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Dutch Securing E-voting After Being Pwned
An anonymous reader writes, "After the Dutch we-don't-trust-voting-computers foundation demonstrated glaring security holes in Dutch voting computers last week, the Dutch government has ordered (Dutch) all software to be replaced, all hardware to be checked, unflashable firmware to be installed, and an iron seal to be placed on voting machines. A certification institute will double-check all measures, and on election day will cull random machines to check them for accuracy. The Dutch intelligence service AIVD has been approached to consult on the radio emissions issue. Furthermore, foreign observers will monitor the upcoming elections on November 22nd. But the action group is still not confident (Dutch) that all problems are solved." US elections are controlled at the local level, so unfortunately such a nationwide fix would not be workable here.
I assume they are referring to TEMPEST attacks. It was a Dutchman, Vim van Eck who first brought TEMPEST attacks to public attention while in the U.S. even the security standard was classified. I imagine many Slashdot readers will recognize his name from the "Van Eck phreaking" described in Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon .
From the Urban Dictionary...
A corruption of the word "Owned." This originated in an online game called Warcraft, where a map designer misspelled "owned." When the computer beat a player, it was supposed to say, so-and-so "has been owned."
Instead, it said, so-and-so "has been pwned."
It basically means "to own" or to be dominated by an opponent or situation, especially by some god-like or computer-like force.
Using your monitor as a AM transmitter. This little program is a real eye opener for those who still thinks that TEMPEST attacks are something you just see in the movies.
Doolittle :
Bomb no.20 : To explode of course.
"US elections are controlled at the local level, so unfortunately such a nationwide fix would not be workable here."
Um, as an American currently living in Switzerland, I have to ask... do you know how big the Netherlands are (is? that's a tricky one)? Smaller than Chicago, if I remember correctly... so being applied at the national level there is essentially the same as the local level in the US.
The problem is that these machines are actually from the late 80s. It's not feasible to retrofit new chips onto these boards. For a fun look, go to www.wijvertrouwenstemcomputersniet.nl, where there are pictures of the board-internals. These show soldered resistors, the likes of which I've last seen in my Apple II.
Han-Wen Nienhuys -- LilyPond
Well technically in Canada there are no "National" elections either. Not even at the provincial level. Each person votes for someone in their riding. Whoever gets the most votes in the riding gets a seat in parliament. There are 308 seats for the entire country. Whichever party gets the most seats is "in power" although if they don't have the majority of the seats, they don't really have the power, as other parties can team up against them to over power them when voting on different issues. Who ever is the leader of the party in power is the Prime Minister.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
We have various methods to keep both sides honest here in Quebec.
We tried electronic voting machines for one election, and quickly abandoned them - it was actually quicker, as well as being more transparent, to process ballots by hand, and there were no problems with power, questionable software, etc.
Still, there are those who want to go back to using pine cones and beaver chips instead of a paper ballot.
You forgot to mention that the ballot boxes are opened and shown to be empty to everyone present at the start of the polling day before the boxes are sealed and voting begins.
If you're a zombie and you know it, bite your friend!
If you visit their site, you'll find information about what you can actually do. You are allowed to stay in the voting room, as long as you don't disturb the process of voting. More information can be found on their action page .
If it was federal law that voting machines had to meet certain federally-defined minimum standards (hardware/software must be independently audited, machine must produce a paper trail, etc), then it's no longer a matter of persuasion so much as "do-this-or-face-the-punishment". Just like any other federal statute.
IANAL, but I'm guessing that at least for federal elections, this is within the federal government's power to do. Even if it were a power reserved to the states, Congress could easily tie compliance to receiving federal highway or other funding, which has been an effective strategy in the past for separation-of-powers concerns. And no county clerk in his right mind is going to buy/maintain two separate sets of voting equipment, one for federal elections and one for everything else. Thus would all elections become effectively subject to federal quality standards.
So, um.. it's been over two hundred years. How come our election methods still suck?
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
The downside of parlamentary systems is obvious in reviewing the last hundard years of european political history. It often gives far too much power to fringe groups that act as tie breakers. You're confusing proportional representation parliamentary systems and first past the post parliamentary systems. The former can often lead to one-seat parties getting high Banzhaf power indicies while the latter can lead to one party getting an index of 1 and the others getting all 0 (i.e. majority parliament). If you look at the history of Commonwealth parliaments and/or Westminster systems that still use the FPTP system (UK, Canada, etc.), you'll see that most elections end up with majority parliaments, and while that also has problems (a party getting a majority with 38% of the vote, or a party losing the popular vote but getting a majority), parliamentary systems are not the cause of fringe groups getting some influence, and in these cases, often remove that possibility.
It is not like there are not 3rd parties in the US, it is just very tough for them to be elected. There are many reasons but the main ones are:
1.) The vote against vs vote for mentality. I don't want X to be elected to Y so I will vote for Z instead of A who might be best but can't win. I did this in the primararies.
2.) The third parties have positions well outside the political mainstream. Libertarians are borderline anarchists, the Green party is way too hippy, and the Constitutional party makes the Christian Right look tame.
3.) Third parties are not well known/considered viable candidates, which shuts them out of debates, and the like.
4.) Voter Apathy. They don't care who gets in, because they don't affect what happens to them.
5.) Big Tent politics. Since each party knows that must get a majority of the country they tend to dilute their message until it becomes palatable to most people. Though I disagree with the cliche that "there isn't any difference between Republicans and Democrats", there can be considerable overlap outside of the bases.
--Joey