Infotech experts refute Comelec chief’s claims

More and more info-technologists are questioning Comelec and Smartmatic’s use of a secret private IP address in the 2022 election count.

Automated election supplier Smartmatic remains mum about that “illegality” exposed by former information-communications technology secretary Eliseo Rio.

Computer engineers and business execs were to confer yesterday with Rio, ex-Comelec commissioner Gus Lagman and former Finance Executives Institute president Franklin Ysaac.

Rio, Lagman and Ysaac comprise TNT (Truth and Transparency) Trio. They want Comelec to disclose transmission logs of the 2022 vote count. Without such logs, the barrage of 20 million-plus votes within the first hour of counting “will remain incredible.”

“Precinct election returns were funneled through private Internet Protocol address 192.168.0.2,” computer expert Lagman told Gotcha on Wednesday.

He explained the process: The Election Automation Law requires direct transmission from precinct vote counting machines to Comelec. Each VCM has a modem for such direct transmission – ladderized to municipal, provincial and national canvassing servers.

“But what happened was that many precinct results first passed through that private IP address 192.168.0.2 before the Transparency Server,” said Lagman, immediate past chairman of election watchdog Namfrel (National Citizens Movement for Free Elections).

“The Transparency Server is not in the law, but a Comelec creation,” he added. “As the server in public view, it can be used for mind conditioning.”

US-based Filipino software specialist Oscar Santos unearthed 192.168.0.2 from “raw files” uploaded on Comelec’s website. The Transparency Server received from that private IP address most of Metro Manila, Cavite and Batangas’ precinct VCMs within the first hour of counting. Santos is with Rio’s team of computer forensics examiners.

Comelec Chairman George Garcia has claimed that 20,300 modems they bought for as many new and rundown VCMs in 2022 had a common private IP address. Neither he nor the agency spokesman mentioned the modem supplier and price, for info-technologists to confirm. They didn’t say if that common private IP address is 192.168.0.2.

“Each precinct VCM has a SIM of the assigned telco, PLDT/Smart, Globe or DITO. The Transparency Server’s transmission and reception logs should reflect the telcos’ public IP addresses, not a private one,“ Rio also told Gotcha.

“So how can precinct results be received in Comelec servers from a single private IP address?” he said. “A secret device 192.168.0.2 was used to send all those results and not directly from VCMs. Fraudulent.”

Rio added: “Telcos may use non-routable private IP addresses, but only within own networks, not shared to their subscribers. That’s why we’ve been asking for the transmission logs since July 2022, which Chairman Garcia promised on Oct. 18 to do but didn’t.

“Comelec could’ve easily cleared up this matter by showing the telco transmission logs that VCMs transmitted in the first hour to account for that unbelievable 20 million-plus votes by 8:02 p.m. Telcos confided to me that very few transmissions passed through their networks from 7 to 8 p.m.”

Info-technologist Alfredo Sumague, also US-based, researched 192.168.0.2: “Internet Assigned Numbers Authority registered in 1994 private IP addresses 192.168.0.0 to 192.168.255.255. Updated 2013.

“Comment: These addresses are in use by many millions of independently operated networks, which might be as small as a single computer connected to a home gateway, and are automatically configured in hundreds of millions of devices. They are only intended for use within a private context and traffic that needs to cross the internet will need to use a different, unique address.

“Comment: These addresses can be used by anyone without any need to coordinate with IANA or an internet registry. The traffic from these addresses does not come from IANA or Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. We are not the source of activity you may see on logs or in e-mail records. Please refer to  http://www.iana.org/abuse/answers.”

Sumague concluded: “Comelec used a private IP address because owners of public ones are identifiable. Private IP address users aren’t registered so it’s very hard to find ownership.”

“No sour grapes here,” presidential bet Panfilo Lacson texted. “Now I know why last year’s results in my vote-rich Cavite home-province defied historical data since I first ran for the Senate in 2001:

“Save for ‘class-act’ Noli de Castro, who beat me in that midterm poll by 30,000 votes, I was consistently my province-mates’ top choice in all succeeding elections in which I participated.

“That includes the 2004 presidential election in which I beat powerful incumbent Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and the very popular Fernando Poe Jr. Not to forget my 2007 and 2016 senatorial wins.

“Last year I got only a measly 91,000 out of 2.3 million votes.”

A Philippine Computer Society officer said Smartmatic, not Comelec lawyer-commissioners or spokesmen, must explain 192.168.0.2: “Licensed electronic communications engineers of the National Telecoms Commission must speak out. Also DICT cybercrime/cybersecurity men.

“Was balloting kept secure when precinct inspector-teachers weren’t made to use DICT-supplied digital signatures/passwords? What more the use of a sole private IP address?”

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