“Diebold Election Systems plans to make changes to its electronic voting machines, following the disclosure of a number of serious security flaws in the systems. On Thursday, the voting watchdog organisation Black Box Voting published a report detailing how Diebold’s TS6 and TSx touch-pad voting machines could be compromised by taking advantage of “backdoor” features designed to allow new software to be installed on the systems. Finnish security researcher Harri Hursti, discovered backdoors in the boot loader software, in the OS, and in the Ballot Station software that it runs to tabulate votes,” Robert McMillan reports for Macworld UK.
“Diebold plans to address the issue in an upcoming version of the product, which will use cryptographic keys to ensure that only authorised software is installed on the machine, Bear said. He could not say when this feature would be added, but said that it could be available in time for the November 7 general election in the US,” McMillan reports. “These latest set of flaws are the most serious voting machine flaws yet reported, according to Ed Felten, a professor of computer science at Princeton University, and Avi Rubin, a Professor of Computer Science at Johns Hopkins University. ‘The attacks described in Hursti’s report would allow anyone who had physical access to a voting machine for a few minutes to install malicious software code on that machine, using simple, widely available tools,’ they wrote Thursday on the Freedom to Tinker blog. ‘The malicious code, once installed, would control all of the functions of the voting machine, including the counting of votes.’ Diebold’s machines are based on custom hardware that runs Microsoft’s Windows CE operating system.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: WinCE? Who’s the genius who made that decision? Sheesh. And you thought that the ease with which the deceased can vote in Chicago is odd? Just imagine…
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It’s regrettable that the flaws of a voting machine have become a partisan issue. If we looked at it from an engineering standpoint, there would be no reason not to build voting machines that are flawless – it’s not rocket science or a cure for cancer. It’s just a voting machine.
I personally believe that these Diebold machines were comprised by people trying to subvert the democratic process in favor of a particular candidate. Who those people are and what party they belong is not important. These machines should be designed so that it is IMPOSSIBLE to hack the results. That means there has to be a way to verify the results. And they can start by not using Windows CE or any other flavor.
And get rid of the Electoral College while we’re at it. Every vote should count equally, whether you live in Florida or not.
“Jon, are you ignoring the recount which showed Bush did really win?”
In a voting process with no paper trail, how do you perform a recount? Ah, yes, check the computer again. The same computer which has been rumored to have been tampered with.
Not affirming the previous post, this is just quite the weak rebuttal.
I can’t afford cable.
“I personally believe that these Diebold machines were comprised by people trying to subvert the democratic process in favor of a particular candidate.”
Well, that IS one of the steps towards a fascist dictatorship, maintain the “appearance” of a democratic process.
Although if you get rid of the electorial college, you’d also have to dismantle the current government and replace it with one where individuals have less power, maybe like the “Parliaments” that we always set up other countries with.
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The integrity of our democracy, the question of if the votes of citizens actually count, should be of extreme concern to everyone, regardless of their party affiliation (if any).
Google “India Voting Machine”… maybe low-tech might be the way to go.
One of the links is below, an article from Slate in 2004:
http://www.slate.com/id/2107388/
– – – e – x – c – e – r – p – t – – –
” a machine that looks like a cross between a computer keyboard and a Casio music synthesizer…In fact, it’s not much of a computer at all, more like a souped-up adding machine. …Also, the software is embedded—or hard-wired—onto a microprocessor that cannot be reprogrammed. If someone tries to pry open the machine, it automatically shuts down.”
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
If the system is going to be electronic in nature let’s make it unencumbered by any corporation as much as possible.
Linux or a Unix OS.
A “Paper” reciept that would tabulate and print each vote as it came in.
Forget about the past elections no matter what your leanings and views are, they are a red herring here. It’s an old political trick to get off topic to switch any debate to another subject of call into question the individuals involved and avoid the real issue.
If the press had any balls anymore these sort of things would actually not be an issue. Now large corporations own the news and color it as it suits their interests.
Although if you get rid of the electorial college, you’d also have to dismantle the current government and replace it with one where individuals have less power, maybe like the “Parliaments” that we always set up other countries with.
ummm why? How does electing the President via popular vote instead of the electoral vote mean we have to trade in congress for a parlaiment? Am I the only one who fails to make that enormous leap in logic.
Um – can ANYONE tell me how all this political crap (on BOTH sides) relates to Apple computers/ipods or computers in general??? I think that MDN was riding the line posting this story anyway, but so what, its their site and its fun to laugh at Microsoft once in awhile anyway, but to everyone who this this is the appropriate venue for a political discussion
ITS NOT!
Have a nice day
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MDN are fucktards. What can I say?
All these machines need to run is a more limited version of Minix running a single voting program.
What’s wrong with paper ballots?
George Bush is the best president ever!!!!
W, if history is honest, will be seen as the person accelerating the end of an empire. Mark my words, during or before 2008, another inside job will go down, canceling the elections, and we’ll have George the Dictator, just like he prefers.
“Let’s bash Microsoft now. Much more fun.”
Bashing a lie no matter the topic, is always fun.
Wow. Everyone’s still going on about this are they?
MDN is getting like EastEnders. The same plotlines being repeated again and again and again.
An still we all fall for it
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Well, he’s certainly the best President called “George W Bush” ever, but does anyone ever find themselves comparing him unfavourably to Dan Quayle.
“How does electing the President via popular vote instead of the electoral vote mean we have to trade in congress for a parlaiment?”
Don’t think it terms of what you want, think in terms of what is likely to happen. Getting rid of the electoral college is just as likely as having a parliament.
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Electronic Voting Systems – a “solution” to a problem which doesn’t exist. And as we have seen, the potential for “errors” and fraud is that much greater.
What the hell is wrong with a piece of paper and a pencil?
Takes too long to count for the “business community”?
Tough shit! Democracy has always been “inconvenient” for business, get used to it already.
What the hell is wrong with a piece of paper and a pencil?
Amen!
Whoever entrusted our freedom to Windows CE needs to be taken down.
2008 is going to be the ugliest election ever. It’ll make 2000 look easy.
Lets take the electronic factor out right now so there’s ZERO question on that front.
Paper ballots may be ancient & slow to count. But at least they’re permanent and proven.
The Electoral College was designed to keep concentrated groups from forcing election results on the rest of the country. People in fly-over country don’t want LA, Dallas, Atlanta and NYC deciding the election for them.
The problem in 200 wasn’t the Electoral College, it was about ChoicePoint and others stealing the election by throwing legitimate voters off of the registration rolls in order to determine the outcome in advance. BTW- ChoicePoint is now selling your personal Data to the Feds to cross-match with the TelCo provided phone data. This is data that the Feds are not legally allowed to collect, so they just buy it.
Big brother is here and he works for the government under contract.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ChoicePoint
http://www.buzzflash.com/contributors/06/05/con06189.html
http://www.tsa.gov/public/display?theme=81&content=090005198002d4e5
God! These political debates are tedious here. The level of discourse is tragic. I’d rather not see this moronic crap go here at all (it is so depressing to see the rude and idiotic online behavior of fellow Mac users). If, however, you feel compelled to make a political point, at least provide links to some reference material that can support it. I would hope that most of us are always up to increasing our understanding of issues, but juvinile name calling and spreading of unsupported arguments is no way to debate or persuade.
but juvinile name calling and spreading of unsupported arguments is no way to debate or persuade.
Call me a Luddite, but the Diebold flaws that brought about this discussion are, IMO, a strong argument that our digital technology isn’t yet up to the challenges of tabulating a presidential election.
The 2008 election will be particularly heated, and any use of electronics will bring charges of ballot rigging and security breaches (founded or not).
We need to go back to pen-and-paper ballots until something better can prove itself.
>at all (it is so depressing to see the rude and idiotic online behavior of >fellow Mac users)
Strange thing is I’ve done craigslist and swap list deals with a lot of mac users in my area and the people I’ve dealt with have been some of the nicest people I’ve ever met. Same with the folks in line at Apple Store openings (damn…missed the Ardmore opening this weekend waiting for an electrician who forgot about the appointment…)
I have no idea where the assholes that post here come from–they’re certainly not like any of the mac folks I’ve met in person.
This ought to be the last word in this thread.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/051506A.shtml
The real point is that Diebold machines need to be fixed. No-one has any proof, or even tangible evidence that these voting machines were compromised by any political party.
With the butterfly paper ballots, the more you count them, the more chads come free and thus, the more votes are invalidated. It’s the same with any paper thing, really. The more you handle it, the more degraded it becomes. Now this especially becomes a problem when dishonesty is so widespread that it begins to affect the national elections. This has been a problem, really, since the late 1960’s. The problem is fundamentally moral, people.
In Florida, the butterfly ballot was used for years and years. It was only recently that it became suddenly difficult to use. Why? And why did the senior citizens in the 2000 election proclaim that they voted wrongly *after voting* when they had every opportunity to ask for help or ask for a new ballot? Why? Gore had his lawyers on the ground in Florida before voting was done. Why? The networks called the race in Florida early before the west half of the state had a chance to finish voting. What effect did that have? Why was it done? Wherever there were voting irregularities in the 2000 elections in Florida, the Democrats controlled the voting admin boards for that county. Why?
The answers are plain.
MDN word: moral.
I am surprised no one has pointed out that DLMeyer is wrong about Ohio: “In Ohio, they used Diebold machines.” I live in Hamilton county (CIncinnati) where we used punch cards. While I voted for the other guy, Bush probably had more votes here than any part of Ohio using Diebold machines. I believe the count in this area was accurate. Punched cards here now have been replaced by paper ballots which are read by an optical scanner in the polling place, in the recent May 06 primary. The voter places the ballot in the scanner. The scanner has a display which tells the voter that the ballot is readable only, not displaying the vote. In the even of a recount the paper ballots themselves may be counted. By the way, the infamous CEO is out.
mmm MW = ‘not’ as in DLMeyer not always right.