Hardware Hacking a Voting Machine in 4 Minutes

goombah99 writes "Bev Harris of BlackBoxVoting.org has acquired an actual Diebold Acu-vote ballot scanner. Rummaging through King County's trash, she managed to get her hands on some of their tags and seals. She has since demonstrated a successful penetration of the seals without breaking them ... all in under 4 minutes with no training or technical skills required. There's a nice how-to with photos over at Verified Voting New Mexico." More from goombah99 below. "The demo is particularly relevant in light of the recent experience in Ohio in which there were large discrepancies between the electronic record and the paper trail, and also since many counties still permit the machines to be taken home by individuals before voting day (as a means of distributing them to precincts). These 'sleepover' machines were involved in the contentious narrow-margin San Diego Election, and are in continued practice in many states. Moreover, it's common practice for counties to contract out deliveries to third parties, such as in New Mexico where in one election, unlicensed delivery drivers took the machines on an unauthorized field trip and only got caught when they crashed the delivery truck after a stop at Hooters. The good news here is that the penetrated Diebold system in the photo essay is an optical scan system. It's not a touchscreen electronic voting system, so there is a paper trail. What hack really shows is that without mandatory random spot checks on the paper ballots, these may be as potentially vulnerable as the touchscreen direct recording electronic voting systems. It's perhaps worth noting that the open source voting system being developed by the Open Voting Consortium features a 100% reconciliation of every single paper ballot with an independent electronic record."

Comments

What about hacking paper ballots?

[CPE1704TKS]

I hate Diebold and electronic voting as much as anyone else, but has there been any attempts to figure out exactly how easy it is to rig fake paper votes? There's a lot of effort put into showing the weaknesses of electronic voting, but what are the weaknesses of paper voting and how do they compare against e-voting?

Re:What about hacking paper ballots?

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's how it goes (I've experienced it firsthand):

The various parties have a representative sit in each room and oversee that proper pratices are taken by all the officials and voters, and that no tampering takes place. At all times they are privy to the process, EXCEPT WHILE BALLOTS ARE MARKED (obviously). When I was one of these people I even had to follow the box around when the election officers helped people in wheelchairs by bringing the box outside (the building was not wheelchair accessible).

Proper practices are this:

Prior to the booth being opened the total number of ballots are accounted for, and their serial numbers recorded. The cardboard ballot box is built (from the provided cutout) and taped with security tape.

Each person has a voter card or is eligible to vote. They are provided one ballot and their name is stroked from the list. They mark their ballot and fold it in private. They present the folded ballot to the elections officer. The officer then removes the "receipt" portion, which only has a serial number on it, stores it aside, and then they hand the ballot to the voter. The voter places the ballot into the ballot box. Repeat as necessary.

At the end of the election, the ballot box is opened. The ballots are counted in front of the party representatives, and any ballots anyone isn't happy with are contested. Contested ballots are recorded as contested. Damaged/misused ballots are accounted for. Serial strips are checked against the number of voters and the amount of votes in the box to ensure there are none missing / too many. All information is recorded. The box is resealed with new (different) security tape, this time also sealing the section one drops the ballots into, all documents are sealed, EVERYONE involved (including the representatives) signs all the envelopes and the tally sheet. Once everyone is happy (if there is much to contest, this may take HOURS) the ballot box is driven to the head office for the city and held for a period (I believe this period is YEARS).

Should there be enough contested votes that it would throw the election, there are recounts, recounts, and more recounts.

The nice part of this process is it provides third party verification at all times. Since all parties are assumed they may have their own interests in throwing the election, by allowing all parties on the ballot to sit there and watch EVERYTHING, no one party has the opportunity to throw the election. They only have the opportunity to delay it and whine a whole bunch.

It takes a bit more work, but by golly, find me a "crack" for that system and I'd be happy to see it work.

Oh, and yes, if someone contests all the ballots, recounts can be held indefinitely until someone gives. Did I mention during this entire time nobody is allowed to leave the election room, even if it is for the facilities or for food/water? And, of course, nobody else is allowed in. Permission is usually given if all the parties co-operate, but serious filibusters are nigh impossible.

Re:What about hacking paper ballots?

[Cederic]

>> Here here!

Where where?

Oh, sorry - did you mean "Hear hear!"?

Personally I vote by using a pen to draw on a piece of paper which goes into a box and is subsequently hand-counted in full view of a lot of people including representatives of multiple political parties.

Primitive system, but it works. Until you can come up with some new fangled technology device that's as efficient and honest I'm not particularly keen to switch away from it.

Ok

[Billosaur]

So it's easy to compromise the security of a Diebold voting machine -- news? This has been going on for a while in one form or another ever since Diebold got into the business. I'd have been more shocked if they would have found that you couldn't force it without breaking the seal.

If states/counties are smart, they'll avoid Diebold like the plague and stick to the old voting systems until a virtually fool-proof system can be designed and built. In the meantime, this won't have much effect on voting, since fewer and fewer people vote all the time.

BTW, that website with the detail is a trociously put together.

I've seen it hacked faster

[neonprimetime]

I've watched illegal immigrants walk in, show NO form of identification, register, and vote in much quicker than 4 minutes.

nice

[GodLogiK]

imagine what someone with alot of knowledge and a little time could do I wonder how many different groups of people will be trying to mess with these things lol, imagine one machine getting 'adjusted' by like 10 different people all in a row who don't notice each other... kind of comical but really seems to just be another wall going up in the way of real democracy... unfortunately I don't have any really good better suggestions so not much else I can say

A Negative Negative

[w33t]

Here's a ridiculous idea.

Have the voters fill out a scantron-type ballot. And then have the voter/user feed that ballot through two different voting machines made by two different manufacturers.

This way there would be a paper record and two, seperate databases to compare to each other.

This would double the effort (or perhaps square it at best) for hacking and would allow manual recounts from random sample districts to test the accuracy of the two machines.

Re:A Negative Negative

[hackstraw]

Here's a ridiculous idea.

Have the voters fill out a scantron-type ballot. And then have the voter/user feed that ballot through two different voting machines made by two different manufacturers.

This way there would be a paper record and two, seperate databases to compare to each other.

This would double the effort (or perhaps square it at best) for hacking and would allow manual recounts from random sample districts to test the accuracy of the two machines.

I'm confused how reduculous this is supposed to be.

I've said from day one that these stupid election ballots should be scantron-like becauase its inexpensive and proven technology that everybody is capable of using and is computer and human readable.

The best thing for the machines to do is to sort the sheets by candidate, and add a timestamp or sequence number to each one and a quick visual inspection by any moron would be able to tell if candidate A's votes were in candidates B's pile and if A's pile was bigger than B's pile. There is a written record. Slop and randomness by people to ensure they weren't stuffed. Inexpensive. Every damn thing about them are perfect except Diebold can't make money off of existing standardized equipement now can they?

Re:My Perception Has Changed Again

[Anonymous Coward]

If again, you are willing to make voting a matter of public record.

My boss is a hardcore Republican. I am probably a moderate Democrat. I avoid political issues with him even though he repeatedly brings them up and complains about "typical Democrats."

He's not a nice guy and I could easily see him overlooking a raise if he knew I voted Democrat in the last two presidential elections. He could, of course, claim it was something else even if it wasn't. Do you want me to suffer for my political views? Do you want your family, friends & coworkers to know who you vote for? Some of the people I spend my life with have different opinions than I do. This is fine but I don't want the situation exacerbated.

Wouldn't it be easier...

[Azreal]

If fixing an election was the objective, why bother with removing a memory card? Wouldn't it be easier to get a few people together and go to precincts known to vote one way or another and just break the plastic "security" tags? When the count comes up you can raise a fuss about the tags being broken and having the votes discounted.

Site is unreadable.

[Animats]

The site referenced is so crapped up with "Web 2.0" junk that it doesn't work. The picture links result in a neat animated effect in which a translucent rectangle grows. Then it disappears without displaying the picture, at least in Firefox 1.5.

If you have something important to say, use standard HTML. Especially if it's something important enough that it should be archived. Using "TiddlyWiki" with images on Flickr means your site will not be archived properly, and many search engines won't even index it with all that Javascript.

Re:There is only one problem with electronic votin

[thePig]

Not always.
In India, the introduction of EVMs reduced the election expences by a magnitude of 10.
Also, since there is a huge potential number of votes (upto 500 Million), it can reduce the time taken for the counting by a huge amount.
Another point to be taken to consideration is that there was a lot of invalid votes (when people unknowingly pressed the marker between two candidates in the ballot) esp in places where illetracy is abound. In some places, the invalid votes was more than the difference of votes beween the winning and second candidates. The EVMs meant that invalid votes are no longer an issue.
Also, there was an issue wherein a group of people will barge in a polling booth, and stuff some hundreds or thousands of ballots to the ballot box and run out. This invariably caused either
(a) wrong counts or
(b) re-voting in that booth.
Now this is no longer an issue since there is a time limit between votes and if too many votes come in, it goes in to lock mode(i dont know whether the second option is used now, but the first one is still there - time limit is around 20 seconds or so).

So I guess, it is needed, in many enviornments.

Re:There is only one problem with electronic votin

[spaceyhackerlady]

It is not needed.

Indeed.

Us Canadians use plain old paper ballots, and are able to count them all within a few hours, even after a federal election. The votes are the paper trail.

I'm reminded of the election in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.

...laura

Re:My Perception Has Changed Again

[SQLGuru]

I agree that voting records should not be public. I had the "honor" of my first gubanatorial vote being in Louisiana. My choices were Edwin Edwards (convicted crook) and David Duke (grand-poo-bah of the KKK). None of the above was not on the ballot. I'm sure a lot of people don't want anyone to know who they voted for in that election.

(BTW, if you aren't up on your Louisiana political history, the crook won.)

Layne

Re:There is only one problem with electronic votin

[Phroggy]

OK, so here's the theory.

Electronic voting machines can be designed to be easier to use and more accessible to people with disabilities than traditional voting machines. Blind people can connect a pair of headphones and have their choices read to them. People who don't speak English well can choose a different language such as Spanish or Korean or whatever. Touchscreens may be easier to operate for people with physical disabilities. The order of the candidates can be randomized for each voter, so alphabetical sorting doesn't affect the results (I believe Oregon chooses a random sorting order for the entire election, while California prints several different versions of the ballot with the candidates sorted differently in each version).

Using a computerized system to obtain each person's vote is NOT a bad thing, and can be very beneficial.

Also, using a computerized system to count the votes is also not a bad thing, since it can yield results much faster than manual counting. Indeed, I'm sure votes on paper balllots are machine-counted almost everywhere already.

The problem is this: we cannot and should not rely on a computerized system exclusively. We must have a way to verify what people really voted for. The solution is quite simple, though. We could have computerized voting machines with an instant count, with a paper trail. It works like this:

You have two machines. The first has a touch screen with a user-friendly interface. It presents your options in whatever language you prefer, and receives your votes. It prohibits you from entering invalid selections, such as selecting two candidates instead of one. Your votes are presented to you on the screen for review, with an option to go back and correct any mistakes. Finally if you are finished, the machine prints your votes on a paper ballot, in a format that is both human-readable and machine-readable. You take this paper ballot, and review it for accuracy. The machine you just used erases any record of your vote in preparation for the next voter. Your vote is not counted at this point.

You then take this paper ballot, and feed it into a second machine, which counts your vote and securely stores your ballot. These ballots can be counted by hand later, and compared to the computerized count. If the counting machine isn't counting votes accurately, the problem can be easily detected, and the ballots counted by hand.

If the first machine isn't printing the ballots correctly, the problem can be detected by the voter, who reviews the paper ballots before submitting them to the counting machine. If the voter sees an error, he/she can report the mistake to an election official, who can shred the ballot and let the voter vote again.

Kind of goofy article

[brunes69]

So... if you have physical access to the machine, you can take it apart and alter it to hack into it(yes, that is what they did. RTFA).

How is this news? The same can be said of any computer system.

You have to at least operate under the assumption that these machines are audited before and after the electoral process, just like the ballot boxes were... if not, then *there* is the flaw in the system. The flaw isn't "hey, I can open this computer and alter it to change how it functions", it is "I can open this computer without anyone else knowing".

Is this any more difficult than the lotto?

[out of touch]

I really wonder why the states can put together lottery systems that is secure, fast, flexiable, and can not make a voting system? The lottery system has terminal all over place. It uses secure paper to print your selections on, and instance feedback that your entry has be received.

Re:Nuts

[Anonymous Coward]

All secret ballots are doing here is making it easier to steal elections and harder to catch the people who do it.

What a silly argument. You confuse closed voting with closed voting machines.

If the voting machines were open but anonymizing each vote, everything would be fine and dandy. So the proper way is to fix the voting machines, not to open the voting process.

Geez, the stupidity. Sometimes one thinks you deserve the government you have.

Re:My Perception Has Changed Again

[jmorris42]

> I'm sure a lot of people don't want anyone to know who they voted for in that election.

Why not? The state Republican Party was passing out bumper stickers with "This time vote for the crook." on em. Duke certainly wasn't welcome in Republican ranks. Just a fluke of our crazy open primary system allowed the asshat to slide into the runoff.

Fortunately I wasn't in the state for that election cycle, instead I had a choice almost as easy to make, W over Ann Richards across the border in TX.

Re:My Perception Has Changed Again

[Sarisar]

Can you do that if it was electronic? I don't just mean the GP, but can you actually spoil a ballot on an electronic voting system?

Failing that I guess you don't vote if you don't want to pick one. I know in Oz they have mandatory voting, and according to several Aussies I spoke to the political parties do a shock campaign - vote the other guy in and the world will explode - and so the idiots (who wouldn't vote if they didn't have to) vote for the party with the worst shock campaign.

Should point out this was just the Aussies I talked politics with (which wasn't many) so feel free to correct me :P

Re:My Perception Has Changed Again

[aplusjimages]

My brother-in-law was working for this insurance company during the 2004 election and he sported a John Kerry sticker on his personal car. Well a customer saw him walking to his car during work and confronted him about it and asked him to remove it, but he refused since he owned the car and it had nothing to do with the company he worked for.

The next day at work they held a company meeting and asked all employees to remove any political stickers from his car. He thought it was total crap until he saw that a majority of the employees were Bush supporters.

I know the feeling of having to hide your political beliefs. I live in Bush Country and everywhere you go its anti-liberal this and stupid dems that.

The terrorist don't have to work too hard to take away are freedoms because we will do it to ourselves just fine.

The vote is already subverted

[myowntrueself]

You can make the process of voting, the counting of the vote, secure, you can introduce all the technical and physical security you want.

But the vote is *already* subverted by a social engineering attack which is practically unstoppable; media coverage of politics.

This subverts democracy at the earliest stage; right where the voter forms the desire to vote one way or another.

If you think this is bullshit consider advertising.

Billions of dollars, shekels, yen and pounds are spent on the advertising of products. Does it work? Well I think that it would be foolish to assume that its money wasted.

If advertising works for things like consumer products, foodstuffs, whiteware etc, shaping the way that people spend their money, why wouldn't it work for shaping the way that people spend their vote?

A vote is just an item of currency that everyone has just one of and gets to spend it every so many years. Shaping voting patterns is exactly the same as shaping spending patterns.

Problem is, without a crack-down on media presentation of politics its impossible to stop this kind of subversion. And if that were to happen, what would be the point in having a democracy in the first place?

I don't think that democracy can exist in the modern world. A better term for what we *call* 'democracy' would be 'mediacracy'.

Re:My Perception Has Changed Again

[BobTheLawyer]

Definitely agree, but I'm not sure it is more error prone. With a sufficient number of eyes checking each ballot, and representatives of the candidates scrutinising the checking, it's actually quite difficult to make a mistake. I've attended several counts in the UK with 40,000 or so ballots being counted: when there's been a recount, the margin of error has been very small or even zero.

Re:Fair and Balanced Vote Fraud

[lynx_user_abroad]

Has anyone found any independently verified evidence of any of these digital voting devices used in an election won by a Democrat?

But they were all won by Democrats, it's just that the rigged machines said they were won by Republicans... :|

We can both maintain a poker-face, and neither of us will win.

Re:My Perception Has Changed Again

[aplusjimages]

Wow you need to take some medication. I heard the vain pop in your neck from where I'm sitting. Let me clarify. My brother-in-law thought it was total crap that the old lady try to get him in trouble for having a sticker on his car for a political candidate she didn't agree with. He thought it was awesome when her plan kind of back fired and caused the removal of stickers for the political candidate she was most likely in favor of. He doesn't agree that one party should be censored, while another isn't.

There is too much political tension in this country. People online are even entertaining the idea of a civil war. It's getting out of hand and people need to step back a little and remember we are all citizens of the same country. We aren't enemies.

Re:My Perception Has Changed Again

[Brickwall]

Well, in Canada and Great Britain - not sure about Oz - you can formally "decline" your ballot if you feel no candidate is worth your vote. Declined ballots are counted separately, and are not considered spoiled. I've done it!

Re:My Perception Has Changed Again

[BEHiker57W]

For the record, the bumper sticker read "Vote for the crook. It's important."

And here's how someone can prove to have done it

[rbarreira]

And how would he/she prove that claim was true? Just asking, not saying it's impossible. Oh wait, here is the method:

One week before election day, the person posts a message to any publicly acessible place (such as a newsgroup, but surely there are better alternatives which give more trust for being more verifiable) containing one or more hash of the following sentence (MD5, SHA-1, whatever):

"In state X, county Y, candidate A will have exactly 1144 votes and candidate B will have exactly 905 votes because I will have rigged the election. A week after the counting, I shall reveal this message to prove this claim. Cryptographical hashes of this message have been posted one week before election day at alt.foobar.org"

One week after the election, the person unleashes this message and then everyone can verify the hashes and conclude that at least one of the following is true:

(1) The person is very lucky at doing predictions
(2) The person can predict the future and should play the lottery
(3) The person has cracked all of those hashing algorithms
(4) The person has in fact rigged the election