More Voting Machine News
,----[ Quote ]
| Ohio just completed a major study of voting machines. (Here's the report, a
| gigantic pdf.) And, like the California study earlier this year, they found
| all sorts of problems...
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http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2007/12/more_voting_mac_1.html
Open source is inevitable. Linux also (unless Windows goes open source). Even
medical equipment and the stock market have moved to Linux for reliability
recently.
Recent:
S.F. supervisors' panel backs Sequoia voting machines
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| Such so-called open-source code would allow for public scrutiny of the
| ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
| accuracy of the equipment and act as a guard against tampering with
| elections. The problem is, no company sells open-source systems, citing
| concerns about giving away their technology to competitors.
|
| [...]
|
| The contract also mandates that Sequoia switch to open-source code within a
| ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
| year if another company brings such a product to the market. Supervisor Tom
| Ammiano, who sits on the committee, also recommended the creation of a task
| force to evaluate the city's options in the future, including whether San
| Francisco could create, manufacture and sell its own voting technology.
`----
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/12/06/BAQ5TOSG7.DTL
ES&S e-voting system used in California cracked wide open
,----[ Quote ]
| "Once done, all the files can be accessed and potentially modified, including
| sensitive files such as the password file which can be cracked by openly
| available cracker programs. New users may be added with known passwords and
| used by the same attacker or other attackers later."
`----
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20071205-security-testing-uncovers-severe-security-flaws-in-ess-voting-machines.html
Related:
California to Start Review of Voting Machines
,----[ Quote ]
| Vendors have time to submit their machines including documentation
| and source code until July 1st or face severe restrictions, including
| decertification, for the 2008 elections. Scheduled to start next week,
| the review will include a red-team attack and going through the
| source code.
`----
http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/05/09/2140206&from=rss
,----[ Quote ]
| ...California Secretary of State Debra Bowen commissioned the study
| which pitted two hacker teams, better known as "Red Teams" against
| voting machines manufactured by Diebold, Hart and Sequoia....
|
| Abbott's team was able to access election data directly by exploiting
| vulnerabilities in the Diebold machine's Windows operating system - an
| operating system that all three e-voting machines use....
|
| Vigna's team also found physical security on the Sequoia voting
| machine to be inadequate. They gained access to the machine's insides
| by unscrewing a few locks and discovered that the screws with not
| protected by seals....
|
| The study adds that all three machines used some form of Windows
| operating system and that each machine's firmware was easily
| overwritten by the teams...
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http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/33137/118/
End the secrecy of electronic voting
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| We have no opportunity to determine whether electronic voting machines are
| properly programmed to record and count our votes -- merely because the
| corporate vendors of these machines insist on keeping their programming
| "source code" a trade secret.
`----
http://www.contracostatimes.com/opinion/ci_6550239?nclick_check=1
E-voting vendor succumbs to California source code demands
,----[ Quote ]
| "... there are serious concerns regarding the motivations and apparent
| personal agendas of a number of the currently proposed examiners," ES&S
| exec StevenPearson wrote in a letter agreeing to turn over the source
| code.
`----
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/06/28/evoting_source_code_disclosure/
John Edwards supports "open source" for voting systems
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| John Edwards has become the first presidential candidate to support
| "open source code" for election systems.
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http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2007/2662#3258828628252476494
Microsoft Muscles the NYS Legislature
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| Microsoft’s proposed change to state law would effectively render
| our current requirements for escrow and the ability for independent
| review of source code in the event of disputes completely meaningless
| - and with it the protections the public fought so hard for.
`----
http://nyvv.org/blog/bolipariblog.html
Halt e-voting, says election body
,----[ Quote ]
| Despite the commission saying security needed to be "strengthened", Mr Will
| said: "We are pleased that the evaluations point to a high level of system
| security and user confidence in e-voting systems tested and that the security
| and integrity of the polls was not compromised.
`----
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6926625.stm
Most vote machines lose test to hackers
,----[ Quote ]
| "The vendors appeared to have designed systems that were not high assurance
| (of security)," said Bishop, a recognized expert on computer security. "The
| security seems like it was added on.''
`----
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/07/28/VOTING.TMP&tsp=1
State legislators keep e-voting apps in public hands
,----[ Quote ]
| Microsoft, whose Windows software is used in some of the vendors' devices,
| sought to amend the law to avoid the strict escrow provisions.
|
| [...]
|
| But Lipari had his worries before the matter was resolved. Earlier
| this month, in his blog, he called Microsoft the "800-pound gorilla
| of software development" as he called attention to its plans. Microsoft,
| he said, had been steadily lobbying legislators and circulating an
| unsigned document that would redefine the law.
`----
http://www.linuxworld.com/news/2007/062507-state-legislators-keep-e-voting-apps.html?fsrc=rss-linux-news
,----[ Quote ]
| "Nineteen machines had 21 screen freezes or system crashes, producing a
| blue screen and messages about an "illegal operation" or a "fatal
| exception error."
|
| "Especially with this blue-screen problem, you don't know whether it's
| the printer drivers, you don't know whether it's Diebold's own code or
| whether it's Windows,"
`----
http://www.verifiedvotingfoundation.org/article.php?id=6257
,----[ Quote ]
| Problems found in an audit of Diebold tabulation records from an Ohio
| November 2006 election raise questions about whether the database got
| corrupted during the tabulation of election results...
|
| The database is built from Microsoft's Jet database engine. The
| engine, according to Microsoft, is vulnerable to corruption when a lot
| of concurrent activity is happening with the database, such as what
| occurs on an election night [and Microsoft advises againt using Jet in
| a complex environment]...
|
| The report mentions that election staff had trouble with the server
| crashing and freezing on election night....
|
| The report notes that with punch card machines election officials used
| to be able to determine definitively if all ballots had been counted
| in the results....
`----
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2007/04/diebold_vote_da.html
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