Sequoia Voting Systems Source Code Released

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday October 20, 2009 @11:06AM from the redaction-fail dept.

Mokurai sends a heads-up about Sequoia Voting Systems, which seems to have inadvertently released the SQL code for its voting databases. The existence of such code appears to violate Federal voting law: "Sequoia blew it on a public records response. ... They appear... to have just vandalized the data as valid databases by stripping the MS-SQL header data off, assuming that would stop us cold. They were wrong. The Linux 'strings' command was able to peel it apart. Nedit was able to digest 800-MB text files. What was revealed was thousands of lines of MS-SQL source code that appears to control or at least influence the logical flow of the election, in violation of a bunch of clauses in the FEC voting system rulebook banning interpreted code, machine modified code and mandating hash checks of voting system code." The code is all available for study or download, "the first time the innards of a US voting system can be downloaded and discussed publicly with no NDAs or court-ordered secrecy," notes Jim March of the Election Defense Alliance. Dig in and analyze.

1 of 406 comments (clear)

Min score:

Reason:

Sort:

Re:To be honest... by sakdoctor · 2009-10-20 11:30 · Score: 1, Redundant

Is that a joke, a troll, or insurmountable ignorance? I really can't tell.
Given the total incompetence to date, of any company implementing a voting system, I think open source is the only way it's going to get done right.
If properly implemented, the voting system can be as secure as the crypto primitives it's built upon.