Source Code Access Denied in Disputed Race

MrMetlHed writes "A judge ruled Friday that congressional aspirant Christine Jennings has no right to examine the source code that runs the electronic voting machines at the center of a disputed Southwest Florida congressional race. From the article: 'The ruling Friday from Judge Gary prevents for now the Jennings camp from being able to use the programming code to try to show voting machines used in Sarasota County malfunctioned. Jennings claims that an unusually large number of undervotes (ballots that didn't show a vote) recorded in the race implies the machines lost the votes.'"

Comments

Outrageous

[Xeth]

This is precisely why government shouldn't be using closed-box commercial software. We have no idea whether the machines are functioning as advertised. Do people not realize that we're essentially just handing a bunch of ballots to these companies and then just accepting the verdict they hand down? It boggles the mind that any democracy-loving representative can stand for this. Maybe there just aren't any left?

Re:Outrageous

[wakejagr]

There are at least two reasons why there is little uproar about these machines using closed-source software.

• most people (including judges, elected officials, and others who are in a position to directly change the situation) don't realize that having no access to the source code means votes cast using the machines are unverifiable
• too many people (especially those who are only in a position to indirectly change the situation: voters) feel that the situation with these machines is no more broken than the rest of the system. Remember hanging chads?

Re:Outrageous

[aussie_a]

When I use my paper and pencil I don't get any hanging chads. Why aren't people using paper and pencils in a manner that is easy to understand which box corresponds to which person?

Re:Outrageous

[mordors9]

I think there is a third reason. The authorities have the public so fearful of the shadowy hacker, that they may fear that if the code is released the hackers will find some way to exploit it.

Re:Outrageous

[secolactico]

most people (including judges, elected officials, and others who are in a position to directly change the situation) don't realize that having no access to the source code means votes cast using the machines are unverifiable

Judges are not expected to be expert at every subject. They should, however, be able to find expert advice for the subject at hand. Both parts should have presented properly accredited expert witnesses and the court might have retained independent experts as well (IANAL).

If the fact that the judge is not knowledgeable enough to rule accordingly in an issue indicates that the judicial system (in addition to the election system) might be broken.

Or maybe the complainant dropped the ball somewhere in the process.

Re:Outrageous

[Datamonstar]

If the shadowy hacker is so clever and dangerous, then they should be MORE worried about them getting hold of the closed software and exploiting it while no one can do anything about it because of the fact that it's closed to us good people who could have caught the problem before it became a (major) problem.

Re:Outrageous

[Dunbal]

The authorities have the public so fearful of the shadowy hacker, that they may fear that if the code is released the hackers will find some way to exploit it.

linux code - freely available. Number of linux exploits - minimal.
windows code - closed source. Number of windows exploits - incredible.

      There's a pattern here, if only I could put my finger on it...

Re:Outrageous

[TheRaven64]

Last time I checked, over pretty much any timescale there were more exploits found in Linux than in the Windows NT kernel. If you are going to compare all of Windows, then you need to include a set of comparable applications (e.g. X.org, FireFox, much of GNOME or KDE). Take a look at this page for all of the security holes found in third party applications available for OpenBSD since 4.0 was shipped a couple of months ago.

Most 'Windows' exploits are exploits in bundled userland software. If you compare this to the number of exploits in software bundled with, say, Fedora Core, then the numbers don't look nearly so rosy.

Re:Outrageous

[leenks]

That's true, but it only shows half the picture (like most statistics). If you look at the time it took to fix the exploits and ship the fix to customers then most Open Source projects win hands down. Microsoft does occasionally do this in quite a timely manner, but most of the time it is weeks, months or even years.

The other thing to consider is the number of holes that might be discovered if everyone had access to the Windows source code :)

Re:Outrageous

[aussie_a]

linux - number of users - minimal. Number of linux exploits - minimal.
windows - number of users - incredible. Number of windows exploits - incredible.

Re:Outrageous

[schnikies79]

So it's useless just because it's old? Sometimes low-tech solutions are the best, but this is slashdot and I'm a bit of a luddite so no one will listen.

Re:Outrageous

[Holmwood]

Actually, paper and pencil are a pretty good approach. Simply because a solution is old doesn't mean it's a bad one nor does it mean that the shiniest new piece of technology is the best answer.

Assuming a situation where there's reasonable oversight of most votes most of the time, and opportunities to be alone with ballots for more than a minute don't generally exist:

- Electronic voting machines? An attacker can change thousands of votes in a second.
- Punched cards? An attacker can shove a ten cent piece of steel through the hole for the preferred candidate and invalidate a hundred ballots for the opponent in a few seconds.
- Paper? Well, an attacker can start spoiling every ballot for the opponent, but that's going to take time. Quite a bit of time. And the attacker will be leaving some forensic evidence.

Canada -- a country geographically even larger than the US with probably even more serious geographic distribution problems -- has generally used paper ballots for a great many years. Elections are typically counted and results are in by somewhere between 10pm for local/provincial elections and maybe 2am (eastern) for Federal elections.

Most of all, a paper ballot system is comprehensible and reasonably transparent to the ordinary voter. Not so with even open-source software (which may be transparent and comprehensible to some, but is neither to the average voter).

If you really want something that's counted fast, use paper ballots scanned into optical scanners (and deposited in locked ballot boxes for later inspection/recounts) in front of the voter.

Paper and pencils: A technology who's time has come.

Holmwood.

Re:Outrageous

[Anonymous Coward]

Argumentum ad Novitatem, is that you?

Re:Outrageous

[Anonymous Coward]

What is interesting is not how much security holes found, but:

A) They`re usefulness in gaining inappropriate access.
B) How many holes are left.

Now with A), Windows with its single user administration accounts and open privileges to system by all users, makes any userland bug into an root-level access nightmare. Yes, you can have a separate admin-account. No, XP doesn`t support this fully on the file-level (I`ve done it many times, and it`s a PITA because of bugs in XP regarding running programs or installing software as administrator)
A) will hopefully be fully solved in VISTA. How many years after UNIX solved this?

With B), you cannot really know. Open access to the source code and the whole world watching, makes it pretty obvious you`re going to have more fixes for Linux and BSD. With closed source, you never really know how many holes are left except when someone stumbles on one in the dark, you never really know what the software does or if it contains any backdoors.

It is not so far-fetched to state that the more fixes you have to a system, the more secure it is. But it`s really hard to say. Are NT programmers more proficient than Linux-programmers concerning security? Experience shows that security has never been Microsoft`s priority, marketshare has.

So IMHO Linux and BSD are very much more secure than Windows / NT / XP, maybe even BECAUSE of more fixes for the systems.. But also for the multi-user models used in UNIX which adds a layer of security with the root user, unless the user runs as root all day long of course.

So ANY system will be insecure if the user do stupid things.

Re:Outrageous

[Millenniumman]

The source code wouldn't help matters. Assuming the machines were rigged, it would be simple to release the the code from a properly functioning codeline. If it was rigged, most of the people at the company wouldn't have access to that code, or someone would report it.

Open source is only open source up to a point. There is no way to verify that what is running on a machine is the same as the code released. Anyone working on the machines can tamper with it: "./configure --all-votes-are-$(myparty) && make && make install". Maybe you could use digital signing on the official builds and restrict the machines to them, but keep in mind that violates the GPLv3, and there are no assurances it won't be hacked. On the other hand, it is very unlikely someone is going to reverse engineer closed source software while they are supposed to be setting up the machines and no one will notice.

Re:Outrageous

[Watson Ladd]

Considering the Win32 API permits code injection as a function it's not secure. Besides, comparing to Mac OS X we get a lot fewer exploits. Also, your example includes asterix, which has no comparable windows program, as well as 2 browsers, while windows has one. trac also doesn't come on windows. Besides, they don't come in the default install. Besides, "Only one remote hole in default install in ten years" vs. "20 minutes to r00t." seems pretty open and shut to me. And voting machines are embedded devices, not full desktops, so talking about the security of a full install is pretty pointless.

Re:Outrageous

[Socguy]

I thought the way to counter this was to compute a hash for the program. S.

Re:Outrageous

[Watson Ladd]

Open source does not equal GPLv3. You could release the code under GPLv2 and use digitally signed and restricted builds. You could use a signature on GPLv3 code that makes a big red "WARNING:DO NOT USE" sign turn on in the booth but otherwise functions normally. Or you could blow PROMS with the code at the factory and the guys sticking it into the voting machines could read out the code from the ROM to verify. With closed source software you can verify that the machines are all running the election software, but you can't verify the software.

Re:Outrageous

[john82]

Or perhaps it was a matter of jurisdiction?

IANAL (duh), but do we know who owns the rights to the code? If the state has no legal claim on the code (I don't think paying for the code counts, it's a question of what was written in the contract), then the judge would not have the authority to open access to the code.

It seems to me quite possible that the state does not hold those rights. This is commercial code which the vendor hopes to sell in other locations. Which leads me to a separate question for all of those advocating open source code: What should be the compensation model for using the code?

Re:Outrageous

[NineNine]

It boggles the mind that any democracy-loving representative can stand for this.

The United States Ministry of Language would like you to know that we live in a "Freedom-loving" country. We love "Freedom" according to President Bush. "Freedom" != "Democracy"

Re:Outrageous

[sgt_doom]

Recently, an honorably discharged, multi-tour combat veteran was murdered by the Chicago police as he was called back to active duty to serve in the "surge of troops" in Baghdad.

He had refused to go on another (I forget whether it would have been his third or fourth) tour of combat. This is what this dispicable, vile country has come to - and the primary reason the only American candidate running for prez (hopefully he will) is Dennis Kucinich. HE, and really only he (exception: Russ Feingold, maybe Byrd and perhaps one or two others - definitely not Obama, Edwards, or Hillary from their voting records - they despise the middle-class and America and live only for corporate control and the forever offshoring of American jobs) is the only remaining possibility to put this completely amoral (amoral as in wanton killing for profit - negative on human rights, helping one's fellow human, and sex) society back on track.

Re:Outrageous

[Tony Hoyle]

IANAL (duh), but do we know who owns the rights to the code? If the state has no legal claim on the code (I don't think paying for the code counts, it's a question of what was written in the contract), then the judge would not have the authority to open access to the code.

For something as sensitive as a voting machine the government should have the contract, and all the rights to the source code - the state should be able to request the source from the government.

If that isn't the case then someone should be fired. By a firing squad.

Re:Outrageous

[Anpheus]

Eminent Domain. If there ever were a good case for using it, this would be it.

Re:Outrageous

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no need for signing. What is required is that the source, the binary used in each machine, the compiler version, and all build settings and machine specs are published to the public. Then when there is doubt that some machine isn't working properly, you just extract the binary from the machine, and compare it to the published binary. If they don't match you have a faulty voting machine. To make sure that the published binary is actually built using the published source, you compile it using the same compiler version and build setting you were given. Of course you need to trust the compiler and be sure it doesn't inject anything malicious to the binary. But it's easy, publish the source and all other relevant specs to the compiler.

The voting software should be as simple as possible. This includes the operating system. Some heavily stripped down Linux kernel would work. What the machine needs is a crude B&W display, some very basic user interface, be able to count the votes to each candidate and be able to print a paper receipt.

All this could could have been achieved in the 70's.

Re:Outrageous

[aussie_a]

What? The 1700s actually had honest elections that everyone could vote in? Oh yes, so much better to be in the 21st century.

Re:Outrageous

[hcmtnbiker]

The real problem is not the judges, its the politicians that are complaining, the judges are just upholding current laws. The current laws allow for the source code to be concidered a 'trade secret'. Its the politicans, including the ones that are complaining about this, that are at fault. Effectivly the judge's ruling was there isnt enough evidence to justify a search warrent, which is actually something that is giving me faith back in the judicial system because they are following the law insted of making new ones up. So complain, but hold people like Christine Jennings as at fault as anyone.

Re:Outrageous

[aztracker1]

Here in Arizona, we've had scan-tron style voting for quite a while.. it works well, and has a paper trail... this last election they've started offering the "e-voting" machines... imho they suck, even more for cost and logistical reasons. They're each as expensive as one scan-tron, and each is tied up while the person is voting.. a single scan-tron style unit can handle dozens of voters to one e-voting machine... But, people are sheep.

Re:Outrageous

[Anonymous Coward]

Whether or not we have access to the source code does not affect whether the vote count is verifiable. Just because we have the "source" doesn't mean that it was precisely this code that was running on every e voting machine on election day.

Open source, in this case, is not the answer. Nor is there any security reason to demand open source for voting machines.

What we want is a verifiable vote. Open source doesn't give us that, necessarily. Closed source doesn't deny us that, necessarily.

The real answer is that the voting machine shouldn't be counting votes. The voting machine should print a human readable ballot. The voter should verify the ballot, then put it in the ballot box. The ballots in the ballot box are tallied for the final count.

Easy, secure, reliable, and verifiable. This is the optimal design for the evoting process, and we should demand this from every manufacturer of evoting machines.

Re:Outrageous

[spisska]

This is commercial code which the vendor hopes to sell in other locations. Which leads me to a separate question for all of those advocating open source code: What should be the compensation model for using the code?

The question is irrelevant. Voting machine vendors already have to submit machines and source to certification agencies for Logic and Acciracy testing and certification. For any machine in use on election day, the source code (and/or mechanical parts) have already been disected, examined, and certified.

This is the reason why Diebold machines were decertified in California -- not, as is often claimed, because they are insecure, but because Diebold updated certified firmware with code that had not gone through certification.

The state already has the right to examine source code, and has already done so. What the judge decided (wrongly, IMHO) is that this right does not extend to parties involved in a disputed election where the primary claim hinges on whether or not the machines and code functioned as they were supposed to.

NIST has recently recommended requiring the effective open-sourcing of voting machine code, but these recommendations (Voluntary Voting Systems Guidelines) won't go into effect until 2009. Previously, and in the current VVSG, NIST recommends keeping certified source code in escrow so it is available for examination in case of dispute.

Re:Outrageous

[BlindRobin]

just a well deserved second. well said mate.

Re:Outrageous

[Loco Moped]

I think there is a third reason. The authorities have the public so fearful of the shadowy hacker, that they may fear that if the code is released the hackers will find some way to exploit it.

That IS a reason, but it's way down the list, not third.
The third reason is that both political parties know that any improvements to the code will make it more difficult for them to throw the next election.
It's also well within the realm of possibility that an examination of the code would show that it has already been compromised. I doubt they'd want that known, either.

Re:Outrageous

[Anonymous Coward]

As long as you were a white male, then yes you could vote in the 1700s.

Re:Outrageous

[Loco Moped]

The current laws allow for the source code to be concidered a 'trade secret'.

Current laws also call for open and fair elections. I think that trumps 'trade secrets'.

Re:Outrageous

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought the way to counter this was to compute a hash for the program. S.
Read my lips: Collision avoidance.

Re:Outrageous

[Jahz]

linux code - freely available. Number of linux exploits - minimal.
windows code - closed source. Number of windows exploits - incredible.

Well yeah, but it is misleading that you suggest Windows is less secure just because it is closed source. To disqualify that statement you just need to consider that if Linux became closed source tomorrow it would be no less secure than it is today.

No, the problem with Windows is that M$ made some bad design choices in the early days (90's) and opted to endlessly patch problems rather than rearchitect the kernel/OS (what Vista is supposed to be). The community around linux on the other hand represents "oversight" and helps force speedy correction of underlying flaws. So basically I am saying that with Linux-like oversight on its closed source code, Windows would be really good. To bad that is not feasable.

Re:Outrageous

[644bd346996]

Most holes found in windows lead to an exploit that can be used to rootkit the machine using any microsoft app as the point of entry. Almost all holes in windows are gaping holes. It seems like any bug in the GUI libraries opens up the whole machine. When is the last time a jpeg rebooted or rooted your linux box?

Comparing to OpenBSD, which is still far more secure than any version of windows to date: On the list, there are only 26 applications that have been updated as a security fix. Four are webbrowsers (though really only based off of two engines). Five were common libraries, Five were reasonably common programs, and the rest were server apps. So somebody using OpenBSD 4 as a substitute for windows would have needed to update at most 14 packages because of security problems, though in reality they probably would not be using a links-style browser.

The OpenBSD system would be far more secure than a windows desktop with office, ie, adobe and macromedia crap, and the other applications that are necessary to use windows.

Re:Outrageous

[Millenniumman]

Electronic voting machines? An attacker can change thousands of votes in a second. Done properly, no, he can't. A well secured system would be nearly impossible for an attacker to circumvent in a minute with the resources he would have available. And it would not be too difficult to make the machine ring an alarm if someone tried.

Punched cards? An attacker can shove a ten cent piece of steel through the hole for the preferred candidate and invalidate a hundred ballots for the opponent in a few seconds. Not if you let people see what their vote was read as after it read.

 

If you really want something that's counted fast, use paper ballots scanned into optical scanners (and deposited in locked ballot boxes for later inspection/recounts) in front of the voter. At that point it is exactly the same as punch cards, except pencil markings aren't as easy to read and are far more likely to be improperly marked. All an attacker would have to do is replace the key sheet, or mess with whatever else is used to determine votes. If you don't use paper and pencil, you still end up with a lot of votes that aren't done properly and have to be thrown away.

Canada -- a country geographically even larger than the US with probably even more serious geographic distribution problems and with one tenth the population.

Re:Outrageous

[Brandybuck]

The GPL (any version) should NOT be used with voting machines. Instead, the software should be in the public domain. Unowned. Uncopyrighted. Unrestricted. Unencumbered.

Re:Outrageous

[ajs318]

The problem with using any kind of machine for voting is that the procedures of an election have to be transparent if democracy means anything. And you can't have transparent procedures without universal comprehensibility. Anyone who can't understand for themself exactly how the whole process works, can't be satisfied that the process is fair.

Using Open Source Software in voting machines doesn't really help much. You can't really be certain that the machine is running only the software whose source code you read -- it might just be an emulator running the published software on top of a lower layer which does assorted sneaky things you don't know about. If it uses an internal journal roll, how can you be sure that it's not adding extra votes while nobody is looking? In fact, how do you know that the take-up spool was empty before the first vote was cast? Obvious answer, you get somebody to inspect it. But then if you need a person to inspect the machines for extra votes on the rolls before the election starts, why can't they just inspect a simple ballot box to make sure there are no extra papers inside it before the election starts?

And if you're going to have to re-count the papers by hand after the election anyway (assuming there is anything to count; direct-recording systems are problematic here), why not just count the papers by hand in the first place? Either right there in the polling station, or transport them securely to the Town Hall; but definitely count them in the presence of all candidates' representatives (so everyone will be looking out for everyone else cheating). With the counting suitably parallelised, it can be surprisingly fast; especially if the ballot papers are designed from the outset to be hand-count-friendly.

Re:Outrageous

[Millenniumman]

If you don't use paper and pencil, you still end up with a lot of votes that aren't done properly and have to be thrown away. replace paper and pencil with optical scanner

Re:Outrageous

[Millenniumman]

In that case, the entire thing would have to be rewritten from the ground up.

Re:Outrageous

[Sarisar]

Lets not get on the number of users - just look at Apache and IIS. Which one did Code Red and Nimda and all the others run on? And which has more market share?

Re:Outrageous

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a very simple solution to voting: simply add a few pages to the back of every tax return, and have paper ballots for the unemployed.

I really hope the new "fair and balanced" congress can mandate some accurate voting instead of passing laws to invalidate exit polls. The e-ballot stuffers underestimated the voter turnout, but they won't make the same mistake again.

Re:Outrageous

[JebusIsLord]

Yeah - one tenth the population, and even those are mostly concentrated along the US border. But we still manage to get our votes in by 10pm from remote places like Baffin Island, for chrissake.

I also don't understand why you guys can't hold a simple pencil/paper vote and have the results in by midnight.

Re:Outrageous

[FallLine]

I generally agree with you wrt to mechanical vs digital voting. That said, I think you're making a bit much of the difference between paper and punch cards... the biggest advantage with paper ballots, imho, is that they can be scanned by a computer more accurately and verified by hand if needed.

Punched cards? An attacker can shove a ten cent piece of steel through the hole for the preferred candidate and invalidate a hundred ballots for the opponent in a few seconds.

I suspect the act of punching a bunch of ballots at once is a tougher than might imagine. Try stacking 100 pieces of paper some time and punching a tool through it cleanly. Even if they're divided up into tens, this is going to take you a whole lot more time and is apt to be error prone. Any sane voting system provides lockboxes and multiple people supervising, so it would require a significant conspiracy to pull this off... especially on a sufficiently wide scale as to sway virtually any Federal election. Furthermore, the act of invalidating a bunch of cards at one or several locations is likely to set off alarm bells especially if those ballots are invalidated in a way such as you describe (with less than clean punches, where perhaps some are off-center, show similar patterns, etc).

Re:Outrageous

[MyIS]

A well secured system would be nearly impossible for an attacker to circumvent in a minute with the resources he would have available.

The fear is that there is systematic tampering from the officials' side, not a particular voter left alone with the machine.

Not if you let people see what their vote was read as after it read.

Again, the point is that someone could tamper with ballots hours after the voters have left the building.

with one tenth the population

One tenth? At those numbers the system scales well - actual counting is done per-geographical-unit anyway, it just means that there are more of them doing concurrent work. And overall, isn't it worth to sacrifice ten hours more delay to get a trusted voting system for a country that touts itself to be the bulwark of democracy for the world?

Re:Outrageous

[fluffy99]

The logic and accuracy testing is a joke. It does not do any testing at all to see if the system is secure or easily manipulated. They simply use it, enter a known set of votes and check that the reported totals are correct. I think blackboxvoting.org has a bunch of info on this as well.

Re:Outrageous

[KDR_11k]

Just because we have the "source" doesn't mean that it was precisely this code that was running on every e voting machine on election day.

That's why the procedure of setting these things up on election day should involve an oath that the program running on the machine is exactly as the source shows. The setup process could even involve building the program from the source.

What may be a problem is that the OS is off-the-shelf (Windows) and there cannot be any guarantees made about it. These things should run an OS for embedded systems, not a full fledged desktop OS. In a best case the machine would be designed to have no clock so it cannot tell whether it is being used in a test run or the actual voting.

Counting paper ballots is exactly what these machines were introduced to avoid. I do think that the machine itself should do the counting but still generate paper that is verified by the user and can possibly be counted by hand if necessary (or during random probes). The human counters aren't perfectly "secure" either but I assume random probes could be watched more closely than a complete count.

Re:Outrageous

[KDR_11k]

What the voting machines really need is an FPGA (since those can be verified to function properly and you can verify that the right "circuitry" goes into them) running the voting program and only the voting program. None of this OS crap. Give it a basic green and black LCD and (metal) buttons labelled with the candidate names.

Re:Outrageous

[noidentity]

How about keeping an archive of the environment used to build a particular machine's ROM? Then if you want to verify the machine, you restore that archive, examine the code, and verify that building based on that code generates an identical image as the machine's ROM (the archive contains all the tools too, since different versions might generate different code). Unmatching image = tampered with.

Re:Outrageous

[kannibal_klown]

Ah Scan-Tron. I remember those.
A test I took once for some reason said I got half of them wrong (10/20). Yet on visual inspection I only got 2 wrong. On that day I was not the only one in the class with that problem.

All systems are prone to failure. Hanging chads, bad optics, the person not filling in the bubble fully, etc.

Re:Outrageous

[FallLine]

Done properly, no, he can't. A well secured system would be nearly impossible for an attacker to circumvent in a minute with the resources he would have available. And it would not be too difficult to make the machine ring an alarm if someone tried.

Please describe your "well secured system".

Who will design the alarm? Who will validate the design? Who will ensure that the "alarm" is manufactured to specification? Who will verify the integrity of the alarm throughout the entire cycle? Will anyone be able to shut it off for any reason? How?

Who will write the code? Who will validate the code and check it for flaws? Who will ensure that validated code is accurately compiled, i.e., validate the compiler and/or the binary itself? How will they do this? Who will ensure that said binary is what is actually installed on each machine? How will each and every machine be monitored and audited for any signs of code tampering? Who will be responsible for this? What tools will they use and how do we know they tools are proper?

Who will ensure that the specified CPU contains no relevant bugs or backdoor instructions? How will all CPUs be examined? How will you ensure that they're not switched at some point by some party?

Will the application run on an OS or use any outside code libraries? Who will validate them and ensure their integrity? How?

Who will check the memory/storage unit? How will you ensure that the memory cannot be directly altered by someone before, during, or after voting? How will you read votes off each machine and ensure that all votes are recieved by the counting system (and not by some intermediate party with a fake machine)?

How will the physical integrity of each voting machine be maintained from factory to the time the votes are tabulated?

It is not realistically possible to design an electronic voting system today (baring some fundamental leaps in computer science and engineering) where we can have high confidence that a small group of people could not alter a HUGE number of votes. Even if such a system could be engineered, it would be extremely costly to secure and the average person would have to rely on the assurances of the system designers/maintainers (not just on their integrity, but on their profiency, thoroughness, etc... to a much greater degree than with paper-based voting).

Not if you let people see what their vote was read as after it read.

This violates a fundamental principle of our voting system: that no one can see how you voted. If we created such a system, then people can buy/blackmail/threaten people to vote their way with greater certainty.

Re:Outrageous

[Brandybuck]

Why? The government owns it, it can release it into the public domain.

Re:Outrageous

[Bob3141592]

There's no reason this code should ever be closed. In the computers that run casino games, the government regulatory agencies requires all source code be provided for scrutiny, as well as mandating registered CRCs and digital signatures to prove that the code executing is the code that was inspected. There's all sorts of inspections and reliability tests done on initial submittal and also throughout the lifetime of the computer's use. They do this because those computers affect money, and everyone knows money is important.

If the public/government doesn't require similar validation and reliability for electronic voting machines, it's because your votes aren't considered important or valuable. I don't see any way to escape that conclusion, given the way things are.

Re:Outrageous

[zCyl]

The source code wouldn't help matters. Assuming the machines were rigged, it would be simple to release the the code from a properly functioning codeline.

This is only the case if the exploit is done with systematic cooperation, or by someone with ongoing high ranking access inside the company. If an exploit is performed by a lone programmer (which we all know is quite possible and plausible), then the exploit could linger inside the source code without the knowledge of those who would then release the source code.

So yes, the absence of bugs or exploits in the source code cannot confirm that there are none, but there also exists a realistic chance of finding a significant bug or exploit with access to the source code.

The chances also go up if it is required that source code be released which compiles to a binary match of the code which was on systems during the election. This too is not a guarantee, because code can be self-modifying, but it is a significant improvement.

The problem in this case is not in designing a verifiable election system. That is a problem to solve BEFORE the election. The problem now is to do the best we can to determine if something DID go wrong with an election system which is extremely difficult to verify.

Re:Outrageous

[Millenniumman]

The grand parent specifically referred to a single voter tampering with the machine, not systematic tampering.

Pen and paper isn't just slower. There are a lot of problems with votes not being counted properly.

Re:Outrageous

[Millenniumman]

Assuming you can trust the people making the machine (and by trust, I mean that they are severely scrutinized to where they cannot get anything by), and those working with it, it is not very hard to secure. Obviously, that is a dangerous assumption, but it goes along with pen/paper and punch cards too.

It would not be hard to secure a system with modern technology. Have a touch-screen with the voting software up. The rest of the machine should be locked up. If the machine is handled, other than touching the screen, ring an alarm.

I was only referring to letting the person who voted see their vote, not everyone else.

Re:Outrageous

[Millenniumman]

The government does not own all of the necessary software to make a voting machine. I wouldn't think it would have any. On the other hand, there is a lot of useful open source software that could be used to make it.

Re:Outrageous

[Anonymous Coward]

"But, people are sheep."

I guess when you get lonely, these beliefs/feelings do come up. I salute you brother because I don't have the guts to put my nick to it.

Re:Outrageous

[gibboris]

Next time, ask for the public iso of the voting machines program, sources and sums Checked by who wants and the day of the vote, their is a streming of guys lauching the public system image... A kind of md5sum /usr/bin/md5sum && md5sum ~/all_votes_count.iso With an authentic binary vmware, sha256sum, absolute path, ... :) ? Could be funny... For now, if results are fakes (and it's known), make one more (at least) corrupted evil geek ... Sad times :|

Re:Outrageous

[Brandybuck]

The government does not own all of the necessary software to make a voting machine.

The government can simply stipulate that all works it finances in regards to election software be released into the public domain (or simply not get a copyright). I believe this was once standard operating procedure.

But one doesn't need to release all software on the voting machine into the public domain, only the relevant election software written for this purpose. No need to free the linux kernel, for example, it can remain comfortably GPLed.

Re:Outrageous

[Ricwot]

Not entirely true, as an American, until very late in the 18th century you didn't have any suffrage at all, and in most European countries, the lower classes couldn't vote, as well as obviously Women.

Re:Outrageous

[Anonymous Coward]

I hate to admit it, but because of this (and watching the HBO special on voting machine errors), I did not vote in this last election, and probably will not vote again, until I can get a physical confirmation IN MY HAND of how I voted. What's the point otherwise? How many people realize that in one Florida precinct Gore got MINUS 16,000 votes? Even if you hate Gore, this should incense you!

Re:Outrageous

[spisska]

The logic and accuracy testing is a joke. It does not do any testing at all to see if the system is secure or easily manipulated. They simply use it, enter a known set of votes and check that the reported totals are correct.

Logic and Accuracy testing is just that -- logic and accuracy. They check that the machine's logic gates work as intended and that the machine accurately completes operations. That's it. They don't look at security, as that's not part of the test. Neither do they look at the code's elegance, effieciency, or skill at singing, dancing, playing the piano, or wearing a swimsuit. They test for logic and accuracy.

Which has little to do with the original point that the code, while it may be closed-source and regarded by the copyright holder as a trade secret, is already known and has already been examined by a licensed, independent third party. A judge can deny a petitioner the request to see source code for a voting machine, but can just as easily allow it without having to consult or compensate the company that owns it.

Re:Outrageous

[canajin56]

I happen to agree that a completely secure system can be established fairly easily. Give the voter a touch screen for all of their choices, they push buttons, it says "Person/Initiative/Proposal/Whatever X are you sure?" and you confirm it, once all things you are voting on are done with, you get a final summary page to confirm, then it records that information and says have a nice day, and also prints out a human readable slip that contains all your votes. You fold it in half just like a normal paper ballot, the person running things seals it and plops it in the ballot box like always. There you have it. Instant the polls close, you have your numbers, and the number can be verified by hand counting of the printouts. In fact, have the electronic number the "Tentative" count, and only the hand count is official. You get instant preliminary results and trusted final results.

That being said voting regardless of system boils down to trust. I will use trust in the same sense the parent has used it as, severely scrutinized. The problem with pure electronic voting is that, while it requires utmost trust, as do all methods of voting, this trust cannot be given. The machine has a tally in it, and the master machine tallies all of the tallies and gives the final result. A person wrote the code and a person assembled the machine. Let us say the code is fully open and completely trusted. How trusted is the fact that the machine is running THAT code? How hard is it to switch out a rom chip? Was the machine fully inspected to make sure the code is identical in all ways to that which is trusted? Its just not possible to trust this machines numbers. Trust is an issue because there is nothing to prevent this machine from being designed to randomly, with chance 1/5, reassign votes from person X to person Y when writing them down. Where is the log? The log may be 10000% fool proof but the vote was logged normally, everything was normal. All it takes is one tiny piece of code to switch how the vote is recorded. Its displayed for the user as normal, but a single line of code randomly flips it over when its recorded. How can this sort of thing be stopped? Hopefully such tampering would be obvious in the code with enough eyes looking for it. As I said however, how hard is the code to change? If its just on a disk of a windows box as some of these voting stations are...well its trivial to swap the code out at any point. If its on a ROM as it should be, how hard is it to switch out the ROM? Is there only one ROM? It ended up that in many of the voting terminals used in previous elections, there were actually TWO ROM chips, and a hidden switch in the back to switch between them. With such a device, it would be trivial to have your trusted code on one, and your malfeasant code on the other. No amount of auditing the code and verifying the correct code is running will save you from this, you would have to fully verify the hardware too. But what if it wasn't a switch, what if the hidden rom is selected by a timer, only active when its actually the election, and switching back to the trusted ROM the second the polls close? Well, then you could set the system clock to whenever the election is supposed to be and always test under those conditions. Unless of course there is a second clock elsewhere that is not changed when the admin adjusts the system clock.

That was a lot of text. What it boils down to is its possible to build a very devious voting machine that to the user appears fully functional and seems to record their votes correctly, but does not actually record them correctly. A software audit will not protect you, and machine audit will not protect you, and a detailed examination of the device will not protect you. You would have to crack them open and verify every circuit in there, every IC chip, every single ROM. How could you do this? A full verification would, I imagine, destroy the machine beyond all hope of repair. It would be impossible to verify the actual machines used in vot

Re:Outrageous

[ScrewMaster]

These things should run an OS for embedded systems, not a full fledged desktop OS.

That's my feeling as well. Really, given the importance of these systems it makes even more sense to just do the whole damn thing in an ASIC or two and be done with it. Or if it absolutely must be programmable, just dispense with the idea of an operating system as such and develop an embedded application that talks to the naked hardware. It's just counting votes, not tracking an incoming enemy missile in three dimensions or analyzing radio telescope data looking for alien civilizations. I haven't worked on embedded systems for ten years or so, but I've developed a number of real-time controllers that ran on standard industrialized PCs, booted from a ROM drive, and had no operating system whatsoever. Reliable as hell for that reason, no moving parts, not even a CPU fan.

This is not rocket science, folks. Somebody needs to tell Diebold and the rest of these negligent bloodsuckers to get off their goddamned asses and do this job right, or step aside for someone that will. This is ridiculous ... the United States (the United States!) being unable to trust it's own election systems. Something is very wrong.

Re:Outrageous

[Nevyn]

Last time I checked, over pretty much any timescale there were more exploits found in Linux than in the Windows NT kernel. If you are going to compare all of Windows, then you need to include a set of comparable applications

Then you also need to define exploit. Or look at it objectively, the leading Linux vendor has spent a huge ammount of time integrating SELinux support throughout it's entire distro. ... as well as a bunch of other less global security measures (no exec, randomisations, glibc _FORTIFY_SOURCE, etc.). Microsoft have done what? Fixed IE yet ... ahh no.

Re:Outrageous

[unitron]

Have you got a link or source for that Chicago incident? I'd like to find out more about it. Thanks in advance.

Re:Outrageous

[JoshJ]

Mod parent up for general win.

Re:Outrageous

[Nazlfrag]

Assuming you can trust the people making the machine (and by trust, I mean that they are severely scrutinized to where they cannot get anything by), and those working with it, it is not very hard to secure. Obviously, that is a dangerous assumption, but it goes along with pen/paper and punch cards too. Sure, in theory optical scanners and punch card readers could be tampered with and give the wrong votes. Difference is, there is a verifiable paper trail of the actual votes cast (aside from 'hanging chad' issues). Pen and paper is far superior - you don't have to trust the pen or paper companies, and the results are 100% understandable and verifiable to any voter that can read names and write numbers. Optical scanner tampering can be rechecked by hand count of the actual votes cast. Tampering with the paper ballot is far more difficult and forensically traceable than hacking software, where erased tracks are very hard to trace.

Re:Outrageous

[Anonymous Coward]

So you only cyber, troll?

Oh, sorry, forgot this is Slashdot, I guess that answers the question, anyway.

Re:Outrageous

[azrider]

Do some research. The testing and certification is done by companies selected and paid by the equipment vendor. In addition, the results are only provided to the equipment vendor, since they are the client. The government, since it is not the client, is not guaranteed access to the raw data, so it cannot independently verify any claims of accuracy.

Re:Outrageous

[altare]

Here in Indiana (Vigo County) we some thing similar-paper ballots scanned by optical scanner. Electronic speed and paper accountabilty.Sometimes the newest is`nt the best. Just a partial upgrade works better.

Re:Outrageous

[aztracker1]

nod... they're optical here as well (not pencil in)... I just meant scan-tron style for people not familiar with it... it works well, counts quickly/electronically, and only a matter of adding more booths/space for extra voters over longer wait times... *shrug* .... imho this is way better than the e-voting booths..

Re:Outrageous

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe microchips shouldn't be allowed in voting machines. Maybe everything should have to be analog or vaccuum tube and punchcard or something. Or all cranks and levers and little dolls that scream "shake my hand!" or something. Wtf.......

Re:Outrageous

[Holmwood]

Actually, I was technically unspecific. I did not intend any reference to a single voter, however; I intended to refer to one or more officials. I described someone as left alone with access to many votes for under 60 seconds. Since, in my experience, this never describes an individual voter, it seemed obvious to me I meant an offical. Granted, perhaps where you are from, individual voters are routinely left alone with access to many votes. If this is the case, your region/country has far more than electronic voting to worry about.

The idea that there are problems with lots of votes not being counted with pen and paper but mysteriously being counted properly with (say) punched cards or today's e-voting systems is, respectfully, asinine.

If it's a cognitive challenge for a voter to mark an X or fill out a circle, then it's going to be an even greater cognitive challenge to operate and verify the actions of a voting machine.

Holmwood

Re:Outrageous

[Holmwood]

FallLine -- I didn't make that up; it's a scenario that's actually been posited in situations that don't seem to make statistical sense (e.g. wards with huge numbers of spoiled ballots where people punched D and R combined with lots of valid D votes and few R votes -- or vice versa). Keep in mind that the infamous chads are designed to be punched out unlike your hypothetical stack of paper. I've played around with punched cards -- same physically as the voting ones -- and had no trouble punching 30 chads in a stack of 50 with just a knitting needle. This would be analgous to punching through 50 votes, all for Bush. (with, say, 30 non-Bush votes) Every genuine Bush vote is fine; every Gore/Buchanan vote gets invalidated. -Holmwood.

Some thoughts

[stikves]

I think the machines will always be subject to much discussion until their source codes are approved by all the parties and the installation of the hardware is done in front of inspectors in all sites.

But as it will not probably be done, we'll not see an end of unfairness claims.

unfuckingbelivable

[Anonymous Coward]

The source code for such nasty machines should by definition be publicly available. Who the fuck trusts those devices when its source code is unavailable??

Re:unfuckingbelivable

[A beautiful mind]

I would mod up parent if I could, as it perfectly catches the gist of the problem. The profanity is there to hilight the seriousness of what people who believe in democracy face. Anyone who belittles the problem by political correct weaselwords does a disservice and does not contribute to the/a solution.

Not knowing the source code for a voting machine is the equivalent to saying "a miracle happens here" at a critical part in a mathematical proof. Completely utterly unnaceptable.

Re:unfuckingbelivable

[Architect_sasyr]

Indeed, despite their choice of language, they have it in one.

Just because, in this case, the judge won't understand it, or the company thinks they stand to lose money from letting it be seen, doesn't mean we shouldn't be able to see it... my latest GPS device (a TomTom) has an Open Source system on it, runs on Linux. Thankfully, I don't understand it, and I don't want to, its not my field. BUT WHEN IT COMES DOWN TO IT, if for a second I didn't trust the machine, I could take a look and know exactly what it was doing.

With a voting machine this should be an integral part of the trust process... we know how the box where we slip our voting slips works... why should we not know how the machine we punch our answers into work the same way?

Re:unfuckingbelivable

[Cuppa 'Joe' Black]

It is a glaring *glaring* affront to democracy itself to continue running elections in this manner.

Re:unfuckingbelivable

[TheRaven64]

Not knowing the source code for a voting machine is the equivalent to saying "a miracle happens here" at a critical part in a mathematical proof. Completely utterly unnaceptable. Having any kind of electronic voting machine is unacceptable in a democracy. Do you have the skill to audit the source code and say with 100% certainty that there are no exploitable bugs? I could with maybe 40-60% certainty. Is that enough for democracy? I would say that less than 1% of the population is more qualified than me to perform the audit (assuming access to the source code). Is it good enough that 1% of the population can say 'I am fairly confident that this doesn't have any holes.

Why should Joe Public have to rely on someone like me saying 'trust me, it's secure?' Would you be willing to have a ballot paper written in Kanji and an expert tell you which set of symbols corresponded to your candidate? I certainly wouldn't, so why should the rest of the population have to place the same faith in experts?

Re:unfuckingbelivable

[Watson Ladd]

High-integrity software can be made. You just provide a proof of correctness that can be machine or hand checked. Anyone can check the proof just by checking that the proper axioms and lemmas are used at each step. If it can be done for avionics, it can be done for voting machines. It's just rocket science!

Re:unfuckingbelivable

[ericlondaits]

A proof of correctness for such a large system would be unthinkable... a proof can be hard enough to do for a small algorithm, like say, an encryption method. But here you'd start having to get proof for the GUI, so you'd need to give proof for the graphic APIs, OS Shell in general and then the full OS (yes... even writing an unproved spec for libc would be a daunting task).

Even if you could just check the app while blindingly trusting the OS and APIs, you'd have to give proof for the GUI, the db backend, the vote distribution mechanism, the server soft where the votes are counted, etc.

Formal proof It's not feasible at that scale. And even then, as with all mathematical proofs, facts are not checked down to the last axiom... they're peer reviewed for some time until everybody is quite confident that no steps were worng. That is no necessarily fair to voters.

Re:unfuckingbelivable

[TheGratefulNet]

Not knowing the source code for a voting machine is the equivalent to saying "a miracle happens here" at a critical part in a mathematical proof. Completely utterly unnaceptable.

are you aware of the fact that when it comes to belief in evolution, the USA is 2nd to the last, worldwide, in our ability to think logically and rationally and believe in science and not the boogeyman?

(if you can trust penn/teller's numbers, we're the worst only second to turkey, I believe, in evolution disbelief!)

so you say 'a miracle happens' and we're not supposed to just trust that.

I agree.

but then again, why is there SO much religion present in the USA? and why is it crippling to rational thought, to the extent that we've become a laughing stock of the world?

people here seem to believe in magic and spirits and coming back from the dead in 3 days and all that. its not a stretch to understand that we don't NEED logic and reason here. so the idea of 'just trust the machine' works well in jesusland^H^HUSA.

seriously. when we lose our ability to detect BS and simply trust our leaders (WHO attacked us on 9/11? oh really!) then we get what we deserve.

welcome to the machine. or so it seems.

(its alright, we told you what to dream...)

Re:unfuckingbelivable

[TheRaven64]

Anyone can check the proof just by checking that the proper axioms and lemmas are used at each step. Anyone? I think you live in an interesting world where even 50% of the population even knows what an axiom or lemma is, let alone how to check a mathematical proof. In a democratic state, everyone gets to vote, therefore, everyone should be able to validate the electoral procedure, not just the mathematicians and computer scientists. Here's an example I provided in another post:

By having an electronic voting system, you are asking the majority of the population to trust that it is carried out correctly, with no way of checking it themselves. Would you[1] be willing to use a paper vote where all of the candidates names were in Kanji, and trust an expert to tell you in the polling booth which candidate name was the one you wanted to vote for?

[1] Assuming you can't read Kanji. If you can, substitute Egyptian Hieroglyphics in here.

Re:unfuckingbelivable

[repvik]

Is it good enough that 1% of the population can say 'I am fairly confident that this doesn't have any holes.
Why should Joe Public have to rely on someone like me saying 'trust me, it's secure?'

Well, it's a hell of a lot better than 20-30 guys at some company that may or not share the same political opinions. Voting machines, when implemented properly should be the most reliable way to count the votes.

Re:unfuckingbelivable

[Anonymous Coward]

Not knowing the source code for a voting machine is the equivalent to saying "a miracle happens here" at a critical part in a mathematical proof.

If you want the layperson to understand, and your outrage to have any effect, you must find better analogies to make the common person outraged as well. What common person has an idea of how to construct a mathematical proof?

How about saying something like, "not knowing the source code for a voting machine is the equivalent to not knowing what the disgruntled cook put in your dinner - there could be E-coli, broken glass, or just plain shit in there, if you're not allowed to look."

Re:unfuckingbelivable

[hey!]

  Having any kind of electronic voting machine is unacceptable in a democracy.

I disagree.

Having an electronic machine that prints a human readable, machine tabulatable paper ballot could be a good thing,if the user interface was designed reasonably. For one thing it would assist blind voters, and provide assistance for voters in the language they're most comfortable in.

Re:unfuckingbelivable

[Anonymous Coward]

seriously. when we lose our ability to detect BS and simply trust our leaders (WHO attacked us on 9/11? oh really!) then we get what we deserve.

I'm not really sure what you mean by that, which makes me question the motivations behind the rest of your statements.

Here's the short list of possible answers:
The US Gov't
Jews
Afghanistan/Taliban/Al-Qaeda
Saudi-Arabians
Egyptians
Illuminati/UN/Other secret organization bent on world domination
Iraq (Because George Bush & Dick Cheney said so)

Re:unfuckingbelivable

[neomunk]

I don't understand, are you trying to count votes on this machine or play Quake 4? There are fine, small, stable kernels out there for many embedded systems. Hell, there are dozens of tidy OSs for the ARM family alone.

The system you seem to be describing, a full blown linux system, all networked to some type of central vote counting database is so beyond the scope of this discussion it's unreal.

You know, even allowing for big powerful linux boxes to do something so simple as count touchscreen presses, I think a good case could be made for using a minimal SELinux installation. It's NSA approved for all the flag-waving true believers, and open sourced for all the critical cynics.

Either way you go, machines are built by people, they are not magical boxes with a will of their own and therefore unable to be trusted with counting our votes. Machines can be checked, verified, and if necessary retooled to remove a flaw. Open source software lets you find flaws while I find flaws, while she finds flaws, and, hopefully one of us will care enough about democracy to call foul and find a way to fix it.

Re:unfuckingbelivable

[neomunk]

If you don't care enough to learn how a tool works, then it's no one but your own fault when you maim yourself using it.

However, hopefully when you need a tool used you find someone who knows how to use it properly to assist you. Why do they have the magical ability to do something you don't? Why, they were interested in it and spent time to learn. That's how society works, some people can do stuff you can't, you can do stuff they can, and for some reason (community spirit, cash, favors, whatever) you help each other out.

Not everyone has to understand computer science to trust the machines, if you trust the computer scientists verifying it. With open source software the verification group grows far larger, vastly increasing the chance that some decent person with the right skill set notices the error (or impropriety as the case may be), compared to some paid group approved by the corporation (who may or may not have a political agenda).

If you're still so worried about open source backdoors and bugs, you have to ask yourself it it matters enough to you to learn what you need to to verify it yourself. The information is available, and you CAN learn these things, it's not magic.

If you STILL don't trust the machines (now that

Re:unfuckingbelivable

[amRadioHed]

Damn, you had me up until the 9/11 comment. Granted I don't know your exact beliefs on it, but I've never seen a theory on 9/11 start like that and end with sound reason and evidence.

Either way, the greater point of your whole comment is right on.

Re:unfuckingbelivable

[zotz]

I am not so sure.

Let me be stupid for a bit...

Let's say we design a system with two types of machines.

1. Vote taking and printing machines. These take the voter's choices and print out a paper ballot which the voters can verify on their own before putting their ballots ina the box.

2. Vote counting machines which can count these paper ballots.

I leave it for discussion if we need machines of type 1.

Hand recounts are always possible.

Problems?

all the best,

drew

Re:unfuckingbelivable

[KDR_11k]

We're talking about a system that adds one to a number when a button is pressed and then doesn't accept input until cleared (who says it has to run a GUI and not just have a bunch of physical buttons on the front panel next to little signs labelled with the names of the candidates?). Occassionally it tells its numbers to a central server (this step isn't even mandatory if you have designed the system to be immune to losing votes if it loses power, sending tallies manually to the next authority would be no less secure than our current system). The paper-trail printer can be handled by an unproven system since the user verifies the output immediately. The core system could be implemented by a guy with a bucket of transistors and a soldering iron in reasonable time. A turing machine acting as a voting machine could probably be written on one A4 sheet.

Re:unfuckingbelivable

[KDR_11k]

The goal of the Illuminati was to replace stupid politicians and religious leaders with the brightest minds of their generation, abolishing borders and unifying humanity under the leadership of intelligent, rational thought. If they manage to make that work I, for one, welcome our new Illuminti overlords.

Re:unfuckingbelivable

[kcbrown]

Damn, you had me up until the 9/11 comment. Granted I don't know your exact beliefs on it, but I've never seen a theory on 9/11 start like that and end with sound reason and evidence.

Really? There's only one fact, which is easily verifiable just by looking at the many video footage sources available, that you need to know to deduce the most likely explanation for the destruction of the WTC. That fact is that the towers came down at nearly free-fall speed.

Physics takes care of the rest. For a building to come down at nearly free-fall speed, there has to be almost no functioning structure left in the building. Why? Because any remaining functioning structure, even if that structure's strength has been compromised, will absorb some of the energy of the collapse and thus serve to increase the amount of time it takes for the collapse to occur.

Therefore, simply weakening the support structure beyond the point that collapse is possible isn't sufficient. If the structure were weakened just beyond the point that collapse is possible, the building would collapse but would do so slowly, as the energy of the collapse is absorbed by the remaining strength of the structure. The weaker the remaining structure, the less energy the structure can absorb. The weaker the structure, the closer to free-fall speed the building will collapse at. Conversely, the stronger the structure, the further away from free-fall speed the collapse will occur.

And so, for the building to collapse at nearly free-fall speed, the strength of the internal structure of the building must be almost completely removed. Not just compromised to the point of making collapse possible, but removed. And not just in certain sections of the building, but everywhere in the building, for if there are any reasonably large sections of the building that have any reasonable percentage of their strength left, they will absorb some of the energy of the collapse and thus increase the amount of time of the collapse.

Even if the heat from the aircraft collisions and subsequent office fires were sufficient to weaken the entire structure of the building to the point that it could no longer keep the building standing, there's not nearly enough power (energy expended in a given period of time) there to weaken the entire structure enough to cause it to lose all its strength, even temporarily.

There are other facts that are relevant, too: the collision and subsequent fires took place primarily towards the top of the buildings. The further towards the top of the building the sources of energy are, the harder it is to compromise the structure towards the bottom of the building. The structure at the bottom is the structure that needs to be compromised the most.

If the collisions from the aircraft and the subsequent fire aren't enough to remove almost all the strength from the entire structure of the building, that means something else did. And for that, the most reasonable, plausible explanation I've ever heard is some sort of manual intervention. In other words, controlled demolition.

The rest is a matter of details (that is, determining the specific methods used to remove the structural strength from the building). But physics alone is enough to get you to the point where it becomes clear that the collisions and subsequent fires are not sufficient to explain the collapse.

Re:unfuckingbelivable

[Anonymous Coward]

For a building to come down at nearly free-fall speed, there has to be almost no functioning structure left in the building. Why? Because any remaining functioning structure, even if that structure's strength has been compromised, will absorb some of the energy of the collapse and thus serve to increase the amount of time it takes for the collapse to occur.

Locate a brick. Place the brick upon your head, and ponder both the weight of the brick and the forces it applies to your head. Then lift the brick 10 feet / 3 meters above your head (the height of a single building story), and drop it upon your head. When you are later revived in the hospital and it is explained to you what happened, you can then ponder the difference in the forces applied to your head when something has already fallen only a short distance.

Now ponder what would happen when the weight of the entire top third of a building is dropped approximately one story, and the entirety of that energy is applied to the support structure beneath it. Your physical intuition is failing you here, because the amount of energy generated in a drop of even such a short distance is sufficiently enormous to completely decimate the support structure.

Re:unfuckingbelivable

[Denyer]

As long as the machine isn't counting the ballots... because otherwise it's easy to arrive at a scenario where the printed slip says one candidate but the vote itself is entered for another candidate.

Re:unfuckingbelivable

[trick.one]

That's a great point, but the trust issue emerges no matter what method is used. Suppose we return to a paper ballot system. Someone has to count up those pieces of paper at the end of the day. Why should those people be trusted? There's really no practical way to ensure absolute fairness.

The real issue, I think, is how to distribute the trust. Spreading it across many people (e.g., thousands of volunteer paper-vote counters) increases the changes that someone will try something nefarious, but reduces the damage that a single person can infict. Giving the power to a few Diebold technicians and programmers lowers the chances that one of them will try to hijack the election, but makes the consequences worse if they do.

Personally, I'd go for the constant but low-grade tampering. Just like I'd rather be governed by a few hundred slightly foolish men and women than a single despot who might turn out to be a complete fuckup.

Re:unfuckingbelivable

[TheRaven64]

Suppose we return to a paper ballot system. Someone has to count up those pieces of paper at the end of the day. Why should those people be trusted? There's really no practical way to ensure absolute fairness. We have such a system in the UK. Anyone can volunteer to count the ballots, and anyone can observe the proceedings if they wish. Any person who can vote can, if they choose, follow their vote from the ballot box to the final tabulation and ensure that it is counted. With an electronic system, this is not the case. Less than 1% of the electorate have this ability even in theory, and far fewer have it in practice.

Re:unfuckingbelivable

[sgt_doom]

Several recent events are pertinent to this discussion:

(1) Six months prior to that Italian premier election, the one which Berlisconi (the special Bushie buddy and anti-freedom of the press guy) narrowly lost (by the official electronic ballot machine count he only lost by 25,000 - by the exit polls, by well over 1 million - sound familiar??) old anti-press porn king Berlisconi had imported the firm Accenture to set up and program said electronic ballot machines.

(2)The pathetic mainstream media failed to properly report that in the last national elections of November, there was widespread ballot tampering (of an electronic nature) reported throughout the country, as well as record number of voter turnout (which was necessary to overcome said tampering) during an off-year election.

As something of an old fart, I wake up almost everyday with a headache from listening to the misinformation and disinformation which those mainstream media claim to be the news (e.g., the next day after former (selected, not voted in, as was also Bush that first time) president Gerald Ford died, he was incorrectly (fictionally??) cited as being a World War II veteran (wrong!!) and also cited as being the best athlete to hold the presidency (Huh? How about Washington, Jefferson, Jackson, Grant, Teddy Roosevelt, that Gipper fellow, what's-his-name, and a number of others). There is simply no end to all the disinformation out there - which is why honest and aboveboard elections are sooooo crucial.....

Re:unfuckingbelivable

[Darkman, Walkin Dude]

but then again, why is there SO much religion present in the USA? and why is it crippling to rational thought, to the extent that we've become a laughing stock of the world?

Many of the original immigrants to America were fleeing religious persecution back in Europe. What you are beginning to see now is that there were some good reasons they were being persecuted in the first place. Religious freedom is one thing, tolerating the growth of cults that use advanced indoctrination and retention techniques is something else entirely, which the relevant authorities in Europe recognised at the time. A view which I am finding less and less distasteful, over time.

Re:unfuckingbelivable

[Mr. Slippery]

You just provide a proof of correctness that can be machine or hand checked. Anyone can check the proof just by checking that the proper axioms and lemmas are used at each step.

Which is just about as reliable as checking the logic of each line of code directly. How do you know there's not a bug in your mechanical proof-checker, or somewhere else in your tool chain? How do you know you haven't made an error in you hand-crafted proof?

Formal methods give you a more precise language to talk about code, sure; in some instances that's very useful. But it does not make the problems of writing good code go away.

Re:unfuckingbelivable

[TheGratefulNet]

let me explain. it appears I was strongly misunderstood.

ALL I meant by the 'who attacked us?' comment was that GWB kept selling this pack of lies to us that 9/11 was linked to iraq. rational minds to tend to agree that iraq had ZERO to do with the 9/11 attacks. yet half (approx) the country believed and continued to believe the song-and-dance that GWB was selling us. even after the 9/11 commission report and all the other evidence - the american sheeple still refused to listen to reason and instead bought into the wholesale fear and paranoia. thanks georgie..

I have read the conspiracy theory about the US gov having something to do with the collapse of the towers. the ONE thing that stands in that way is - the US gov can't pull ANYTHING off of that complexity in secrecy. just can't be done. regardless of physics or suspicion. that, alone, is sufficient proof that the US gov couldn't have been behind it. they're just not that competant and it would take HUGE amounts of planning and keeping things very quiet all the while. can't be done, not with OUR gov officials in charge of the US, at least.

so the gist of my comment, initially, was: the US population won't believe in evolution and worse than that - they continue to buy the filthy lie of 9/11 and iraq being directly linked.

americans are some of the smartest yet also, statistically, DUMBEST people in the world. yes, we're the leaders in 'dynamic range', in a way, I suppose.. ;)

At least it's just "for now"...

[NewToNix]

This will surely be appealed, it's a bad decision on the Judge's part. And here's the obligatory IANAL bit.

But I am able to call bull shit when I see it. And refusing them, or at least a mutually agreed on qualified party, to review the code in question is asinine.

And proof positive that these things, if allowed at all, MUST be open source.

Re:At least it's just "for now"...

[Alchemar]

One of the problems with are current system is that you can not appeal a bad decision, you can only appeal if correct procedure was not followed, the other problem is that judges have given themselves the authority to overrule a jury, most of the cases based on "The jury didn't understand the law in this case" the purpose of a jury by peers was to keep people from having their lives ruined by legal loopholes. The jury has the right to say the law is screwed up and should not be applied, but judges want that power for themselves and have taken it. When is the last time you saw a jury rule a law unconstitutional. I think that if this particular decision had been made by a jury the outcome would have involved a lot more common sense, and a lot less of the public getting bent over.

Re:At least it's just "for now"...

[NewToNix]

I agree with your basic thoughts, but it will be appealed, based on what Reggie Mitchell, a lawyer for People for the American Way, a group working with the Jennings campaign in challenging the election results, said: "the judge's decision would likely be appealed."

BTW; I think you are thinking of "Jury Nullification", only the Supreme Court can do the 'unconstitutional' bit. And at that you are right that Judges have about nullified the right of "Jury Nullification".

I think Judge Gray, and the City of Tuttle's city manager Jerry A. Taylor, must be roomies... they display about the same level of awareness... and incompetence.

Re:At least it's just "for now"...

[westlake]

When is the last time you saw a jury rule a law unconstitutional.

It doesn't happen.

It cannot happen in the American legal system.

The judge tells the jury what the law is.

The jury decides the factual question remaining in dispute.

The jury doesn't debate the constitutionality of the death penalty. The jury votes on whether the state has met its burden of proof under the law when it demands the death penalty.

Nothing tests code like the real world

[RodgerDodger]

There's definitely something screwy going on. From the article, about 18000 votes were accepted that didn't actually vote for anything. Now, if I was designing an e-voting package, there's no way I'd mark a vote as accepted if it didn't vote for something, especially in a country like the US where voting is not mandatory. After all, if they've bothered to turn up at the voting booth, you can assume they actually intended to vote.

(The situation is a little different in my home country of Australia - mandatory voting means that we might get something out of having a "none-of-the-above" option)

I also wouldn't put much faith in the "two parallel tests" done by the state. Absolutely nothing tests code like the real world, and the fact that both tests revealed "100 percent accuracy" when errors were detected on all models of e-voting machines during the US Congressional elections just means that the tests weren't very good. I doubt very much that the tests involved as many as 18000 voters in the first place, not to mention underpaid and overworked electoral officials trying to help a horde of undereducated and over-opinionated voters, with only a couple of hours training conducted a couple of months before.

The court ruled that the "conjecture" of lost votes didn't warrant over-riding the trade secret status of the e-voting machine code. This is a mistake - an expert review could easily conducted under a NDA, thus protecting the trade secret status. Not to mention that the tools of democracy shouldn't have trade secret status in the first place... without examining the code, how does anyone know that there isn't a little switch saying "On Super Tuesday, switch into rig-the-election mode"? (Not that I think there is - it's just that there's no way to disprove it). Nor do you need to go the full open-source route for this - just like the expert review, a panel of experts could easily be responsible for certifying e-voting machines without any risk of the code being exposed.\

Re:Nothing tests code like the real world

[DRJlaw]

There's definitely something screwy going on. From the article, about 18000 votes were accepted that didn't actually vote for anything. Now, if I was designing an e-voting package, there's no way I'd mark a vote as accepted if it didn't vote for something, especially in a country like the US where voting is not mandatory. After all, if they've bothered to turn up at the voting booth, you can assume they actually intended to vote.

You're misreading the article.

"Some 18,000 Sarasota County electronic ballots did not register a vote in the race, a much higher undervote rate _ nearly 15 percent _ than in others such as those for governor or U.S. Senate. Jennings contends the machines lost the votes. Buchanan backers and the company say that if there was an unusually large undervote it was likely because of bad ballot design."

There were 18,000 people who did not vote for either Jennings or Buchanan (or another option, if any). People routinely vote for "none of the above" when they dislike each of the candidates, when they have little information about the candidates, etc. You cannot refuse to accept the voter's selections once the voter has showed up at the polls and voted in even one race, because that may very well be the voter's intent. Arguably, you cannot refuse to accept a submission that contains no selections, because that too may be the voter's intent.

You are at best arguing about the sufficiency of the selection review prior to a submission. There is not enough information in the article to discuss this information, and it does not support the candidate's allegations of fraud, so that it is essentially irrelevant to the legal case taking place after the election. You're free to argue against the ballot presentation selected/entered by the various Boards of Election, but you can hardly argue based solely on the undervote that this was a programming "feature" or design defect.

Re:Nothing tests code like the real world

[theonetruekeebler]

From the article, about 18000 votes were accepted that didn't actually vote for anything What the article actually said was:

18,000 Sarasota County electronic ballots did not register a vote in the race (emphasis added) It further says this means about fifteen percent of the ballots cast did not have a selection in this race.

The loser says this happened because the software went all wonky. The winner says it probably happened because of poor layout -- voters didn't even find the race, or they found and misunderstood the race, or they fat-fingered the ballot.

The loser, of course, can't challenge on the misunderstood-ballot theory, because it implies that her support base is statistically more likely do do something stupid than her opponent's.

That said, I find this ruling intolerable. When the government is formed by the counting of ballots, the method of the counting must be open and available. I think it was Boss Tweed who said it best: "As long as I get to count the votes, what are you going to do about it?"

Re:Nothing tests code like the real world

[RodgerDodger]

Actually, I just forgot that you guys hold a lot of different elections on the one day... my bad.

I would argue that a "none-of-the-above" option is what you want, instead of allowing no selection. The article still makes it sound like there was no vote recorded at all.

Still, what I'm really arguing is that the fact that there was some testing done by the state is not sufficient grounds to conclude that the software didn't have bugs.

Re:Nothing tests code like the real world

[zuiraM]

In fact, the failure of the tests to show accuracy errors when the real world revealed plenty can be taken as something very close to proof that the testing procedures are inadequate, and the software therefore suspect.

Re:Nothing tests code like the real world

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, when there are no candidates that I wish to vote for I always still show up at the voting booth and spoil my vote. Not voting sends a message that I'm not interested while a spoiled votes says that I am concerned enough to be an active voter but don't think much of the current candidates so I don't want any of them to gain power.

Vote spoiling is a very necessary thing. Telling people to not bother turning up if they don't like any candidate is stupid and just helps politicians think that people can't be bothered rather than people not liking their policies.

Re:Nothing tests code like the real world

[Mikelikus]

Blank Voting is a form of doing your duty and saying that there's no candidate with which you agree. I know several people who vote or have voted blank in some occasion.

Re:Nothing tests code like the real world

[carpeweb]

IIRC, a small but non-negligible percentage of comrades in the old Soviet Union would leave ballots blank, as that was the only feasible protest in one-candidate elections. It would make the news every now and then because someone would win by only 90% or something like that, which was considered a "defeat" in some sense.

Re:Nothing tests code like the real world

[PPGMD]

Exactly in that race. I couldn't stand either candidate and I personally wrote in "Inanimate Carbon Rod" for that race. But I am in Manatee County and we use the scantron like ballots which are harder for Jennings to use to cast doubt on the race. She lost in a district that has historically (even before the touch screen voting) gone to Republicans. Sure the margin is getting tighter, but it isn't close enough for Jennings someone who was in the nobody position of Lt. Governor to come in and sweep it.

Re:Nothing tests code like the real world

[Tony Hoyle]

A 'None of the above would be great'. IMO we already have that though.... people who stayed at home.

I have this continual argument with a friend who believes that voting should be compulsory and the spoiling the paper should be a crime - forcing you to vote for *someone*.

I argue the other way - that actually the way the voting turnout is dropping is actually healthy. People should vote for what they believe in... ideally policies, but 'he has a nice suit', although not something I'd encourage as a voting decision, is at least a positive vote.

People stay home for 4 reasons:

1. They don't believe in the system
2. They believe in the system, but are not in a marginal so believe it doesn't work for them (similar to (1)).
3. They don't like any candidate
4. They don't give a flying fuck.

I don't *want* people in 3. and 4. to vote. They'll vote randomly, introducing noise into the results. If the purpose of democracy is to elect good government (debatable in itself, probably) then making them vote is against that purpose. 1. and 2. can be sorted out by things like politicians getting off their butts and actually canvasing (thus involving the people.. I haven't seen a politician around here ever), some education, and maybe reform (smaller voting regions perhaps, making them more representative to counter 2.).

Me, I'm a 3. so a 'none of the above' answer would be great. If a politician actually bothered to even ask for my vote, or *gasp* try to tell me why I should vote for them (and party policies don't count - I don't vote for parties I vote for people) then I probably would vote positively.

Re:Nothing tests code like the real world

[Holmwood]

I agree with most of what theonetruekeeper says. I wanted to explore a couple of points in particular, though.

First, jokingly. It's a Florida ballot. I somehow don't have trouble believing it was badly laid out and difficult to understand.

Second, more seriously. As for "her support base is statistically more likely to do something stupid than her opponent's" this might well be true.

Voting is a cognitive challenge. Not a big one for the average slashdotter, but tougher for the elderly, the uneducated, the illiterate, the disabled and, yes, the stupid.

The following is NOT a troll. Please read it carefully before blowing up. Statistics seem to suggest that people more likely to vote Democrat if they either struggle cognitively or are cognitively brilliant.

Improverished urban African Americans -- who score badly on cognitive tests for whatever reason (legacy of slavery? Horrible inner city schools? Racism?) -- vote 90% Democrat. Brilliant PhD's are similarly disproportionately Democratic voters. [While there are white and other demographic groups that are equally or even more cognitively challenged than the poorest-scoring minority voters, none of these groups seem to vote in as large numbers for one single party].

For brevity, let's stipulate IQ measures something useful cognitively and that this relates to the cognitive challenge of filling out a ballot correctly. (If you're a foreigner who thinks it's ludicrous that filling out a ballot properly could be a cognitive challenge, look up "butterfly ballot" and shudder).

If it's a challenge for anyone below IQ 85-95, there's a decent chance you're disproportionately disenfranchising likely Democratic voters, especially in urban areas, if the above statistics hold.

Similarly, if it's a challenge for anyone below IQ 130-140, there's a decent chance you're disproportionately disenfranchising Republicans. Same caveats.

Since the people designing the ballots are probably in the IQ 110-130 range, it's unlikely they will design ballots they cannot possibly fill out. And thus, we are much more likely to have disproportionate disenfranchising of likely Democratic voters.

No, this really isn't a snarky way for me to say Democrats are stupid. Because they aren't. Or one could just as easily argue Republicans are average; Democrats are smart. And even that's not really accurate.

In general though, a sound case can be made that complex ballots will disproportionately disenfranchise minorities, the elderly, and likely Democratic voters. (Some touch-screen voting systems might well be better for some of the disabled, though, than pen and paper).

Machine ballots of any type appear to be considerably more complex than paper, with any punched card system possibly being the worst and most confusing.

The rush to electronic voting machines was a largely well-intentioned knee-jerk reaction to the mess of 2000. It's not clear that it was a good knee-jerk reaction at all, and for reasons more subtle than simply the distinction between open-source and closed-source.

Holmwood

Re:Nothing tests code like the real world

[Anonymous Coward]

Then who verifies the hardware? Open hardware design? I agree with OSS (especially for voting), but I additionally believe the entire process needs to be open not just the source code.

Re:Nothing tests code like the real world

[Anonymous Coward]

TONI Jennings was the Lt. Governor. CHRISTINE Jennings is the one who ran for Congress. Toni Jennings is a Republican, while Christine Jennings is a Democrat.

Toni Jennings: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toni_Jennings
Christine Jennings: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christine_Jennings

Also note that while the numbers varied throughout the recounts, never did Buchanan's lead drop below 368, the original election night count. Therefore, your assertion that "the margin is getting tighter" is incorrect. The final count is a 369 vote difference in Buchanan's favor.

-LN gop360@gmail.com

Re:Nothing tests code like the real world

[aybiss]

I find your view on democracy kind of scary. Firstly, allowing people to not vote seems strange to me as an Australian - we are taught to value this right and it *is* a crime not to vote - well, you get a small fine anyway. It seems to me that in a society where voting is optional only the extreme views will ever be represented.

Secondly, the idea of not liking any candidate - I suppose again that is something I've grown up with and gotten used to - but we have a preferential voting system and there's always a bunch of crazy sounding parties like the 'Legalise Marijuana Party' or the 'Three Day Weekend Party' to vote for. Not liking politicians (who does?) doesn't mean people don't have to choose someone to run the country - it's one of those communal duty things.

Finally, I wish everyone would stop talking about misvoting. How is it at all possible to fuck up a vote on a computer screen? You could conceivably cast your vote for the wrong person or what ever, but someone PLEASE explain under what circumstances a computer would let me fail to tick one and only one box, or to number the boxes with my preferences? Did I miss something incredibly complicated about filling out a ballot? Did we not manage to elect school captains from age 8 or so onwards? You CANNOT misvote on a computer voting system... Right?!?

And yeah, whoever allowed you guys to vote on closed source voting machines needs to be publicly tortured and then run out of town in stocks.

Re:Nothing tests code like the real world

[10101001 10101001]

If the purpose of democracy is to elect good government (debatable in itself, probably) then making them vote is against that purpose.

The point of a democracy isn't to elect a good government. The point of a democracy is to let the majority choose their government and live with the consequences. The fundamental problem with all voting systems is that they (a) don't provide for fair governance of the minority (any sort of unanimous voting system allows any one person to hold the whole system hostage; even if a majority of people vote, there may be only a plurality that elects a leader (run-off voting in theory could help reduce this problem)) and (b) don't accord to the fact that not everyone wants to vote at the same time (I certainly didn't vote on when to hold elections) nor does everyone necessarily wish for an office to be filled by those who are running (if a majority of people aren't even voting, it could be said that the majority is voting in a lack of confidence of all candidates, so the majority is indirectly demanding the office be left vacant or the majority si indirectly demanding more competent candidates). If we wanted a "good" government, we'd vote not on candidates but on the qualities that make a good government and further prove which candidate best fits to provide that government.

Re:Nothing tests code like the real world

[alassiry]

Houw about a "Cowboyneal" option....??

Re:Nothing tests code like the real world

[SpaceLifeForm]

5. They know it's a mess, and want change, so they vote against incumbents.

Re:Nothing tests code like the real world

[PPGMD]

Therefore, your assertion that "the margin is getting tighter" is incorrect.

Hmm got the two Jennings confused, either way it's annoying locals. When I said the margin was getting tighter I was referencing for the seat over the past few elections, not this election itself. Before the seat was pretty much in the bag for the Republicans, now not so much, as we can see from this race being down to a few hundred votes.

Re:Nothing tests code like the real world

[rohan972]

we are taught to value this right and it *is* a crime not to vote - well, you get a small fine anyway.

No, you get a fine for not attending a poll on election day (unless you postal vote). It is legal to register an informal (invalid) vote. So "compulory voting" makes sure that apathy doesn't keep people from voting, or that people aren't intimidated to not vote, but if you really don't want to vote, you can legally turn up, have your name marked off and put your ballot paper in blank.

Re:Nothing tests code like the real world

[porges]

The loser, of course, can't challenge on the misunderstood-ballot theory, because it implies that her support base is statistically more likely do do something stupid than her opponent's.

No; if the ballot is confusing, or easy to miss, it could be that, say, 20% of votes don't register, for both sides. Out of 18000 votes, suppose it would have gone 10000 to 8000 Democratic. Now you've lost 2000 Democratic votes but only 1600 Republican votes, handling the Republican a 400-vote advantage. If the rest of the district is closer that that - and hey, it was! -- that swings the victory.

Re:Nothing tests code like the real world

[aybiss]

That is correct - on a paper ballot it is impossible to avoid 'donkey' votes and blank ballots. What I can't understand is how a computer which can wait until you do vote properly before marking you off the electoral roll and which can display the candidates in a random ordering each time the ballot is displayed can possibly end up with invalidated votes.

Incomplete article

[Somnus]

What the article doesn't discuss is the quarantining of machines from the actual election and reproducing their inputs in the "independent test." Anything less is uncertified evidence.

OTOH, should voting results have a presumption of validity? The problem is that voting bureaucracies are not designed for validation by authenticating ballots or statistical checks, but only on prompt decisiveness and the appearance of not having irregularities in the balloting or counting.

Wouldn't all this be solved by encrypted online voting, where you could check your own votes by a profile tied to an anonymous registration key issued by the DMV? Then make the data public for verification by the media?

Re:Incomplete article

[amaiman]

No. Ability to check your own vote means that if you give the key to someone else, they can verify your vote as well, this will lead to people selling their votes.

Re:Incomplete article

[zuiraM]

No. Because then I could demand proof that you voted what I wanted you to, and since you would have the means to provide it for me, I could reasonably threaten you if you didn't provide it.

Re:Incomplete article

[Anonymous Coward]

Wouldn't all this be solved by encrypted online voting, where you could check your own votes by a profile tied to an anonymous registration key issued by the DMV? Then make the data public for verification by the media?

Oy no, you guys are overthinking this whole "secure voting" thing. While that solution is technologically elegant, anything that allows anyone to take anything out of the voting location that can indicate the manner in which someone voted is an absolute non-starter any time soon.

While it's not perfect, and doesn't allow a person to "verify that their vote has been counted," I believe the best solution to bridge the gap between 19th century paper votes and the Information Age is simply to have the voting machine print human- and machine-readable ballots when the voter has finished. The voter can then visually verify that their votes have been appropriately recorded on the paper and feed it into a second machine that does the tabulations. Hell, at that point you could even have a display on the machine re-confirm the votes as a backup verification mechanism for the voter.

Re:Incomplete article

[JackHoffman]

Wouldn't all this be solved by encrypted online voting, where you could check your own votes by a profile tied to an anonymous registration key issued by the DMV?

The problem with most "verified" voting mechanisms is that they allow voters to prove a vote for a certain party, which in turn makes buying votes feasible. You have to create a pretty elaborate system to prevent this kind of abuse and most of the proposed systems which look like they could solve this still don't prevent ballot stuffing.

Classic paper ballot voting solves these problems by using an observable and public process. The only secret act is the casting of the vote and there is practically nothing a voter can do in that secret phase to change the outcome beyond his normal participation in the poll. All other steps in an election are, at least theoretically, public: You can watch the sealing of the empty ballot boxes, you can watch the admission of the voters and you can observe the counting. Nobody has to trust someone else. If people take an interest in the process, they can see for themselves that it is done right.

Electronic voting always has the problem that you can't observe the code execution. Sure, you can verify that the code in the PROM is correct, but you can't verify that the code is what actually gets executed on election day. You can't verify the contents of the memory modules beyond what another unverifiable machine tells you. IMHO, the problems with electronic voting are unsolvable without giving up at least one of the democratic principles of a secret ballot. The central problem is that there is secret information involved which cannot be verifiable to the point that you can verify the whole process.

Re:Incomplete article

[carpeweb]

simply to have the voting machine print human- and machine-readable ballots

This is essentially what reasonable (non-Florida) balloting looked like before "e-voting". Except that the voter was part of the "voting machine" and filled in little circles. Those are machine-readable, and there's no need to compare the machine readable ballot to the human-readable ballot, because they are the same ballot.

As I've said before, e-voting is a bad solution to a problem that didn't really exist.

Re:Incomplete article

[zotz]

"this will lead to people selling their votes."

Or being "pressured" to vote for a certain person.

all the best,

drew

Re:Incomplete article

[zotz]

"I believe the best solution to bridge the gap between 19th century paper votes and the Information Age is simply to have the voting machine print human- and machine-readable ballots when the voter has finished."

Bingo. Check my other comments... I say the same thing. We don't need to verify much if any source code then. (Not that it would hurt to do so.)

all the best,

drew

Re:Incomplete article

[KillerCow]

where you could check your own votes by a profile tied to an anonymous registration key issued by the DMV?

Any system that enables you to verify your vote after you leave the voting both allows you to sell votes, or to be coerced into voting a certain way.

Re:Incomplete article

[ArtStone]

Sorry to burst your tin hat, but that's exactly what happened.

http://election.dos.state.fl.us/

Audit Plan:
http://election.dos.state.fl.us/pdf/auditPlanSaras ota.pdf

Parallel Test plan of specific machines with the largest undervote:
http://election.dos.state.fl.us/pdf/parallelTestPl an.pdf

Test Results (11/28/06)
http://election.dos.state.fl.us/excel/ParallelTest 11-06.htm

Second Test Results (12/01/06)
http://election.dos.state.fl.us/excel/ParallelTest 12-06.htm

Analysis of Software and Security Statement of Work (12/15/06)
http://election.dos.state.fl.us/pdf/FSUstatementWo rk.pdf

Florida State University will have access to the source code with the stipulation that the code will not be made public.

Okay, now venture down the path the Florida State is run by one of Jeb Bush's cronies on the Haliburton / Carlisle Group / New World Order payroll...

The President of FSU is Thomas Kent 'T.K.' Wetherell, who was the Speaker of the House in the Florida Legislature, where he served from 1980-1992. There you go!

Oops, he is a Democrat.

Let's have another thread after the independent software testing is complete to review why we think that still doesn't prove anything.

Re:first post

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it possible to browse /. without such completely uninteresting american bs? Kind of a /. minus american flag articles?
I'm not bashing because /. is filled with US junk which most readers don't care about, I am seriously interested in a non-us-crap-articles version of /.

Thanks.

On behalf of the rest of the world

[Simon Garlick]

I point and say, in a Nelson Muntz voice, "HA HA".

Re:On behalf of the rest of the world

[Afecks]

Too bad the rest of the world is going down the drain with us!

Re:On behalf of the rest of the world

[harryman100]

While your comment was clearly in jest, I think you actually raise an interesting point. For a long time the "rest of the world" as you described it, has simply said "I'm glad I don't live there" whenever a scandal of any sort occurs in america. Whenever a suspect person comes into power in America it not only has an effect on the people of America, but it can also dramatic affect on the rest of the world.

Democracy was originally designed to be a fairer system compared to the traditional dictatorial methods of governing, however in these times of easy global reach, democracy has become unfair again. America continues to use it's unrepresentatively large amount of power to fuck around with the rest of the world. America has become the monopoly of this world, using the power it has to prevent other countries from doing what they want (unless it agrees with the american way).

Perhaps it wouldn't be a bad idea for America to be split up. The amount of power the white house wields is too large and attracts too much corruption.

Note if you replace the word power in the above with the word money, it scans just as well, and still seems to represent what's happening! Which is a sign that democracy has failed.

Beautiful system we have here.

[ponderance]

This is exactly why I didn't vote. I didn't want to use the electronic machines. All we had around here, all I had available was either electronic machines. They gave me the runaround for weeks concerning absentee ballots. I tried several times and just threw my hands up.

How I understand it, the only way the machines can put votes where malicious programs want (IF they're infected) is if someone votes. If I don't vote, my vote can't be misused. And I surely don't trust this technology, especially how fast and secretive it was implemented.

I could be wrong. I hope this isn't the *future of voting.



*less and less trust. less accountability and verifiability. easier to rig an election.

Re:Beautiful system we have here.

[Orlando]

This stance only makes sense if you then make a visible public statement about why you didn't vote, or aproach the relevant authorities about the problem. I hope you did.

Re:Beautiful system we have here.

[ponderance]

As much as I had time to. Heavy traffic locations online had posts about it, spread the word as much as I could. Wrote to the papers and called the news stations around here but nobody was interested. Not patriotic, after all.

Re:Beautiful system we have here.

[Anonymous Coward]

As far as I'm concerned, if you are a patriotic USA citizen, it is your duty to your country to carry a hammer with you the next time you vote and destroy one of these machines.

Re:Beautiful system we have here.

[carpeweb]

the only way the machines can put votes where malicious programs want (IF they're infected) is if someone votes

Well, I know diddly squat about the details of the machines, but would they not have or connect to a database in some fashion? If so, how would a vote be the only way to trigger a fraudulent action? Even if there's no database involved, why couldn't a clock trigger a fraudulent action? I'm no computer expert, but don't most of them have clocks?

Re:Beautiful system we have here.

[SnarfQuest]

If they can change a vote, why do you think that they couldn't also add votes? Being able to corrupt the database one way makes it likely they can do it in other ways too.

Re:Beautiful system we have here.

[Cygnusx12]

This is exactly why I didn't vote. I didn't want to use the electronic machines. All we had around here, all I had available was either electronic machines.

You could've requested an absentee ballot, that would have been a paper ballot, yes?

Perhaps that's what we should do in the next election, en masse request absentee ballots, to demonstrate lack of faith/accountability etc in current e-voting mahcines.

Re:Beautiful system we have here.

[ponderance]

yeah I thought about that after I posted it. I was thinking immediately of a lot of the bugs that are easily inserted and spread which just put your vote where the bug is instructed to. But yeah I remember a few videos demonstrating how easy it is to manually change numbers in results too. My fault.

Re:Beautiful system we have here.

[Anonymous Coward]

Comgratulations. The electronic machines DID rob you of your vote - because you let them. Yes, they are bad, and yes there was a possibility, maybe a large one, that your vote would not count. In the face of your possible disenfranchisment, you decided to GUARANTEE your disenfranchisement. Congratulations on a truly stupid move.

They don't even have to steal the elections if they can just scare the morons like you into staying home.

Whaddya mean "there is no conflict"?

[Dachannien]

I don't get it. In this case, the plaintiff isn't allowed to view presumably proprietary/copyrighted source code for a voting machine to go on a fishing expedition to see whether it caused her to lose.

On the other hand, the RIAA gets not only to view the contents of a woman's hard drive to go on a fishing expedition to see whether she was sharing music files, but they get to make their own copy of it, including all that stuff they don't hold the copyright on (Windows, the woman's e-mails, etc.).

It seems to me that what's good for the turkeys oughta be good for us chickens. Or something.

Re:Whaddya mean "there is no conflict"?

[dramenbejs]

Yeah, but RIAA has more power than a senator... :(

Re:Whaddya mean "there is no conflict"?

[Anonymous Coward]

You forget that in a corporatist-fascist state like ours, the chickens are mere cogs and cannon fodder to enrich the ubermensch, not the other way around. Rights? What rights? Are you one of the elite? Then you have no rights. Go back to your slaving so that I can steal your wage labor!

Re:Whaddya mean "there is no conflict"?

[sgt_doom]

Wow...could this be in a similar vein to that Enron fellow, Skilling, whose company's phony blackouts actually caused the death of a few people, yet Skilling will not be going to a regular prison but one of those country club-type daycare prisons???

Gee whiz...I guess the rich and super rich get away with murder (Saddam Hussein's body count: 100,000 to 200,000 Iraqis.....George Weasel Bush's body county: 600,000 Iraqis). 'Nuff said.....

Re:Whaddya mean "there is no conflict"?

[KKlaus]

Well sure, but essentially trolling through someone's harddrive when there is no real evidence to suggest he committed a crime is hardly synonymous with being able to look at the code that you are building your democracy on. The plaintiff may not have a particularly good case, but that doesn't make closed source voting code any less BAD, and slashdotters are justifiably uncomfortable when said code gives at least somewhat questionable results.

Re:Whaddya mean "there is no conflict"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, FDR had more.

According to http://www.iraqbodycount.net/ the current max number of Iraqis is 57,707 not 600,000. Using your numbers the most violent president in the US, FDR, killed more than 20,000,000.

logic and reason

[bnf]

The inability to assess the logic of casting votes defies reason.

How long must we sing this song? A democracy without transparent practices for the transfer of power is not a democracy. All the way down to the ones and zeroes. Every question with regard to voting should be able to be answered.

It seems so primitive that it baffles me how someone could arrive at any other conclusion than "the process of voting is sacred and should, in fact *must*, bear great scrutiny".

Re:logic and reason

[zuiraM]

It seems to me that the only real option to satisfy your requirements would be a formally verified design akin to the ones used in space shuttles. Lockheed-Martin would probably be one of the companies write and verify the source. You'll probably want three independent companies delivering the hardware with voting logic between them to assure that the logic has not been compromised. A formally verified design gets very complex if it's big, so you'll probably want a very simple interface (e.g. 2x40 display with usual up/down/left/right/select buttons), which can be good in and of itself, as it would reduce the incidence of misunderstandings.

Hmm... perhaps I should go make a prototype ;)

Re:logic and reason

[cluckshot]

Having actually reviewed the software (Yes the source code) for 7 major voting machine systems....,. I might have something to say on the topic. First!!!!! a verified voting machine software package means exactly nothing! The verification is if there are enough comments in the code and if all case statements have a default exit and things like that. It has nothing what so ever to do with if the system correctly handles an election. I got paid for this people so I know the facts here!

Out of the 7 major packages I reviewed I found only one I felt was secure enough to consider it worthy of use. I did look at the software. Major flaws included the ES&S systems have flash drives! They could have their data and their "brains" completely changed at will during an election and they never would tell! Other flaws included Internet hookups to the machines where data files could be addressed remotely... .... ....

I am not telling the name of the supplier I felt was good but let it assure you that their system had paper read and their system had several other safeguards of the voting tally.

Why do public officials want such systems. Simple. They can steal elections and they can prevent absolutely any record of the event. Why should voters get mad and demand open source software on such systems. The reasons are many They include prevention of defalcation on the election. They include being hardware independent so that users are not locked into a system for buying their supplies. They include KNOWING what is going on. They include voter oversight. Take your pick folks.

Re:logic and reason

[carpeweb]

I vote you get Word of the Day credit for "defalcation". Most definitions specify that it relates to misuse or embezzlement of money or funds, however, so I'm not sure it's quite the right term in this context. Still, Word of the Day props to you!

Re:logic and reason

[zuiraM]

I think perhaps you misread my comment.

I did not say "verified". I said "formally verified". As in formally proven to do everything in the top level spec correctly and do nothing else. As in full mesh analysis. As in formally proven softs running on a hardware solution that is engineered such that the non-inspectable parts are delivered by multiple independant vendors and will operate on the same voting principle as in spacecraft.

More concisely, a formal top level specification is derived from a requirements spec, which details the exact requirements of an election. Going from the election requirements to the voting machines' top level specs in the correct manner is critical for something like formal verification to work in the intended manner. Proper formal verification (which is feasible for such a "small" (though quite important) task) will provide a guarantee that the software does what the TLDS specified; apply the necessary oversight to make sure the election requirements are fulfilled by the TLDS, and you know, to the limits of current engineering capability, that the voting machine fulfils its role properly.

Of course, formal verification on the hardware side will be tougher, but you can take a shortcut by opting for the independant vendors plus inter-processor voting option, which also has the very nice property of reducing the likelyhood of tampering with an uninspectable component causing problems.

That said, of course they don't really want elections to work properly. No politician does, except when they're popular and out of office at the same time ;).. So this is just a suggestion as to how it *could* be done, if you're looking for a (virtually) no-compromise voting solution.

Re:logic and reason

[bar-agent]

I am not telling the name of the supplier I felt was good...

Why not?

Re:logic and reason

[Anonymous Coward]

I am not telling the name of the supplier I felt was good...

Why not?

Because he made up his entire post. It is obvious he has no clue what he is talking about. The few examples he mentions are straight out of the public domain. It is doubtful he could even name seven different voting machine vendors. Even if he could it is doubtful all seven of them would go to the same place to have their machines verified.

With that said, there may be some merit in his statement regarding what is tested. An actual test report shows the testing labs simply go through a checklist of legislative guidelines. These include such things as maintaining documentation on who does what, documenting code, providing a means to verify the correct software is installed on the machine, and having a means to dynamically generate ballots.

Looking at the functional tests, they test the ability to set up an election, clear the results, and do other administrative things. I didn't see any tests to determine if the machine actually counted votes correctly (note that I didn't read the entire document).

OB

[Bastard of Subhumani]

Not a problem. Just type OVERRULE in big letters.

Judge's credentials?

[Monoman]

I would really like to know the judge's credentials for this kind of case. He may have a law background but what does he know about computers and technology (and related laws)?

IIRC there were cases in the early 80s where judges made bad rulings because they simply had little or no understanding of computers/technology.

Re:Judge's credentials?

[glrotate]

Do judges in auto accidents have degrees in mechanics and medicine? Do judges in fraud cases have to be former salesmen? Do judges in X cases have credentials in X? What about the juries?

No. That isn't the way our system works. It is the responsibility of the parties to present the information necessary to make a decision.

Furthermore, special credentials aren't required to understand the concept of a black box. If the judge ruled against the candidate than he probably had a legal reason for doing so.

I'm curious, did you read the opinion?

Re:Judge's credentials?

[farker haiku]

Fuck that, I want to know the state of the judges finances before and after the decision.

Re:Judge's credentials?

[Guppy06]

"I would really like to know the judge's credentials for this kind of case. He may have a law background but what does he know about computers and technology (and related laws)"

He's there because he had the credentials and got elected.

What would you rather have, the current system, or one where the judge is expected to defer to the opinions of "experts" in all cases? I would rather have judges misrule based on lack of knowledge rather than misrule because (e. g.) the expert from Diebold told him it could never happen.

Besides, it's the task of the lawyers on both sides to give the needed information to the judge in the course of arguing their respective stances. If the judge didn't understand why the code was needed, at least part of the blame should be rested with the candidate's legal team for not explaining why the code was needed to begin with.

Crybaby Dems

[Anonymous Coward]

You took over Congress, you're letting Al Qaeda feast at our table, what more do you want? What would one more lefty treehugger give you? bah.

Re:Crybaby Dems

[hey!]

You took over Congress, you're letting Al Qaeda feast at our table, what more do you want? What would one more lefty treehugger give you? bah.

Ah. It's all on account of Fox News. They changed everything. It used to be about tree hugging and policy, but now it's personal.

You see, Roger Ailes and crew taught us the sadistic plesaure of grinding your enemy's face in his humiliation.

how hard is it?!?

[3.14159265]

I mean, how much different from voteCount[candidate]++ can it be!??!

Re:how hard is it?!?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, you've got it all wrong! It's voteCount[preferred_by_donor]++ .

Re:how hard is it?!?

[DrJokepu]

I mean, how much different from voteCount[candidate]++ can it be!??!

That's exactly what I don't understand. I don't live in the US so I didn't have a chance to try these voting machines but their software shouldn't be much less trivial than hello world. I mean, it isn't such a difficult task. I suppose they have a nice GUI because the average voter feels that if the voting machine has nice chrome then his/her tax dollars are well spent, but aside the GUI, how complicated can it be?

Secret Source Code

[tehSpork]

They're afraid that they will find the secret FBI code used to ensure a 'balanced' congress:

if (Congressman.party == Republican) {
// They voted for the right team, log the vote!
count_vote(Congressman);
}

else {
// Filthy liberal scum
count_vote(Undecided);
}

Re:Secret Source Code

[Black-Man]

Sadly... you are right. They actually think this. Meanwhile, don't bother bringing up the democrats past where it was actually much easier to steal votes in Chicago and WV in the '60s... or the infamous 1850's in Kansas where they came into polling stations and shot the poll workers and stole the ballot boxes so they could get their candidates elected... which in that case was their pro-slavery candidates. What a sordid past those democrats have. Don't tell anyone.

A little Stalin seems fitting...

[SpectreHiro]

"The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything."

Please don't be confused... I don't think Joseph Stalin was a great man. I consider him a despicable and cold blooded tyrant. At the same time, I also happen to think he was a pretty sharp thinker, and a successful tyrant because he understood how political systems function. A democratic system cannot work unless there is absolute transparency in the voting process.

I'm an open source supporter but not a zealot. I don't have any problem with the existence of closed-source commercial software and I believe it has a right to exist. That being said, there's simply no place for closed-source software in our voting process. Voting is the foundation of our political system, and we can't settle for any ambiguity in its implementation. It's not as if vote counting is a technically demanding job, and there's no argument for keeping secret the process by which it's done.

This strikes me as a clear judicial mistake (not that I've read the article... too drunk and tired, frankly). In general, our judges don't seem to understand information technology well enough to make informed decisions. They don't understand that changing the results of an election is elementary for any programmer. Isn't that concept terrifying?

Our society is enamored with the labor saving possibilities made possible by the past century's technological advances, but thus far, the understanding of these technologies in government has not matched their application. This trend must not continue if we value our republic. In the strictest sense, our system is no longer a democracy if it has no educated oversight.

Our government needs an elected body of IT experts -- some kind of technically proficient oversight body that can rule on information technology as it applies to our system of government. Without any such educated oversight, our freedom and sovereignty is bit by bit diminished, and can be turned against our people. The possibility alone demands action.

Our founding fathers certainly didn't foresee the coming of mechanical information processing, but I firmly believe they would have wanted it to be open to review by the common man. What we need now are are IT patriots willing and motivated to take up the cause.

Re:A little Stalin seems fitting...

[MarcAntony]

Well said. Another post pointed out the business connection. This is business and the Republicans exercising their fascism. While we're on the topic of democracy, I would like to point out that the former Soviet Union didn't treat people who burned the Soviet flag very well. I suspect the Chinese don't either....

Re:A little Stalin seems fitting...

[Anonymous Coward]

Voting machine software does not need to be Open Source/Free Source. It just needs to be available. The purchaser of the machine should be given the source code and the ability to compile and load the source they are given onto the machine, but not necessarily the right to distribute the source or derivative works.

Re:A little Stalin seems fitting...

[frdmfghtr]

It's not as if vote counting is a technically demanding job, and there's no argument for keeping secret the process by which it's done.

This is true, and yet it seems impossible to develop vote-counting software to do it accurately. I'm not referring to the 18,000 undervotes here, I'm referring to election reports in times past where it was reported that machines were counting several thousand more votes than voters in the particular precincts; while not voting in a particular race COULD result in the aforementioned undervotes, it is IMPOSSIBLE (or at least should be) for more votes than voters to be registered. It is the occurrence of the "impossible" that should have the public up in arms.

The excuse of "it's not significant to affect the results" doesn't work; if this is one easily detectable anomaly, what about the undetected anomalies? The overcount (is that a word?) shows that there is a problem, and the machines cannot be presumed accurate. It's that simple.

Votes recorded on paper. Public access to the counting process. It really is THAT simple.

Re:A little Stalin seems fitting...

[TheRaven64]

A very good quote. A democracy can only work if those who cast the votes are the same people as those who count them.

Our founding fathers certainly didn't foresee the coming of mechanical information processing, but I firmly believe they would have wanted it to be open to review by the common man. And this can never happen. Even if the source code is completely open, maybe 1% of the population has the skill to audit the code. The other 99% have to take it on trust, which is counter to the entire idea of open democracy.

Re:A little Stalin seems fitting...

[Orlando]

Our government needs an elected body of IT experts

If, as you say (and I entirely agree) that "A democratic system cannot work unless there is absolute transparency in the voting process." then simply making the code availble for public perusal (open source) would be sufficient, as with the Australian system. Indeed, if you can't trust an elected government to manage it's evoting systems properly, then electing a second body to police the system doesn't ensure that the system will be any fairer.

Re:A little Stalin seems fitting...

[Orlando]

Even if the source code is completely open, maybe 1% of the population has the skill to audit the code. The other 99% have to take it on trust, which is counter to the entire idea of open democracy.

I disagree. 1% is still almost 300,000 people by todays figures. Add to that the various academic institutions and liberty groups that would be keen on auditing the code, plus the opposition party(s) who also have more than a passing interest in keeping things fair, AND probably a large number of foreign people who would also have access, I think you have enough eyeballs to ensure the system is sufficiently audited.

Re:A little Stalin seems fitting...

[harryman100]

needs an elected body of IT experts

Who gets to vote on who these IT experts are? Everybody? How many average Joes would be able to tell the difference between an IT expert and someone who knows how to use a couple of office programs? It's simple for someone like us to spot a fraud when we see one, but how many other people do you know who could?

Re:A little Stalin seems fitting...

[Anonymous Coward]

So, the message to take away from your post is that you denounce Stalin?

Re:A little Stalin seems fitting...

[Anonymous Coward]

I disagree. 1% is still almost 300,000 people by todays figures.

I don't know where you're from but here in the United States we have 300,000,000 people. In California alone, 1% of the population is 360,000 people.

Re:A little Stalin seems fitting...

[FallLine]

I disagree. 1% is still almost 300,000 people by todays figures. Add to that the various academic institutions and liberty groups that would be keen on auditing the code, plus the opposition party(s) who also have more than a passing interest in keeping things fair, AND probably a large number of foreign people who would also have access, I think you have enough eyeballs to ensure the system is sufficiently audited.

I think you miss the point on two counts. First, the point is that the vast majority of voters have no way to even begin to vet the system. That those in the know amounts to several hundred thousand people (probably not even that high) is not necessarily going to assuage to concerns of the majority of the country. The damage to the voting system is real even if it is entirely imagined. It may "work" for a few elections, but all it takes on one highly contested election and some rumors to gain traction...

Second, there is a lot more involved than just vetting several thousand lines of code in some file. You have to validate EVERYTHING to really provide assurances when the stakes are this high -- most importantly you must be able ensure that this holds true out in the FIELD and at EVERY POINT ALONG THE WAY. How can 300K gurus, or whatever #s you wish to pull out of, assure me that the program that your group vetted is the same that is running on my district (one of several hundred thousand machines)? That the compiler hasn't been altered? That the hash program isn't trojanized? How can you assure me that someone hasn't changed the CPU and/or memory you think you verified? That there is no method of directly altering the memory? That there isn't a manufacturing defect with any of those parts? That someone can't change those votes AFTER the votes have been recieved?....It's a hugely complex system to even begin to think about providing the level of needed security.

Electric Voting is a bad idea. It presents very limited benefits and HUGE potential risks (not to mention huge COSTS, if security measures are to be deployed meaningfully).

Re:A little Stalin seems fitting...

[Fulcrum of Evil]

And this can never happen.

So scrap electronic voting. Saving a bit of cash isn't worth losing our vote.

15% undervote

[Anonymous Coward]

15% of people who voted on the rest of the ticket, mysteriously didn't vote for their Congressman. Even funnier, it was very very strongly biased in favor of Democrat voters, 18% of people who voted Democrat on the remainder of the ticket didn't vote for a Congressman. Even stranger still, it was Florida the former seat of Katherine Harris, even stranger still other neighboring districts showed more typical errors of 3% or so with no political bias.

Fix the vote, make it verifiable, even now when you think the last vote was fair, you don't know it was, nobody can show it was, and there's so much money and power at stake, the vote must be totally trusted.

Florida has a Democrat voter majority, yet elects Republicans and it is more than gerrymandering.

Re: Source Code... terrorists

[Anonymous Coward]

We did.

You might notice that we haven't captured Osama bin Laden.

We have more nonsense at airports than ever before and we have things like secret warrents and secret lists of suspects.

Secret source code and voting manipulation aren't even the biggest threats to our democracy and that is a terrible shame.

I'm a staunch right-wing conservative and so ashamed of my own government that I'm posting AC. How sad is that?

DUPE! Source code was revealed yesterday!

[Anonymous Coward]

Since this inside information was revealed yesterday. I feel it is important to finally reveal that number stations are infact Diebold terminals using this very counting code:

#! /bin/sh
cat /dev/urandom > /dev/bcast;

Hence I'm posting anonymously.

Regards Anon
--------
Suzi,
I've managed to rid my computer of that nasty virus which was automatically adding text to web forms. So to answer your email yes I'd be more than happy for us to host the wife swapping party at our house. I'm looking forward to showing you and your sister my digits again... hehe.

Regards,

Jeff Dean,
Programmer PSI Group

Score "Zip" Democracy "One" Business

[erroneus]

When a judge makes the determination that the interests of a single business over those of a democratic process such as an election, then this judge's leanings are clear and obvious. I don't think the issue could be more complicated than that.

Re:Score "Zip" Democracy "One" Business

[bigbigbison]

Exactly. This isn't about open vs. closed source. THis is about the fact that the judge has mad a decision which in effect states that "trade secrets" and business trumps democracy. That is just wrong.

Transparency

[AlHunt]

Elections are supposed to be transparent.

Sticking some software in the middle that nobody can see is akin to counting paper ballots in secret.

I don't mind voting machines, electronic or not. But transparency is a *must*, either way.

Did Your Vote Count?

[rs232]

"maybe, this trend to paperless voting is the greatest scam ever perpetrated on the voting populace in the world's history...."

Maybe there just aren't any left?

[nurb432]

Oh, there are plenty of us left, but we dont have any sayso in the matter. Only the 'elite' have the power now and the 'common man' is just a nuisance these days.

And if we DO speak out, we might just get put on a list and get investigated and perhaps 'detained' for a while, as a deterrent to speaking out of line in the future. Which could easily ruin your career/family/etc for life.

Re:Maybe there just aren't any left?

[Anonymous Coward]

There are already a lot of anecdotals to backup your supposition, for instance, people who constantly get tagged at the airport for extra security looks, who also apparently are only political activists of the third party or anti current regime nature who are more public than most. And the state increasingly is making it illegal to film or photograph their agents, even when it looks like they could be committing crimes, and weakening whistleblower protections for insiders who are still honest. And *hoods*, for real, local pig forces have been caught hooding "detainees" when they are arrested.

Really, you could see all this coming when they started the massive militarization of the police forces, when combat ready ex military became their number one recruits (as opposed to civilian only police science majors) and all local forces got swat teams and heavy weapons and armored vehicles. And now they aren't even making any pretense of even using civilian police, we have a north american command for the military, the government clearly thinks posse comitatus is not relevant, and a lot of talk of combining canada and mexico into our system including using their police and military in "emergency" situations.

The evidence for constantly skewed elections is overwhelming, and the forced use of the machines has been orchestrated from the highest levels on down, very few localities were insisting on switching to computerized voting they have been coerced into it by fed mandate. "Help America Vote" act for instance.

Full transparency

[Anonymous Coward]

A system like this should have full transparency, end-to-end. Hareware & Software. The public should still have the choice for paper ballet.

The future of voting

[nurb432]

Hate to break it to you, its the present of voting now. Many areas went down the path of no return already.

finally, a black box democracy machine

[musakko]

Instructions: 1. Vote 2. ? 3. Democracy! (oh, alright: and the winner PROFITS!)

Judge Gary and the butterfly ballot ..

[rs232]

"Testifying on behalf of Democrat Christine Jennings, MIT political scientist Charles Stewart said Jennings would have won the race by as many as 3,100 votes if there had not been an "excessive" undervote in the Nov. 7 election"

"Without the source code, it would be very difficult or impossible for me to determine how the software behaved," Dan Wallach, Rice University

was Re:Nothing tests code like the real world

Democracy!

[slmdmd]

There is no democracy in USA, it was lost decades ago. It is a two party dictatorship. (Not exactly - It is actually the Corporate rule)
Proof: Try finding answers to the following on internet. (Rest of the media is a PR tool of the dictators)
1. Why no independent wins any seats.
2. Why is it always a very close battle. (e.g. 250-251)
3. What is the percentage of members that get re-elected in a communist country(say former russia) and what is the percentage in USA.
Internet is the only remaining free media but not for long. No matter what we do, it is just a matter of time before the internet is also governed by the corporate. Ways to control are already in the works.
About half of the world knows who is responsible for the 11 towers, but only a handful in usa.
The answer is on the internet. Do your own research.

Re:Democracy!

[PPGMD]

Your a moron, and whoever modded you up is one too.

1. Most independents don't win for a number of reasons. First most are built around a single person, that person can only run in a single race, and thus is geographically limited, which limits the amount of votes that he can win. Second few independent parties are winners, people like to back winners. The last two parties that stood even a remote chance of winning a national election was the Green party under Nader, and the Reform party under Perot. Also currently there are 3 Independent Congressman in the incoming congress (there were 4 in the outgoing).

They also don't last long because if either party sees an independent that is cutting into their votes, they extend their platform in an attempt that bring those voters back into the fold, it generally works enough that it makes that independent crumble because it's base of support erodes.

2. It's not always a close battle, but it's best that way, it keeps the parties on their toes, they always have to appeal to a broader spectrum of votes to keep their party in power.

3. I don't know, why don't you tell me?

Only a handful in the US knows who brought down the twin towers eh? Why don't you enlighten me, because I was under the impression that it was 19 Islamic terrorists from Bin Laden's al-Qaeda. You are probably going to tell me it was the Jews, or the Bush administration I bet. Also don't believe the polls that say a majority think that 9/11 was caused by Iraq we have those that think it was the Germans that bombed Pearl Harbor.

Re:Democracy!

[Anonymous Coward]

2. Why is it always a very close battle. (e.g. 250-251)

This is often explained as a consequence of Hotelling's Law (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotelling's_law). See the note at the end of the page for how it applies to two-party political systems.

Summary: One compares the two parties to two ice-cream stall holders on a beach. Assuming that customers buy their ice-creams from the nearest stall, where should the two set up shop in order to maximise their shares of the market? Answer: back-to-back in the middle of the beach. Because if either stall holder chooses not to occupy the centre, then his rival can move towards him, taking part of his market share.

Re:Democracy!

[Anonymous Coward]

Independents do win occasionally, but rarely.

Joe Leiberman (spelling?) won running as an Independent due to the shafting the Democratic Party gave him in the primaries.

The problem is that the rules for debates, etc. are all geared towards keeping one of the two main parties in power, period.

One of the best things that could ever happen to this country is if no one voted for a single Democrat or Republican candidate this next election. Things would be shaken up a bit, sure, but things would change for the better for the country. Namely, the Democrats and Republicans being given a wake up call that they need to serve the people and the country first and be **good** Democrats and Republicans a very distant second.

Re:Democracy!

[Teancum]

Also don't believe the polls that say a majority think that 9/11 was caused by Iraq we have those that think it was the Germans that bombed Pearl Harbor.

I would dare say that it is the very same people who believe both of these things. Together with the idea the JFK was the person who suggested to NASA that we ought to go to the Moon (even though JFK was a strong proponent and powerful ally on the concept).

As far as the rest of your reply, I would have to agree mostly, although I think you can give a little more credit to 3rd party candidates than you have suggested here. As Ross Perot was able to demonstrate, somebody with a bit of cash to help fund 3rd parties in such a way to financially give them parity with the major parties can also win elections, given the equivalent political territory involved. That such individuals also tend to be weird fanatics with screwy ideas (George Sorros also comes to mind here) will also suggest that such efforts are nearly doomed to failure as well, just because of the flaky individual providing the money.

Re:Democracy!

[Anonymous Coward]

How about 9/11 was carried out by a bunch of people who had a personal grudge against the US and the terrorist threat against America actually died on 9/11 with the hijackers? Bin Ladens organization sponsors all kinds of independant terrorist activities, it is too difficult to prove they even knew of the attack before it happened. Of course if Bin Laden claimed to have known about the attacks it would probably bring more recruits and money to al-Queda, sort of the same way convicts will claim to have commited crimes they didnt to gain the respect of their fellow inmates.

Re:Democracy!

[Trogre]

Dylan Avery, is that you?

Bad Ballot Design

[richwmn]

From the article
Buchanan backers and the company say that if there was an unusually large undervote it was likely because of bad ballot design.
It seems to me that admitting "bad ballot design" is worse than blaming the machines. Anyone who has taken statistics or marketing knows how easy it is to sway polls and sales by such methods as order in the phone book or on the ballot. IMHO bad design could just be effective design for the eventual winner.

Re: Malicious inserted code

[TaoPhoenix]

70 If Vote=Jennings then Vote=Null

Open Source software for critical infrastructure?

[gerrytucker]

I know this is probably not a popular perspective for slashdot, but do we really think that having completely open source software for something as critical as our voting machines is a good idea? I agree that we need to find a balance so that concerned citizens can understand if their votes were correctly counted. This could include the idea of vote "receipts" being printed for every vote so that a true paper recount could occur if needed. However, I have to say that there are a lot of people around the world that do not much care for our country. Allowing anyone to have access to the source code on a whim opens up our voting system infrastructure to outside sources. How many genius hackers out there could figure out sophisticated ways to commit voter fraud if they had unlimited time to review the code? Just my 2 cents ...

Hang that ruling on the wall

[smchris]

Couldn't be stated more clearly: "Business tops democracy"

So let's sit around and bitch.

Don't dodge the issue

[drig]

No one cares what the democrats did forty or a hundred and fifty years ago. Heck, the Republicans will claim that Bush's State of the Union address in 2003, where he claimed that Iraq was trying to buy Uranium, is old news and no longer relevant. That was 4 years ago! So, 40 years or 150 years is definitely old news!

Besides, that's dodging the issue. Bringing up old history doesn't help anyone. What we want to know is when our votes will start counting again. Bush has now won the Presidency twice, both times under extremely questionable circumstances. Republican Secretary of States, missing ballots, voters illegally purged from the voting lists, voting machines made by Republican operatives. This isn't some interesting sidenote in a history book that includes references to the book of Genesis. It's real life, it's happening now, and this kind of mealy-mouthed dismissal of American freedoms is either ignorant to the point of criminality, or is a bald-face destruction of the American process.

Re:Don't dodge the issue

[Anonymous Coward]

And this kind of "we lost, so we'll complain endlessly about it!" is just as annoying. You know how many "voting irregularities" Democrats seem to have discovered now that they won the House and Senate? None. Gee, I wonder why that might be? I guess they finally figured out how to rig the machines themselves.

Or, more likely, the machines were never rigged in the first place and the whining was caused solely because they lost.

Heck, the Republicans will claim that Bush's State of the Union address in 2003, where he claimed that Iraq was trying to buy Uranium, is old news and no longer relevant.

Link, please. Republicans admit that Bush was wrong about that - however, it's hardly Bush's fault that our nation had faulty intelligence. The CIA had good reason to believe that the information they gave Bush was true. It wasn't, we know that now. But it isn't Bush's fault that he was given bad information.

Why did Clinton do nothing about Bin Laden himself? He had the chance to take him out, but he didn't. Why?

Re:Don't dodge the issue

[dfoulger]

Your comment directly contradicts the article that starts the discussion.

This is a case where a Democrat is alleging voting irregularities and in which the Democratic party is allowing the Republican to take a seat in Congress despite the fact that the outcome of the election is still in the courts.

Oh, and by the way, Clinton took several shots at taking out Bin Laden (cruise missile attacks on Al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan, as I recall). They didn't work, but they were well documented in the newspapers along with Republican assertions that Clinton was "wagging the dog".

Get your facts straight.

Re:Don't dodge the issue

[Anonymous Coward]

No, my comment was posted before I had my morning coffee. What I meant was, surprise amongst surprises, no Democrat has ever found voting irregularities in races they lost. This a race where the Democrat lost and, even more amazingly, they apparently think there are voting irregularities!

Apparently "voting irregularities" is a buzz-word for "Republican won".

Provide any hint of evidence of anyone suggesting that a Democrat winning was caused by voting irregularities in a recent election. Yet, as one of the parent posters pointed out, dead and non-existent people are well-known Democratic voters.

Re:Don't dodge the issue

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

So Republicans can only win when ballot counting machines count negative votes?

Re:Don't dodge the issue

[dfoulger]

Not at all. There is no necessary fault in being Republican or Democrat or in the unrelated categories of being liberal or conservative. Republicans do win, and should win, elections without resorting to chicanery. Democrats do, and should do, the same.

Where, however, substantial doubt can be cast on an election outcome, due diligence should be used to resolve the issue to the extent that it is possible to do so. If there was a problem with the voting machines in this district that caused a huge number of votes to evaporate, it should be investigated. If the problem can be documented, corrective actions should be taken. That's all that this litigation is asking for.

The problem here isn't a Republican or Democratic problem. It is a problem of ensuring the election process is conducted correctly.

The problem with this judges decision is that it (in my view incorrectly) stops the due diligence process for exactly the wrong reasons. A corporations proprietary interests should NEVER trump the electoral process or throw its results into doubt.

Which is exactly why all election software should be publicly verifiable open source.

Re:Don't dodge the issue

[porges]

What I meant was, surprise amongst surprises, no Democrat has ever found voting irregularities in races they lost.

And the same for the Republicans, which is as surprising as the fact that professional atheletes never point out fouls by their own team that the refs have missed.

Provide any hint of evidence of anyone suggesting that a Democrat winning was caused by voting irregularities in a recent election.

Sure: the Republicans challenged the last gubernatorial election in the state of Washington for seven months.

Even if you could "verify" source code ...

[carpeweb]

... what would that prove?

I'm not saying it's a bad idea to know the source code. I'm just saying that wouldn't eliminate most of the problem.

1. Who can look at source code and certify that it cannot be hacked?
2. Even if (1) were possible, who can certify that the exact source code was (the only code) resident on every machine at the time of the voting?

Furthermore, because ballots are anonymous, what do we have to tie people to votes on a one-to-one basis? Granted, the tie-in is imperfect in the paper world, but the potential for abuse seems higher in the electronic world. As I think about how a "vote hacker" might operate, it seems pretty likely to me that such a person would be motivated to cover tracks. For instance s/he would replace the source code with the evil code before the voting but would also switch it back to the source code after the voting. That's a pretty simplistic scenario. I envision that "good" e-voting security would require polling stations to begin looking like secure server rooms. That would give civil libertarians (and maybe even the rest of us) the creeps, even if it were feasible to issue every voter a security badge, etc.

I'm no security expert, but is it not generally accepted that simple systems are easier to secure, all other things being equal? Pencil and paper are pretty simple, right?

Re:Even if you could "verify" source code ...

[dfoulger]

Paper ballots can dissapear into the trunk of a car and never be seen again, as reportedly happened in Jacksonville, FL in the 2000 election.

You are right, simple is better, but wouldn't it have been better if the observers for both parties could have taken a copy of the voting machine with them on a USB dongle at the end of the day? Wouldn't it be better if voters could carry a copy of their vote home with them so that it could be accounted for after the fact if necessary?

In this case, simple would be simple open source code that interpreted a simple human readable (e.g. XML) ballot specification with votes verifiable at several levels.

Pencil and paper simply provide other means of stuffing the ballot box, ways that are much harder to detect.

Re:Even if you could "verify" source code ...

[prshaw]

>> Wouldn't it be better if voters could carry a copy of their vote home with them so that it could be accounted for after the fact if necessary?

I believe this is discouraged because of the possibility of someone sitting outside the polling place and threatening people whose copy of their vote doesn't show the 'right' votes. And it can also be used for buying votes, you show me the copy of your vote and if it is for the person I want I will give you a beer/wine/crack/whatever.

This has been one of the problems with auditing. You don't want the person to have the liability that can be used to identify what/who they voted for, yet you want to be able to prove thier vote was counted correctly.

Re:Even if you could "verify" source code ...

[dfoulger]

Good points, but resolvable. I believe, at this point, that the only means by which we can provide full confidence in the system is for people to be able to confirm their votes after the fact. There may be no way of preventing vote buying in such a system, but I believe that the take away can be sufficiently secured as to make intimidation difficult and vote buying more readily detectable. In "There ought to be a low", below, I describe the copy as encrypted. Assuming the copy is made with a public key, the voter should be able to check their vote while still in the booth and then later (after the votes have been counted) online. They would be equally able to present the copy to a courtroom if needed, but the copy would not be human readable, immediately accessible outside of the voting booth, or accessible at any point without the keys. Such a system would not stop vote buying, which happens even without a means of verification. Most people take their votes more seriously than that, but the confirmation system would allow the identification of any machine that verifies a large number of ballots, which ought to make it easier to detect and punish vote buying. There are no technical panaceas to resolve ill behavior, but it ought to be possible for the 18,000 people who may have been disenfranchised in the election documented here to check to make sure their votes were properly counted.

Re:Even if you could "verify" source code ...

[Anonymous Coward]

*As I think about how a "vote hacker" might operate, it seems pretty likely to me that such a person would be motivated to cover tracks.*

Maybe ... sure ... but it does seem like a lot of crooks are stupid or sloppy, in the real world. Take the Watergate burglars -- they got caught by a minimum-wage-earning security guard who noticed the tape they put over a door latch. A led to B led to C, and the whole thing unraveled. If someone is tampering with election machine code in Florida (not so very unlikely, considering the stakes involved), they are crooks -- by definition, people too dumb to succeed honestly, and willing to take the (usually stupid) risk of being a crook. Florida is loaded to the gills with dumb crooks. I'd say if we don't know, we should take a chance on them leaving tracks behind them -- and look for those tracks.

Re:Open Source software for critical infrastructur

[Anonymous Coward]

but do we really think that having completely open source software for something as critical as our voting machines is a good idea?

Uh, Yes, the concept of a Million Heads checking and thinking about the code,
can find hundreds of flaws and if the code were open source, get it fixed.

The "Wisdom of Crowds" can outperform the Unscrupulous Bastard/Evil Genius population.

And a little Sagan...

[InsertCleverUsername]

We live in a society that is exquisitely dependant on science and technology, in which almost no one knows anything about science and technology.
- Carl Sagan

The sooner we hit the Singularity and let the machines do the driving, the better.

I Just want to know...

[epcraig]

How does any part of an elections tally become a trade secret, anyway?

The majority party is the Democratic Party

[Anonymous Coward]

Members of the majority party in the USA are Democrats, and name of the majority part is the Democratic Party.

Trade secrets in a voting machine??

[stox]

What trade secrets could possibly be in a voting machine? There should be NO secrets in voting.

Psh!

[derEikopf]

Don't be such weenies. Read the assembly. ;)

Closed door expert analysis?

[msobkow]

Sometimes sensitive information is examined by experts behind closed doors, similar to a meeting in the Judge's chambers for a rape or abuse trial. There are many technology experts with security clearance for the military and other environments who have sworn and demonstrated their willingness to maintain silence.

Why not have them examine the code and submit a report?

Re:Closed door expert analysis?

[ScrewMaster]

Why would the opinion of such an expert be intrinsically more reliable (or less-subvertible) than any other expert?

Oh, I agree with you that this would be better than letting the closed-source vendor off the hook completely, but nevertheless it should simply be a legal requirement for voting machines that the code and hardware design be open. I don't particularly care if it's released under the GPL or some other public license, or if the vendor keeps the rights. That's irrelevant anyway, in this context. I want to be able to see it, and as an American citizen and an engineer I want to have the power to help keep these bastards honest. If a given piece of voting equipment has a problem, the manufacturer should get flooded with emails from software and hardware types pointing out the error of their ways. If they can't handle that, they should just get out of the business, and any voting commissioner that allows such a machine to be used should find himself looking for another job.

Furthermore, as many here on Slashdot have pointed out, there needs to be some mechanism by which knowledgeable voters can make sure that the code that the vendor has shown the public is the code that is actually running in the machine at voting time. This is not an impossible task, in spite of what the equipment makers would have you believe. I'm less concerned about paper trails and all the rest of that (at this point) than I am that the machines be as transparent as it is possible to get. Hell, I'd say voting machine enclosures should be made of transparent Plexiglas, for that matter. Let us see what's going on in there, and see how open we can make the whole process. Don't like that? Tough ... stick to making ATMs.

Let's keep one thing firmly in mind, since equipment vendors keep going on about "proprietary secrets" and "competitive advantages" and all that. Vote tallying is not some incredibly complicated task that can only be solved by sophisticated, innovative engineering. Quite the opposite, a "voting machine" is nothing more than a fancy counter! That's all it is, all it was ever intended to be, and the only "innovation" that I would like to see is the companies that provide them being honest about what they're doing.

That is something Americans have a right to expect.

Re:Closed door expert analysis?

[msobkow]

The point is not that they'd be "better" experts, but that they've proven their willingness to maintain secrecy. That is a big concern for companies that use a closed-source model.

Personally I think exposing code to legal system or government agencies in such a fashion might prove a far more effective means of dealing with IP infringement claims than expensive multi-year trials such as the SCO debacle.

Re:Closed door expert analysis?

[Anonymous Coward]

The point is not that they'd be "better" experts, but that they've proven their willingness to maintain secrecy. That is a big concern for companies that use a closed-source model.

Personally I think exposing code to legal system or government agencies in such a fashion might prove a far more effective means of dealing with IP infringement claims than expensive multi-year trials such as the SCO debacle.

It's trivial code that shouldn't be copyrightable or patentable:

if(vote = 1)
      republican++;
else if(vote = 2)
      democate++;
else if(vote = 3)
      independents++;
else if(vote = 4)
      write_ins.push_back(propmt_write_in());


Oh... I just release a "trade secret"...

Re:Closed door expert analysis?

[Anonymous Coward]

please explain 'obvious' to the patent officials who stamped 'one-click purchasing'. sadly those who wish to control our information have already scored enough major victories and secured enough precedents to carry their momentum into power beyond control.

Trade Secrets override Democracy?

[openright]

It is quite a low point when Information Monopoly "rights" can override the right to open, free and fair elections.

There is really no alternative but to make this software public.

The voting software does not need to be free-software/open-source (though it would be best), but it does need to be public.
It is still possible for a company to hold and enforce copyrights on publicly available software.

Any complex compuations that are performed (that they claim to be trade secrets) cannot be trade secrets in a free democracy. These compuations, if wrong comprimise elections.

Re: Source Code... terrorists

[erroneus]

Actually, I have to differ with you on that point.

A "secret democracy" isn't a democracy at all. Nothing could be a bigger threat to the American ideals.

Eat Your TV

[toddhisattva]

There is no democracy in USA, it was lost decades ago.
It is a two party dictatorship. (Not exactly - It is actually the Corporate rule)
Proof: Try finding answers to the following on internet. (Rest of the media is a PR tool of the dictators)

(Emphasis added to mark what I'm talking about)

You have it backwards w.r.t. media and politicians. The politicians are the tools of the media.

Why do politicians have to raise so much money? To pay the media, who by the way also report bought opinion as fact.

There's an investigative idea that goes, "follow the money." The media only follows campaign money upstream, to its sources. Evil corporations, with slimy lobbyists, and so on, they unbiasedly report. Never follow it downstream, to themselves!

Because it is the media who picks the winner -- by declaring victory for a candidate before the polls are closed (media voter suppression!), reporting fraud as fact, running hit piece after hit piece.

When by accident or skill, the Other Guy wins, the media will run stories about how these machines cannot be trusted, how a cop in a doughnut shop scared off voters walking to the polls, how voting on a weekday discriminates against Third-Day Adventists.

When their guy wins? Silence concerning the method of voting, and gushing purplish-yellow reportage congratulating their victorious buddies.

There will never be an accounting of the monetary value of the media gifts lavished on The Media Candidate. How many millions of dollars is a nationally broadcast ten minute hit piece worth?

This race especially

[Mycroft_514]

Appeared to me to be one where the undervote of 18,000 does not surprise me. I saw the ads for each side (I live in a neighboring county) and I was tempted to not vote that race myself. The bottom line is that BOTH cadidates are scum, and I believe that there was no "undervote", but just that many people who had no choice in that race. A mandatory "none of the above" entry probably could have won that race.

Re:Hang that ruling on the wall --Mod parent up!!

[Anonymous Coward]

because sitting around and bitching is all anyone does on /.

Dutch authorities take this more seriously... not

[Baloo the Brown Bear]

I am glad to see my own government took the possibility of tampering with voting devices a little more seriously, but only a little. Late november, we had elections over here (in The Netherlands) and it stirred up a lot of controversy. An organisation acquired a vote-machine, reverse engineered the software running on it and IIRC also showed the code could be tampered with and injected back into the machine. But even without doing so, they showed it is possible to find out what someone voted simply by using a little radio. Apparently, the machines emitted an RF field that changes when buttons are pressed. How about that for keeping your vote a secret! As a result, many cities did not use the machine in question, although other ones were - strangely - still considered safe. I mean, the proof of principle was right there. Just because the other machine was not reverse engineered, doesnt mean it's not possible. The organisation trying to expose the insecurity of vote-machine responded by organizing bustrips to cities which still used the good old paper and pencils.

Cogs and bugs

[flyingfsck]

Even the old mechanical tabulators could be rigged - who is going to count the teeth on a cog, to verify that it counts right?

Bear in mind that the term 'bug' refers to cockroaches living in mechanical computers, causing computational errors.

Re:Cogs and bugs

[unitron]

"Bear in mind that the term 'bug' refers to cockroaches living in mechanical computers, causing computational errors."

According to the late Admiral Grace Hopper the term came from a moth which got caught between the contacts of an electromechanical relay, preventing current flow when the contacts were supposed to be closed.

time to sort out the mess now

[ajs318]

So, have I got this right -- the Courts of the USA have ruled that a corporation's secrets are more important than the processes of democracy?

I'm really glad I live in a country that still uses pencil-and-paper votes counted by hand.

Re:first post

[Anonymous Coward]

Then why don't you build your own /. and get the fuck off ours?

There ought to be a low

[dfoulger]

The software for electronic voting is not complicated. I've written software in the general category (survey software) myself. Good survey software should have only two parts:

1. The program that displays the ballot and records the votes.
2. A specification of the ballot

The first part should be open source. There is no reason for it to be proprietary except to hide its workings or pretend that its complicated (which it isn't). It should be sufficiently stable that it can run as a ROM. If it isn't, it shouldn't be in use. If it isn't simple, moreover, than more attention has been paid to bells and whistles than to the function of the software, which should:

1. tally the results, as they occur, in a simple file system structure. A database is overkill for this purpose. An appended spreadsheet file would be more sensible.
2. save a copy of each ballot cast as a discrete file with a unique identifier
3. print an copy of the ballot cast for retention, including the unique identifier
4. print an encrypted copy of the ballot cast that the voter can take with them, including the unique identifier.

The result is a tally sheet that can be immediately checked at the end of voting and three levels by which the result can be double checked> The third level (a copy of the ballot cast that the voter takes with them) will allow individuals to ensure that their ballot was counted correctly.

All of which is a run up to saying that there ought to be a law that requires voting software to be open source such that every level of the process is transparent to voters.

Re:Open Source software for critical infrastructur

[gerrytucker]

You don't have to be a bastard or evil genius to want to inflict harm on critical national infrastructure. Just be pissed off enough at the target nation. It doesn't take droves of people to make something bad happen, just the right person in the right place at the right time with the right information / tools.

While we are at it, why don't we open up the software for air traffic control and powergrids? I'm sure that well meaning open source guys will, in their spare time, look over the code and make it more efficient and prevent horrible accidents from occurring. I'm also sure that in no way would a criminal ever be smarter than all of the "hobby" coders and find a bug before they do and exploit it.

Of course, this is just MHO :)

Re:Open Source software for critical infrastructur

[Anonymous Coward]

This is the age old security through obscurity argument. If you are relying on the fact that the source code to a system is closed as your means of security, then your bridge is very weak.

A secure system should be well-engineered, as a first goal, so that someone who understands the system should not be able to attack that system from the outside by mere knowledge of how it operates. As a secondary goal, anyone who can look at the source code can improve and maintain the effective security of that system.

As Microsoft products have taught us, you do not need the source code to compromise a piece of software.

Looks like they asked for the wrong thing...

[Anonymous Coward]

Can someone explain to me why they didn't ask for an independent examination of the code/machine functionality instead? It's brutally irrelevant if it's Open Source or proprietary code as long as a body recognised by both sides of the argument gets the possibility to examine the workings.

That would (a) give an idea if the results could be trusted (assurance) and (b) keep trade secrets secret.

The argument that something supporting a "democratic" voting process should be using Open Source is understandable, but I'm not convinced that should be the focus here. In general, Open Source *could* increase the probability of correct vote handling, but even Open Source would need that same independent expert examination to provide assurance.

However, I agree with another poster here: voting IS fundamentally a very simple process - what's the big secret here (other than the potentially large profit margin on the machines)?

^^X^^

paper vs. electrons

[cherax]

Haven't the last few years demonstrated that digital information is inherently insecure? A stolen laptop coughs up the SSNs of two million U.S. veterans, the NSA scans all e-mails for, um, 'interesting' keywords, any song or movie can be copied and shared worldwide, and all of it can be modified without a trace by simply switching a few 0s and 1s. Not that non-electronic voting methods are inherently secure (viz. Gore's "loss" in Florida in the 2000 U.S. presidential election), but skewing a national paper-based election would be a lot harder to organize and to conceal. Of course, the populace would have to be paying attention...

if
        soma=TV
then
        "Brave New World"==true

Re:Open Source software for critical infrastructur

[dfoulger]

A good hacker who can engineer access can always get access to the software, whether open source or proprietary. Obscurity is no defense except in the courts, where hacking the code would be illegal and therefore inadmissible (and probably worse).

The big lesson of open source is that lots of eyes tend to make software more secure because concerned reviewers of the code find the flaws and, with the agreement of the large community, fix them. The security of Linux is far better than that of windows and, judging from comments about Vista, far less intrusive.

Another possibility

[Anonymous Coward]

I happen to live in Sarasota County, and both candidates were absolutely horrible. It's very possible that many people decided to not vote for either one. Myself, my father, and 3 out of the 10 people I work with chose none of the above. Out of those 10, maybe half of them voted. I'm sure that if "none of the above" was a selection on the ballot, it would have won.

social engineering

[borgalicious]

Is it not the case that the election commissioner in a district sends a certified tally to the people who use it? I know this is so in my state.

Given that, it really doesn't matter what the system - electronic, mechanical, manual - yields, the commissioner could transmit a false certified tally. Does a paper system save you from defective or intentional miscounting? Nope, because the same commissioner retains physical custody of the ballots and could post hoc modify them prior to investigation.

I've yet to see a voting system that cannot be violated given sufficient interest. Making votes public would allow a voter to repudiate a tampered vote, but we like private ballots.

The Premise is Wrong

[chasisaac]

Ms. Jennings assumes because there is an undervote that all those undervotes went for her.

Bad news Jennings, I did not vote in every race for a reason. Just because I did not vote for someone does not mean my vote is invalid.


So leave me vote alone! If I could vote NONE OF THE ABOVE I woud.

Re:The Premise is Wrong

[laird]

"Ms. Jennings assumes because there is an undervote that all those undervotes went for her"

This is incorrect. Ms. Jennings believes that there were abnormally high undervotes in some counties, but not others, which changed the outcome of the race. This position was supported by ES&S, the vendor of the machines, in court testimony. This didn't require all of the undervotes to be case for her, just for the undervotes to be cast consistently with the votes counted in the same counties.

To quote the local papers (http://www.heraldtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/articl e?AID=/20061109/NEWS/611090343):

"More than 18,000 voters who showed up at the polls voted in other races but not the Buchanan-Jennings race.

That means nearly 13 percent of voters did not vote for either candidate -- a massive undercount compared with other counties, including Manatee, which reported a 2 percent undervote.

If the missing votes had broken for Jennings by the same percentage as the counted votes in Sarasota County, the Democrat would have won the race by about 600 votes instead of losing by 368, according to a Herald-Tribune review. Even if the undervote had been 8 percent -- more than three times what it was in Manatee -- Jennings would have won by one vote."

Given that voters generally go to vote for the most important election, and then occasionally vote for the other races, undervoting is generally considered the error rate of the voting system. Thus, you consistently see very low undervotes reported by accurate voting mechanisms (e.g. precinct count optical scan typically reports 1% undervotes, probably a measure of voters actually intending to undervote) and very high undervotes by inaccurate voting mechanisms (e.g. punch card ballots typically report 7% undervotes, indicating that they probably fail to record 6% of votes cast). This pattern has been observed consistently across numerous elections for decades - bad voting systems create high undervote counts, and good voting systems don't, even when both systems are used in parallel by the same voters in the same place in the same election. Undervotes are considered such a problem in voting that the best argument for electronic voting systems is to reduce undervotes. Based on historical data, a 13% undervote rate is nearly unheard of, indicating that there was something seriously wrong with the way that the voting was conducted. Since DRE's (direct recording electronic votnig systems, meaning no paper ballots) are by definition impossible to audit, the only indication of a systemic failure would be based on the results looking implausible, such as two neighboring counties in the same election reporting wildly different undervote rates"

"SARASOTA
Total votes cast = 142,283
Undervote = 18,382
Difference = 12.92%

MANATEE
Total votes cast = 96,705
Undervote = 2,312
Difference = 2.39%

The odds of these two counties randomly having such a range of undervotes is 1:5,000,000.

Keeping in mind that DRE's by design can't be audited, you have to decide whether (1) it's impossible to challenge the results of an election run on DRE's, no matter what happens, or (2) you can challenge the results of an election run on DRE's if the results appear implausible.

I'm with NIST on this one. All DRE's should be decertified. Voting is too important to treat this way.

Re:The Premise is Wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

I live in Sarasota County and your exactly right. Jennings ran for congress in 2004 and did not even win the Democrat Primary. Alot of the posts here are ridculeous because people here are completely clueless about the region, and local politics.

She had her experts and made her case in front of a judge and what from what I read from the article was not able to provide any evidence that she has been claiming. And tests were ran on the voting machines and they were 100% accurate.

That race on the ballot was in a little section at the top and if someone was rushing through they probably would have easily skipped it, poll workers were telling people about how it was at a little section at the top.

And you have to review all your choices at the end and if you dont put in a vote it asks you are you really sure you dont want to enter a vote for this race. So I dont have much sympathy for people who claim their vote didnt count because they are either lazy and didnt pay attention or a conspiracy nut.

Missing step!

[HalAtWork]

Step 1: Rig election

Step 2: Change laws so election can't be verified

Step 3: Profit!

A Republic!

[chasisaac]

First, America is a Republic not a democracy. Many of the founding fathers were appalled by the thought of America being a democracy and saw it as nothing more then mob rule. Which is what a democracy is.

Second, Indies do not win for many reasons. The main reason is that a vote for an Indie is seen as a tossed away vote. The last indie who really had a chance was Ross Perot, till he stabbed himself in the back. The one prior to that was Teddy Roosevelt.

Third, yes the US has a higher reelection rate then the USSR did. However, you have a true choice in the US, you did not in the USSR. You may have hate both choices but you still have a choice

Lastly, a close battle is good. Very good. I would have like the House to go to the dems and the Senate be split 50/50. With a Republican president. Can you say nothing getting done! That would be good for the US, two years of bottle-necks and partisanship. I would also like a Dem President, a republican house and a 50/50 senate.

And which party does the JUDGE belong to...?

[misterhypno]

This is another proof that a SEPARATE court be created for cyber issues, much like the courts that are dedicated to TAX matters, traffic issues and divorce matters. This is simply because the technology is too esoteric and complex for anyone NOT versed in its use and application to understand enough to make a sane ruling upon and those rulings are too far-reaching for them NOT to be ruled upon by someone who is not at least moderately conversant with them and their application in the real world.

I would urge the judicial system to adopt this suggestion, immediately.

Lee Darrow, C.H.

All information is inherently insecure

[dfoulger]

It is generally much easier for us to critique new systems, like digital systems are today, than it is to critique well established systems, which often have glaring flaws of their own. We don't see the flaws in older systems because we have internalized and/or have been socialized into what is good about them and have accepted the glaring flaws of existing systems as normal, unavoidable, or offset by the positives.

There are many kinds of data insecurity. Recent demonstrations of the inherent "insecurity" of digital information focus on particular kinds of insecurity, including:

• the possibility that data can be undetectably replaced (the reason why voting machines should be secure and off network).
• the possibility that data can be undetectably miswritten (the reason why reviewing electoral source code matters).

Punch card systems (which are pseudo-digital) have been demonstrated to be open to other kinds of insecurity:

• verifiability by the voter (a problem in South Florida in 2000)
• difficult to interpret and uninterpretable votes (also a problem in South Florida in 2000 - hanging chads)
• disappearance of cards (Jacksonville, Fl in 2000)

Paper votes have historically been open to still other kinds of insecurity

• extra ballots stuffed into the box which cannot be shown not to be legitimate votes
• balloting by the voting dead (a particular problem in Chicago many years ago)
• registration in multiple districts (e.g. the reality of vote early and often)
• uninterpretable or disputed marks on the ballots
• disappearing ballots
• the possibility that someone can identify your ballot from your handwriting (hence abnegating the value of a secret ballot) without your assent.

I would argue that the mechanical machines we've been using in New York for generations resolve most of the forms of insecurity outlined above. They certainly provide a publicly verifiable ballot and a reasonably good (two level) audit trail, but they aren't perfect either, as there is no way for an individual voter to confirm that their vote was recorded correctly.

A properly done digital voting system can provide much better security than any existing system has managed. That won't happen, however, if we let the scandalously operated proprietary voting machines of the present stop us from looking for better ways to do things.

Democrats VS Republicans

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is it always Democrats fighting these challenges?

In the WA State Governor's race of 2002, there is DOCUMENTED evidence of fraud, a close margin, and the suits were thrown out of court immediately. In the VA Senate Race, Sen. Allen lost by a close margin but conceded.

In the 1960 presidential race, Sen. Nixon lost by very little, but you had the mobsters BRAGGING that they had stuffed the ballot boxes for Kennedy. Yet he didn't fight it.

I have not heard Republicans fighting for source code despite the fact that the chief supplier of these machines is Venezuela, a nation where the government is taking control of industries and the head of government has repeatedly called for the downfall of Republicans. Why is that?

Why is it that only 1 party considers it fraud when they lose? Is it like the South Park 9/11 conspiracy, where a quarter of the population is just retarded?

PS. Voting machines are a local decision. I actually DID use a paper ballot with an optical scanner that went into a locked box if a recall was needed.

Re:Democrats VS Republicans

[Anonymous Coward]

I think it's carryover from Florida 2000. I have little trouble believing that if things had been decided the other way Republicans would be leading the charge (remembering, of course, their behavior during the recount effort and the fact that the well-established right-wing talk radio could and would propogate whatever views would discredit the incoming administration.) On the other hand, maybe they would have shown restraint -- would they be able to highlight Democrat ties to the voting companies in the same way the Republican ties have been trumpeted in "progressive" news, an important component of the left-wing conspiracy theories?

As you say, the decision is local. And I've read cases of both Republican and Democratic election officials actively ignoring or fighting attempts to review or stop uses of electronic voting equipment. If I had to go out on a limb I'd say they don't want to admit to having done anything wrong. But given the recent wins by Democrats across the country I'd say the burden is on them to investigate electronic voting machine malfunctions and to take steps to establish a more meaningful and reliable standard than HAVA sets out.

And I wouldn't feel so secure about your paper ballot, as indeed it's still being counted by a machine. Yes, it's nice that paper ballots are being dropped into the hopper, but how reliable is your state's recount process? I think it was Ohio where a "recount" involved taking a tiny sample of the ballots, running them through the machine and past a pool of human counters, and then if there was any discrepancy actually proceeding to properly recounting the ballots. There were allegations that the samples were manipulated and counts posted so the recount workers could be sure their results would match the machine, thus avoiding a costly and embarassing full recount. And of course we shouldn't forget the shenanigans by both sides during the recount in Florida regarding which portions should be counted and how.

Clearly we need to do our best to get it right the first time.

Quite right

[Anonymous Coward]

The liberal simply makes up nonsense and never accepts counterarguments. Fuck off, stupid, we've got better things to do!

But just the source code is not enough!

[chris_eineke]

Checking the source code for backdoors (and removing them) doesn't mean there aren't backdoors in the other software involved. It all comes down to trust:

1. Can you trust the programmer to write bugfree code and not to insert hidden code or well-covered trapdoors?
2. Can you trust the compiler not to insert malicious code independent of the code compiled? (See above paper.)
3. What about the preprocessor, assembler, and linker (or interpreter)?

That's a lot of trust to share.

Re:There ought to be a law

[dfoulger]

Ah, the things you don't see in preview (even with "a" and "o" so far apart on the keyboard).

It remains that making open source a requirement in voting software would be a good piece of electoral reform legislation.

eVoting, BAD. Open Source, BLAH

[FallLine]

I'm an open source supporter but not a zealot. I don't have any problem with the existence of closed-source commercial software and I believe it has a right to exist. That being said, there's simply no place for closed-source software in our voting process. Voting is the foundation of our political system, and we can't settle for any ambiguity in its implementation. It's not as if vote counting is a technically demanding job, and there's no argument for keeping secret the process by which it's done.

Ambiguity for who? These e-voting systems are going to be ambiguous for the at least 90% of the population regardless of whether or not the alleged source code is open source. The average voter does not have sufficient understanding of programming to understand the code (never mind truly check for bugs, holes, etc). Even those programmers that might think they are able follow the code, may not appreciate the nuances of the underlying compiler, OS, CPU, memory, I/O ports, etc. Even if you are the extremely rare voter that has the capacity and the time to understand the whole thing, you have no way of verifying that the code that you reviewed previously is actually the what is running on the machine you're about to use, nor do you know that someone can't just tap into the voting machine's memory directly to alter votes en masse or that the CPU doesn't have some quirky bug (or backdoor) embedded in it. In short, you might spend a billion dollars to create a highly secure system up-front, but maintaining the security once they are deployed and out-in-the-field becomes a MUCH more complicated proposition given their huge complexity (relative to mechanical systems) and the fundamental nature of computers (hard to tell if a bit has been altered).

Frankly, electronic voting is a completely unnecessary and near-pointless risk. What is the point? All so we can, what, get our votes tallied a little quicker and eliminate those statistically rare mechanical hiccups that invalidate votes? It's not worth it. There are mechnical measures that would reduce the few problems we have experienced along these lines. They would cost far less and the majority of the population can intuitively appreciate the lack of ambiguity in them. Most importantly, the risk of any kind of massive vote rigging scheme being successfully pulled off would be far far lower (and is with most of our existing paper and punch card voting systems).

Lastly, if we have to go with an electric voting system, I'm unconvinced that open source code publication is really inherently more secure than a well vetted closed source system. I know, I know the mantra "security by obscurity does not work" (flame me if you want), but in this context, I think security + obscurity can work to the advantage of the overall security of the system. Any (fairly) verifiable voting system must reduce complexity as much as is reasonably possible, so the idea that we need a billion people to verify the code seems a little weak to me. Also, with the code and the system architecture being readily accessible to any hacker, it would be that much simpler for someone of moderate skill to know how to construct a trojanized version, modify the data directly, evade counter-measures/detection, etc. Sure, someone might disassemble and reverse-engineer the binary (assuming they gain access), but it takes a hell of a lot of work and that person would be at a substantial disadvantage...

Ok, Smite me now Oh-Gods-of-Slashdot, I dare challenge the open source = always more secure theology...

Re:Open Source software for critical infrastructur

[spitzak]

Anybody who trusts security through obscurity is an idiot, and you have just shown you are one.

Any proper design MUST assume the bad guys have every single bit of information about the machine. Open source software may be a way to make sure the designers do not miss this assumption, and thus is extremely good for security of the machine.

Casinos are just rooms full of voting machines

[systemeng]

In that voting is basically a statistical game of chance between two candidates, we ought to be studying gambling machine standards to see the level of security to which voting machines need to be raised. They may call Los Vegas Sin City, but those Nevadans may have written the document that saves our country. Since there is more money made in Vegas yearly (daily?) than is spent in a U.S. national political campaign, voting machines ought to be held to the same standards as the Nevada Gaming Commission's Technical Standards For Gaming Devices and On-Line Slot Systems http://www.gaming.nv.gov/documents/pdf/techstds_04 dec16_adopted.pdf

I sincerely doubt any of the voting systems I have heard about come even close! If there is a way to change the program in the machine in the field, a voting machine has already failed this test. They also require the system to detect and record the last 10 changes to its configuration, absorb an ungodly amount of static electricity without malfunctioning and require all unused ROM to be zeroed. . .

A run of the mill slot machine is likely infinitely more secure than a Diebold voting machine and probably a lot more secure than most voting machines.

iNDUSTRY t00L!

[Anonymous Coward]

security by obscurity DOES NOT WORK. STALLMAN says, so it MUST be TRUE.

None of the above

[Ardipithecus]

To the choice between the usual crooks/motards, I'd add:

(c) None of the above

(d) Hang all of the above

Were any of these to win, a new election would be called; in the case of (d) obviously with different candidates.

Re:Open Source software for critical infrastructur

[Anti-Trend]

Can you guess the name of the operating system with the best security track record is called? I'll give you a hint: it has the word "open" right in its name. Give up? It's OpenBSD, a completely open-source operating system.

Fuck. You.

[FallLine]

If the collisions from the aircraft and the subsequent fire aren't enough to remove almost all the strength from the entire structure of the building, that means something else did. And for that, the most reasonable, plausible explanation I've ever heard is some sort of manual intervention. In other words, controlled demolition.

I lost a long-time friend in the WTC and I had family right next door to it at the time who could very well have been killed... The idea of an elaborate conspiracy is preposterous and is based on psuedo-science at best. I question your motives. However, if you truly want to understand, then why don't you read this: http://wtc.nist.gov/pubs/factsheets/faqs_8_2006.ht m

Re:first post

[alshithead]

"american bs" (sic)

Do you think that the companies selling these ballot machines don't want to sell them anywhere but the US? Maybe it is somewhat pertinent to countries outside of the US...eventually, or even now considering the impact US elections have on the world in general?

I you're interested in a "non-us-crap-articles version of /." then create your own.

I'm not trolling or trying to be flamebait. I'm an American who reads non-US news sources daily. I just don't know why you are unhappy with Slashdot's US centric slant when most of Slashdot's users are from the good ol' US of A.

I don't get it...

[Anonymous Coward]

If everybody wants to see the code, what's stopping someone from getting the binary and reverse-engineering it? Keep it to yourself, but if you find something... go public and nobody will care because you just "Saved the world". Heck do it anonymously and the pressure is on Diebold to prove you made it up.

I remember all those stories about how easy it was to change votes and mess with the results, obviously people out there have access to these machines. I'd never encourage such activity, but

ah scantron..

[way2trivial]

the forms had a spot to identify a 'master' which would work mid-stream on some models.. and masters always got 'perfect' scoring in the scoring spot..

strangely, if you know where that spot on the form is- and pencil it in- you got a 100%, and everyone elses test results were based on your results..

Badly wrong

[mistralol]

There was me thinking that in a free democracity socieity everyone was entires to challange the voting process to find problem of mistakes. I guess this just isnt going to happen then.

Re:first post

[justinchudgar]

Wow, you puppy can type. I've tried, but mine gets too distracted trying to lick the cursor off the screen to get beyond the home keys.

Re:first post

[alshithead]

Hold your fax up tight to the screen and press your foot pedal.

Re:first post

[Kymermosst]

Why don't you RTFF and then go make your own web site if you're unhappy with the answer?

You don't Americans running around and telling this site to stop being so Euro-centric, do you?

In short: Either put up with an American-run web site putting up US-centric articles, or piss off.

Re:first post

[Kymermosst]

Insert "see" immediately after the second "don't".

Re:Fuck. You.

[kcbrown]

I lost a long-time friend in the WTC and I had family right next door to it at the time who could very well have been killed... The idea of an elaborate conspiracy is preposterous and is based on psuedo-science at best.

I'm truly sorry for that. Losing a long-time friend in a tragedy like the WTC must be one of the hardest things to endure. I'm very happy that your family survived.

And while I agree with you that the idea of an elaborate conspiracy is hard to swallow, that fact should not cause you to discard it out of hand. Such things should be left on the table to be used when no other explanation will suffice.

Which is another way of saying that if you want to know the truth, you must be willing to go wherever the evidence and the laws of physics lead.

No matter how you, I, or anyone else might feel, emotion simply cannot and does not negate physics. The real world always wins in the end. So regardless of how we might feel, the bottom line is that physics does not allow for the collapse of the WTC to have been caused solely by the crash of a couple of airliners (one into each tower) and the subsequent fires.

I've read the NIST FAQ. Their response to question 6 is basically a nonresponse, a bald assertion without any calculations or modeling to back it up. They basically assert that the structure of the building, which was overdesigned to hold the building up both dynamically and statically (the building had to withstand winds and other external factors that would place greater compressive load on some parts of the structure while placing reduced load on other parts, which means that all parts had to be designed to take the greater compressive loads) and which was also designed to withstand the loss of structural support as a result of the collision of a 707 airliner, presented no significant resistance to the collapse front.

This paper does some analysis of the energy and momentum involved, and this adds further clarification. The conclusion of both papers is basically that the collapse could not have been sustained with the support structure in place. That conclusion is arrived at under assumptions that greatly favor collapse.

So to assert without accompanying analysis that the structure could not and would not provide any significant resistance to collapse, as NIST does, goes well beyond reason. It asks the reader to believe in miracles.

To bring this discussion back on the topic that started it, that belief in miracles and lack of reasoning ability is exactly what TheGratefulNet was talking about here in his comment that kicked this whole thing off.

Ford not a veteran?

[unitron]

"...the next day after former...president Gerald Ford died, he was incorrectly (fictionally??) cited as being a World War II veteran (wrong!!)..."

So if Gerald R. Ford wasn't in the Navy during WWII, where was he?

Re:Ford not a veteran?

[sgt_doom]

Gerald Ford attended Naval ROTC during his college years and did his mandatory one-year stint afterwards, which was just after WWII had ended. Mr. Ford was quite honest and candid - as he had always been - in stating that he just missed out on duty during WWII. Ford was selected as VP by Nixon when Nixon was aware he would be resigning the presidency. Nixon stated (this appears on several of those office tapings which came to light some years back) that he chose Ford as his revenge on the Republican Party for what he felt was selling him out (for his illegal and unconstitutional behavior, 'natch). Nixon said that Ford, being the most stupid of congressmen, would never be elected president. He was, of course, proven right.

The highlight of Ford's short presidency was his "Whip Inflation Now" program - whereby he mandated that government workers wear WIN buttons (for Whip Inflation Now) and urged the American citizenry to do the same.

On the other hand, I've heard LBJ (that would be the late President Lyndon Baines Johnson) was supposed to have had a manufactured record of service during WWII - wouldn't surprise me, given the blood money he made off of Vietnam (and I say this as a life-long progressive democrat)...

Re:Ford not a veteran?

[unitron]

According to http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq60-15.htm Ford was already out of the University of Michigan and Yale law school and practicing law in Grand Rapids when the attack on Pearl Harbor happened, and saw action in the Pacific on board the light aircraft carrier U.S.S. Monterey in 1943 and 1944.

If you have a link for a source that disagrees I'd be interested to see what they have to say.

Are you sure that you haven't confused him with some other, slightly younger politician?

As for LBJ, there's a story about him as a young congresscritter riding on a military plane somewhere in the Pacific during WWII and winding up with a medal that probably was only awarded because of his political status rather than anything he actually did when the plane had whatever problem it did (it's been a while since I heard about this and I don't remember the details). This wouldn't particularly surprise me.

Far be it from me to say anything nice about a Republican, but I'd take Ford (or LBJ for that matter) over the current deciderator in chief in a quinstant. Come to think of it, I'd sooner roll the dice on some stranger off the street instead of King George the 43rd.

Re:Ford not a veteran?

[sgt_doom]

Now here's the situation - I'm not disputing your link - and at this point I'm not going to bother searching for any other links which might dispute it for what's-becoming-a-very-obvious reality now over the past years, there is considerable manipulation of the media and revisionism taking place.

Whether it is "web scrubbing" which I've noted over the past several years at unprecedented levels, or seemingly innocuous facts as to Ford's war record (and let me state that while I've never voted Republican, I have nothing whatsoever against Mr. Ford and his very normal family). I have no idea why so much manipulation is taking place, but being blessed with an excellent memory - and having attended school in the D.C. area at that time while working on Jimmy Carter's presidential campaign - I recall an extreme number of stories and a few live interview where Ford stated he was sorry he missed out on WWII. I even distinctly recall a Life Magazine article and interview about that.

You would find any number of links detailing what I know to be complete fictions - as I was alive during that time - regarding the life of assassinated President John F. Kennedy. For example: CIA personnel who retired in the late '70s wrote a flock of articles blaming Kennedy for the Bay of Pigs and attempted assassinations on Fidel Castro, but shortly after his horrendous death there were numerous articles - never, ever disputed, recounting how Kennedy was being superceded by the Dulles brothers, and a few other top-level types at the CIA, with regard to Cuba. The CIA would sabotage shipments of sugar to Cuba, and Kennedy would apologize to Castro (he was trying diplomacy at that time and believed that to be the better road to take) and reimburse Cuba for those destroyed shipments while trying to rein in the CIA. Kennedy fired Dulles and his assistant director (who, it should be noted, was the brother of the mayor of Dallas - the one who changed the route of Kennedy's motorcade - ostensibly for security reasons - to take it in front of that book depository that day) after the Bay of Pigs debacle, and those closest to Kennedy staunchly claimed he knew nothing about it and it was another CIA renegade operation.

Unfortunately, firing just those several people at the CIA wasn't enough. It took Carter to put Stansfield Turner into the CIA directorship to truly raze through the shadow government in the CIA, which sadly, relocated to the Pentagon under Reagan and Bush. Carl Bernstein, of "Woodward and Bernstein/Watergate" fame, committed journalistic suicide by writing a book naming names as to the 400 journalists who were on the CIA's payroll, churning out misinformation and disinformation to the American public. Some of those one might mistake for liberal demo-types. Today, we again have many seemingly liberal journalist-types who are on the Pentagon and Bush Administration's payroll (I strongly suspect Marianne Means, Corn, Isikoff and Olliphant to be among them. Superficially they appear to scoff at this administration, while all too often writing misleading and misdirecting articles which cast them in a positive light occasionally. [End of diatribe.]

Re:Ford not a veteran?

[sgt_doom]

Not to beat this subject into the ground, but one final comment:

That moronic, sociopathic fearless leader, George W. Bush's military records have obviously been doctored as no one remembers having served alongside him at that Alabama Air National Guard wing and flight he claims to have served with. I'd be curious if anyone ever recalls having served alongside former President Ford during WWII?

Now, I realize the advanced age of anyone who would have - so it would be highly unlikely they'd still be alive - but certainly someone would have mentioned it in some type of correspondence back when Ford became president and in those pre-Web times, letter-writing was still quite common.....

Win32 API

[Z34107]

Considering the Win32 API permits code injection as a function it's not secure

It sounds like you don't quite know what you're talking about. Code injection can happen with any poorly-written binary in memory - it's not a "feature" of the Windows API, or like it exports some DoCodeInjectionAPIFunc32Blargh() function.

2 browsers, while windows has one

Hmm, then maybe the OSS community should get on that... oh wait, there are dozens of browsers for Windows. And comparing anything to the bug-riddled history of Internet Explorer is just a little bit unfair, isn't it?

Re:Win32 API

[Watson Ladd]

Actually it does. Also, the 2 browsers quote was about your list of exploits. You were counting these as being holes in OpenBSD. They would also count as Windows bugs if you used the same methodology for both.

You don't get GPLv3

[SanityInAnarchy]

And neither do most others.

Does GPLv3 prevent you (the voter) from verifying a checksum? Absolutely not.

All it does is force the machine to run the software flawlessly.

Thus, it should be entirely possible for you, or for election officials, to verify that the signatures match. Doesn't mean the machines wouldn't run, it just means you'd know instantly that they were running a modified version, and you could request that they flash it to the correct version.

It's even possible that someone smarter than me will come up with an even better solution, involving some sort of manual challenge/response where you enter numbers and read other numbers off the screen and conclude that the checksum is valid.

By the way, I don't want it to be absolutely secure. I'd be satisfied if it was at least as secure as fucking slot machines are required to be.

Re:first post

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not the fact that Americans are Americans that we're complaining about.

It's the fact that Americans are brainless shits.

slight problem: you are stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

Using your numbers the most violent president in the US, FDR, killed more than 20,000,000.

FDR wasn't responsible for WWII because he didn't start it, dumbass. Bush is responsible for the cluster fuck that is Iraq.

Democraty, software and hardware

[Dominique_libre]

A judge cannot be an expert in each matter, but it must understand at, in a democraty, the citizens must be abble to control the vote process. It is the only mean for the citizen to be sure at the vote was democratic and not biased. With a digital vote system, only open source programs offer the possibility, for some citizens, the expert's ones, to control the vote process.And it is more. As the same program can always be implemented in 2 ways, in the silicium or in the software, such a vote system must be done on a 100 % open hardware. Here is the problem. The conclusion is at no automatic vote system of today can be 100% controlled by the citizens, and that even by the expert's ones. That implies at every country that use such a system cannot claim at they are democratic countries anymore. Subject closed. Next question: What can we do to restore the democraty in such countries? And if you are thinking at to bomb them is the solution, think about who Jesus will bomb in order to restore the democracy.

You know why we dont have this poblem is Spain?

[sam0vi]

The reason is that here we count vote ballots by hand. And it's much more secure because volunteers from every political party overwatch the recount. And they are done quite before midnight. And what i dont get the most is that in America, home of the volunteers, doesnt do the count by hand. Anyone knows?

Re:You know why we dont have this poblem is Spain?

[lunaticLT]

http://www.google.com/search?q=spain+e-voting

Not all tasks benefit from computerization

[Archtech]

I have noticed that, broadly speaking, those who are most uncritically in favour of "IT with everything" are technical dunces. (British prime minister Tony Blair is an outstanding example of this syndrome; by his own confession, he does not even know "how to use a keyboard", but he is absolutely sure that hospitals, libraries, schools and government offices will benefit from being filled up with Windows PCs).

Slashdot readers, on the other hand, are mostly qualified to judge when a given task is suitable for computerization, and when it is not. At the present state of the art (and state of political corruption), it seems to me that voting for political representatives is not a suitable application. We need to understand the security and integrity aspects of distributed multiuser systems far better before such a project is worth even thinking about. Come back in 15-20 years - maybe.

Still missing the point....

[Teancum]

Electric Voting is a bad idea. It presents very limited benefits and HUGE potential risks (not to mention huge COSTS, if security measures are to be deployed meaningfully).

I would have to agree completely that electronic voting is a painfully awful idea, and something that really does need to be eliminated. That said, there is a distinction here that needs to be made (and usually isn't):

There is electronic voting and electonic ballot preparation.

And to top it off, electronic vote counting, which can and ought to be independent of the above two issues that need to be distinguished seperately.

IMHO, what should be done for most of these voting precinct "upgrades" is some sort of system that produces a plain marked paper ballot that is prepared in the voting booth by the voter, but is then dropped into a box just like any other hand-written ballot. All the computer software really does is clean up what is written for write-in names, and makes sure that common mistakes like voting for multiple candidates when only one is allowed can be caught and fixed by the voter before it is counted. Or to notify you that you have "missed" a race and if you want to cast a vote for anybody in that race, with a clear "none of the above" as an option. Or to fix things like a "dimpled chad" or smeared pen mark where you don't quite know who gets the vote for a given race on hand written ballots.

If you have a consistant electronically "prepared" ballot, it would be trivial to set up a reliable OCR scanning system that would then be able to count these ballots. Indeed, you could even set up a system (and election laws) that would allow multiple systems by different vendors and different design teams to come up with identical counts (or provide justification to invalidate the results of one counting system). And more important, you can even do a "hand count" if you think everything is still broken, as the original data won't get tampered with regardless on how the votes are counted. Anonymity can be presered as well (the reason for the "secret ballot"), but that is besides the point.

If you try to combine all of these tasks into one huge machine, you are automatically asking for trouble. By seperating the counting from the ballot preparation, you also give a means for the voter to monitor exactly how their own vote is cast. It is clear and on legible paper exactly what their intent was... something most literate voters can and ought to be able to figure out without any additional technical training. You shouldn't have to have a BS degree in CS in order to verify that your vote has been cast (and counted) as you intended it.

it was the year of the undervote....

[wallet55]

as someone who left more than half the races blank, I would suggest that, particularly amongst embarrassed Republicans, this was the year to leave a lot of lines blank on the ballot, producing lots of undervoting. While I agree that paper-trail-less voting is a mistake, so is seeing conspiracy around every bush.

Strange coincidences?

[sgt_doom]

Oh, one other thing I neglected to mention which can be added to the list for "coincidence theorists" out there:

As a knowledgeable individual as yourself is probably aware, Bush Senior (George H.W. Bush) just happened to have dinner with the Hinckley family the night prior to Hinckley Junior attempt to assassinate Ronald Reagan. Bush Senior also happened to be attending a breakfast with the head of the bin Laden family (also head of the BinLaden Group) at the Mayflower Hotel on the morning of 9/11/01. Guess where and with whom Bush Senior was having brunch with on the morning that John F. Kennedy was assassinated? Yup, you guessed it: he was breaking bread with former CIA director Dulles, former assistant CIA director and brother to the mayor of Dallas, and the mayor, of course, in Dallas. Simply another one of those seemingly coincidental life happenstances, no doubt?