by GusQuixote at GusQuixote Substack
Back in August, stories began to emerge from a group of citizen journalists of a Michigan based company called Konnech who specializes in government administrative software including election management systems, or EMS.
Since the initial reporting, it’s now known that Konnech offers administrative solutions that include a series of one-off services on their Kranium product line, which are integrated in various ways into Konnech’s current larger offerings. Konnech offers solutions including a K-12 focused platform, an absentee voting platform, an election management system (EMS), a shake-to-vote system, a campaign management and signature collection platform, and GPS-driven software to guide people to polling stations or election-related locations.
Konnech’s owner, “Eugene Yu” was recently arrested on suspicion of data theft in Los Angeles County in relation to PollChief.
A citizen journalist known as Kanekoa the Great followed “The Curious Case of Jinhua Konnech,” a multi-part saga of an election software company whose proprietary data included personal data of 1.8 million American poll workers.
This data was alleged to have been found on a minimally secured server in Wuhan, Mainland (Chinese Communist Party-held) China, protected only by a default password: “password.” The claim originated from an event known as “The Pit,” where Catherine Engelbrecht of True The Vote and Gregg Phillips of OPSEC disclosed the story of being passed information that would be highly sensitive to national security.
Led by a scandal-plagued field office in Detroit, a subsequent FBI-private joint investigation opened with cooperation and direct participation from Phillips and Engelbrecht, in light of obvious national security concerns. Depending upon who is asked, it’s still unclear (to me) what happened, but things changed.
Whatever happened after that moment with the investigation is inconsequential to any of this research, outside of the triggering of it.
We are here. Now.
Also inconsequential to the purpose of this article, the material data allegedly given to the FBI has not been released to the public.
These findings exist independently of any supposed data alleged to be held by anyone.
ICYMI
So far, readers and viewers who follow election “conspiracy theories” have learned through extensive incontrovertible evidence that the American company known as Konnech is also connected through a web of ownership, employees, and products to a series of companies in Mainland China.
Let’s begin with the current Mainland China iteration of Konnech known in English as Jinhua Hongzheng Network Technology Company (金华市宏正网络科技有限公司), and work backward through time to help make sense of the timeline.
Jinhua Hongzheng > Jinhua Yulian > Konnech
Recommended articles
DiggerSleuth also did a masterful job of creating a timeline of Konnech’s tech adventures in detail here (I’m a sucker for a good timeline):
I ***strongly*** suggest readers go back over these articles above to gain a much broader picture of the situation afoot.
Throughout this historical recollection in the search for answers together, please remember —
DATES ARE IMPORTANT
A Mysterious “LJ Connection”
Early in the research phase, some of the first discoveries were legitimate, confirmed business listings for both Konnech, Inc. and LJ Connection LLC. Another company, Engino Technologies Corporation also returned a result.
- Eugene Yu incorporated LJ Connection, LLC on July 2, 2001, and Konnech, Inc. on March 20, 2002.
- Yu dissolved LJ Connection, LLC on July 1, 2002, three months after legally establishing Konnech.
- Yu also established Engino Technologies Corporation on March 11, 2003. It was dissolved on April 22, 2005.
One thing that stuck out during the first few weeks of research was how many different versions of the Konnech origin story were uncovered in archives and that many of those portrayals were painted with a different combination of important facts and potential marketing points surrounding their origins. Also noted: the repeated back-and-forth surrounding both the company’s previous identity and its past ties to Michigan State University.
Have a look below at some excerpts from Konnech’s “Company History” from over the years:…
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