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Maryland Electronic Voting Systems Found Vulnerable
snoitpo writes "My fine state (Maryland) has hired some people I can respect to hack into Diebold voting machines. The Washington Post (read it free for 2 weeks) has the details. From this story and the one on NPR, the state hired a company and set up a test voting precinct and had the group try whatever they could to break into the machines. Most of the attacks would probably be noticed by an even-half-awake poll staff, but some vulnerabilities were exposed. The net seems to be that you could really mess up individual machines, but the grail would be to get to the central collection servers and send a megavote to your favorite candidate. The last paragraph mentions problems that voting machines had in the last election in Virginia; it's interesting to note that those use wireless networking--my jaw has dropped onto my keyboard and I can't comment any further." Other readers sent in two stories in the Baltimore Sun (1, 2), and one in the NY Times.
There is a bill before the Maryland State House that would require a voter verifiable paper trail on all electronic voting machines in the state of maryland. The bill also calls for a random sampling of the paper ballots to ensure that the electronic count has not been tampered with. House Bill 53 was just read into the ways and means committee two weeks ago but with the release of the reports I hope there it can gain more support and pass the house.
Zambozay! My brain must've been eatin' a sandwich!