From Programmer to Puppet-Master: How I Didn’t Rig the Zimbabwean Elections with a PDF Converter

Here is the unbelievable story … Last Thursday (03/28/2008) a newspaper called “Zimbabwe Online” published an article accusing my company (Cogniview) of helping Robert Mugabe, The infamous Zimbabwean president, rig the Zimbabwean elections.


Link to full story

The article continues to claim that my company has secret ties to the Israeli Mossad, and that the accusations came directly from the General Secretary of the MDC, Zimbabwe’s largest opposition party.

Before I go on with the details of the story, here’s my official response … this story is NOT TRUE. In fact it could have only been more fictional if we were accused of using alien technology. Here are some more facts:

The full story up until now…

On Wednesday, a day before the article was published, I received an email from a Yahoo email address, inquiring whether my company was helping Robert Mugabe win the upcoming Zimbabwe elections. The email was so funny, I assumed it was spam and deleted it (not before being very impressed with how well it was tailored for my company).

A day later, an email from the site ZimOnline alerted me that there was an article on the site that concerned Cogniview. The article was even funnier than the email. At this point my respect for the Zimbabwean scam-artists was at an all-time high. Not only did they send me a well crafted email, they went as far as to setting up a mock newspaper and publishing an article there.

And then it became very serious very quickly …

I was contacted by a gentleman called Phil Matibe, a human rights activist from Zimbabwe currently living in the US, who wanted to get to the bottom of this story (I will be speaking with Mr. Matibe later today).

We also started getting emails from angry people telling us that we “sold the Zimbabwean people for 20 pieces of silver”

And then additional articles began to appear. Apparently we got 3 million dollars for helping Mugabe.

What I think happened

About a year ago we developed an Open-Source PDF converter called CC PDF converter. This converter (which is available for download for anyone that has an internet connection) allows one to convert anything printable into PDF. It also allows adding a Creative Commons license as the last page of the document. And at the very end of this page there is a link to Cogniview’s website.

I also learned (from the people that called to chastise us) that the voter-roles that were provided to the MDC by Zimbabwean officials were in PDF format and had a link to Cogniview’s website.

My guess is that the people at the MDC wanted to get the voter data in a format they could easily handle (like Excel) and instead got it in a PDF file (that was produced by our converter). They got (justifiably) angry and concocted a story about the Israeli Mossad and my company (this part isn’t justifiable).

Here’s what we are willing to do to help sort out this mess

Every respectable party (UN, US, European) that will want to investigate this matter will get Cogniview’s full cooperation. We will give them unlimited access to our legal and financial Records. We will also allow them to interview any employee in the company. Heck, they can strap us all to lie-detectors – we have nothing to hide.

But I’m hoping it won’t come to this. This story has the potential to damage my company’s reputation as well as to seriously damage the credibility of the MDC officials who spread this lie.

One last thing: If anyone from the MDC is reading this, please check your facts and denounce these lies. They bring you no honor.

I will continue to update as the story unfolds.

Posted on March 30, 2008 by Yoav Ezer 
Filed Under Cogniview, PDF

Comments

12 Responses to “From Programmer to Puppet-Master: How I Didn’t Rig the Zimbabwean Elections with a PDF Converter”

  1. Rich McIver on March 31st, 2008 2:08 am

    Yoav,
    I would think that the events which have unfolded over the past week were so ridiculous as to be comical if the potential damage this may have caused to your company were not so real.

    I wish you nothing but the best in getting this ugly confusion sorted out, and should you require a character witness please do not hesitate to call on me.

    Best,
    Rich

  2. Wendy Piersall on March 31st, 2008 4:09 am

    I wanted to leave a comment – but I’m kinda speechless. :) I want to laugh, but I feel bad for doing so, because I know to you it’s not very funny.

    But yeah, I’m with Rich – utterly ridiculous that they could come to that conclusion.

  3. Claudia on March 31st, 2008 6:30 am

    Umm…I’ve been following you for well over a year now and this is just not something any of your readership would believe from you or your company. I would sincerely not open any of your records unless a court order and with your attorney present. You have to protect your employee’s privacy as well. Can you counter with slander? I haven’t heard your name pop up in the CNN briefs, so lets hope for the best.

  4. bilbo on March 31st, 2008 8:25 am

    If this is how the MDC operates then Zimbabwe has no hope. Africa never did as well as when they were run by white people. Without being racist, why does this continent have such an abnormally high representation of useless, inept and corrupt leadership?

  5. David Salsa on March 31st, 2008 8:50 am

    Now you have a better understanding of how accurate the press is. Don’t imagine this is an unusual situation.

  6. Yoav Ezer on March 31st, 2008 4:27 pm

    @Rich

    Thanks for the support and the willingness to testify ;)

    @Wendy

    Go ahead and laugh. We sure did.

    @Claudia

    Thanks for the vote of confidence. You are not the first to be surprised, the reactions to this have varied from uncontrollable laughter to absolute astonishment.

    @Bilbo

    While the MDC didn’t display good Judgment in this case, I completely disagree with you. In fact, your remark IS RACIST and I must ask you to refrain from voicing these kind of remarks on this blog again. It would do the world good if you didn’t voice them at all.

    @David

    You are right. I am a bit wiser and a bit sadder today

  7. Max on April 1st, 2008 12:56 am

    This is both hilarious and intriguing at the same time. I hope you don’t get smeared, but it is a patently bizarre story. Good luck, and keep your trunks up.

  8. Yoav Ezer on April 1st, 2008 9:00 am

    Thanks Max

  9. frank on April 11th, 2008 7:02 pm

    April Fool?

  10. Person on April 11th, 2008 7:48 pm

    Here is an article with the larger context:
    http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=12675

  11. paul canning on April 13th, 2008 4:48 pm

    blog response here http://paulcanning.blogspot.com/2008/04/zimbabwe-and-israeli-tekkies.html

  12. The Manbat on April 18th, 2008 7:26 pm

    Ha! You’re denying it! That means it’s all true!

    (If you hadn’t denied it, you would be confirming it by silence. Don’t you know how conspiracy theories work?)

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