another excellent article on the electronic voting machine debacle over at salon. this topic still gives me the frggin' shivers. how about a few choice quotes? "While I sat at his computer, March helped me open a file containing actual results from a March 2002 primary election held in San Luis Obispo County, Calif. -- a file that March says would be accessible to anyone who worked in the county elections office on Election Day. Following March's direction, I changed the vote count with a few clicks. Then, he explained how to alter the "audit log," erasing all evidence that we'd tampered with the results. I saved the file. If it had been a real election, I would have been carrying out an electronic coup. It was a chilling realization." or "On Jan. 19, a team of computer scientists working with RABA Technologies set up a red-team exercise -- a one-day attempt to hack into Diebold machines configured as they would be on Election Day. They were successful. In a short time, the hackers managed to guess the passwords securing the voting system, allowing them to cast multiple ballots. They found that with a standard lock-pick set, they could inconspicuously open up each machine -- sometimes in less than 10 seconds -- and remove or attach various pieces of hardware, letting them erase or change electronic ballots. They concluded that Diebold's touch-screen machines contain "considerable security risks," and they suggested that Maryland put in place stringent safeguards before its March 2 primary, and that the state overhaul the system before the presidential election."

0 Comments
Leave Comment...