[ale] OT: Voting machines cracked in California

Fri Aug 3 13:58:19 EDT 2007

Aaron,
I am far from a conspiracy nut, I just actually pay attention to the news of
this city.
Anyone who believes that open source voting machines will some how discount
and solve the well documented irregularities that have been recorded time
and time again the city of Atlanta, would reach the same conclusion.

judging by the 235,000 hits on atlanta "voting irregularities" on google I
would say the the notion is in the least, not simply a crack pot theory..

my flame wars on ALE...really now.

On 8/3/07, aaron <aaron at pd.org> wrote:
>
> On Wednesday 01 August 2007 18:32, 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.
> > Ned
>
> Dear Ned:
>
> You are obviously a conspiracy nut whose observations can be dismissed
> as rantings from the lunatic fringe, since defrauding an election that
> relies
> on voter verified paper evidence inevitably requires a conspiracy. The
> larger the election, the more massive the number of conspirators needed
> to corrupt the election outcome. Please do yourself a favor and remove
> the tin foil hat while we consider the reality of the issue...
>
> It is no revelation that incompetent processes for the handling of paper
> ballots have, in the past, been exploited by election fraud criminals.
> Of equal concerns in modern elections is the added opportunity for
> electronic vote fraud wherever paper ballot tabulation machines are
> used without sufficient manual auditing of the evidence [see Florida,
> 2000, Ohio, 2004, *"Hursti Hack" of Diebold, Fla., 2005 ] ]. We only
> know about these frauds and election theft attempts because, in every
> case, we have had the physical, human readable records and paper
> ballot evidence to prove that fraud or errors occurred.  When the paper
> evidence is properly utilized, election errors and fraud can be corrected.
> *<
> http://votetrustusa.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1015&Itemid=113
> >
>
> The fact that paper ballot systems can uncover and correct fraud even
> when their handling or tabulation systems are incompetently implemented
> is perhaps the purest demonstration that voter verified, human readable
> and manually audited paper evidence should be an irrevocable
> requirement for any legitimate public election process.  Acknowledging
> that poorly implemented paper balloting systems can be abused does
> nothing to challenge the fact that even a flawed paper ballot system is
> infinitely superior to zero evidence, proprietary electronic election
> systems
> that (by intentionally disfunctional design) do not provide any physical
> public evidence by which fraud can be detected [see entire State of
> Georgia 2002, 2004, 2006].
>
> With election processes that provide voter verified paper ballots and a
> secure, public chain of custody for that evidence - where the ballot boxes
> and ballot counting remain at the public polling location in full public
> view
> until all the votes are tallied and audited - instances of attempted vote
> fraud are very rare, are localized to the precinct level, and are
> essentially
> guaranteed to fail because of their reliance on a broader conspiracy.
>
> (Conspiracy theories of voter identity theft and individual voter
> registration
> fraud are subject to failure by similar constraints.)
>
> Any honest and competent computer professional will confess that it is
> impossible to detect or prevent all the possible security hacks or
> software
> failures for any given computer system, even under the best case scenario
> of full public access to the source code.  When the voting systems and
> software are locked behind proprietary secrecy or otherwise kept hidden
> from public scrutiny, electronic vote fraud becomes effectively
> undetectable.
> Combined with centralized vulnerabilities of computer voting systems, this
> means that a single bribed programmer or corrupt corporate official or
> adept
> hacker in a spider hole can successfully defraud an entire national
> election,
> no conspiracy needed.
>
> peace
> aaron
>
>
> > 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
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > Ale mailing list
> > > Ale at ale.org
> > > http://www.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale
> > >
> >
>
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