Cybercrime vs Smartmatic, Comelec IT personnel inihain

PORMAL nang inihain ng kampo ni Vice Presidential candidate Senador Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos, Jr., ang kasong paglabag sa cybercrime law laban sa Smartmatic at Commission on Elections (Comelec) IT personnel makaraan illegal na palitan ang script ng transparency server ng poll body noong gabi makaraan ang halalan.

Batay sa 15-pahinang reklamong inihain ni Abakada Rep. Jonathan dela Cruz,  campaign advisor ni Marcos, ang mga kinasuhan sa Manila Prosecutor’s Office ay si Smartmatic personnel Marlon Garcia, isang Venezuelan national, at pinuno ng Technical Support Team; Elie Moreno, isang Israeli national, project director, at Neil Banigued at Mauricio Herrera, members ng Technical Support Team, at Comelec IT experts na pinangungunahan nina Rouie Peñalba, Nelson Herrera at Frances Mae Gonzalez, pawang nakatalaga sa Information Technology Department (ITD), dahil sa kanilang paglabag sa  Section 4(a) ng  Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012 o R.A. 10175. Si Dela Cruz ay sinamahan ng abogadong si Jose Amor Amorado, pinuno ng BBM Quick Count Center.

Ayon kay Dela Cruz, maliwanag na nalabag ang Section 4 (a) ng naturang batas nang palitan o baguhin ang nilalaman ng computer data nang walang ano mang pahintulot o hindi dumaan sa tamang proseso.

Sinabi Dela Cruz, ang naturang mga tao ay itinalaga upang matiyak na magiging malinis at maayos ang halalan lalo na ang integridad nito at sila lamang ang tanging taong ipinagkalooban ng kapangyarihan ngunit nabigo sila.

“They were all present when the script was changed by Smartmatic personnel and that despite the Comelec IT’s declaration that they did not authorize Smartmatic to change the script, that is a matter of defense because they had the other password. How then was Smartmatic able to open the server without getting the Comelec password? Their presence constitute implicit consent to the change,” ani Amorado.

“After a short investigation, Mauricio Herrera, SMARTMATIC engineer, reported that he has identified the issue with the inner hash. He explained at around 7:30 p.m. on 9 May 2016 SMARTMATIC announced that they would release an update to the results file script that would fix a reported issue involving the “Ñ” character being replaced by the “?” character,” ani Dela Cruz.