Comments on: Voting roundup

By: Pablo Mitton

Pablo Mitton — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 16:58:20 +0000

I don’t often respond on blogs until now! I’ve added you to my reader, thanks :)

By: Stephen

Stephen — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 21:26:20 +0000

First off, I voted early and on paper, we are given the choice, and I went paper, reminds me of the old “paper or plastic” days. LOL. I also checked the counting machine and I was #3291 on that machine.
Second, I think all code for voting machines should be open source. And standardized, like back in WW2, we had several types of weapons systems, & aircraft and they were built to the same plans, but by different manufacturers. The F4U Corsair is one example, it was built by at least 3 different builders. Do the same with voting machines. What has to be “secret” about the way we vote. There are several simple and elegant ways to do it. Like the saying goes, “it’s not rocket science”
Wasn’t there a movie recently about someone getting elected due to a flaw in the software??? Art imitates real life? or the other way around?

By: Joe

Joe — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 18:28:56 +0000

It might sound daft, and please keep in mind the fact that I’m not American, but I honestly do wonder why given all the supposed ease of hacking these machines nobody has done so yet. It would be rather a damning indictment of Diebold et all, even at the cost of a large chunk of life in federal prison if all the states with electronic voting came in absoloutly 100% (i.e. not even a single vote the other way) for a third party candidate (pick one at random, I don’t kno their names)… Yes, you’d get done for treason, but since people are forever complaining that there isnt a popular uprising – well there’s something you can do that probably (read: if you avoid texas) won’t get you shot, but will put the message across to Mr Six-pack-and-nascar exactly why they should be concerned about electronic voting.

Bonus points if you can change candidate names – you gotta admit, there would be a certain irony if we all woke up on tuesday (that is election day right?) and found out the new president was one Leon Bronstein (sp?) (Trotsky, for those that didnt study history much ;) )

By: PKM

PKM — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 11:10:51 +0000

You know, in the UK we have a highly advanced voting system that is immune to ROM swapping, bad touch screen calibration, swinging chads, viruses, radio emission sniffing and all those sorts of hacks. And it generates its own paper trail. It’s called “take a pencil, put a cross in the right box”. It’s like the russian space pen all over again.

By: x1140710

x1140710 — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 02:44:25 +0000

@maatin

Finally a winner! haha you are correct. I don’t think there’s a problem with the machine. ; )

By: josh

josh — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 22:29:52 +0000

some videos depicting ucsb sec lab pen testing a voting machine

http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=maximumsecurity1337&view=videos

By: Peter

Peter — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 20:38:19 +0000

What’s wrong with using an ATM-style interface? Why would you use a touchscreen for something that could be done more successfully with a simple interface.

By: nick

nick — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 19:01:36 +0000

Yes, very secure:
“I’m just glad that Diebold Encryption is so strong it’s protecting my message.”

By: BigD145

BigD145 — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 17:39:58 +0000

@drew
Too little, too late. We need all paper -this- election if we want an accurate count.

By: fartface

fartface — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 16:09:47 +0000

V’z whfg tynq gung Qvrobyq rapelcgvba vf fb fgebat vg’f cebgrpgvat zl zrffntr

the above was protected with Diebolds current encryption system. It’s highly advanced.

Honestly, I’ve looked at the sourcecode to some of this stuff (got it from a torrent a year ago when that lady discovered it was all over diebolds website.

Their code is a joke, a 13 year old dabbling in game programming is better at this stuff than the best that diebold can hire. and yet they sell their crap for Thousands of dollars a machine.

By: OUTTA CALIBRATION

OUTTA CALIBRATION — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 15:44:35 +0000

The machine is out of calibration…..25 seconds in folks…..he was messing with a machine that is OUT OF CALIBRATION…….”I don’t believe 10 percent of what I hear and 90 percent of what I say”……

By: maatin

maatin — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 14:59:29 +0000

x1140710: I don’t pay much attention to the american election circus but isn’t Mr. Obama representing the democrats?

By: impactvector

impactvector — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 14:58:33 +0000

@ a non e-moose

Yeah, these things should be open source, but even if they were, how would you know what’s loaded on that specific box? Do you get a printout of the source code when you vote? Even that would require you to trust that the audit software is intact.

Granted, all voting systems require that people put trust somewhere. But the number of points of failure increase dramatically when you go to any kind of electronic voting. And accountability goes out the window.

By: a non e-moose

a non e-moose — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 12:50:23 +0000

What I don’t understand is why these voting systems are not open source. The whole thing is a scam, it HAS to be. I wrote more complicated programs in middle school, how can you mess up a simple question and answer program? On top of that there is no way for us to be sure that the systems aren’t cheating because they’re closed source.

By: drew

drew — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 12:23:49 +0000

i just heard on the news thismorining maryland and virginia are going back to paper ballots after the election