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Sequoia To Publish Source Code For Voting Machines

Posted by timothy on from the this-time-on-purpose dept.

cecille writes "Voting machine maker Sequoia announced on Tuesday that they plan to release the source code for their new optical-scan voting machine. The source code will be released in November for public review. The company claims the announcement is unrelated to the recent release of the source code for a prototype voting machine by the Open Source Digital Voting Foundation. According to a VP quoted in the press release, 'Security through obfuscation and secrecy is not security.'"

4 of 102 comments (clear)

  1. Programming Thinking...Again by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I've said it once, and I will say it again, you can publish ALL the code you want, but

    1. In the event of a recount, can I get repeatable results?

    2. In the event of a "software bug" can I hold someone responsible, will they pay for the cost of a reelection?

    3. In the event of a hardware failure, can I hold someone responsible, are there contingency plans, will someone pay the cost of a reelection?

    It's a matter of trust, and what you can put behind your software.

    Since this is software, and programmers, the answer to these questions is generally "no" and "nothing".

    Elections don't wait for service packs, bug fixes, hot fixes, etc A flaw in your software could cause chaos.

    Simple programmers can't go to jail for negligence, can't get sued for bugs, and can't put anything concrete behind their code.

    I can just picture reading the election software EULA, "NO WARRANTY" , "NO FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE", "CONTAINS KNOWN DEFECTS"..

  2. Bad Time to be a Sequoia Developer by kbob88 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Boss: OK, guys. Marketing and PR has decided to release the source code publicly. You guys said our software is really nice, clean, secure code. So you don't have any problems with that, right?

    Developers: Umm, yeah, sure, no problem... You know, we might want to make one or two very minor fixes first... [runs frantically back to computer and pounds away]

  3. Re:plan to by sunderland56 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Is there any guarantee that the source code they release is the actual code that will run on the machines during an election?

  4. Cynicism be damned... by SoTerrified · · Score: 5, Insightful

    But even a cynic like me sees this as a win. Seriously, this is what we've been fighting for. So in a world that manages to keep depressing me every time I turn on the news. I'm going to celebrate this little victory.