Techie’s IP 192.168.0.2 ‘for dummies’

No offense meant. “For dummies” is a cutesy phrase used for titles of books about everything under the sun that needs to be understood in a few sittings. Say, astrophysics for dummies, presidential elections for dummies, name it. Each one of us in this universe is dumb about many things.

So why not “IP 192.168.0.2 for dummies”?

My column last week (“Comelec and the mysterious IP 192.168.0.2,” 8/4/2023) was again about the quest of several stout-hearted men to get to the bottom of what they call—in one and a hundred ways—“a rigged 2022 presidential elections.” They have filed a writ of mandamus petition before the Supreme Court to compel the Commission on Elections (Comelec) to explain the process that involved, among several other issues, the mysterious private internet protocol (IP) address 192.168.0.2—instead of a public IP address as required—in the transmission of more than 20 million votes for a candidate from vote counting machines (VCM). Those baffling transmissions occurred during the first minutes after the voting precincts closed. Those votes practically announced who was the winning presidential candidate before canvassing was over. (Last week, I explained what an IP address is.)

Comes now an information technology (IT) expert explaining “slow by slow” in Taglish what the mystery is all about on his Facebook page named “Good News Updates.” Whoa, in less than 15 minutes, he can make a sixth grader understand. He describes himself as an IT professional who takes charge of all computer-related mechanisms in a multinational corporation. A techie, in other words, so let’s call him Techie. He takes it upon himself to explain “in layman’s terms,” he calls it, a question of mandamus petitioner retired Brig. Gen. Eliseo Rio Jr. to wit: How could 20,300 election returns (ER) sent by VCMs end up in Comelec servers by using just one private IP address? Through an illegal device within their own local area network?

“Ano ang ginawa? Ano ang resulta?” Techie asks. He uses only a few slides to demonstrate what he thinks happened or was made to happen according to Rio’s allegations and you get the picture. First, he explains how the votes were counted by the VCMs—some 100,000 of them nationwide, each one with an assigned public IP address of its own—that would send the ER or total number of votes per precinct to the main central server and the transparency server that mirror each other.

The canvassing process, Techie says, should have been followed, but it was not. What did Comelec do? It used a single private IP address (192.168.0.2) of a private network during the first hour—”the witching hour,” I call it—to transmit ERs to the central main server and the transparency server. This would show in the transmission logs from the Comelec itself.

Techie spends a few minutes to explain the difference between a public IP address and a private IP address. A private IP address is used for communicating within a network and will not go out of, say, a building. A public IP address is used to communicate outside of the network and for this to work, a telco service provider hereabouts—Globe, Smart, or Dito—is needed.

Techie is suspicious. “Notice that transmission was so fast. It did not pass through the telcos.” Globe, Smart, and Dito had practically no transmissions to show during the first crucial moments. The private IP address: 192.168.0.2 is, therefore, the so-called smoking gun. Comelec chair George Garcia had finally admitted using IP 192.168.0.2. A Freudian slip on his part, perhaps. But he did not explain why. Or, for Freud’s sake, what for.

Techie also notes the time between transmissions. “Just seconds, everything went so fast. It had all been wired … The telcos could not show anything that passed through them between 7 and 8 p.m.” This is not to mention the fact that even while most precincts were just closing at the scheduled hour of 7 p.m. and school teachers were still catching their breaths, transmissions were already flying out fast through a private device with the mysterious IP 192.168.0.2 address. The initial avalanche of transmission logs showed a huge preponderance of this mysterious private IP address.

Techie adds: “But at 8:02 p.m. Comelec’s transparency server already counted an unbelievable 20 million plus votes.”

Where, in the bottom of hell, did it all come from? “It came from an illegal device which was exposed only a year later. Whoever manipulated this process knew who would come out as the winner.” Surely, there must be a whistleblower in the making. I pray the Supreme Court—the gods of Padre Faura—would weigh in on this mystery.

You can watch Techie’s 13-minute video here: https://tinyurl.com/mwbkh9jy

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