A friend of mine used to say that no matter what technology the authorities might come up with to use against/mess with people... Joe and Jane Citizen, with adequate ingenuity and some supplies from a hardware store, could more than likely F.S.U. ("F$%& Stuff Up.")
Any homo-erectus with functioning gray matter who assumes that voting machines are un-hackable... Well, they don't deserve to belong to the category of "homo-erectus".
Defending against hacking is a 24/7 thing... if what you have is worthy of hacking.
It's like warfare... it's "liquid"... constantly changing and evolving.
If you reside in California:
I highly recommend (if you want your vote to count for what you voted for) that you choose to fill out an Absentee Ballot. They're on paper. They might not be 100% safe and secure, but from what I've read they're the most secure method of having your vote properly and accurately counted. (Be sure to get them in on time.)
If you live in another state (I'm sorry... Ha. Ha.):
But, seriously.... If you live in another state, Please find out what method of voting your state will be using (paper or electronic).
If it's electronic, find out if the Dept. of Elections/Secretary of State has had the machines tested and what the results are.
This is Very Important!
We have suffered through far too many years of Bush-shite.
I believe that part of the blame for that falls on electoral fraud... of several kinds.
We must not allow our Great Nation to fall further down the virtually bottomless pit that it has been shoved into by neo-con facist assholes.
Please Vote... In Every Election... And make sure Your Vote Counts!
(O.K., I'm off the soapbox... Thanks... I'll be running for Mayor of San Francisco in the future... and I'd appreciate Your Vote.)
Peace.
L.
From: Wired
CA Releases Results of Red-Team Investigation of Voting Machines: All Three Systems Could Be Compromised
By Kim Zetter
July 27, 2007 | 6:01:20 PM
Categories: E-Voting, Election '08, Glitches and Bugs, Hacks and Cracks
Electronic voting
California Secretary of State Debra Bowen just released the results of the state's unprecedented top-to-bottom review of voting systems being used in the state. The review consisted of three parts, one of which involved a Red Team led by UC Davis computer scientist Matthew Bishop that was tasked with examining the systems for security vulnerabilities . The team found that it could compromise all three of the top voting systems used in the state made by Diebold Election Systems, Hart Intercivic, and Sequoia Voting Systems, with the caveat that many, but not all, of the attacks they were able to accomplish on the machines could be mitigated with proper physical security of the machines, security training of staff, and contingency planning.
(*To see if any of these voting systems are used in your state, check out this Spreadsheet from Electionline.org. )
It should be noted that the Red Team stated it did not have enough time to fully examine the systems and was confident that further examination would reveal additional security vulnerabilities in the voting systems. You can read the Red Team reports on the three systems here.
Among the findings: (From: cbsnews.com)
The physical security was weak (Testers were able to access the internals of Sequoia's machines by unscrewing screws to bypass locks, and compromise Diebold's AccuVote TSx machine without prompting reminders to voters to check their printed records).
Software was overwritable with malicious code (Testers could load a program into a machine's memory which, at the next reboot, loaded malicious firmware, at which point an attacker could manipulate the election results, with no access to source code required; attacks on Diebold's machines allowed testers to overwrite firmware, which could change vote totals, and escalate privileges from those of a voter to a poll worker or central count administrator, enabling them to reset an election, issue unauthorized voter cards, and close polls; testers overwrote Hart's eScan software and issued administrative commands.)
Detecting election mode (Firmware loaded onto the Sequoia machine would determine whether a system was in test mode or not, so it could respond correctly to preelection testing and then operate incorrectly on Election Day).
Accessing election management systems (Software could infiltrate Sequoia's database directly and execute system commands on the host computer, and access the GEMS server of Diebold's system and take security-related actions that went unrecorded in the server's audit logs; Hart's system software could be penetrated by a hacker who could access the host operating system to gain unauthorized access to the database).
Altering data (Testers verified that the Hart system's mobile ballot box card could be altered during an election, and that post-election safeguards to prevent tampered data from being counted could be easily bypassed).
Forging materials (Both update cartridges and voter cards could be forged).
Capturing audio (A Hart eSlate with audio enabled for visually-impaired voters could have its audio from a voting session remotely captured, allowing an attacker to violate voter privacy.)
The fact is that machines are completely inappropriate for the special function of voting. The reason for that is that machines perform their functions out of the vision of human beings. If we cannot see that they are doing, then we can never be certain that powerful insiders have not programmed results. And when they do that, we can never know because evidence of malfeasance will have been removed.
ReplyDeleteIt is simple and cheap to hire citizens to perform the task of counting votes in full public view. It is done quite successfully in New Hampshire and in many nations of the world. Any vote stealing would take many people and with results small in number, whereas with electronics, one programmer can accomplish the theft of thousands of votes on computers across the country. It is in this way that those who have put themselves in power can maintain that power over us indefinitely. Google "electronic voting" and see the number of articles that have been published since 2000 by scientists who have been trying to warn us of the dangers of buying and using (twice a year at most) these complicated insidious machines.
Waste of money and also a waste of Democracy.