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Hotel Minibar Key Opens Diebold Voting Machines

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the expensive-miniatures-and-macademia-nuts dept.

Billosaur writes, "As if Diebold doesn't have enough to worry about! On the Freedom To Tinker blog, Ed Felten, one of the co-authors of the recent report 'Security Analysis of the Diebold AccuVote-TS Voting Machine', reveals an even more bizarre finding related to the initial report. It turns out that you can gain access to an AccuVote-TS machine using a hotel minibar key. In fact, the key in question is a utilitarian type used to open office furniture, electronic equipment, jukeboxes, and the like. They might as well hand them out like candy."

2 of 341 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Why would we expect anything else? by TubeSteak · · Score: 5, Interesting
    The more I think about this, the more this seems to be a nice solution. Get a bunch of geeks armed with minibar keys and flash cards. Once Mario and Yoshi are the leading candidates in 14 different states, the public will be sure to take voting security seriously.
    Honestly, I don't think that is the solution.

    A more relevant question is: What are the penalties (criminal or civil) for using a key to open a voting machine during polling and doing nothing else.

    You don't have to actively fsck things up to get the machine pulled. IMHO, merely opening the machine up would make for a good act of civil disobediance.

    If the punishment is not something trivial, videotape yourself in the act and release it anonymously onto the internet the same day.

    Even if the election officials do absolutely nothing, it'll show up on the evening and nightly news. That will be good or bad, depending on your perspective, but will definitely be noticed.
    --
    [Fuck Beta]
    o0t!
  2. Re:Can't say I'm surprised... by Minwee · · Score: 4, Interesting
    When these systems are vulnerable, it's just as easy for ANYONE to take advantage of that fact. Not one party or one political stripe.

    The phrase you are looking for is "Plausible Deniability". If you design a machine that can only be comprimised by a single party then you're clearly a crook. If it can be hacked by a pre-school class with plastic hammers then you can claim to be merely hopelessly incompetant.