New Closed Source Voting Systems Malfunction

LowellPorter writes "Miami-Dade and Broward counties are having voting problems. After the 2000 election problems, new voting methods were installed including touch screen technology. Some times the problems were with workers not showing up, poor training, or mechanical problems. It doesn't look like they cleaned up the system there." Not all of the problems mentioned in the article are due to the new proprietary voting machines, but many of them are.

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How proprietary software costs us our security

[b.foster]

Many readers of SlashDot.org will be happy to point out the fact that open source software, such as Linux, presents the user with a more secure, more auditable, and more correctable product in general. However, this is not the reason why open source electronic voting machines would work better than their proprietary cousins. The fact of the matter is, open source programmers are scared into learning about and understanding computer security by the close scrutiny of their peers, whilst proprietary software developers are free to stroke their egos as they write poor, insecure code that never sees the light of day.

Some may say this is a bold statement, so I will provide examples to back it up:

• Windows NT 4.0 contained several well-known backdoors that allowed non-admin users to pop their code straight into kernel space. This was done with "ease of use" for developers in mind, and since the OS was closed-source, nobody questioned the poor design. The Microsoftie who wrote it obviously conferred with several other Microsofties, who, lacking security training, had no idea it was not the Right Way(tm) to do things.
• In contrast - Andrew Morgan's continuing work on the Linux privileges project is the antithesis of Microsoft's uneducated, misguided attempt to build a secure OS. Andy started out as we all do - with a naive view of computer security and interprocess authorization. However, he learned from the masters, and quickly designed and implemented a rock-solid privilege foundation that is used, in its original form, to this day in the Linux kernel. Granted, few distributions other than OpenWall Linux take advantage of it (which is sad) - but if they did, we would all be much safer from the threat of root compromises.
• The Windows 2000 FTP daemon has been notoriously insecure, in contrast with open source products like MuddleFTPd and ProFTPd. Why? Because the coders who wrote this security-critical part of the system just didn't care.

And that is my point with these voting systems: they are produced with the bottom line and a fat contract on the line, not produced by people who actually care about developing a product that encapsulates accountability, security, and accuracy. In other words, these products are developed by your stereotypical non-geeks who buy a CS degree "so they can make more money." And those, my dear friends, are the enemy of everybody in our profession.