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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."
Because then they have to kill you.
Looks like the old phrase "Vote Early, Vote Often" is going to become an automated process.
That should save a lot of people some serious time and money
Stigall said that most Web-based ballot systems had proved to be insecure.
Really? No kidding? You don't say?
These people should read Slashdot. Seriously. We've all been saying this since 1997 or 1998 when the first stories about "Internet voting" began to appear. Nothing has improved from a security standpoint since then and we all keep saying electronic voting of any kind is too easy to tamper with unless there is a verified paper record trail.
And since most of us agree on this when most of us can't even agree on which operating system is the best for general use, which programming language is best for rapid application development, or which text editor is the best, well, that kind of says something now doesn't it?
My blog
Maybe there was tampering, maybe there wasn't. The CIA isn't exactly a source I would trust not to put out false information to further their own agenda.
Don't complain about lack of options. You've got to pick one when you do multiple choice. Those are the breaks.
Feel free to suggest laws if you're feeling creative. I'd strongly suggest reading the past laws first.
This whole thing is wildly inaccurate. Rounding errors, ballot stuffers, lobbyists, corruption. If you're using these votes to do anything important, you're insane.
[...]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
Why? Wouldn't it bring them closer? After all, they've got something in common now! =)
...they should look at the electronic vote-rigging in the USA? We know the machines have misreported votes. The president/CEO of Diebold promised to literally do everything in his power to "deliver" Ohio's electoral votes to GWB. A legal recount of the paper ballots was terminated, not in the interest of the American people. Instead of spying on the electoral processes of others, perhaps we could put the effort into running our elections scrupulously.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I like how the CIA (who haven't got a great record for promoting democracy in Venezeula, seeing as they have already mounted at least one coup attempt on Chavez) are wailing about vote rigging.
They didn't seem to care this much about democratic elections when they were backing Pinochet, or the Contras, or any of the other dictators they've pushed on any Latin American country that didn't toe the line.
I used to like democracy. I always thought it was a good idea. But having seen how its most vocal proponent actually treats elections in practice, I am cynical to the point of thinking anybody who talks about democracy is only talking about their guy winning at any cost.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
Are we out of Iraqi oil already?
'The mathematicians found "a very subtle algorithm" that appeared to adjust the vote in Chavez's favor, Stigall said'
.. :)
Shoulda got Diebold to do
'[Diebold] is "committed to helping Ohio to deliver its electoral votes to the president next year"'
Deflect attention from the beam in your own eye and trash the democratically elected leader of Venezuela cause he won't give the OIL to the US and let it sell it back to them, like the US did in Iraq.
'Election-Fraud Website Removed Before Tuesday Recall Vote'
http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/04/10/01/1225227.shtml?tid=123&tid=103&tid=1
davecb5620@gmail.com
I can think of a number of political systems that should be better in theory, but it seems democracy may be the best in practice, or more correctly, least bad.
The CIA, which has in the past actively worked to overthrow (and has succeeded in overthrowing) South American regimes the United States doesn't like, now claims that Venezuela used vote rigging to win a 2004 election recount just two years after a failed coup took place against Chavez that the United State sanctioned.
Forgive me if I don't take this seriously.
'If Christ had tweeted the sermon on the mount, it might have lasted until nightfall.' - John Perry Barlow
Which brings us at last to the moment of truth, wherein the fundamental flaw is ultimately expressed, and the Anomaly revealed as both beginning... and end.
Having the American CIA monitoring elections in other countries during the Bush Administration is like Microsoft looking for security vulnerabilities in Linux and Mac OS X.
Kaspersky Sells Mac AntiVirus Fear Using Charlie Miller... Mac AntiVirus Foe
According to international observers such as the Carter Center there were no vote-rigging schemes in Venezuela.
Venezuela's e-voting machines have a paper trail -and- they do a partial hand count for verification.
On the other hand, e-voting in the US has none of that (including international observers).
Fact is though that "Hugo Chavez does not have US interests at heart" (- US State Dept).
The CIA has murdered and tortured men women and childeren (and sponsored these activities) to rig elections and make sure the party they wanted obtained power. So we are now supposed to believe them that elections could be rigged but they didn't take part in rigging them?
Perhaps they are just upset that Chavez rigged the elections better then they did?
While I have little faith in electronic voting if the CIA told me the sky was blue, I would check and then have my eyes examined for tampering just to be sure.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
One thing that didn't help was the assertion by CBS (and others) in 2000 that Gore won the election before all the votes had been counted.
Another thing that didn't help was the assertion by Fox (and others) in 2000 that Bush won the election before all the votes had been counted.
Fascism starts when the efficiency of the government becomes more important than the rights of the people.
Real Democracy would be a good idea. We have a representative government to keep the will of the people in line. It was intentional, and successful.
As for political systems, the one that seemed to work the best was Anarchism in Spain.
http://use.perl.org
I really like what Churchill said about all this:
"It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried."
I looked at the article (imagine that) and it says that what happened in Ukraine was that in the 2004 presidential elections, an authorized computer was secretly placed at vote headquarters and it gave out bogus returns. I'm not surprised, but I hadn't heard that before.
I was in Ukraine during the Orange Revolution. I had not planned on being there during this, it just sort of happened while I was already there. I remember seeing voting returns on TV and everybody knew that the announced results were fraudulent. One of the most populous oblasts (this is basically the Ukrainian version of an American state) said that 99% of the voters voted for Yanukovich, the guy who ended up losing the eventual re-vote. Imagine if you will that in the 2008 elections if California said that 99% of voters voted for Obama or if Texas had reported that 99% of its voters voted for McCain and you have an idea of crazy the fraud was. It wasn't even believable. Basically whoever tried to cheat knew that Yanukovich could not win a fair election, so they turned in impossible vote totals for him in the oblasts where he was expected to win and so that when all the votes were counted, he would have the most votes. It's generally considered that Ukraine now has honest elections as a result of the 2004 election fraud.
The point is... how would you know?
Take a look at Black Box Voting and check it out. A while back, they had a YT video where a hacker was (easily!) able to preload a flash disk with values to rig the vote without there ever being any sign of a problem by the voting machines.
Yes, this is / was Diebold, but unless we use some nice sequential hash algorithms and/or cryptography, along with a verified "clean" starting point, it's not possible to trust electronic voting machines.
Further, the problem is that verifying e-votes and e-voting machines has to be done by a professional programmer and security expert. By definition, this makes verification (and trust) basically impossible for the average person. This means that by operating from authority, programmers and security "experts" could (and have!) certify voting machines and equipment and the general population would have no easy, trustable method to know if they're being hoodwinked.
Sorry, voting machines are a bad, bad, bad idea. As somebody who programs/maintains large databases of sensitive data, I can't say with confidence that I'd even be able to trust an open or OSS solution because of the difficulty in ensuring that the software that's been reviewed is the same as the software that's actually running.
For example, what if your compiler was compromised with a virus, so that the compiler itself produced software that was virus laden?
Sorry, e-voting is too complex. The people responsible for their security are parties of interest, and so by definition can never be trusted. E-voting is a bad, bad, bad idea.
Beverly Harris (at Black Box Voting) is a quintessential example of a modern American Hero. History should remember her with the warmth and love given to Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Paine! I can't say enough how much I respect this average US mom who simply demanded that votes be counted accurately. In so doing, she's changed the world for the better. She's received several hundred dollars from me, and I donate more every year. You would do well to throw $5 her way, and maybe download and use her press pack... it's YOUR freedom at stake!
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
I liked the reference to "allegations of tampering" in some US elections. I mean, we're talking about elections in which people demoed their ability to train a chimp to alter the results of a voting machine and delete the log files that contained the evidence.
The use of the term "allegations" here could be viewed by the cynical as not quite what you'd call "fair and balanced" reporting. A better phrasing might probably be something like "brazen and shameless tampering". If you read the literature on the topic, you get a real feeling that the companies involved are all but thumbing their noses at the voting public.
The "hacked" machines weren't compromised due to obscure bugs that the companies quickly fixed. It's more like the hackability was based on a set of carefully designed-in features which the companies are probably bragging about during their sales pitches in the proverbial political back rooms. (Are they still smoke-filled?)
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
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.
By your standard voting by mail should be ruled out as well then, right?
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=7001
There is a good writeup on 8 people arrested here in the US for tampering with electronic votes.
"KY Election Officials Arrested, Charged With 'Changing Votes at E-Voting Machines'"
Give me a paper ballot and keep a paper trail.
"The president/CEO of Diebold promised to literally do everything in his power to "deliver" Ohio's electoral votes to GWB."
Wow, you just can't let go, can you? Bush is out of office and you're still obsessing over him.
The Diebold guy promising to "deliver" Ohio for Bush was speaking at a party event, in the capacity as a party fundraiser and organizer, not as part of your fevered fantasies of a "right-wing coup". Despite your paranoia, the same voting systems were used to swept Democrats into power in 2006 and 2008.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
The paper ballot has never been the problem. Whether you mark the ballot with ink or holes doesn't really change anything. They're easy to count and handle in massive quantities, and we have a long experience dealing with them.
The problem is and has always been how to, with complete unambiguity, record the voter's intent on that paper. And here is where electronic voting machines can be of some assistance. Touch screens are a great interface for voting. It's simple for the user, can be easily localized for any potential language a voter might want to use, and it is trivial to eliminate potential overvotes and warn about undervotes.
Diebold can still get a big contract to make expensive touchscreen voting machines, so far as I care. All they have to do is sell a printer with each machine that simply prints out onto an official ballot form the voter's intent, in human readable form.
If a recount is required, OCRing (remember, we're not talking about OCRing free-form text. The OCR here will simply need to pick between a fixed set of choices) those ballots will be trivial and unambiguous. The voter himself can look at the printed ballot and verify that its contents are exactly what he wanted before turning it in.
It is in Oregon. Close to 100% of voting in Oregon elections, including Federal elections, is done through the mail.
We've been doing it for a couple of decades now, with no major problems that I've heard of.
If the masses can keep you down, you're not the Ubermensch.
In Estonia people can change their vote after e-voting. If somebody made you vote for something they wanted, you can later re-vote electronically or physically. The latest vote counts.
For technical details, browse the Estonian National Electoral Committee's homepage.