Slashdot Mirror
CIA Expert Decries E-Voting Security
ISoldat53 sends this quote from McClatchy DC:
"The CIA, which has been monitoring foreign countries' use of electronic voting systems, has reported apparent vote-rigging schemes in Venezuela, Macedonia and Ukraine and a raft of concerns about the machines' vulnerability to tampering. Appearing last month before a US Election Assistance Commission field hearing in Orlando, Fla., a CIA cybersecurity expert suggested that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and his allies fixed a 2004 election recount, an assertion that could further roil US relations with the Latin leader. ... Stigall said that most Web-based ballot systems had proved to be insecure. The commission has been criticized for giving states more than $1 billion to buy electronic equipment without first setting performance standards. Numerous computer-security experts have concluded that US systems can be hacked, and allegations of tampering in Ohio, Florida and other swing states have triggered a campaign to require all voting machines to produce paper audit trails."
The critical part is the US Government committed a coup to Hugo Chavez in Venezuela in April 2002, installing a dictator.
You cannot trust the information of the organization who tried removing the Democratically elected leader of a country outright.
http://use.perl.org
During the last election there were numerous researchers who showed 280 different ways that the current machines can be hacked within about 6 minutes. The paper trail does nothing as it can also be fooled into passing the tests and still rigging the election. There are no sanity checks or anything in the FlashROM bootloader and anyone can hack it with a JTAG that can be built for about three bucks at RatShack. The Diebold DRE firmware was even online during the election so one could disassemble it and write all the code at home without even gaining access before the hack. I even found detailed high-res pictures of the JTAG port, motherboard, screw locations, and EVERYTHING online. I also know that in my town the machines are loaded into U-Hauls each night and then moved to an insecure warehouse near where I work. This is incomprehensible.
In Utah, Emery County clerk Bruce Funk had independent tests done which found multiple ways in which these machines could be exploited and Diebold fought to silence him and attempted to charge the state $40,000 to 're-certify' them. Then he was forced to resign for having them tested. It is obvious that Diebold knows about the issues and is acting to suppress the information. Now reports are coming in that choosing 'straight party' for Democrat sometimes gives votes to Republicans or does not count them at all straight from the Diebold factory. I voted straight party during the last election. Do you know how that makes me feel? It seems like some of them may be rigged right from the factory and there are no checks and balances in place to ensure that they aren't.
The argument that a 'hacker' could not have time during voting to modify these is just common sense and just does not stand up. It is not a 'hacker' during voting time that I am worried about. Anyone with ulterior motives and access to these machines for even five minutes can sway the election. This is such a simple process that it sickens me.
It doesn't even need to actually happen, the idea that it IS POSSIBLE is enough to disenfranchise voters. I feel helpless to stop it. It is bad enough that here in Utah my democratic vote is almost good for nothing, and then I have to fight the uphill battle on a easily hackable machine. I have worked with electronics my whole life and these machines are less secure than my Xbox360 and iPhone.
Will you please help fight to ban electronic voting? Write your senators, congressmen, and president. Please, someone has to stand up for the rights of the voters. We cannot depend on companies like Diebold and others to elect our officials. This is not paranoia, we can not trust these machines. Once it becomes possible to 'buy' an election we will never get this country back from those who stole it. I fear it may already be too late.