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Researchers Reprogram Voting Machine To Run Pac-man

Posted by samzenpus on from the vote-cherry-this-year dept.

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."

6 of 132 comments (clear)

  1. What would Namco say? by tepples · · Score: 2, Interesting
    From the article:

    This project is neither endorsed by nor affiliated with Namco (the developer of Pac-Man) or Midway (the U.S. distributor).

    Expect a cease and desist like this one in 3, 2, 1...

    1. Re:What would Namco say? by Purity+Of+Essence · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Cease and desist what exactly? They aren't distributing anything other than a video. As a news item about re-purposing voting machines, fair use seems to be on their side concerning Pac-Man imagery appearing in the video.

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      +0 Meh
  2. Repurpose them as educational systems by TheHawke · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.
  3. "insecure electronic voting" by acid06 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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.

    1. Re:"insecure electronic voting" by tolgyesi · · Score: 2, Interesting
      As far as I understand the problem with the typical US voting machine is that the vendors keep the actual algorithm secret and they do not produce paper trails. These machines were designed specifically for election fraud.

      This is more obvious to the "nerd community" than to ordinary people.

  4. Re:Who do we blame? by commodore64_love · · Score: 2, Interesting

    >>>Ultimately I'm a proponent of computerized voting

    But the flaw with this and virtually all the other machines adopted between 2001 and 2003 is there's no paper trail. That means the results can easily be changed and no way to audit the results.

    The system we had in Maryland (before it got thrown out) was just about perfect. You simply drew a line next to the candidate you wanted, and then the ballot was scanned immediately and tallied. It ensured the vote was registered before the voter left, had the rapid counting ability of a computer, but still provided a paper trail for later auditing of the computer's tally.

    Then they threw away for a system with no paper trail. Stupid.

    --
    "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall