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

Re:My Perception Has Changed Again

[Azeron]

You know the problem of voter fraud/rigging machines could be greatly simplified if we just did away with the ballot being secret. If we had an open process where you had to announce your vote before and review by a bipartisan comittee who could then tally and report the vote in an official count. Then all these probelms would be resolved. If again, you are willing to make voting a matter of public record.

Voters Confidence

[mkosmo]

Although I may not be too happy with how easy it is to tamper these machines, we must also think... how easy is it to tamper hard paper ballots? Counterfeit them and place more in the slot? I do not think that just because somebody sits down and spends the time figuring out how to hack it means it is in danger. The average Joe cannot do anything... Plus, you spend the time figuring it out and somebody will be suspicious. Maybe put alarms in the machines? Then it would be harder to hack than a paper ballot.

Wake me when the revolution starts.

[boyfaceddog]

So my vote goes to the guy back by Giganto Corp instead the guy backed by ReallyHuge Co. Big deal.

Re:My Perception Has Changed Again

[HeroreV]

With secret ballots, person A can't tell how their bribed or threatened voters voted

You're really retarded if you think that.

briber: "If you vote for Mr. Evil and take a picture of the ballot with this camera, I'll give you a Big Mac."
homeless person: "Make it a Happy Meal."

Re:There is only one problem with electronic votin

[BandwidthHog]

The clear solution is to quit "privatizing" everything

Gee, too bad that word has already been defined in the public consciousness as the antonym of “communism.”

Ain’t that a shame. Let me know how your pro-commu-- err, I mean, anti-privatization thing goes, will ya?

Re:So okay wait.

[Red Flayer]

because nobody has demonstrated anything about the election process being "messed" with by the Republican party.

Bullshit. The gerrymandering by the Republican party has been well-documented; just because the Supreme Court ruled that mid-decade redistricting in Texas was not unconstitutional doesn't mean it isn't gerrymandering.

So, no, I did not mean 'allegedly.' I meant 'demonstrably.' There sure have been many idiots who deny it, though.