Software Detective Debunked Mike Lindell’s Election Fraud Claims

Robert Zeidman, a software program detective who actually wrote the e-book on in search of proof of wrongdoing in strains of laptop code (The Software IP Detective’s Handbook), was awarded US $5 million on 19 April by an arbitration panel for successful the “Prove Mike Wrong” problem. That is, he debunked a declare made by MyPillow founder Mike Lindell, who insisted that he had knowledge documenting Chinese interference within the 2020 election. Lindell introduced the competition throughout a 2021 so-called cyber symposium in South Dakota. He handed 11 recordsdata over to contestants, together with binary recordsdata, textual content recordsdata, and a spreadsheet, and supplied the money prize to anybody who might show that the information wasn’t associated to the 2020 election.

Zeidman rapidly did so, documenting his evaluation in a 15-page report that concluded “the data Lindell provides, and represents reflects information from the November 2020 election, unequivocally does not contain packet data of any kind and do not contain any information related to the November 2020 election.” Zeidman detailed the steps he had taken to investigate the information, ruling out an election connection.

“I am a digital detective. I can figure out who stole what from whom.”
—Robert Zeidman

Coming to this conclusion this apparently wasn’t all that onerous. Some of the information, Zeidman just lately instructed the Las Vegas Review-Journal, seemed like somebody had merely typed random numbers; one other knowledge set had been created simply days earlier than the competition, not earlier than the 2020 election, fairly apparent on condition that creation dates on the recordsdata had not been altered.

Lindell rejected Zeidman’s try to say the prize.

Zeidman, per the competition guidelines, took the matter to arbitration, and on Wednesday the arbitration panel discovered for Zeidman. In its 23-page report, made out there by The Washington Post, the panel identified that Zeidman mentioned he entered the competition not anticipating to win—believing that any knowledge supplied needed to have been strictly vetted—however as a way to see historical past within the making. The knowledge had, the report indicated, been despatched to a so-called “Red Team” for vetting, however, in keeping with the panel’s report, “none of the Red Team cyber experts were able to open the files.”

An IEEE Senior Member, Zeidman has lengthy been concerned in software program forensics. He based an organization, Software Engineering and Forensic Analysis, to develop and market instruments for software program evaluation. He has served as an professional witness in additional than 100 circumstances involving disputes over code possession. And, for IEEE Spectrum, he wrote a few query lengthy speculated about in laptop circles: Did Bill Gates steal the center of Microsoft DOS from Gary Kildall’s CP/M?

After he wrote that article, I sat down with him to search out how he approached this software program detective work. He instructed me, “I am a digital detective, I can figure out who stole what from whom.”

See the video beneath to see a little bit of what Zeidman instructed me about investigating the DOS case.