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Researchers Reprogram Voting Machine To Run Pac-man
Philom writes "Numerous scientific studies have demonstrated that electronic voting machines can be reprogrammed to steal votes, so when researchers Alex Halderman and Ari Feldman got their hands on a machine called the Sequoia AVC Edge, they decided to do something different: they reprogrammed it to run Pac-Man. As states move away from insecure electronic voting, there's a risk that discarded machines will clog our landfills. Fortunately, these results show that voting machines can be recycled to provide countless hours of entertainment."
And I, for one, welcome our new l33t haXor Congressmen and Presidents.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Doesn't that mean we'll need an audit trail to verify a player's score?
Someone had to say it first....
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Expect a cease and desist like this one in 3, 2, 1...
"Corporate Dollars Reprogram Voters To Elect PACmen"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_action_committee
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Reprogram them so they can go to work in schools as touchscreen systems for pre-k to 6th graders. They were built to take a beating so a bunch of kids could not put much of a hurt on them, right?
First rule of holes; When in one, stop digging.
We don't need people in government going around chasing ghosts.
We need to do something about the threat from space invaders.
I, for one, welcome our new pill eating ghost avoiding presidential candidate overlord!
My software never has bugs.
It just develops random features.
Does this pacman eat dangling chad?
... got their hands on a machine called the Sequoia AVC Edge ... they reprogrammed it to run Pac-Man
April First is a long way off...
XKCD:Xeric Knowledge Comically Dispen
You wouldn't want to run rigged elections on a machine that isn't Turing complete, would you?
At some point you can't get away with calling yourself researchers. What next "Researchers strap fireworks to cat"
I always wondered if they'd find a use for those voting machines. Perhaps it's a plan to get more people out to vote, gotta use your own quarter though.
Actually I think we are in more danger from Asteroids than from Space Invaders.
gotta use your own quarter though.
But wouldn't a coin slot on a voting machine on U.S. soil violate the 24th Amendment?
This is terribly biased.
Brazil has been using electronic voting country-wide for more than a decade and no party complains about its security - everyone considers them much more secure than the old and easy-to-tamper-with paper ballots.
I honestly don't understand why there is such bias against electronic voting on Slashdot since, in theory, it's a "nerd community".
Yes, e-voting, after a lot of effort can be compromised. Regular paper-ballot voting can be compromised by anyone, skilled or not, with not a lot of effort at all. Any voting system can be compromised. I don't honestly understand why the Slashdot community dislike e-voting that much.
What happens when you use the Konami Code on DRE voting machines? Do they start playing DOOM or anything like that?
Vote for Blinky!
Any insufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.
Although I'm not sure about his party affiliation ... libertarian?
So, how would one obtain a voting machine that's en route to the landfill?
Anyone with any experience know what sorts of departments to contact?
I would love a huge legal-sized touchscreen to play with.
More Twoson than Cupertino
Section 117 of US copyright law allows for this.
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/117.html
Which a judge isn't likely to apply in your favor if you are working from a ROM that you downloaded from the Internet. As I understand 117, in order for a MAME ROM to be considered lawfully made, you have to desolder the ROM ICs from the authentic PCB and then dump each of them with an EPROM programmer. It's easier for Sega Genesis and Super NES software, for which a cartridge dumper exists.
My person research has discovered that if you open a ballot box, it's entirely possible to bleach or otherwise erase votes and put in your own vote!
I trust all the major tech news sites will be carrying this shocking information that threatens the very foundations of democracy!
No? Oh wait, that's because you put tamper proof seals on ballot boxes just like you should put tamper proof seals on the cases for voting machines. Physical access to the voting computer innards/IO is basically the same as physicall access to people's cast votes.
All voting machines should be reprogrammed like this!
Can they program it to play Tetris too? at least then I wouldn’t have to pick the lesser of two evils when I go to the polling places.
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
Can they program it to play Tetris too?
Tetris too? Only if you want the voting machine to explode. But seriously, given that The Tetris Company can be just as litigious as Pac-Man owner Namco...
I agree that you can design a fancy computerised voting system, probably involving cryptographic technologies, that is at the same time anonymous, secure, auditable, and efficient. I even find the ideas behind such designs appeal to my hackers instincts.
But I oppose electronic voting, because the number of people who can audit such a system is so small. Placing the sanctity of democracy in the hands of a limited priesthood of technical experts is not democratic. You want a system that the maximum number of people can audit, which means paper ballots.
Yes, they are vulnerable to stuffing and corruption - but face it, if these things are happening, do you really think an electronic system won't also be manipulated to bias the results? The only difference is that the electronic system makes it MUCH easier to conceal, because it intrinsically reduces both the number of people involved collecting the votes and also the number of people who can successfully audit the vote.
Do democracy a favour. Use a pencil.
A civil case is decided on a preponderance of evidence, not proof beyond reasonable doubt. Therefore, the burden of proof is split between the two parties. Once Namco can trivially prove that the game was copied and that infringing copies are widespread, it is up to the hackers to prove that this particular copy does not infringe by claiming affirmative defenses such as section 117.
It has a cut down 486 as the cpu?
The issue is poor security in electronic voting machines produced by the major US manufacturers. I don't think many Slashdotters are inherently opposed to voting machines. The problem is many of the voting machines used in US elections are poorly designed and don't take even basic security precautions.
Let's take Diebold for example. They ended up having to rename their voting machine subsidiary to Premier Election Solutions because it was tarnishing the name of their company and was making their ATM business look bad. A computer science researcher did a source code analysis of their product in 2004 and remarked "this voting system is far below even the most minimal security standards applicable in other contexts." Another analysis concluded “the system, as implemented in policy, procedure, and technology, is at high risk of compromise."
It's a relatively simple process in some of these machines to reprogram them and change the outcome of an election. With that in mind, we need standards in place to ensure that people are not committing election fraud with e-voting machines. Until I can see independent studies on voting machine platforms that validate adequate security protocols, I'm going to remain skeptical about them.
For more information on security risks in e-voting machines, check out the Premier Election Solutions Wikipedia entry. It's pretty eye opening.
just make a clone and call it vote eater!
just make a clone
Namco owns a copyright on the physical appearance of the character Pac-Man. Namco and its then U.S. console partner Atari successfully sued a cloner in 1982 for copyright infringement ( Atari v. Philips ). So if the player character of Vote Eater looks too much like a sphere with a lune for a mouth, and if the chasing characters look too much like Bloo from Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends without a valid parodic reason, Namco would still have enough of a case to make the author of Vote Eater spend beaucoup bucks on legal representation.
If all it has to do is something barely more complicated than a light switch, why is it running on a full computer? Why not have electronic switches that result on a vote being registered on paper or in a database or however they prefer but have the terminal not have any processing abilities at all. Just make it purely mechanical! I mean, if they could make a mechanical slot machine 50 years ago, I think they can make a mechanical machine to record votes.
Google's Super Secret Search Algorithm: SELECT @search_results FROM internet WHERE @search_results = 'good'
The Republicans or Democrats for the stupidity of rushing head-long into computerized voting? I knew it was a bad idea right from the start.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
I think we're still accepting refugees at Hulver's.
Best Slashdot Co
I'm impressed that they've come up with such a great way to improve voter turn-out. This will certainly get the baby-boomers voting again, and if they can figure out how to get Halo or WoW on there, think of all the 18-25 year old men who will show up. How cool would it be if you could vote by blowing the head off of the NPC that looks like Sarah Palin?
It made Google even more popular maybe it will make err... voting even more popular.
Then a mug shot and name for each candidate appears at the top of the screen, Then you control PacMan to eat all the candidate ghosts until there is only one left. The one you don't eat gets your vote!
And then you go to the next level/vote on the next issue.
Brilliant!
Re-programming voting machines ? Call me back when they have worked out how to re-program the politicians :-)
where can I buy one??
I'd like to be able to verify my vote after the fact in either paper or electronic systems.
You give me my ballot and it has a unique number on it. I can use that number later to verify that the vote linked to it is what I voted.
Obviously there are issues with that, such as a man-in-the-middle exploit feeding me bogus results, or your anonymity being put at risk when you attempt to verify your vote. But I'd still like to have the option.
As far as anonymity goes, I have no issue with people knowing how I would vote as I usually discuss it openly. But I would rather see the ID tied to the ballot and not a name, since others may prefer to remain anonymous and simply forgo checking the ballot results in the future.
If my vote has been tampered with, discarded, or double counted, I want to know.
Sadly, Australia will still be using paper and pencils tomorrow in the election. There'd be way more incentive aussies to vote if we could express my vote using pacman. Tony Abbott could Pacman and "illegal" immigrants could be the ghosts.
--Trindaz on Fedang
It's forwards thinking like this that makes the human race so legendary!
It's a computer. If you have access to the system, of course you can make it do something else. Now show me you can make it run pacman within the time and means you have when in a voting booth.
What a depressingly stupid machine.
... but I thought the rigged voting machines already gave countless hours of entertainment. Mostly in the 4-8 years the winning candidate is in office! :D
It was just a quick comment in TFA, but they were able to do this WITHOUT damaging the seals on the device.
With any luck, this and similar efforts will give the things enough resale value that only 95% of the taxpayer's money will end up flushed down the toilet.