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E-Voting Expert Testifies
Christopher Soghoian writes "Johns Hopkins University professor Dr. Avi Rubin (of previous e-voting fame) yesterday testified before the Maryland House Ways and Means Committee.
An article in the Baltimore Sun describes his testimony, as well as that of the director of the state elections board, Linda Lamone. Mrs. Lamone was highly critical of Dr Rubin's testimony, stating that he was doing 'a great disservice to democracy. They're telling the public: Don't trust them, don't trust the voting equipment.'
This begs the question: Is it better for security researchers to avoid publicly criticizing e-voting flaws? Is public faith in the system more important than overall system security?"
If Lamone is attacking the messenger, rather than the message, she is surely guilty of some flaw...
Is public faith in the system more important than overall system security?
I love the Leader too!
-Ben
Just because a virus sitting in Jane AOL's system sending out spam isn't affecting her business, it doesn't make it OK. If fraud is going to go on next election, as personally I'm sure it will, there need to be huge changes happen before integrety is restored.
Doubters have to be able to scrutinize the way the system works. So, in order to be trusted by as many people as possible, the system should be understandable by as many people as possible.
As soon as you have any kind of black box whose functionning cannot either be seen, or plainly understood by people, there is room for doubt.
This is why a hand-counted, paper-based ballot system is the most trustable one possible: it doesn't take a computer scientist to understand how it works and how it could be rigged.
I think they still do that today and if somebody went public with how stupid this really is, I'm sure they would get the same treatment. Be EDUCATING the public, the politicians feel threatened. They've made clueless decisions and when those decisions are threatened... well, it's just unAmerican( or so THEY say ).
For the people, by the people... yea, right.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
Most people, like the poster, incorrectly assume that "begs the question" is the same as "answers the question". This describes the proper use of the phrase.
Toronto-area transit rider? Rate your ride.
Public faith in the integrity of the electoral system is vital if democracy is to be successful. If one of the vital components of the electoral system is flawed then the public can have no faith and the system cannot work.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
Is it better for security researchers to avoid publicly criticizing e-voting flaws? Is public faith in the system more important than overall system security?"
Is this a trick question? Is Slashdot being controlled by e-voting Nazi's who hope to find out those that are skeptical so they can come to their houses and force feed them e-voting propaganda?
Oh well, the answer is NO!!! Security through obscurity DOES NOT WORK!!!
How in the world can you do a disservice to democracy by highlighting a new voting technqiue that is plauged by insecurity and potential for fraud? In fact, what he is doing more service to democracy than anyone alive. It's the people who think their jobs are on the line for some questionable calls that are doing democracy a disservice. With all due respect to their opinion, I don't really care if this makes some election official look bad. Perhaps the professor should be heard and the problems he highlights investigated. A lot of this technical stuff is not all that subjective. Here's an idea, have Cusomer Reports subject the e-voting machines to their usual array of scrutiny (they'll need experts of course). That sounds fun. :)
David Whatley
Mrs. Lamone was highly critical of Dr Rubin's testimony, stating that he was doing 'a great disservice to democracy. They're telling the public: Don't trust them, don't trust the voting equipment.'
"Ignore that man behind the curtain."
(Or should that be "Ignore the guys sneaking up behind you with the net."?)
Yes, they're telling the public to distrust the voting machines. And in the short run that may destabilize the nation - slightly.
But distrust of something untrustworthy is appropriate - especially when letting it be corrupted can literally lead to tyrrany and war, while FIXING it so that it is verifiably trustworthy is trivial.
Of course that means the decisions of Mrs. Lamone's department (no doubt those of Mrs. Lamone) might be criticised, and her state be required to spend more money to upgrade or replace the devices they selected. Bad for her carreer path, eh?
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
This begs the question: Is it better for security researchers to avoid publicly criticizing e-voting flaws?
The answer is pretty straightforward: NO. Security researchers and other whistle blowers serve a valuable role in public. This isn't even an interesting question. A more suitable qustion for discussion is:
* Why is the incumbent party in power supporting untrustworthy voting machines?
* Why would someone oppose a simple request for accountability being built in to our democratic process?
* How is it so difficult to see there is an opportunity to create the worlds possibly first trustworthy election system? All we need is a paper backup...
-- $G
There's no reason not to perform an ordinary round of safety and reliability testing on this system. It's obvious they did nothing other than casual alpha and beta testing, with no code inspection, no robustness, no structural coverage, and no documentation of faults.
They don't even follow the laws when taking machines out of service to be repaired at the polls.
It's not worth discussing the merits of the current machines. They have none.
However, having a black box which can do anything with your vote it likes, provides no verification of vote cast, and is completely open to manipulation - THAT I have a problem with.
Bush: He's Liberal in all the wrong ways.
Public faith is important. The first step to that faith is a system which deserves it.
-Rob
Is public faith in the system more important than overall system security?
The most important aspect of the public's relationship to voting is trust. Universal suffrage does not employ all the people in choosing our leaders because "100 million heads are better than one". To the contrary, "None of us is as dumb as all of us". Voting is a method of demonstrating consensus of the governed, so it's easier for us to accept the elected. With the beating administered to their constituents' trust by politicians ever increasing, trust of the elections must be increased to compensate, to allow us to be governable.
We don't have to choose between trust and security. Just read that sentence again; choose between trust and security?! Security REQUIRES trust. This goes beyond the modern either/or fallacies of the excluded middle, like "those who would choose a little temporary security at the expense of liberty" who would neither deserve nor get either security or liberty. When you look at the torrent of these fallacies coming out of politicians today, you've got to wonder "where is this coming from"? They're adults, haven't they learned to see through that simple trap? Or is it just contempt for the public that frames these false choices? America is the strongest country in the world, because of the variety of choices we create, then choose. To throw that away over every security issue is to choose the path to doom. Why do they hate America?
--
make install -not war
Consider this: If the American people are so blind as to ignore the obvious problems with these e-voting machines, then they DESERVE whatever form of government corruption they end up with. We have a valuable lesson to be learned here. Fox news is beginning to pick up on this. Lets hope that the media bcomes quite loud in the coming months about the discrepancies and the "changes" made to these machines during and immediately after some recent elections. If these machines could be hacked, or changed, then I would submit that they are NOT viable as an alternative to conventional voting machines, be they mechanical or punch-paper cards. I would suggest that we keep the voting process as simple and straightforward as possible, and that we utilize our current methods for counting and recording the votes. No matter how complex it becomes, the voting process must be overseen by a responsible party, one that can be criminally prosecuted for fraud, should it become apparent. Since no electronic method is 100% secure, I would suggest that we disallow those methods. Now it's up to you, the people. Do you want someone else telling you how you voted before you vote?
I'm gonna go out on a not-too-long limb and say that he's a 'e-voting' expert because he's done, written, and published investigations on electronic ourvoting techniques, devices, and related technology in the past.
Your welcome in advance for leading you to such a huge stretch of understanding and logic.
"This begs the question: Is it better for security researchers to avoid publicly criticizing e-voting flaws? Is public faith in the system more important than overall system security?"
:/
This alone should be sufficient to overturn the DMCA and other laws of this nature. Basically forcing people to keep silent rather than voice concerns over issues we are facing. Reminds me of a Babylon 5 episode where Sheridan was appointed a political officer. She made a couple comments which are frightening.
"Of course we have problems back on earth, but that's no reason to embarrass our leaders".
then there was
Sheridan: When did all these problems with poverty, unemployment... go away?
PO: When we rewrote the dictionary.
Sounds familiar doesn't it. Ignoring the problem makes it go away. We've reached a new low level if this is true
Has Comcast disconnected your Internet account? Same here. You can read about it at http://comcastissue.blogspot.com
Assuming this isn't fixed before the next election, here's an appropriate form of protest. Immediately after you vote, go back to the clerk and ask politely:
"I don't believe that the voting machine recorded my vote correctly. Can you show me that it did? Could I get some kind of receipt or proof?"
The clerk will tell you that it is not possible. Act surprised at the way the system works and explain why that worries you.
The point of this exercise is that there is a line of people waiting to vote right next to the clerk. So you want to be polite and try to cause the other people there to understand and agree with your point of view. So actually starting an argument or wasting a lot of their time and being dressed like a freak won't help.
Trust, but verify.
As far as the topic at hand, the poster might have written what they said as:
I can't fucking believe the Director of the Maryland Elections board would stand before an elected committe and say, "trust in the voting process is more important than the integrity of the process."
Linda Lamone might as well have said, "I'm a cheerleader and don't care if people steal elections, so long as the public thinks they have a voice." It's that cynical. Her slavish attitude is best captured by her refusal of outside help:
"I don't think Diebold would allow it," she said. "It's their proprietary code."
In other words, "We will eat whatever dogfood Dibold thinks we should." That kind of "trust" from a watchdog of elections is unacceptable. She's let some wierd faith in "IP" comprimise her duty to safegaurd elections. You don't need trust when you have transparency and can check for yourself. Lamone has put DiBold's ownership of a particular set of software above her own job. That's pathetic.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
This begs the question: Is it better for security researchers to avoid publicly criticizing e-voting flaws? Is public faith in the system more important than overall system security?"
Of course not. If they fix security, faith will follow. It really is that simple. This is like leaving your front door wide open while you go on holiday and then being upset when people worry that their house will be robbed while they are gone. Secure the door well and people will feel better. It really is that simple.
In a nut shell, it's Linda Lamone that's doing a great disservice to democracy, technology, and the people that elected and/or hired her to do what's best for the people in her distirct(s). I can't think of anything more un-American that ensuring democracy is easily manipulated and faith in the results is shaken. She needs to be beaten with a stick and replaced. She is either incompetent or actively wants a mechanism to minipulate election results.
"I don't think Diebold would allow it," she said. "It's their proprietary code."
Bam, there it is, she's put some kind of faith in IP above her elected duty to safegaurd elections. It's peposterous that elections officials don't have access to the actual method of vote counting and everything else the machines do. With transparancy you don't need faith in a system, you can have reasonable trust that what you saw and know will work.
Dibold has made themselves a proxy for voting. If you removed the electronic components the flaw becomes apparent. Imagine Dibold hired people to sit in a booth and write down your vote where you could not see what they wrote! After that, the representatives would take the votes in closed bags to a place where they would count them and give the results to the elections commisioners. The electronic system has even larger flaws because it's easier to comprimise thousands of computers than it is to comprimise thousands of people, but no one would trust the low tech analog. Defending faith is such a system over the actual integrity of the system is nuts.
You can have an electronic system with a publically inspected paper trail. If the system is not free or open it can't be trusted because you don't know how it works. It's that simple.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
The biggest problem with these systems being closed is that as long as large number of machines are being purchased from the same vendor, and the number of vendors are small, there's now a trivial way of fixing the elections.
A little trivia: We know the security at Diebold is ridiculous as is. But let's say they do code reviews. Lets say check ins are monitored.
Heck, maybe they even open source the system.
Then it would be safe, wouldn't it?
WRONG
Without an audit trail in physical form, verified by the voter, these systems will NEVER be safe.
Consider this little todo list if you decide that voting fraud would be an interesting career choice:
The list of fun stuff to try would be endless.
Creating a paper audit trail is cheap, compared to verifying the hardware design (of the actually delivered boxes, not of what was supposed to be manufactured), verifying the binary images of all the software actually on the delivered boxes, INCLUDING BIOS, drivers, microcode on any "interesting" chips in the system (it would not be surprising if the touch screen had a programmable CPU on it, for instance - after all the good old Amiga keyboard had an embedded CPU with on chip RAM and ROM and a 6502 compatible instruction set - all you'd need to modify the data stream), and how it all works together (see the memory arrangment suggestion).
Seemingly innocent changes to various parts of the system might have distasterous effects once they are combined.
Without an audit trail you will NEVER, EVER have a reliable, safe, tamper proof system - electronic solutions are simply too complex to prevent someone from finding comparatively easy exploits.
...and replaced with cheering, smiling crowds.
According to the Bush administration, such 'artistic' molding of reality is an expression of free speech.
Blow a goodbye kiss to your democracy, America!She's already walking out the door.
Do posterity a favor and beat the shit out of the nearest GOP dickhead.
"Is public faith in the system more important than system security?" Why on earth would any rational person ask such a thing? In a democracy the accuracy and integrity of elections are paramount. All the "faith" in the world counts for zip if the elections are rigged or so incompetently run that the results cannot be trusted. Should the truth about possibly dangerously skewed election results be suppressed in a free country? Again, this is a stupid question. Freedom is about NOT suppressing the truth, especially when it comes to the direct exercise of that freedom.
Is it better for security researchers to avoid publicly criticizing e-voting flaws? Is public faith in the system more important than overall system security?"
Ummm. No. An educated public is one of the foundations of democracy, withholding information about vital flaws to the election system for the mere purpose of public faith is precisely contrary to this goal! Of course this should be disclosed, withholding this information cannot have any benefit to the public and can only lead us to a situation were these inexcusable flaws will be forgotten.
I stole this Sig
'This begs the question: Is it better for security researchers to avoid publicly criticizing e-voting flaws?' No, it seems it begs the quesion: Do we make decisions based on who can shout the loudest? Given most management type meetings I've suffered through, I would say: yes. But, this is only a tiny subset of reality (I would prefer it was an alternate one....).
Ads are broken.
Folks,
... or other such poppycock [AKA: BS] rhetoric.
... whatever they are called) and need one great leader that will help murder the opposition literally.
_____If public faith is lost, then the system (democracy) fails. System security must always support the public faith in democracy by assuring legitimate, veracious, and verifiable results. It is better that the nation and citizens die or fade into history, then allowing democracy to fail.
_____A democracy is a nation where the citizens feel individually responsible for deciding their destiny. Corporate, religious, and plutocratic institutions are disenfranchised in a democracy, because of the human psychology/society premise of "Power corrupts, Absolute power corrupts absolutely."
_____This is part of the reason for the separation of powers in our USA Constitution, but though implied we have never been able to completely protect the election process and/or eliminate corruption of elected officials that vote/act in the interest of the corporate, religious, and plutocratic interest while verbally patronizing US citizens with "FRIENDS, ROMANS, COUNTRYMEN", "IN THE NATIONAL INTEREST",
_____Rhetoric is frequently the only skill most preachers and politicians have, and without honor and ethics they are puppets of any megalomaniac in power. Plutocratic factions promoting their interest know that they always have allies (religious terrorist (Christian Moslem and Jew), Nazis,
_____The nonsense rhetoric of some politicians and preachers is at this level. Just pay attention to Jerry Falwell, his colleagues, and followers [http://www.funnystrange.com/quiz/], and their close politician friends), and never forget the "Honorable for some" Louis Farrakhan. Fortunately the claptrap rhetoric has not been able to subdue the commonsense of US citizens and our birthright for skepticism of authority's self-interest and delusions of grandeur.
_____We can still vote for better citizens to take any politicians place in Washington DC, state capitals, and locally. Politicians are all (for now) replaceable. This is the way to put a politicians head up their own self-important ass and let them know their shit truly stinks. For preachers, let GOD judge them. For the Corporate and plutocratic institutions lets disenfranchise them from our democratic process and return to one person one vote by eliminating the purchased sound-bite rhetoric elections.
_____Do you feel more secure today then you did on 2001/09/11? Do you feel national interest, economy, and security are the priority of today's politicians? I agree with JFK "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country." I would add, be responsible to the USA Constitution and Democracy, "ask every politician and preacher what have they done for the NATION?", If they wear $500 to $2,000 dollar suits, have a personal income of more than $250,000.00 annually, and ask for any citizen to sacrifice and donate money to GOD or a cause then they are frauds.
OldHawk777
Reality is a self-induced hallucination.
Unaccountable leaders are masters, and unrepresented people are slaves. How do US and EU fare?