Solid Proof Voting Machines Can Be Hacked
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Elections, TechnologyIt’s literally insane how easy it is to hack these votings machines and leave absolutely no trace. And not only can one machine be hacked, but the virus can spread itself to other machines from a single source. A group of Princeton students recently did it and posted a video online. See it here.
Seriously folks, Diebold has some explaining to do because our democracy is in their hands…and those hands are not safe.
(h/t: Brad Blog)
This entry was posted on Friday, September 15th, 2006 and is filed under Elections, Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
September 15th, 2006 at 9:44 am
Avi Rubin of Johns Hopkins University has done a tremendous about of work researching and documenting the shortcomings of the Diebold voting machines.
See his blog –> http://avi-rubin.blogspot.com/2006/09/my-day-at-polls-maryland-primary-06.html
And his book –> http://www.bravenewballot.org/
September 15th, 2006 at 10:15 am
I fully support the all out ban on any electronic voting machine. The ONLY way I would even consider thinking about it would be if the machine prints my votes as I cast them for my personal review as I vote, allowing me to prove my votes when the machine returns a different result. They would still make me paranoid.
September 15th, 2006 at 2:58 pm
May I propose the Canadian system: paper ballots counted by human beings? I’ve worked as a poll clerk at more than one election and I can assure you, it is fast, efficient and very difficult to corrupt. KISS does work…
September 17th, 2006 at 12:34 pm
I have no problem with the idea of electronic voting machines either, with James’ caveat about having a backup recount system that is personally verifiable by the voter himself…i.e. a paper printout he personally puts into the ballot box. All Diebold machines, however, should be immediately removed from all polling places nationwide and replaced with an unhackable system, even if that means having to deal with underage pregnant chads again.
In addition, I would strongly recommend using a system designed using open-source code that has been circulated among security experts for a while…far safer than anything in-house companies can do (i.e. Microsoft XP…how many years and hundreds of security patches later?)
The scariest thing about this article is that these people did their tweak using reverse engineering of assembler code, and finished in just a few months. Imagine how easy it would be if someone within Diebold leaked the source code to a politically motivated hacker?
The GAO report on the 2004 election and the disagreement between exit polling and e-voting machine-run district results point to a high likelihood that something akin to Princeton’s code was actually used in 2004, and that’s why our nation and the world have been assaulted with four more years of Bush.
September 18th, 2006 at 3:14 am
“The scariest thing about this article is that these people did their tweak using reverse engineering of assembler code, and finished in just a few months. Imagine how easy it would be if someone within Diebold leaked the source code to a politically motivated hacker?”
You think?
“On July 8, 2003 an Internet publication called Scoop Media released the location of a complete set of files. Alastair Thompson, the publisher and editor of Scoop Media, says he believed that the files were of critical importance in assessing whether Diebold officials and certifiers have been telling the truth about voting machine security. “
‘Scoop’ just happens to be NZ based :-D
“The files on the Diebold ftp site indicate that security flaws are not limited to touch screen machines; the problems with Diebold’s GEMS software also exist in Diebold optical scan machines, like those used in King County Washington. For a complete list of locations using Diebold machines as of Feb. 2003, go to the list of Diebold locations found in: http://www.blackboxvoting.org/mfr.pdf, bearing in mind that many new purchases have been made since that time.
State laws typically allow only limited examination of the paper ballots, taking tallies directly from Diebold optical scan machines, even in recounts. Therefore, insecure optical scan software also poses a grave risk to voting security, since tampering is unlikely to be spotted. Under a previous company name (Global Election Systems) Diebold machines counted 40 percent of Florida in election 2000″
Essentially, Diebold staff could access the voting machines at any time between installation and the end of counting…
blackboxvoting.org is definitely worth a visit.
Oh, the archive of Scoop’s original articles (from 2003 and earlier) have gone with the new webpage. A great great pity. Look for the book, I suspect…
BTW I believe that Thompson’s interest may have been sparked by a proposal to use voting machines in this country. NOT WHILE I STILL LIVE!!.
And if you think that paper voting and counting takes too long, consider India which still uses the “old” system.
September 18th, 2006 at 2:22 pm
True, but India can hire a million people at $0.10 a day to count the votes, we don’t have that luxury.
Eventually I believe that electronic voting will win out, as it has the capacity to be as or more secure than paper ballots, but only if done in the most rigorous and secure fashion, and *only* if it provides a physical audit trail.
September 28th, 2006 at 10:20 am
The Diebold - Blackwell connection is the subject of much debate in Ohio.Most Buckeyes don’t trust electronic voting.
October 23rd, 2006 at 11:16 am
[...] First, remember last month when those Princeton students hacked into the Diebold machines, uploaded some code and subsequently changed election results with absolutely no trace? Well, if not, click here and read my post about it. [...]