[ale] [OT] Inside A U.S. Election Vote Counting Program

[Matt Smith]

Wow.. I hope Bev Harris has some good attorneys.  Publication of the details
a system like that is likely to encourage litigation.

This article is no different than some "security researcher" publishing
details of a vulnerability and source code for exploiting it before giving
the author of a system a chance to address the issues.  A quick review of
the "background" didn't show any evidence of an attempt to give the creators
a chance.

I know this is a touchy subject about electronic voting/ballot tampering,
but cease-and-desist orders have been filed for, and served/enforced for
much lesser things.  This certainly crosses some lines from the software/IP
perspective.

I agree that if and when an electronic ballot system ever comes into
widespread use, it should be thoroughly tested and audited, and created in
such a way as to prevent tampering, but this can be accomplished without
guerilla tactics and replication of (probably) illegally obtained data on
file sharing networks and offshore.

I guess the grain of salt to take with this article is that if you click on
"Bev Harris" on the blackboxvoting site you'll see that she owns a PR firm..
she's obviously good a that.


--Matt






-----Original Message-----
From: Joe Steele [mailto:joe at madewell.com]
To: ale at ale.org
Sent: Wednesday, July 09, 2003 2:14 PM
To: 'ale at ale.org'
Subject: [ale] [OT] Inside A U.S. Election Vote Counting Program


Since the issue of electronic voting security has been discussed on 
the ale list in the past, I forward the following link for anyone 
interested who has not seen it yet.

http://www.blackboxvoting.com/scoop/S00065.htm

--Joe
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