B
Blackwater
Guest
BBC
Web and phone voting pilots should be stopped until security and
testing have been improved, the Electoral Commission has said.
It said much has been learnt from recent pilots, but added that "there
is little merit" in holding more.
Thirteen pilots were held during May's local elections in England.
Election minister Michael Wills said pilots were important for
developing services that were "efficient, effective, empowering and
responsive".
The commission examined electronic voting, voting in advance of
polling day, electronic counting and signing for ballot papers at the
polling station.
The security of the voting process "needed to be strengthened" through
a system of individual registration, it said.
- - -
FOXnews
Critics of the Diebold touch-screen voting machines turned
their attention Wednesday from the machines themselves to the
computers that will tally the final vote, saying the outcome is
so easy to manipulate that even a monkey could do it.
And they showed video of a monkey hacking the system to prove it.
In the minute-long video produced by Black Box Voting , Baxter
the chimp is shown deleting the audit log that is supposed to keep
track of changes in the Diebold central tabulator, the computer and
program that keeps track of county vote totals.
Black Box Voting founder Bev Harris said the demonstration shows that
the system \u2014 which will be used in more than 30 states, including
Maryland \u2014 is dangerously inadequate when it comes to stopping
election fraud.
But a Diebold spokesman insisted that the system is secure despite
"incessant" criticism from organizations such as Black Box Voting.
- - -
http://techdirt.com/articles/20070802/001816.shtml
Bad Week For E-Voting Machines; Florida Follows California In Issuing
Report About Security Holes
from the anyone-else? dept
E-voting firms aren't having a particularly good week. Just days after
research commissioned by the state of California showed
vulnerabilities in many e-voting systems, a study commissioned by the
state of Florida found serious security issues with Diebold's optical
scan technology.
While the article suggests that this is one of the irst times the
security has been questioned on optical scan machines (where there
is still a paper trail, but these machines are used for counting the
votes), there have actually been numerous studies pointing out the
problems with Diebold's optical scanners, and how they can easily
be hacked.
Of course, what's amusing here is that some of the first tests that
found the problems with Diebold's optical scanners were done two years
ago by a "rogue" elections official in Florida. Of course, back then,
the state of Florida didn't launch an immediate investigation. The
state hung the elections official, Ion Sancho, out to dry, as the
e-voting companies cracked jokes about the vulnerability and teamed
up to conspire against him. So, now, years later, we find out that
the security vulnerabilities he pointed out then are actually there
is anyone apologizing ?
Doesn't sound like it.In fact, it sounds like Florida politicians
are downplaying the security problems with these machines.
- - - - -
Florida AGAIN ???
This time it's a DIFFERENT kind of machine - although sold
by the same company that built the hackable, crappy, touch-
screen voting machines.
And someone has finally considered what evils can be done
ABOVE the level of the individual machines - the computers
that tally the votes and send them on to other computers.
The three little articles above show that these sorts of
problems and concerns are not limited simply to Florida USA.
A number of countries have experimented or plan to experiment
with e-voting, using a variety of methods. ALL of them are
subject to hacking or other forms of manipulation - by
individuals, by party operatives and by the top-level
officials as well.
Of course the old way - the box full of paper ballots or
colored plastic balls - is also "hackable". Not unusual
for ballots to 'disappear' in 2nd/3rd-world countries.
Not unusual for new ballots to appear either - favoring
the "right" candidate, of course.
The BIG problem here is that any sort of 'democracy'
absolutely REQUIRES people to have faith in the voting
system. You're simply not 'represented' otherwise and
the govt is illegitimate.
This may be less of an issue in those aforementioned
bannana republics where everybody pretty much knows
the govt is and has always been totally corrupt. But
in large, powerful, influential 1st-world nations these
sorts of uncertainties can have devastating effects not
only on the the affected nation in particular but as
a ripple effect on those they trade with or where
political and military issues are involved.
There's one "fix" - eliminate the secret ballot. Attach
everyones face to their ballot form. Alas, as has been
demonstrated in the past, public ballots can be terribly
abused by government, business and a variety of political
pressure groups. Have your face attached to the "wrong"
vote and the thugs put you on their list - or your boss
shows you the door - or ninja-types come and take you
away in the night ....
In any event, e-votes are WAY too easy to mess with and
should be discontinued until such time as it can be fully
demonstrated that impenetrable security measures exist.
Until then, it's back to making marks on paper - and using
people to tally the results. Sure, there will be messy
ballots where it's unclear who was selected, there will
also be cases where party/special-interest operatives
will infiltrate the ranks of vote counters. Still, these
are easier to detect and deal with than the 'vaporvotes'
all-electronic systems create.
As for Florida and the rest of the USA ... DUMP DIEBOLD
at the very least ! They may have had an excuse right
after the Bush/Gore debacle ... everybody wanted new
machines RIGHT NOW so there wasn't much time for R&D
and testing. However that election is long past and
any new products SHOULD be as hacker/glitch-proof as
big-money can buy. They ain't.
Web and phone voting pilots should be stopped until security and
testing have been improved, the Electoral Commission has said.
It said much has been learnt from recent pilots, but added that "there
is little merit" in holding more.
Thirteen pilots were held during May's local elections in England.
Election minister Michael Wills said pilots were important for
developing services that were "efficient, effective, empowering and
responsive".
The commission examined electronic voting, voting in advance of
polling day, electronic counting and signing for ballot papers at the
polling station.
The security of the voting process "needed to be strengthened" through
a system of individual registration, it said.
- - -
FOXnews
Critics of the Diebold touch-screen voting machines turned
their attention Wednesday from the machines themselves to the
computers that will tally the final vote, saying the outcome is
so easy to manipulate that even a monkey could do it.
And they showed video of a monkey hacking the system to prove it.
In the minute-long video produced by Black Box Voting , Baxter
the chimp is shown deleting the audit log that is supposed to keep
track of changes in the Diebold central tabulator, the computer and
program that keeps track of county vote totals.
Black Box Voting founder Bev Harris said the demonstration shows that
the system \u2014 which will be used in more than 30 states, including
Maryland \u2014 is dangerously inadequate when it comes to stopping
election fraud.
But a Diebold spokesman insisted that the system is secure despite
"incessant" criticism from organizations such as Black Box Voting.
- - -
http://techdirt.com/articles/20070802/001816.shtml
Bad Week For E-Voting Machines; Florida Follows California In Issuing
Report About Security Holes
from the anyone-else? dept
E-voting firms aren't having a particularly good week. Just days after
research commissioned by the state of California showed
vulnerabilities in many e-voting systems, a study commissioned by the
state of Florida found serious security issues with Diebold's optical
scan technology.
While the article suggests that this is one of the irst times the
security has been questioned on optical scan machines (where there
is still a paper trail, but these machines are used for counting the
votes), there have actually been numerous studies pointing out the
problems with Diebold's optical scanners, and how they can easily
be hacked.
Of course, what's amusing here is that some of the first tests that
found the problems with Diebold's optical scanners were done two years
ago by a "rogue" elections official in Florida. Of course, back then,
the state of Florida didn't launch an immediate investigation. The
state hung the elections official, Ion Sancho, out to dry, as the
e-voting companies cracked jokes about the vulnerability and teamed
up to conspire against him. So, now, years later, we find out that
the security vulnerabilities he pointed out then are actually there
is anyone apologizing ?
Doesn't sound like it.In fact, it sounds like Florida politicians
are downplaying the security problems with these machines.
- - - - -
Florida AGAIN ???
This time it's a DIFFERENT kind of machine - although sold
by the same company that built the hackable, crappy, touch-
screen voting machines.
And someone has finally considered what evils can be done
ABOVE the level of the individual machines - the computers
that tally the votes and send them on to other computers.
The three little articles above show that these sorts of
problems and concerns are not limited simply to Florida USA.
A number of countries have experimented or plan to experiment
with e-voting, using a variety of methods. ALL of them are
subject to hacking or other forms of manipulation - by
individuals, by party operatives and by the top-level
officials as well.
Of course the old way - the box full of paper ballots or
colored plastic balls - is also "hackable". Not unusual
for ballots to 'disappear' in 2nd/3rd-world countries.
Not unusual for new ballots to appear either - favoring
the "right" candidate, of course.
The BIG problem here is that any sort of 'democracy'
absolutely REQUIRES people to have faith in the voting
system. You're simply not 'represented' otherwise and
the govt is illegitimate.
This may be less of an issue in those aforementioned
bannana republics where everybody pretty much knows
the govt is and has always been totally corrupt. But
in large, powerful, influential 1st-world nations these
sorts of uncertainties can have devastating effects not
only on the the affected nation in particular but as
a ripple effect on those they trade with or where
political and military issues are involved.
There's one "fix" - eliminate the secret ballot. Attach
everyones face to their ballot form. Alas, as has been
demonstrated in the past, public ballots can be terribly
abused by government, business and a variety of political
pressure groups. Have your face attached to the "wrong"
vote and the thugs put you on their list - or your boss
shows you the door - or ninja-types come and take you
away in the night ....
In any event, e-votes are WAY too easy to mess with and
should be discontinued until such time as it can be fully
demonstrated that impenetrable security measures exist.
Until then, it's back to making marks on paper - and using
people to tally the results. Sure, there will be messy
ballots where it's unclear who was selected, there will
also be cases where party/special-interest operatives
will infiltrate the ranks of vote counters. Still, these
are easier to detect and deal with than the 'vaporvotes'
all-electronic systems create.
As for Florida and the rest of the USA ... DUMP DIEBOLD
at the very least ! They may have had an excuse right
after the Bush/Gore debacle ... everybody wanted new
machines RIGHT NOW so there wasn't much time for R&D
and testing. However that election is long past and
any new products SHOULD be as hacker/glitch-proof as
big-money can buy. They ain't.
