I Uncovered Fraud at Mike Lindell's Cyber Symposium on the Presidential Election

Lots of dots but no one connecting them

Mike Lindell is famous for several things: inventor of the MyPillow, founder and CEO of MyPillow, Inc., a stalwart supporter of President Trump, and promoter of the theory that the 2020 presidential election was fraudulent, with subversive actors swinging votes from Trump to Biden. For months, Lindell has been claiming to have incontrovertible evidence of this fraud, blaming Chinese government hacking and interference by Dominion Voting Machines, the company that supplied many electronic voting machines throughout the country. In July, he announced the Cyber Symposium to be held in Sioux Falls, South Dakota for three days in August to present this proof to invited attendees including technical experts in forensics. So certain was he that his proof would pass serious examination, that he offered a $5 million prize to anyone who could prove that his evidence was wrong.

Invitation

Friends called me up and asked if I was going. I explained that I hadn’t been invited but figured I’d read the results online and judge them then. As the inventor of software forensics, they said, I should be there. So I contacted a friend who knows Lindell and got myself invited. I figured the situation would result in one of three things for me: a roughly 99% chance of seeing the evidence and not being able to provide any useful commentary on it, a 0.5% chance that I would be able to confirm that the election had been stolen, and a 0.5% chance that I would disprove the evidence and win $5 million. Plus a 100% chance of being able to write about what would certainly be one of the most interesting and important conferences in recent history. The odds seemed good, so I made my flight reservation.

Arrival

I arrived the day before and prepared by installing forensic tools on my computer, researching the kind of data that might be provided, and preparing a plan of action. There had been little information given out beforehand of what format the evidence would take, so I wanted to be prepared. The symposium schedule, surprisingly, only covered the first day and had generic information about unnamed speakers.

Day One

I arrived at the symposium on the first morning to hear Mike Lindell already speaking, his loud, emphatic, emotional voice—like his salesman voice in his commercials—echoing throughout the small space. About 200 people were sitting at tables, eating the complimentary breakfast, while one or two dozen people stood, most with their smartphones held up to record Lindell, almost a kind of salute. A dozen cameras and reporters lined the back of the room. I found out that mainstream news channels were not invited. Mike repeatedly called them out, but held the most and loudest scorn for Fox News. It’s human nature to hate those with whom you disagree, but to fiercely hate those with whom you previously befriended. Lindell expected MSNBC and CNN to contradict him or disregard him, but it hurt most when Fox News began to do so.

I was a little surprised when Lindell called up a minister for an opening prayer that referred to Jesus multiple times. As a Jew, I was a bit uncomfortable, but more comfortable when the entire crowd rose to proudly and loudly recite the Pledge of Allegiance and sing the National Anthem.

On this first day, panels of experts sat on the stage around the podium while Lindell talked virtually nonstop. There was little time for any panelist to state more than a sentence of two before Lindell began talking again. Just about every election conspiracy was mentioned including that Dominion voting machines are connected to the Internet despite the company stating otherwise, other companies’ voting machines were also connected to the Internet despite those companies stating otherwise, Dominion software threw votes from Trump to Biden, other voting machines did the same, China hacked into the machines via the Internet to change the votes, Democrats ran ballots through the machines multiple times, George Soros was funding the fraud, and Chinese chips were found soldered to computer boards inside the voting machine to change the vote. I’m sure I missed a few in this list.

Thrown in were other facts that just didn’t seem to be connected to voter fraud: a clip of Bill Maher (not typically a friend of conservatives) warning about China; clips of interviews with George Soros with an announcer comparing him to the evil tycoons J. P. Morgan, Andrew Carnegie, and John D. Rockefeller (are these captains of industry now disavowed by Republicans? I guess I missed the memo); warnings about China’s control of rare earth elements that are necessary for semiconductor manufacture.

The people on his panels didn’t seem eager to voice their opinion, but when they did, these “technical experts” got technical terms wrong. None of these people were introduced, so I had to listen carefully if someone called them by name and then search online for their bios and credentials. The “experts” on the panels included David Clements, a business lawyer from New Mexico and former never-Trumper with no technical education. Another speaker was Patrick Colbeck, former Senator from Michigan who does have degrees in aerospace engineering. Another frequent panelist was Dr. Douglas Frank, a physicist whose expertise is in low energy electron diffraction and electron spectroscopy and microscopy. None had specific forensics experience, but at least some had a technical background so I’ll concede that they could be knowledgeable. But how about the panel of “Super Moms” who just seemed upset that Trump had lost. Lindell said they were afraid for our country and for their children, which is reasonable... but not for a cyber symposium. Where were the people who, like me, had spent decades studying and perfecting forensic technology and had analyzed the forensic data and discovered the fraud?

Breakout Rooms

Those with true forensics credentials were not on stage but in breakout rooms in the back. I joined them, and to my pleasant surprise, many were highly qualified, experienced, knowledgeable, and most importantly, took an unbiased look at the evidence presented to us. Make no mistake that all or most of them were hoping to confirm the fraud. Most of us had been Trump supporters. But all of us had integrity and required hard evidence before drawing a conclusion.

We asked to see the “proof of fraud” that had been promised to us, and were pointed to 5 files on the network. We had been told that these files showed data flowing from China and other places over the Internet to the voting machines on the day of the election. We each downloaded them, one of which was over 22 Gbytes, but found that they contained no recognizable data in any known data format. We were stumped.

At some point, I performed a simple transformation of the files and found something surprising. I quietly packed up my things, said goodbye to my fellow experts, went back to my hotel room, and called my wife. “I have some good news,” I whispered to her on the phone. “All I want to say is that you should start thinking about how you want to spend five million dollars.” The transformations I had performed showed that these files were actually simple Microsoft Word documents containing numbers and gibberish. There was no way for this to be network data or any data related to the election. I spent the next hours until late in the evening preparing a detailed report to prove this point. In the morning I reviewed my report and even registered a copyright online to protect what could turn out to be the most valuable document I had ever written.

Day Two

On the second day, I went back to symposium, secretly giddy. However, to my dismay, Lindell’s team went around with gigabytes of additional files on hard drives that they transferred to our computers. Some of these files were in a format that could conceivably contain network data. The other experts and I dove into examining these files, but after a while, I burned out. There was no information about where these files came from. There was no chain of custody information that would allow us to identify and confirm the origin of the files. In other words, these files contained packet data that could have come from a voting machine or an Internet router, or someone’s printer. There was no way of knowing. Analyzing the millions of packets in the file might give a clue, but that would take weeks. Or months.

The experts in the back rooms worked tirelessly on analyzing these files even though we had been led to believe that we would not be performing an analysis but confirming an existing analysis. After all, Mike Lindell had been claiming to have this proof for months. During the analysis, another forensic examiner found another transformation that turned the large binary file into a large but simple spreadsheet of meaningless names and numbers. Why was someone transforming ordinary and insignificant data into unreadable files? Was someone sabotaging Mike’s data? Or had Mike been bamboozled? Or was Mike the bamboozler?

Later, we were informed that these files we had been given were not the original files, but actually some kind of copy that excluded data that could be used to verify them. We requested the original files, called PCAP files, that contain actual network data that would allow us to ultimately conclude fraud occurred or it didn’t. When our informal requests were ignored, we wrote up a formal request and submitted it.

Also, I can confirm that Joshua Merritt, Lindell’s forensic expert, told us that they had only seen this data days ago and had done no analysis. He confided to the forensics experts that it was “all bullshit.” He agreed with us that there hadn’t been nearly enough time to draw any conclusion.

Recognized forensic expert Ron Watkins, known as “CodeMonkeyZ” appeared by remote connection, though the audio kept going out. Eventually it was announced that someone had hacked into the system. Really? It’s extremely hard to hack only audio data but not video data. Why would a hacker do that rather than just bring down the whole connection, which is relatively easy? In any case, when Watkins’ audio was restored about a half hour later, he was asked to analyze in real time some server data he had never seen before. To his credit, he used phrases like “alleged disk image” and “I’ve been informed…” and “if this is accurate…” His fellow panelists, however, proclaimed that they could find signs of fraud in almost every discovery no matter how insignificant.

Day Three

The experts in the back rooms became increasingly disappointed. We held a meeting to discuss how to move forward. Many wanted to continue an analysis in the coming weeks and months, but that required strongly requesting, if not demanding, to see the real, original PCAP files and any other original data that Lindell had claimed over and over that he had. Others grew weary and transformed from potential believers to sceptics to outright disbelievers.

I talked to some of the other experts afterwards. Bill Alderson is the Chief Technology Officer at Security Institute and the founder of HopZero, a company that provides a tool to keep network data safe. He agreed that the files we received were “gobbly goo” with “no conclusive evidence that I could analyze.” He feels that Mike Lindell may have been conned. Doug Gould retired after 31 years at AT&T where he was Chief Cyber Security Strategist and now consults on cyber security. He was more diplomatic, saying that we hadn’t received any data that seemed related to the November 2020 election but was hopeful that it would arrive before the end of the symposium and was willing to continue work on that data for the weeks it would require to come to a conclusion.

My Epiphany

While packing for my trip home, I got an idea. It would take weeks to examine the many gigabytes of files we had been given the day before. But what if I simply checked the modification dates on all the files? The modification dates show when the file was last changed. Even when transferring files from a computer to a flash drive or to another computer over a network, the modification date doesn’t change. I began examining dates and found that the files we had been given had all been modified within the last couple weeks. That means that they could not be evidence relating to the 2020 election. I had proof! I quickly added this information to my report, went back to the conference, and submitted it. Perhaps the $5 million would be mine after all! The report I submitted to claim the $5 million prize can be downloaded here.

Conclusion

So what did I get out of this well-publicized event? First, many people left greatly disappointed. Presentations included a lot of numbers and a lot of speculation, but few explanations or analysis, and nothing conclusive. Most people came wanting to believe in election fraud. Other than the invited experts, those who stayed for day 2 and day 3 were only there to give each other mutual support. They desperately wanted to know that Donald Trump was the legitimate president and desperately wanted to be among like-minded people. For them, it didn’t matter what the results really were.

For the invited forensic experts, it was greatly disappointing that what we were told we would see we never actually saw. For me, it was eye-opening, but not to election fraud but rather to the fact that Mike Lindell wanted to believe so badly that he accepted every conspiracy theory about the election that ever came up. But the most disappointing result is that this symposium will sow even more doubt among the undecided and give more ammunition to those who hate Trump and despise Republicans and who have no desire to reform or safeguard the voting system in America. They will point to the symposium as just another example of nutty “anti-science” Republicans who can’t be trusted. What could have helped resolve a difficult situation has made it, unfortunately, much, much worse.

About the author

Bob Zeidman is the creator of the field of software forensics and the founder of several successful high-tech Silicon Valley firms including Zeidman Consulting and Software Analysis and Forensic Engineering. His latest venture is Good Beat Poker, a new way to play and watch poker online. He is the author of textbooks on engineering and intellectual property as well as screenplays and novels. His latest novel is the political satire Good Intentions.