[ale] OT: Voting machines cracked in California

[Bob Toxen]

On Wed, Aug 01, 2007 at 06:32:49PM -0400, Ned Williams wrote:
> If you read one of the many article news.google referred on this, you will
> note some very valid comments...

> paper fraud is more common than electric as it stands and has stood for
> years..ballot stuffing....been around for awhile.
In the U.S. widespread paper ballot fraud is unlikely because too many
people are watching the ballots, typically including multiple election
officials, volunteers, and representatives of major candidates.

With electronic voting, NOBODY is watching the electrons (the data or
auditing the software) and it is easy for a few people with a million
dollars to alter 100% of the votes!  Anyone from "Hollywood" wanting
to put a pro-copyright President in to a foreign company wanting a
President who would not support Protectionist legislation to a major
political party happily would spend that money.

With electronic voting, there are NO audits possible (which violates
Georgia law) and no ability even to trace the data since they do
not use accepted practices such as cryptographic signatures of
electronic data.

> Ned
Bob


> On 8/1/07, Bob Toxen <transam at verysecurelinux.com> wrote:
> >
> > URL:
> >
> >
> > http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/07/28/MNGP6R8TJO1.DTL
> >
> > This story starts...
> >
> > State-sanctioned teams of computer hackers were able to break through
> > the security of virtually every model of California's voting machines
> > and change results or take control of some of the systems' electronic
> > functions, according to a University of California study released Friday.
> >
> > This completely undermines our right to vote (and the implied right
> > to have our vote counted).
> >
> > While the article claims that an [ordinary] thief would not have access
> > to the machines' manuals, etc. "[because they are secret]".  That argument
> > is nonsense.  Given the tens to hundreds of millions of dollars spent
> > on National elections, bribing someone is trivial.
> >
> > Voter-verified paper audits are the only way to go.
> >
> > My $.02.
> >
> > Bob Toxen
> > bob at verysecurelinux.com               [Please use for email to me]
> > http://www.verysecurelinux.com        [Network&Linux/Unix security
> > consulting]
> > http://www.realworldlinuxsecurity.com [My book:"Real World Linux Security
> > 2/e"]
> > Quality Linux & UNIX security and SysAdmin & software consulting since
> > 1990.
> > Quality spam and virus filters.
> >
> > "Microsoft: Unsafe at any clock speed!"
> >    -- Bob Toxen 10/03/2002