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Florida County Asks Students To Crack Elections
imAck writes: "After the election fiasco last year in Florida, many have discussed the possibilities of using a computerized voting system to replace the old punch-card ballot system. Florida's Broward county is considering buying a $20 million dollar computerized touchscreen system to handle future elections. What makes the story interesting is how they are planning to test the system for security holes.
The county plans on holding mock elections in high schools and at senior citizen communities. They are actually asking the students to try and hack into the system during the mock elections to learn of possible security issues." I wonder if Broward County would look into spending their money on hardware and supporting development of the GNU Project's existing electronic voting software.
You see, the more people there are (presuming they can all vote), the less value your vote has. And let's face it, most of the people here on Slashdot have more intelligence and are better suited to pick the next President than some redneck hick sitting in a cabin (or to be less extreme; next time you take a bus, look at the people around you. Now, how many of them would you want to have an influence on your future)?
So instead, the voting system should not only remain as it is, but in fact increase in complexity. The (cynical) way I see it, if you can gear the voting card so that anyone with less than a minimal amount of intelligence ends up voiding his vote (or perhaps voting for a 'red herring'), the more influence people with some intelligence can have.
You may argue that this view is exceedingly cynical. I would agree. But backtrack for a second, and remember that the vast majority of Americans (and people of all nations) are, to put it politely, morons. The greater up the intelligence scale you go, the fewer people you will find, and it's easy to see that a system which follows the collective will of dolts will not fuction well. (The main flaw with democracy, in my opinion.)
So if a computerised voting system is to be put in place, some sort of low-grade intelligence test would be really quite handy. I'm not saying that only geniuses should vote, but I'm sure you can all name people who you do not want deciding the future of the free world.
Of course, the tax burden to keep such a system in operation (along with all the spotty IT admins) is another matter entirely. But hey, I live in England, what do I care. (And presumably, with a two-party system you're damned if you do and damned if you don't.)
Security through promiscuity is no better than security through obscurity.
Only problem is that DMCA applies to copyrighted works. Unless you're Katherine Harris and authoring your own election results, DMCA doesn't apply.
The truth about Scientology, Xenu, and you: Operation Clambake
Too bad it is written in java.
Gore? You mean that guy who flunked out of freakin' Vanderbilt Divinity School? (F's in five of the eight classes he took over three semesters). Then again, if a majority of the people who know Gore best, the residents of his own state of Tennessee, hadn't voted for his opponent, then yes, he really would be president right now. D'oh! :)