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Chimp Can Hack Diebold Electronic Voting System
Posted by
michael
on Fri Sep 24, 2004 06:59 PM
from the don't-say-we-didn't-warn-you dept.
from the don't-say-we-didn't-warn-you dept.
rbuysse writes "A million monkeys can write Shakespeare, but it only takes one to mess up an election. Scoop here." Blackboxvoting is behind this demonstration; there's also a lengthy thread on the Bugtraq mailing list.
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Nuff Said (Score:5, Funny)
Your first clue (Score:5, Funny)
Hey, at least its accurate advertising
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Monkeys (Score:5, Funny)
Elections administrator Linda Lamone said" that monkeys will be prevented from accessing the machines during the elections.....
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Re:Monkeys (Score:5, Funny)
Which is un-constutional: Our president has the right to vote too!
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Re:Monkeys (Score:5, Funny)
So, does this mean that Florida won't be allowed to vote in the coming elections?
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Re:Monkeys (Score:5, Funny)
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for-profit voting systems (Score:5, Insightful)
At the government's disposal are hundreds of public universities with some of the brightest minds in the country, many of whom would gladly work on implementing the great american open-source voting system. Even if these graduate students and professors were paid market rates for their work, it would still be much cheaper than what Diebold systems are costing the US. There is also no competitive advantate go keeping the system closed-source... so what if Austrailia decides they want to run their elections on our software? We've proud of other countries copying our constitution and systems of government, why not our systems of elections too? Especially if they improve it, and give those improvements back to us? What, are we suddenly going to be exporting less consumables to them because they have more legitimate elected officials?
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Re:for-profit voting systems (Score:5, Insightful)
This is already the case today. Do you think the current voting booths or the printed ballots are manufactured by the Salvation Army? Why should it be a surprise that when the government moves from lower to higher tech forms of voting it continues to buy from private industries? I agree that buying from a corrupt and/ or incompetent company is reprehensible. I also agree that everything should be accountable to the voters and the software, security mechanisms, etc., should not be kept secret. But I don't like the idea that the government should be unable to give a contract to any private company to manufacture any of the tools used to run the election. That is neither workable nor desirable.
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Re:for-profit voting systems (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:for-profit voting systems (Score:5, Informative)
Exactly. Please visit http://www.openvotingconsortion.org/. We're a consortium dedicated to creating an open source voting system. The idea, exactly as you propose, is that many commercial vendors can take the open source platform and package it with hardware, training, and so on. Or a particularly motivated (or cheap) organization could run their own election system using internal technical resources.
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Re:for-profit voting systems (Score:5, Interesting)
To change the subject slightly, at what point does sabotage become a morally acceptable alternative? I'm assuming that a knife dragged across the touch-screen would ruin the machine, but I won't assume that ruining a voting booth for others would help... any thoughts?
"Hell, I'll piss on the spark plugs if that'll help"
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And it's working out so well? (Score:5, Interesting)
Say what you will about the relative scale of the elections in the two countries, one thing is certain - the elections work here. The results are in very quickly, the security protocols surrounding voting and counting are simple enough to be comprehensible and auditable by just about anyone, and the whole thing is done with exemplary transparency.
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Certainly explains how Bush got elected (Score:5, Funny)
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So, uh (Score:5, Funny)
Re:So, uh (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:So, uh (Score:5, Funny)
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In other news (Score:5, Funny)
Video Mirror (Score:5, Informative)
No kiddin' (Score:5, Funny)
I'm a proud Bush voter, You insensitive clod!
Re:No kiddin' - FOR REAL... (Score:5, Interesting)
Perhaps you'd like to visit The Monkey Shakespeare Simulator [tninet.se], which randomly attempts to duplicate Shakespeare's work (don't worry about legal aspects, you can generally assume it's out of copyright).
The current record is 20 letters from "Coriolanus" after 462,060,000,000 billion billion monkey-years. Sent in by Jens Ulrik Jacobsen from Denmark on 31 Aug 2004.
"1. Citizen. Before w ZgJ 8GPxwFnwvG&iX4tKfo("2ny!3Pp..."
matched
"1. Citizen. Before w e proceed any further, heare me speake All. Speake, speake 1.Cit. You are all resolu'd rather to dy then to famish? All. Resolu'd, resolu'd..."
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Re:No kiddin' - FOR REAL... (Score:5, Funny)
I bet the rest of that is just Danish l33t speak or something...
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Attention Script Kiddies.... (Score:5, Funny)
Look for this attatchment on the Electoral College's Outlook Express inbox.
Coral Cache of video (Score:4, Informative)
Although it's pretty weak... just a bunch of cuts of a monkey and a computer.
It's all a liberal conspiracy (Score:5, Funny)
I love this quote... (Score:5, Insightful)
Wow. That's so..... scaremongering.....
What I don't understand is why... (Score:5, Interesting)
- the voter comes to the poll, is identified and is given a paper token with a barcode that contains the polling ID station ID and a sequential number (note that the ID is not humanly readable, important for privacy)
- the voter goes in the box, which has a touch screen and an 'easy' UI, voter inserts the paper token in the box which scans it
- voter votes on the touch screen (make it really easy, BIG buttons, BIG text, whatever)
- machine prints out a ballot with the voter's vote in humanly readable form (say, prints out a 'real' ballot with blackened out rectangles on the relevant candidate(s)) and a 2D barcode at the bottom with the vote in machine readable form including the ID on the 'paper token'
- voter looks at the ballot to make sure it's ok, folds it, comes out, puts the ballot in one box and the paper token in the other. If the ballot is not ok there is a shredder right there inside the poll station and the voter votes again.
========= election over ===========
the paper token are shipped to the central office, scanned (should be very fast via the 2d barcodes) and votes tabulated accordingly; for an additional level of security you can always count the votes via the 'human readable' part of the ballot before shipping them.
If a recount or anything is necessary there are several safeguards with this system:
- you can't have ballot box stuffing, because 1 'token' = 1 vote and if those ID are generated 'well' you could even double check that all IDs make sense, sort of like a 'there are only so many valid serial numbers' there. Multiple votes with the same 'ID' will be discarded.
- you can't have doubts on the voter intent, they'll vote on the screen *AND* look at the paper copy before putting it in the ballot box later on
- if there is really no trust in the computers no problem, you can just look at the 'human readable' portion of the ballot as many times as you want: no nonsense about hanging chads or anything.
this (or something like it) would cover all the bases in terms of fast results (via scanning ballots, ship them all to a central location and do it), paper trail and so on. I really can't understand who in their right mind would consider putting the fate of the election in the hands of MS Access, for crying out loud!
Re:What I don't understand is why... (Score:5, Insightful)
3: Scantrons are ancient, and work well, with a very low error rate, at least, lower than hanging chads when you've got machines to properly mark the cards in the first place.
4: He walks out of the booth with it, and right up to the ballot box, just like we do currently. No big deal, and after that, he can have proof he voted, but the card with the actual votes on it is in the box.
=====
I wouldn't be amiss to a mis-vote called whenever the election was indeterminate with a known (low) level of error. Like, 0.01% or less (or some other number, that one was pulled out of thin air). To cover error in the system.
Automatic revote.
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Spin Spin Spin (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure we trust the election officials, but do we trust every contractor or tech who might work on those systems? Especially as Diebold seems so lax in checking backgrounds that people with convictions for fraud, blackmail, and embezzlement have access to their code. I'd bet that their contractors are even less subject to appropriate background checks.
Chimps can write News Articles, too... (Score:5, Informative)
But for the inveitable slashdotting it'll receive, I'll summerize: Makers say Diebold works, opponents say it doesn't, que poorly edited movie of monkey sitting by computer hitting stuff, analogous to the new "Baby hitting mouse" AOL 9.0 commercial. The End.
Thank me, beecause I just saved you 5-10 minutes of your life. Use it to get a free ipod or something.
Thankfully... (Score:5, Funny)
Really, no disrespect...but (Score:5, Interesting)
Judging by the fact that most people with the time to volunteer for poll work are our 'seasoned citizens' who, let's be honest, aren't, as a group, too computer savvy, I'd be more worried about the scrupulous people with no computer skills whatsoever messing things up.
I know this makes me an ageist asshat, but how in the heck are all these people going to get up to speed on computers enough to ensure a little 'whoops' doesn't toss a whole county or something?
Insulting to officials? (Score:5, Insightful)
I say "Quite honestly, it's somewhat insulting to the voters," to the idea that the voting public should naively disregard the human factor and that temptation/corruption/bribery "just don't happen."
Never underestimate the power of money, especially in large, unmarked bundles.
Re:Insulting to officials? (Score:5, Interesting)
I'd be cool with Christian's in power if they actually adhered to the teachings of Christ. Unfortunately I don't think rampant greed and bloodthirsty militarism are Christian values, and those are the two basic tenants of the so called "Christians" taking over America and the Republican party. Just as extremist Muslims are an abomination to Islam, extremist Christians are an abomination to Christianity. If there was a second coming and Christ appeared in America did the things he did, and said things he said 2000 years ago, he'd be locked up or killed by the "Christians" running the U.S.
I'm working hard to line up a country where I can go and stay, and renounce my citizenship. No point in moving out of the U.S. and keep the passport and keep paying taxes to support the current madness. Its not easy. It takes a lot of work to find a country that will be a good place to live and that isn't completely under the thumb of the U.S. America's shadow has become so long there really aren't many places left in the world where you can escape it. I lost track but I think the U.S. has troops in something like 135 countries and I imagine the FBI and CIA are meddling in the same number or more.
I tried to read your link. It was pretty dumb. Its just further proof of how far off the deep end the right wing fringe in the U.S. has gone. I'm really sure there is a left wing conspiracy to use schools to convert everyone to Islam.
I know you'll hate it but I think it is a good idea if schools teach courses in all the major religions, from a cultural and historical perspective. It might alleviate a lot of ignorance and promote more understanding and tolerance. It might fix the acute case of tunnel vision infecting most Christians in the U.S. Again they seem to regurgitate the New Testment the same way Madrasas regurgitate the Koran. No one actually listens to whats those books say, or connect that those teachings are pretty much the exact opposite of the things most of their political, economic and religious leaders are actually doing in the names of those great teachings.
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Wrong headline (Score:5, Funny)
Has Black Box thought of this? (Score:5, Interesting)
But Maryland election officials agreed with Bear that no hacking can happen unless the hacker is physically at the computer.
How long until somebody writes a virus/worm/trojan that does nothing on most Windows boxes (other than propagate) and on systems where GEMS is detected then around 8:00pm on election day just go wreak havoc with the election results? No physical access to the GEMS systems is needed. If those machines are hooked up to the internet at any time prior to the election (like to get Windoze updates) they could potentially become infected with just such a worm.
Yeah, I know it's a stretch. Just playing devils advocate...
Imagine the damage that a...... (Score:5, Funny)
Dacek does not have the right idea here... (Score:5, Insightful)
Does anyone else find it rather strange they are worried about the "critics" and not the ones who seem to be in a big hurry to get these insecure systems in place? In my mind, the critics are the ones trying to stop a possible hi-jacking of democracy.
This reads like a AM radio talk show host comparing protestors at a convention to terrorists.
Re:Dacek does not have the right idea here... (Score:5, Insightful)
Why do YOU hate America so much, Citizen?
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Fight back with your code... (Score:5, Insightful)
The idea that elections can be entrusted to the Diebold corporation is wholly absured when you consider that democracy is an activity of the people, for the people and by the people. Of course the results will be and ***SHOULD*** be questioned; that's the whole point of a democracy. That's why an open source voting system is and should be the only way to do computerized voting; it's open to scrutiny by anyone and everyone, and such it is, eventually and ultimately, beyond scrutiny when the final vote is out.
The open source community should produce as soon as possible an effective, secure, and open source voting system that's ready for reliable usage. It's one thing to criticize Diebold, it's another thing to question an elected official why an open source solution that's proven and secure and anyone can know the ins and outs of is not implemented and another obscure, closed, and highly questionable one is entrusted.
Reset the Election (Score:5, Funny)
I mean, really. They practically have a button that says "Press to Hack Election."
Bulls**t (Score:5, Interesting)
Even if the system could be hacked, he said, it could only be done by a person with "unfettered access to the system." Bear noted that elections are not just the machines, but also the people who work the elections.
"Quite honestly it's somewhat insulting to elections officials and volunteers," he said to the idea that elections officers would tamper with vote results.
At every election I have voted in, the officials and volunteers are retirees who have VCRs flashing 12:00! They would never know it if some young whipper-snapper was farting aroung with the newfangled high-tech whizbang voting machines, nor will they be able to help anyone if the machines screw up.
Diebold responds (Score:5, Funny)
Missing the point, they don't understand computing (Score:5, Insightful)
e-voting machines are horseshit (Score:5, Insightful)
I used to work with county and city elections. No machines were used, just a supervisory staff of elections officials and a horde of volunteers. All voting locations would count each box of ballots twice, each time by a different person, and if the tallies weren't exact they'd go through the whole process again for that ballot box. This would continue until two separate individuals got the same count for the box.
Afterwards, all of the paper ballots would be boxed and stored in a secure location in case it became necessary to do a recount. And again, all recounts were done by box, twice, and any discrepancies meant starting over from scratch for that box.
This wasn't a terribly expensive way of doing things. The primary cost was in printing and mailing the ballots (for mail-ins). The elections sites themselves were run by volunteers, and the supervisory staff was already paid for. Fraud was rather difficult to pull off on the part of the volunteers and the entire process was 'open source'. Individual citizen groups could demand to have a representative sit in on the recounts, as could any political party that was running a candidate.
Why, exactly, are we dumping a system like this for Diebold machines? It makes no sense at all unless someone is specifically looking for a way to fuck up the elections in their favor, or in favor of whomever happens to be paying them off.
And don't tell me that this system can't be scaled; that's bullshit. The system I'm speaking of here was used on the city, county, and state level. If it can be done by one state, it can be scaled for any state, and it's the STATES who run the elections, not the federal government.
Max
Re:This story could make a liberal's head explode (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:This story could make a liberal's head explode (Score:5, Informative)
Try the US Civil Rights Commission. (Their report on the Florida electoral fraud is available here: http://www.usccr.gov/pubs/vote2000/report/main.htm [usccr.gov])
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Re:This story could make a liberal's head explode (Score:5, Informative)
"I am committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the President next year."
- Wally O'Dell, CEO Diebold
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Re:This story could make a liberal's head explode (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:This story could make a liberal's head explode (Score:5, Informative)
Read This [commondreams.org]
COLUMBUS - The head of a company vying to sell voting machines in Ohio told Republicans in a recent fund-raising letter that he is "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year."
The Aug. 14 letter from Walden O'Dell, chief executive of Diebold Inc. - who has become active in the re-election effort of President Bush - prompted Democrats this week to question the propriety of allowing O'Dell's company to calculate votes in the 2004 presidential election.
It seems to me that someone who makes voting software shouldn't be promising to deliver votes, but maybe it's just me.
-Dan
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Re:Fair and balanced?? (Score:5, Insightful)
However, most of the rejected stories you listed have nothing to do with technology; they merely describe political news or events. I think the bias Slashdot has toward "news for nerds" is appropriate; we can get our pure political news from other sources.
When I'm reading slashdot, I'm looking for info about tech trends and social impacts therefrom, nothing more.
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