Help Black Box Voting Examine ES&S Software

Don't bother by jrivar59 · 2006-11-13 07:39 · Score: 4, Insightful

I would argue that examining this software is counter productive, and not a good use of resources.

The fact that it is closed and "secret" is offensive enough on its own to protest for change. If democratic election is not the most obvious case for open source (and open hardware), then nothing is.

Re:Don't bother by CastrTroy · 2006-11-13 07:46 · Score: 2, Insightful

How does open source software help voting machines anyway. I mean, how do you prove that the code that's released and analyzed is actually the code loaded onto the thousands (or more) of voting machines around the country? There's too little transparency with computerized voting. I don't care how many people have verified the code is secure, because nobody will be verifying that the code on every voting machine is the code it's supposed to be. It's much easier to just use hand counted paper ballots.

--

Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
Re:Don't bother by Chris+Burke · 2006-11-13 07:54 · Score: 3, Insightful

True, and I'll go further. Trying to examine the software for flaws makes it sound as though evident flaws in the software are the problem with the current crop of voting machines. They are not. The problem with the current crop of voting machines is that they do not produce a paper ballot that is the actual counted ballot.

Software is an illusion. You, as in a non-employee of an electronic voting firm, will never be able to prove that whatever software you audit and trust is actually running on the machine. You will never be able to guarantee that there isn't malicious code in the machine. You will never be able to prove it has no bugs. You will never be able to prove that it actually stored your vote in its internal memory exactly as you recorded it.

However, you can be sure that a printed ballot has correctly recorded your vote, because you can read it.

Give me a printed paper ballot, and I won't need to check the software for bugs. If it prints my ballot correctly, it's good enough. If it screws up, it's buggy. That easy.

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The enemies of Democracy are
Re:Don't bother by SkunkPussy · 2006-11-13 07:56 · Score: 3, Insightful

If you know the source code of the software (including build options etc), and the compiler/linker versions that have been used to build it, it will be possible to prove whether or not the binary code on the machine was generated from the source code in front of you.
To be more precise, you will be able to prove that the source code in front of you combined with those compiler/linker options generates the same binaries as exist on the machine. If your compilation does not generate the exact same binaries, then someone has some explaining to do.
This is the advantage of OSS voting code - it allows independent verification of the process without requiring a huge amount of trust to be invested in any stage of the process.

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SURELY NOT!!!!!
Re:Don't bother by daveschroeder · 2006-11-13 07:58 · Score: 5, Insightful

Why aren't we simply fighting for a permanent voter-verified paper trail, instead of always saddling every e-voting initiative with demands that EVERYTHING, hardware and software, be open source?

Don't get me wrong: I'm not saying it's not a good idea.

What I'm saying is this: since, even if recounts must be requested every time, a permanent voter-verified paper trail (and a true comprehensive system with regular audits and comparisons between paper vote counts and tabulations) solves almost everything, why are we instead trying to essentially unseat established, commercial enterprise e-voting vendors?

Wouldn't a more productive approach be to simply get a paper trail into place, since even an open source system is almost as worthless without one?

Keep in mind, too, that an open source system still needs to go through complex certification processes and code freezing just like the commercial products do. Even though the commercial products aren't "open source", the certification process allows for the necessary level of inspections by election agencies and external entities. The problem was the certification procedures being routinely ignored or bypassed for convenience, something that can just as easily happen with an "open source" solution.

The problem is that doing an electronic, anonymous, secret ballot that also exists in a system that attempts to enforce one-vote-per-person, combined with all the complexities and vagaries of local municipal and county systems is a lot harder than doing a vertically integrated system for one corporate customer (such as a bank).

Keep in mind, too, that much of the legislation (such as the Help America Vote Act) that essentially mandated e-voting in the hopes of ensuring uniform access to modern voting equipment was done in response to complaints about unfairness and inconsistency with manual systems in the 2000 elections, and not just in Florida. The one critical error was not explicitly recognizing that an electronic secret ballot is a hard thing to do, even without corruption, fraud, and incompetence, and a paper trail wasn't specifically mandated. And no, that wasn't by design. It was an error of omission.

Now, states, counties and municipalities have had to shell out hundreds of thousands, and sometimes millions, more dollars to add and retrofit certified paper trail functionality to existing systems (which, indeed, many are doing). But all e-voting vendors offer it. It just costs a lot of money.

So instead of trying to push out enterprise vendors with multi-million dollar contracts (which is essentially what demanding "all open source" would do, since no commercial vendor is going to open up ALL of their software and hardware code and designs), why not just work to get a permanent voter-verified paper trail in place in as many places as possible as soon as possible, perhaps even mandating it via legislation, since that will be required no matter what system is implemented?

What's more important: the egos of the people who have a vendetta against Diebold, Sequoia, and ES&S, or actually getting a mechanism into place as quickly as possible that guarantees votes will be accurately cast and counted (and at a minimum immediately shows if there is a problem? (And yes, I DO expect the burden of actually looking at the piece of paper to verify that it's correct to fall on the person who is voting.)
Re:Don't bother by CastrTroy · 2006-11-13 08:33 · Score: 2, Insightful

My sibling poster seems to have gotten the point. You can verify 1 executable, but you can't verify all the executables, on all the voting machines. This is a significant problem, because someone has physical access to those machines. Think about game consoles. We've all seen what happens when you put a mod chip in a unit that was once thought only to run specific signed software. The point is, is that you can get these voting machines to run any software you like, and there's nothing guaranteeing you that when you walk up to that machine on election day, that it will be running the correct software.

--

Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
Re:Don't bother by Chris+Burke · 2006-11-13 08:51 · Score: 4, Insightful

From my first post, emphasis added: The problem with the current crop of voting machines is that they do not produce a paper ballot that is the actual counted ballot.

I'm not talking about a paper summary, I'm talking about a paper ballot.

That's the point. You can do whatever the hell you want inside the machine, perform whatever trickery you want, but if it prints a ballot with the choices I made on it, then that is all that matters and your trickery was for naught.

Anticipating the next question of "why electronic voting at all then?", the answer is the same reason we moved to it in the first place: preventing poorly formatted ballots from causing invalid votes, and for accessibility reasons.

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The enemies of Democracy are
Re:Don't bother by Chris+Burke · 2006-11-13 09:39 · Score: 2, Insightful

If you know the source code of the software (including build options etc), and the compiler/linker versions that have been used to build it, it will be possible to prove whether or not the binary code on the machine was generated from the source code in front of you.

No, you cannot prove it, because you cannot know that the software/hardware isn't lying to you. It's like a rootkit, designed to fool you into thinking everything is normal while simultaneously subverting the machine. It's only even conceivable to do this with some kind of Trusted Computing platform, but there's the rub -- when it is you the user who does not trust the manufacturer, how do you know that the Trusted Computing encryption chip isn't similarly designed to lie to you?

OSS is nice, but it does not solve the fundamental problem. Until we solve that fundamental problem, lobbying for open source is counter-productive. It will be a more difficult fight, and it won't fix anything. The real fight is for paper ballots. Once we know the machine is working right because it prints our ballots correctly, then we can worry about the source code if there is still a reason to.

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The enemies of Democracy are
Re:Don't bother by Chris+Burke · 2006-11-13 12:56 · Score: 2

Yeah, good point, all the people asking for source shows that if they get source they'll think they're okay. Ugh. Let's kill this stupid idea.

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The enemies of Democracy are

Legit? by Khammurabi · 2006-11-13 07:45 · Score: 2, Insightful

Please say someone at Slashdot verified this post with the people at Blackbox voting, and didn't unwittingly just fall for someone's email or post to get the organization in trouble.

Legality by mattwarden · 2006-11-13 07:58 · Score: 3, Interesting

Um, before I download this software onto my computer, would Beth like to comment on (a) how she got it, and (b) to what extent it is legal for her to be housing it on her server?

Re:I won't ask... by Anonymous Coward · 2006-11-13 07:58 · Score: 4, Interesting

I wonder if the story is legitimate. The domain is "blackbox1.org"... but shouldn't it be "blackboxvoting.org"? Is this story a scam?

I don't see any mention of this on the real blackboxvoting.org site, and blackbox1.org was just registered anonymously a month ago through "Domains by Proxy".

Could this be an attempt to infect thousands of Slashdot users with a trojan? Seems odd to have these binary downloads from an unknown server, with no official attestation... even the user who submitted the story, Gottesser, was created recently and has no real info in the profile.

So much for the center... by __aaclcg7560 · 2006-11-13 08:04 · Score: 5, Funny

Is there a reason why my computer is leaning to left now that I'm running the software?

slashdotting by Paladin144 · 2006-11-13 08:05 · Score: 5, Funny

You may want to Slashdot it or whatever.

Yes. Yes, we will.

Now stand back and let us get to work. We live for this shit... To some people it's just a job, but not to us, man. It's a passion. When we saved those baby orcas by slashdotting all of S.P.E.C.T.R.E.'s servers it was like.... wow, man. I've never felt so free.

I don't think of myself as a hero. I'm just doin' my job, ma'am.

--
Electric Monkey Pants

Atter the analysis is done... by Dave21212 · 2006-11-13 08:08 · Score: 3, Insightful

We should take a vote using GEMS to see if the Diebold software is good or not :) I'm predicting a landslide !

Seriously though, I'm a little disapointed in the comments so far. First, this is not a political/partisan issue. Second, you don't need the source code to evaluate the operation of this software. Sure, it would be easier if we had it, but are you telling me that nobody here knows how to run a debugger or decompile some simple windows code ??? How many of you are drooling at the chance to take a whack at this stuff ? Go to it !@

For you people whining about no source code, how about you leave the real hacking to the real hackers and go back to your QA jobs :) Besides, I think it will be interesting to see what people come up with *without even having the source* - it's more of a real world test that way.

--
"Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech."--Benjamin Franklin

The procedure is what matters. by Chandon+Seldon · 2006-11-13 08:09 · Score: 3, Insightful

The important thing isn't the voting software, it's an effective voting procedure.

There is a known effective voting procedure using paper ballots, ballot boxes, and little old ladies (err... party representatives) to count them. This procedure has one important property: fraud attempts tend to get thwarted because the little old ladies will yell when something fishy happens. ANY VOTING SYSTEM WITHOUT THIS PROPERTY SHOULD NOT EVEN BE CONSIDERED.

It may be possible to design a voting procedure using computers that is similarly effective. Here's the important thing: it needs to retain the property that little old ladies observing the process can immediately tell if something fishy is going on. NO FULLY COMPUTERIZED SYSTEM CAN HAVE THAT PROPERTY.

Someone suggested the following system here on Slashdot:

Paper ballots are marked, either with sharpies / pens or from touch-screen ballot generating machines.
They go into standard ballot boxes.
Those ballots are brought to a central tallying location using the standard ballot-box protection procedures.

At the central tallying location, for each race:

The ballots are put into a sorting machine that sorts based on the votes in that race.
Observers check the sorted piles to make sure that they are properly sorted.
The sorted piles are put into a counting machine - there's your counts. If the counts look wrong based on pile size to any observer, it's manual count time.

If any candidate, observer, or 50 signatures question the validity of the counting machine's results - a manual recount occurs for that precinct. Every time - no "but that would be effort" bullshit.

This system takes all the properties of the hand count system and preserves them while spending money to gain two properties: Ballot generating machines for the blind, and fast counting for people who think that matters. Ballot generating machines are an easy problem, and sorting / counting machines are pretty cheap. We might have to use heavy cardstock for the ballots to survive the sort/count process for every race - that's $50 I'm willing to spend.

--
-- The act of censorship is always worse than whatever is being censored. Always.

Re:The procedure is what matters. by cdrguru · 2006-11-13 08:25 · Score: 2, Interesting

Yes, and for centuries we haven't cared if the error margin of the little old ladies was 1% or even 2%. If one precinct's results got flipped around because of errors, it didn't matter because of the sheer number of precincts and their small size - usually much less than 100 people per precinct for most of the last 200+ years.

Unfortunately, we are now caring a lot more about accuracy. The current manual processes can't handle the requirements for 100% accuracy or at least accuracy way beyond 0.9%. Could it be done with manual processes? Sure, banks used to do this completely manually all the time. It just takes time and more people. And duplication of efforts to ensure quality.

Not going to fly here, for a couple of reasons. One is there aren't enough workers. Another is that we can either count the votes fast or listen to the news reports because they will report results based on exit polls, surveys and guesswork.

Re:I won't ask... by mackyrae · 2006-11-13 08:12 · Score: 2, Insightful

99% of /. is using Linux. Only 1% will be affected.

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look! it's a bird, it's a plane, it's....a girl? yes, a girl browsing Slashdot on Linux

Re:Don't bother -- excellent point for paper audit by irenaeous · 2006-11-13 08:15 · Score: 3, Interesting

Very good point. I hope you get modded up.

The State of California now requires a paper audit trail. I asked a friend of mine who works as a poll worker volunteer about the system used in Orange County, California. She gave me a detailed and intelligent response with specific information on how it works now. I posted these under another article, but it didn't the attention that I thought her remarks merited. I am also interested in any responses to them.

The "OC" uses voting machines with a paper audit trail system developed by Hart-Intercivic.

Here is what my friend had to say:

The current electronic voting machines consist of a Judge's Booth Controller (JBC) & a daisy chain of (usually) 8 electronic voting screens w/Voted Paper Audit Transaction Systems (VPATS). The JBC governs all of the screens, but is not connected to any VPATS, each of which is independent to its own voting screen. The entire system is completely self-contained -- it does not hook into any other computer system. It only hooks into the wall plug to give it power.
The first voter (a non-volunteering, random citizen who just happens to be first in line) signs the OPEN POLLS paper tape that verifies that no votes have been cast on the JBC for that election. Each voter is given a temporary access code that allows him/her to vote on an assigned electronic screen. The number is randomly assigned by the JBC volunteer & has no connection to the voter's identity. It expires as soon as the voter casts his/her ballot and/or a brief period of time elapses with no voting activity on the electronic screen. The voter enters his/her access code, then chooses his/her vote for each candidate/race on the electronic screen. When he/she is finished choosing, a review screen displays all of the choices & prints the same review on the attached VPAT, which the voter can see, but cannot touch (it is sealed inside the VPAT machine). When the voter verifies that this is his/her correctly voted ballot, the ballot is cast electronically & is reprinted on the VPAT (again, the voter can read it, but cannot access it).
No poll worker can access the VPATS (actually for the duration of the election & counting, neither can a ROV employee), nor can they change the electronic screen. If the voter makes a mistake, the entire ballot must be cancelled & the voter must start again. Once the voting day is finished, & the JBC prints out an additional summary of all the votes cast during the day at that polling place, everything is turned back into the ROV (through a system of manual labor all done by community volunteers, supervised by a ROV employee). The VPATS go to one location. The printed JBC summaries (beginning & ending) go to another location. The JBC goes to a third location. All votes are tallied (by a mixed group of employees & community volunteers) in each of the 3 locations, & compared. If there are discrepancies, the VPAT tally is generally preferred first, then the JBC printed summary, then the JBC electronic count. (There could be legitimate reasons to change the ranking, but I don't know what those are. They are printed out & available to the public.)
About absentee ballots (which I am using this time since we are working a polling place not near our own precinct) -- once they reach the Registrar of Voter's (ROV) office, the unopened envelope is recorded so that you cannot vote again by showing up at the polls, & then it is transferred to a completely different office before it is ever opened. The different office has no access to the list of registered voters. There the envelope is opened & the ballot is taken out & separated from the envelope. All the envelopes are isolated elsewhere, the ballots are bundled together & transferred to a different office, where they are counted by non-employee community citizen volunteers like me.

Personally, I have no confidence in any system without the paper audit trail requirements, and none in Diebold in particular.

Legit? Yes by kaan · 2006-11-13 08:21 · Score: 4, Informative

I just got on blackboxvoting.org and called the primary phone number, and Bev Harris answered the phone.

I spoke to her for about 5 minutes, explained that an article showed up on /. and there were questions about its authenticity. She said it was legit, they set up a new domain name so they don't hammer their primary server (they've gotten a ton of traffic lately). She said she could not disclose where she obtained the executable code, but that it was real software and she wanted feedback from the slashdot community.

This is not a phishing scam, it's really from Bev, and she's trying to solicit help from the /. community to dig into this stuff.

Oh, and yes, I'm posting this same comment in reply to all of the "is this real?" comments... Moderators: please do not mod me down without calling them yourself (go to blackboxvoting.org for phone number).

Kaan

Re:Legit? Yes by kaan · 2006-11-13 09:35 · Score: 2, Informative

Appreciate the thought and effort, kaan, but folks are still in the position of accepting one stranger's (your) word to confirm another stranger's (Gottesser's) claim that a site we can't directly verify (blackbox1.org) is truly being run by BBV.

Already done. Check http://www.blackboxvoting.org/ and see for yourself.

story is legitimate, I just talked to Bev by phone by kaan · 2006-11-13 08:27 · Score: 4, Informative

I just got on blackboxvoting.org and called the primary phone number, and Bev Harris answered the phone. This is legitimate. I talked to her for about 5 minutes, explained that an article showed up on /. and there were questions about its authenticity. She said it was legit, they set up a new domain name so they don't hammer their primary server (they've gotten a ton of traffic lately). She said she could not disclose where she obtained the executable code, but that it was real software and she wanted feedback from the slashdot community. This is really from Bev, and she's trying to solicit help from the /. community to dig into this stuff.

Kaan

Re:story is legitimate, I just talked to Bev by ph by AJWM · 2006-11-13 08:34 · Score: 3, Insightful

So you say. How do we know who you are?

(Nothing personal, just illustrating the chains of trust necessarily involved in any security.)

Thanks for checking. If you really did ;-)

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-- Alastair

Hi, I'm Bev Harris. There's nothing fishy here. by Bev+Harris+at+BlackB · 2006-11-13 08:38 · Score: 5, Informative

Our domain, blackboxvoting.org (and the forums, on bbvforums.org, and the document archives, on bbvdocs.org) are on one server. These ES&S program files are on another server entirely because they are quite large and would slow down our blackboxvoting.org site.

I won't say where they came from. I've checked them out to the extent possible, and they appear to be the real thing. In any situation like this you have to consider that the software might have changed significantly, or that someone could have left a honey pot out there, but I don't think this is a honey pot, not going to publish why on an Internet site. There is a good possibility that current versions have significant changes. Looking over these files should tell us a lot about how the ES&S programmers think, programming styles, etc. I haven't had time to look at the files at all, and I'm not a programmer. This program is designed to run on Windows, according to the user manuals, so I imagine you can just install it and start tinkering, as we did with the Diebold GEMS program. Some of the material refers to "Aero," which is definitely an older version that grew into the Unity program.

No source code was provided (no source code was provided for the Diebold GEMS program, either, remember). The software is only for the election management system/central tally system, and we have so far been unable to get programs for the precinct-based individual voting machines, nor for the ES&S equivalent of the memory card, which they call the "PEB".

Black Box Voting is receiving very credible reports of ES&S meltdowns in several states, though they always seem to have a temporary technician around to promise everyone their vote was not lost. Hard to explain, of course, since 18,000 votes are missing in action right now in Sarasota Florida, with about 300 votes separating the candidates for a U.S. House of Representatives race.

We are getting reports of ES&S anomalies from BOTH political parties.

If anyone has any questions, you can e-mail me at the e-mail address on the blackboxvoting.org Web site.

Best,

Bev Harris
Founder
Black Box Voting

Re:Hi, I'm Bev Harris. There's nothing fishy here. by Anonymous Coward · 2006-11-13 08:52 · Score: 5, Insightful

Hopefully you are Bev Harris, but you see that there's no way for us to know. I could create a Slashdot account claiming to be Elvis, and nobody could verify whether the King had truly returned.

It would help significantly if there were a post either on the home page of blackboxvoting.org, or in the bbvforums.org forums under your name. This way there would be some credible record that this information did truly come from Bev Harris.
Re:Hi, I'm Bev Harris. There's nothing fishy here. by letxa2000 · 2006-11-13 11:23 · Score: 2, Funny

Hi, I'm Bev Harris. There's nothing fishy here. (Score:5, Informative) by Bev Harris at BlackB (1026740)

I'm sorry, I don't trust anyone with a uid that high.

Re:Dont Help BBV by jeramybsmith · 2006-11-13 08:40 · Score: 2, Interesting

The sad thing is, a call to support legitimate voting watchdog groups followed by a quote of Bev Harris acting like a creationist about her voting conspiracies is down modded to a troll immediately. 2 of the replies so far have been people mad because I left the "ic" out of DU's name as if I was besmirching the political party that site favors. This site is a decent enough news source but when its used as a tool for the kooks I get up in arms. Bev Harris' people are one step away from shadow government kooks and a quick read of their forums will show you that.

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Never overestimate the end user. -jeramy b. smith

Re:this is legitimate, it's not phishing by kaan · 2006-11-13 08:43 · Score: 2, Informative

1) How is this software legal to distribute in the way that it is being done? Can she supply information about why it is legal, even i she won't say where it came from?

I asked Bev the same thing, she didn't want to say very much about it. So I'll add my own commentary: legality aside, if you piss off somebody big enough, they will find a way to shut you down, no matter what. Black Box Voting has had problems with this in the past (as explained in Hacking Democracy, where Bev originally found Diebold's Gems software on a public ftp server, her website was shut down, but not before many others had downloaded the contents).

2) Even if it is legal for us to download it and posses it, how can we usefully examine the software unless hack it it in such a way which will probably break the DMCA (or other laws)

Good question. The answer is, "you probably can't". The DMCA probably applies here, and probably says it's illegal for us to even discuss their proprietary software. I suggested to Bev that she try to participate in the discussion on /. because there are going to be some tough questions, especially when the initial comments are, "this whole thing looks bogus".

If she won't say where she got it from then I'm going to assume that it is illegal. Also if this is illegal then isn't /. now also guilty under the DMCA, and possibly other laws?

I can't disagree with you. Bev said she could not disclose anything about where it came from, because it would likely reveal who it came from, and she couldn't do that. I don't know what to tell you. The DMCA probably applies, and that's just something you'll have to decide on your own.

I would further suggest that you consider whether voting software for public elections should be so secret as to be hidden behind a generic law such as the DMCA. That's really the issue here - everything about electronic voting is a secret, and her organization is trying to expose that.

Kaan

Re:story is legitimate, I just talked to Bev by ph by DShard · 2006-11-13 09:05 · Score: 4, Funny

I am torn... normally I trust anyone with a lower slashdot ID than myself. But I can't trust both of you.

Re:story is legitimate, I just talked to Bev by ph by rob1980 · 2006-11-13 09:26 · Score: 5, Funny

Great, so instead of /.'ing her website we're going to /. her phone instead. :)

FYI: This is now reported on Black Box Voting by Bev+Harris+at+BlackB · 2006-11-13 09:27 · Score: 5, Informative

Hopefully putting to rest any questions as to who is who. I posted this discussion at Slashdot as the lead story on blackboxvoting.org Cheers.

How was this obtained? by slackmaster2000 · 2006-11-13 09:31 · Score: 3, Insightful

BlackBoxVoting is essentially "Bev Harris", and it's an organization concerned about the implications of electronic voting.

No point in getting into the goods and bads of electronic voting, because all we have here is somebody not associated with ES&S posting a copy of the ES&S software. Another slashdotter has posted at least three times in this discussion that this is all legit because he called and spoke with Bev Harris -- but Bev Harris is *not* from ES&S. Her validation does not make the software legal to obtain.

I found a very interesting little news article from two years ago: http://www.seattleweekly.com/news/0410/040310_news _blackbox.php

"Harris started surfing the Web. On Jan. 23, 2003, she hit the mother lode. On an unprotected Web site, she found 40,000 files of Diebold Election Systems' source code--the guts of software to run touch-screen voting machines. ... After a little soul searching, Harris downloaded the Diebold software files. It took 44 hours, and they filled seven CDs. By July 2003, after months of informal review and discussion among her friends and allies, Harris decided to allow Scoop, an "unfiltered" news Web site in New Zealand (www.scoop.co.nz/mason), to make the files available to anyone who wanted them. It wasn't a decision she made lightly."

Given her past actions (and without getting into the ethical or moral value of her crusade) I highly doubt that she has the legal right to distribute the software that she's making available today.

Re:No source code, sorry by Chris+Burke · 2006-11-13 09:32 · Score: 2, Interesting

The last time I looked, I seem to remember some folks working on decompilers that would produce higher-level languages (mostly C, that I recall), but have no idea if anybody ever got 'em working well.

It's been about five years since I touched one, but they work well enough. They do a fine job of identifying basic blocks, variables, and functions, and produce code that can be fed back into a compiler. The big problem is that it's still largely unreadable because it doesn't have any of the conceptual meaning conveyed by the original code -- i.e. descriptive function/variable names.

--

The enemies of Democracy are

Not only that... by Burz · 2006-11-13 09:36 · Score: 2, Insightful

You are correct... perhaps the only way to tell for sure would be to compile the software on-the-spot after performing diffs to check for authenticity. Plus the OS and compiler would have to be verified as not being tampered with.

People--- Maintaining the integrity of anonymous transactions just isn't compatible with the nature of complex computing systems. Even fully-identified transactions, as in banking, are precarious enough to warrant an industry of anti-malware (which sadly, often cannot create a secure environment).

Add to that the idiosyncracies and exploitability of what is essentially Personal Computing hardware consisting of billions of logic gates and almost infinately maleable storage media... all to record a few bits of information per transaction?

That is asking for trouble.

Even if polling authorities can somehow effectively and independantly verify the source code logic, there is no way to be sure about the hardware logic, as each IC is effectively its own "Black Box" that cannot be peered into.

Finally, a computerized ballot is an invisible ballot. The bits being displayed on the touchscreen are only a proxy for the bits being recorded, and the opportunities for de-linking the display information with the recorded info are myriad. The concept of a voting system where the voter never actually sees the ballot they are casting is bizarre and tragic.

For the above reasons, only physical ballots can ultimately be considered as real. Any such voting system that does not print a physical ballot is a fraud.

Ask and ye shall receive... by Anonymous Coward · 2006-11-13 09:43 · Score: 3, Informative

It would help significantly if there were a post either on the home page of blackboxvoting.org, or in the bbvforums.org forums under your name. This way there would be some credible record that this information did truly come from Bev Harris.

Ask and ye shall receive... there's an update on their primary website
http://www.blackboxvoting.org/

Here's one difference: by Bev+Harris+at+BlackB · 2006-11-13 13:03 · Score: 3, Insightful

Any of us can go out and buy Photoshop, Office, and HalfLife and get at least an operational overview of what they do and how they work.

None of us can buy the secret voting system software that we are forced to use as the sole means of exercising our voice as owners of our own government. Citizens own the government, not the other way around.

When you own something, you have to have a way to convey your management decisions. As citizens, the way we invoke our management rights is through our vote, and the system that defines, authenticates, records and counts our vote is owned by someone else who says we not only can't look at the source code, we can't even install a working version of the compiled code to see anything at all about how it works.

That's what's different. This situation is more akin to the owner of Halflife being told he is not allowed to see how his own product works.

Re:Crazy idea... by Chris+Burke · 2006-11-13 13:06 · Score: 3, Interesting

How about the machine counts the paper ballot you filled out and drops it in a bin?

Yeah, and in theory, it could also tell you if it couldn't read the ballot because it was badly formed. Okay, machines can already do that, though in some notable cases in Florida this capability was disabled (but people just assumed it was because those voters were idiots).

I do think an electronic ballot machine has some advantages. I like the part of e-voting where I can easily browse candidates, click buttons that show the full text of any propositions or measures being voted on, easily change a vote if I decide to change my vote, and so on. I like the idea of eliminating penciling errors by having the computer print it. I like the accessibility options e-voting can give.

In my ideal e-voting world, you'd have one machine that prints ballots on card stock in a human-and-machine readable format (with the same markings, not human-readable-text and a barcode). You'd take the ballot it prints out and put it in a different machine that could count the vote. In fact, because the format of the ballot would be a matter of public record, anyone could make a ballot counting machine and after passing some basic certification (that it doesn't mangle ballots for example) could bring it to the election to verify that their machine got the same count as everyone else's machine.

Of course something simple like you describe works. As long as there is the paper record which is considered authoritative, and the machine count only an initial estimate, then that's a voting system I support.

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The enemies of Democracy are

Re:No source code, sorry by Unnngh! · 2006-11-13 14:10 · Score: 2, Informative

You don't need the source code, don't even need a disassembler. I know that it would take me the better part of the next two months to get a grip on the assembly behind a windows app. Having the source code would be a different story.

The first thing you want to do is figure out, broadly, what it's supposed to do. Install the software. Get it running. Look over the buttons and menu options. Look over the manual. Next I'd start examining the likely inputs and outputs. What data gets fed into the software? What does it output? What does it store? How does it store it? It may be worthwhile to find an external way to read the datastore (e.g. opening an access database in access) or that may come later.

Now that you have an idea of how the software works, start examining how it handles inputs of different types. What are the expected inputs? Does it handle those properly? What are some unexpected inputs that are still input-able by the UI? What are some unexpected inputs that would not be possible or likely through the UI, i.e. a deliberately or intentionally corrupted input file or stream. Can you inject arbitrary values into the software where there should be none? Can you get the software to perform unexpected operations by manipulating the input? Attack the UI deliberately, perform operations in unexpected sequences, etc.

During this process I guarantee that you will make the application break somewhere, if you're creative enough. Now you want to take the unexpected behavior that you caused and find some way to exploit it. In this case, one must ask, is there some way to manipulate the vote count through exploitation of the defect in the code? Better yet, is there some way to accomplish this manipulation strictly through the UI that generated the input? Or at least, with minimal rights to the aggregated input data, in this case? Can you make the software change the count through manipulating the UI of the counting application?

Coders fall into routines and often repeat the same mistakes over and over. If you find one type of defect (e.g. SQL injection vulnerability), chances are you will find others like it. If they miss proper RI checking in one place, chances are they do so in others. You start to get a feel for how the program works and how it breaks. If you have written enough code of a similar nature, after a few hours or days of fooling around, you will probably have a very good idea of how the application is organized and even have an inkling of the code that went behind it without ever seeing a line of source or assembly.

It was software made for profit in a closed-source environment, so they did not disclose or fix all the bugs they found during test. That's the way of closed source, proprietary software. They presumably fixed larger crashes and glaring problems but left the smaller stuff alone in the interest of adding features and meeting deadlines. These smaller issues and poor design decisions will make up the weaknesses in the code that can ultimately be exploited for fun and profit.

Re:I won't ask... by emilzug · 2006-11-13 14:33 · Score: 2, Interesting

What a bunch of fuck heads you are. You have to see the documentary Hacking Democracy. It was on the net last week. Bev is the main person, it's about how Deibold stole the elections. It's an amazing true documented thing. See the documentary first, then help if you can. Stop your attacks on someone that really needs help.

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