Diebold Disks May Have Been For Testers

opencity writes "The Washington Post reports on the two Diebold source disks that were anonymously sent to a Maryland election official this past week. Further investigation has lead individuals involved to believe the disks came from a security check demanded by the Maryland legislature sometime in 2003." From the article: "Critics of electronic voting said the most recent incident in Maryland casts doubt on Lamone's claim that Maryland has the nation's most secure voting system. "There now may be numerous copies of the Diebold software floating around in unauthorized hands," said Linda Schade, co-founder of TrueVoteMD, which has pressed for a system that provides a verifiable paper record of each vote."

Comments

Re:If the attackers can use the source to attack i

[WhiplashII]

What is funny is that no one has commented on the real story here - Diebold sent a copy of the source code for a security audit, as requested. Maryland's security team then leaked the code to external people and used the incident to claim that Diebold's security is awful...

The real lesson here is the lengths some politicians will go to so that they appear "right".

(OK, and Diebold also has security issues - but that is a side issue, everyone has security issues. These are the guys making ATMs, for goodness sake. A voting machine that is as secure as an ATM is probably good enough. You can't stop human fraud via a machine - humans win every time.)

Re:What's the problem again?

[Hemogoblin]

She's probably unhappy because the copies are NOT being made available for public scrutiny. They are being returned to Diebold.

Also, it is possible that those disks were copied before they were discovered. These copies could potentially get into the hands of someone who wanted to abuse the election. Security through obscurity is no longer a good defense when your enemy has the source code. The only thing they're succeeding at is hiding flaws from the people who wish to fix them.

Remind me again why people use Diebold products?

Re:New tag

[grasshoppa]

While tagging in general is an interesting idea, you have to understand that the combination of semi-anonymous tagging + your average internet idiot will completely ruin any hopes for a tagging system that does what you specify.

Instead, the editors who post the story should be tagging it appropriately. As well as that, there should be a common set of tags that can be voted on for each story ( dupe, inaccurate, comfirmed, ect.. ), with the voting be weighed by user.

And even that is subject to errors, but it'd be more accurate.

Re:Can't do much with these disks

[electrosoccertux]

There are far more serious issues than our voting problems today when people consider wanting to learn about somthing akin to "messing with" it. As if my understanding of the source code behind how my vote is cast at all interferes with our country electing the next president. Unless, that is, there are flaws in the code that say all the votes will be converted to votes for [insert favorite politician here] if I press the upper right hand corner of the screen five times in under ten seconds; and my understanding of such a flaw [even though I wouldn't take advantage of it] stalls the election process. Nows whose fault would that be? Is it somehow my fault, for finding out that the Diebold did a bad job?

I've heard the likes of your attitude before. It can pretty much be summed up as "Don't ask why, that's just how it is." Imagine if you told your kids that.

Try appending that statement to the end of different statements:

-"We can't cure cancer. Don't ask why, that's just how it is." And so nobody bothers researching a cure.
-"Your computer's Windows installation is broken. Don't ask why, that's just how it is." And so you needlessly spend $$$ on a new computer when all you needed was a fresh installation and anti-vir."
-"2 + 2 = 5. Don't ask why, that's just how it is." And so the plane crashes.
-"You're wrong. Don't ask why, that's just how it is."

I hope you get the point.

Voting and ATM machines unrelated.

[Ungrounded Lightning]

The fact that diebold also makes ATM's indicates nothing less than malice in the design ...

Diebold BOUGHT the voting machine deisgn (by buying the company that made it). It is unrelated to their ATM designs.