females in the story. Maybe the male authors thought that that was beyond them. They should have thought so about the male characters as well. While third person total omniscient allows for ease of plot manipulation and flow, it has a huge drawback when not done properly. When done properly, each person’s mind is distinct and separate. As soon as the reader begins to read a passage that reader should be able to tell by language, structure and overall voice whose mind they are viewing. It should be as distinctive as the way each character speaks out loud. This is not easy to do and requires a great deal of skill. To avoid this problem most writers only go into the minds/thoughts of one main character and use other devices to convey the information that they might want to convey by the thoughts of the other characters. This is difficult and takes time. However, it makes the story tighter, gives the characters their own uniqueness and clarity, and increases the tension in the story.
While the mind and thoughts of Davis are unique, the thoughts reflected by the other male characters are not. The thoughts of Eric Tang, the accountant in China; his boss, Steve Watts; Danko Vulcic, the hired “fixer” of problems; Hans Sheridan, an FBI agent; Senator Shift, a candidate for the presidential nomination of his party; and, Chris Payne, the owner of the company that produces the software that is planned to be used for the electronic voting, are all the same. The voice and manner of thinking is the same. So much so that it became a distraction. The thoughts were used to advance the plot or explain the characters’ rationale but did not allow the characters to be individuals. Given that the characters are from different countries, with different educational and ethnic backgrounds, I cannot believe that they would all think like “your average American.” This device reflected a certain laziness on the part of the authors. They needed to advance the plot and instead of fully developing their characters or using other devices, they took the easy way out.
Then, there are a few logical inconsistencies in the way the characters act that advance the plot but are a bit beyond my ability to suspend disbelief. One such event concerns the FBI friend of Davis, Hans Sheridan. After finding out who Danko is and that Davis’ home is bugged by devices that are “better than ours,” (page 142) he goes to Davis’ home and conducts an entire review of the material that Davis’ has encountered from the CD. He does not have the neighborhood searched for unusual vehicles, he does not get himself and Davis to a safer or more secure area, all he does is turn the music up. Then, when leaving Davis’ home (which is in a quiet residential area of Seattle) on a Sunday morning with little traffic, he does not notice that a van is following him. Then, when under attack, he continues to allow his attacker to come at him from the rear even though he is on a section of road that has no other traffic. These mistakes I would expect from an amateur detective, not a seasoned professional FBI investigator.
A second inconsistency occurs at the end of the story. After Davis has testified and his ex-wife and daughter are “released” from the custody of Payne’s “fixers,” they are given three tickets on a plane back to Seattle. And he uses them! Given what I knew about Payne, Danko and the rest ♦ I would have taken a train home if they gave me airline tickets to anyplace! I could not believe it.
A third inconsistency was the incompleteness of the character of Senator Shift. He appears only marginally in the book. However, in one section, it is hinted that he and his wife have something “dark” in their past that they would not like to have explored. What this is or was is never explained, and Senator Shift does not appear in the book again. This whole incident either needed to be expanded or deleted.
Another inconsistency centers on the characteristics of Davis and Payne. For Davis’ character it is the belief that Payne and company would not know that he was at the bottom of the “little problem” with the votes in the Washington primary. This is absurd. Let’s see: they know he’s the one with the CD from the hacker who discovered the problem, they know he figured out what the hacker knew; they know his hacking skills are high; and he took 10 minutes to vote when it should have been a minute or less. And he thinks that it’s not traceable? This goes against his basic concept of computing that given the right expertise nothing is untraceable, nothing is unhackable, and nothing is totally secure.
I’m sorry but, given Payne’s personality, I see an epilogue beyond the final epilogue that the authors used. I see Payne in his hotel room, looking at the results from CNN and looking a device in his hands and pressing a button and Davis’ plane exploding in midair. At the very least, Danko is going to be on Davis’ tail when the plane lands. No, Payne would know who the “enemy” was and who did it. He may not know how it was done but that would not matter to a man with the personality flaws that Payne has. The fact that it was done would be justification for whatever actions he took later. And, whether he could prove it or not would not matter to Payne. He would attack to even the score. Again, the authors are not consistent with the way the characters were developed or with the story line itself.
Another thing that bothered me was the unnecessary death of Eric Tang, the accountant for the Mezonic company. He was worried about the fact that his company, based in China, was selling their chips at a loss. His boss indicated that there was no way out of the dilemma that Tang’s worry presented. Yes, there was. All Steve Watts needed to do was to tell Eric, “Look. This company is a wholly owned subsidiary of a large computer programming company and that company is using our losses as a tax write off. We are not expected to make a profit. We are in the business of selling the most chips for the least amount of money that looks reasonable. As long as it does, we are legally in the clear and our mother company gets to take the tax write off in the States. So, don’t worry about your job. It will be secure.” It is obvious that Tang was introduced for the sole purpose of introducing Danko and to indicate how effective he was in “fixing” situations and to indicate that there was something shady happening at Mezonic.
Finally, the names used for characters and programs within the story are a bit too cutesy-pie for my taste. I cannot believe that it is coincidence that the name for the major document form the company that wants to provide the e-voting services is The Advice Software Proposal, which provides the acronym ASP. An asp is not only a snake but it is allegedly the snake that bit and killed Cleopatra, the queen of the Nile (denial). Is it happenstance that the hero’s first name is Chad ♦ the very thing that caused the delay and problems with the election results in Florida in the year 2000? Was it by chance that the Senator who is running in the primary has the name of Shift, which is one letter away from shifty? I found it strange that one of the representatives on the panel to vote on the e-voting program was named Beatrice Harris (or B. Harris) and one of the most vocal reporters on electronic voting sited by the authors is named Bev Harris. Is it mere chance that the villain of the story has the name of Payne ♦ as in “pain?” In view of these five instances, I am sure that others also exist or may exist. The problem with using these pun-names is that the reader begins to look for the double entendres and that takes the reader away from the story line.
So, what is the authors’ purpose of this parable? One of the purposes may be to persuade the reader to read the rest of the book and learn about the “facts” behind the story. The authors present two forms of “attack” from the Mezonic company on the electoral process. The first is the manipulation of the voting results and the second is the subliminal messages that the chips that the Mezonic company produces create on the computers. To cover these two methods of attack on the voting process, the authors have added five appendices to the book. These appendices cover the history of voting, reverse engineering, cryptography, buffer overflows, and stegonography.
I am not a computer expert nor am I familiar with the intricacies of computer programming, software engineering, or attacking a program. The only programs that I ever copied were those that I purchased so that I could use the copy instead of the purchased program, keeping the purchased program in good condition should the disk for the copy get destroyed. This was within the legal restrictions of the copyright law at the time. It happened mostly with programs on 5.25” disks and sometimes with programs on 3.5” disks. Since the advent of CD-ROMS, I have found I have not had to do this. So, my experience with “computer piracy” and “reverse engineering” is also at a very minimal level. Therefore, I cannot speak to the accuracy of the computer sections of the appendices. However, I did find some inaccuracies, missing information, and inadequate explanations in these appendices, which I can address.
The first case of missing information concerns the history of voting. One of the primary abuses of the paper ballot system was not mentioned. This abuse was the case of the “forced vote.” In this case, the person voting would be told how to vote. He would be given a ballot that was already marked with the designated “winner.” The voter would then go into the booth, switch the marked ballot for the unmarked ballot he was given prior to entering the booth and then vote with the marked ballot given to him outside. He would then have to present the unmarked ballot to the person who gave him the marked ballot to show that he voted correctly. This unmarked ballot would be marked and used for the next voter. This procedure was the method with which employers, union leaders, and political bosses maintained control of their “people.” If the voter did not give back an unmarked ballot, he would loose his job, home, or suffer other consequences. It was primarily because of this type of abuse that the voting machine came into play.
Another instance of missing information is the reference to Diebold on page 261 without any indication that it would be further explained in the text. By the time the reader does get to the Diebold information on page 264 that information is presented in a manner that can make the reader feel as if elements were missing. This section could have used a rewrite with an introduction that highlighted the problem areas with Diebold, ESS, and the Urosevich brothers. The authors presented such introductory paragraphs in other areas of the appendices; they should have done so here.
An area of inadequate explanation is shown on page 288. Here the authors make a reference to MIT’s model railroad club in the 1960s being one of the foundation groups for hackers. The authors give no other explanation for this statement. It is made in passing and then overlooked. If it was really important, the authors should have explained how a group who made model railroads became connected with hacking into computers. If it was not important, the authors should have deleted the information.
The authors delve into the area of legal use of “reverse engineering” and the copyright laws. This explanation is fairly accurate and complete. However, I would have liked to see them explain it not only from a legal standpoint but also from a moral one. That is, it may be legal for a company to go in and copy source code from a program so that they can use it in their program and sell their program but is that morally correct to use such a short cut and to use someone else’s effort without giving that person credit or payment for that work that they produced? I know that it can be done, but should it be done? If so, why? This question was not answered. The authors assumed that because it was technically legal because of one court case (Sega vs. Accolade) and because it was commonly done, it was all right. I would like a better explanation than that. If I had worked years to develop source code only to have someone else go in and take it to use as a basis of his or her game without my permission or compensation, I know I would be upset. I was waiting for an explanation as to why the authors would not be upset if it happened to them. They offered no such explanation. This inadequate explanation bothered me.
In the area of cryptography, the authors use as an example Egyptian hieroglyphics. These were not encrypted messages. By the author’s own definition an encrypted message is one designed to hide secrets. The Egyptian hieroglyphics were not designed to hide information. They were designed to give a lot of information on the person buried in the tomb or honored by the monument. The fact that many people for years could not read the information did not mean it was created as a secret. The authors use of this information as a form of encryption would be the same as saying Gone With the Wind is an encrypted document because people in this world cannot read it or it would need translation for them to read it. A document needing translation is not the same as a document, which was created to hide secret information.
On page 325, the authors state that “the Allies’ ability to encrypt Enigma messages shortened the war by as much as two years.” Actually, it was the Allies’ ability to decrypt the messages and the fact that they had an Enigma machine (which they found on a German U-Boat) that shortened the war. The length of time that the war was shortened has been a matter of discussion by historians and is not a given fact. So, the authors should have phrased it with a “may have” instead of the definite verb that they used.
On page 327, the authors refer to Edgar Allan Poe’s work The Gold-Bug as a poem. It is not a poem. It is usually described as a long short story or a novella (short novel). The authors also misspell the work itself. Within the fiction work, on page 111, the authors refer to The Gold-Bug as an essay. It is not that either. It was a mystery story in which the narrator had to decode a secret message to find a buried treasure. It was no more of an essay on cryptography than was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s work The Dancing Men, which the authors alluded to on page 111 (but did not cite), in which Sherlock Holmes tells Dr. Watson about the use of frequency to decrypt a message.
After reading the appendix on buffer and heap overflows, the impression was left that little if nothing could be done to stop these events. Is that so? If so, what application that accepts information is secure? If that impression is not so, how can the problems created by buffer and heap overflows be stopped? The authors did not explain this. Once again, the authors gave inadequate information.
In the appendix on Steganography, the authors allude to The DaVinci Code but do not cite it specifically. They state that codes used in the Torah are examples of steganography (or stego). This does not really fit with the first two examples of stego that they give. The only type of stego that it may fit with is Generation Steganography. However, the indication is that a message created by Generation Steganography is “completely irrelevant.” (page 365) This indicates that the message of the code would have no real meaning but would be ignored otherwise. The case with the Torah and the possible code within it is that the Torah is not otherwise ignored. To me, the code ♦ if it exists ♦ is more like a cryptogram using a book source. This type of cryptographic message uses words within a book and refers to that book as part of the cryptographic message. Daphne Du Maurier’s book Rebecca was used during World War II as part of such a code sequence. If there is a distinction, the authors did not explain it or explain how The DaVinci Code was an example of steganography instead of cryptography. This is another case where the authors’ statements are either missing or inadequate.
Another area of confusion within this appendix is the implication that just by the size of the file, someone might be able to tell that the file has been adjusted by either the insertion or the substitution method of stego. The authors stated that this was especially so for the insertion method of stego. However, this would require that the viewer of the document know the size of the original document. If three documents exist on a computer such as described on page 362, the viewer of the document might realize that something was different about a particular document. But if the viewer saw only the document that was the 76 KB size, how would the viewer know that that document had been altered? This was not really explained. And if the document when retrieved looked like a normal picture, where is the indication that another document has been inserted onto or substituted into the main document?
As indicated before, the authors alleged two assaults onto the voting public’s ability to choose freely its elected leader: the adjustment to the votes through the manipulation of the e-voting program and the use of subliminal messages on the computer. The authors dealt with the first manner of assault through the five appendices to the fictional text. However, the only mention of the second type of assault was a brief line in the section on stego. (pages 365-366) The authors act as though subliminal messages are effective and work. This is not so. At best subliminal messages work only if the person receiving the message believes that it will work. An article on the effectiveness and scientific validity of subliminal messages was written by Timothy E. Moore and published in Skeptical Inquirer in November/December 1996. It was entitled Scientific Concensus and Expert Testimony: Lessons from the Judas Priest Trial. It can be found at: http://www.csicop.org/si/9611/judas_priest.html. It stated that the evidence presented in this case and by “three or four studies…none of which demonstrated anything remotely close to subliminal commands influencing motives.”
Another site (http://www.jerrymcmullin.com/papers/08.html) by Jerry McMullin indicated that for subliminal persuasion “to be effective the user must have sufficient faith in a subliminal’s effectiveness to listen to it regularly for several weeks.” This places subliminal persuasion in the realm of placebo medications. They work because the user knows they are there and believes that they should work. It is questionable at best whether or not they would work if the users did not know that the messages were being delivered, as is the case within the fictional work. For authors who work within the scientific world to use something that has no scientific evidence behind it and which may fall into the area of “junk science” puts the rest of their work at risk.
Do they really believe that subliminal messages would work? Why when the scientific studies and double blind testing say that it does not? The authors do not explain their position on this and do not really explain subliminal persuasion techniques in a manner that might make their allegations stronger or effective.
Finally, with the entire text of the book, both the fiction and the nonfiction sections, every computer platform in common use today were mentioned ♦ except one. The Mac platform was not mentioned. The authors did not indicate whether or not the statements that they made about buffer and heap overloads would be doable or detectable on the Mac platform. In fact, the authors did not mention if this whole scenario could occur on the Mac platform. They mentioned the Windows, the Linux and Unix platforms but not the Mac. Why not? While the Mac platform may not dominate the world such as the Windows platform does, it does exist. Are the authors not knowledgeable enough about the platform to speak to its issues? If they are not, then how knowledgeable are the authors really?
If the authors made errors of fact and omission such as illustrated above in areas other than the computer related areas, are there errors of fact or omission within the computer based informational area? As I said, that is not my expertise. I do not know. It does cause me to wonder though. If the authors are sloppy in informational areas other than computers, it may indicate that they are sloppy in computer related information as well.
Finally, the last component of the book is the CD-ROM. This CD contains five files. None of which can be run on a Mac. Since that is the machine of my choice, I could not run the CD. Therefore, I could not evaluate the CD except to say that it excludes those whose platform is Mac based and again I ask why? Are the authors not cognizant enough of the Mac platform to create a scenario that would work for the Mac platform as well ♦ or did the laziness that demonstrated itself in the technique that they used for the fictional novel extend to other areas of the book as well?
- 30 -
Reviewer:
MaryAnn Doty Rizzo
Librarian (MLS University of Denver)
Educational Technologist (MA University of Arizona South)
© 2004 MaryAnn Doty Rizzo. Used by permission. Please contact the Vice-President, MVCUG for re-posting, publishing, or other forms of re-distribution.
Date Revised: 17 October 2004