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Diebold Audit Released, BlackBoxVoting.Org Shut Down

Posted by simoniker on from the censors-and-revelations dept.

Chris Soghoian writes "The State of Maryland requested an audit of the Diebold electronic voting system by SAIC, after a report released by Johns Hopkins University and Rice Researchers (disclaimer: I'm one of Dr Rubin's students) noted several security issues. A condensed, from 200 to 40 pages, and censored version of the report has been released online (PDF link). The report notes that 'SAIC has identified several high-risk vulnerabilities that, if exploited, could have significant impact upon the AccuVote-TS voting system operation.'" However, Diebold says Maryland are moving forward with installation with "new security features" included, and elsewhere, Badgerman points out "Diebold has shut down blackboxvoting.org, apparently with copyright claims made to their ISP. But you can still go to the blackboxvoting.com site."

2 of 360 comments (clear)

  1. The conclusion of that thought by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative
    The State of Maryland's procedural controls and general voting environment reduce or eliminate many of the vulnerabilities identified in the Rubin report."

    And the report itself continues:

    However, these controls, while sufficient to help mitigate the weaknesses identified in the July 23 report, do not, in many cases meet the standard of best practice or the State of MarylandSecurity Policy.
  2. Small correction: link to memos, not source code by BevHarris · · Score: 5, Informative
    I found the source code on their wide open web site (using the google search engine) in January.

    The memos were sent to me by an insider, and I just got them 2 1/2 weeks ago.

    This is important, because one is similar to software piracy (though debatable, because they are under some obligation to protect things if they want to call them trade secrets, and no one in their right mind would want to pirate this system, called "junk shit" by their own technicians, to resell it.

    The memos, though, are just internal communications that were leaked, and once leaked and public, which they certainly are by now, when used only for fair use reasons in the public interest, the legal issues are quite different.