the second ways Republicans win midterms - hackable voter machines

[whiskeytown]

from Robert F Kennedy Jr. -

The debacle of the 2000 presidential election made it all too apparent to most Americans that our electoral system is broken. And private-sector entrepreneurs were quick to offer a fix: Touch-screen voting machines, promised the industry and its lobbyists, would make voting as easy and reliable as withdrawing cash from an ATM. Congress, always ready with funds for needy industries, swiftly authorized $3.9 billion to upgrade the nation's election systems - with much of the money devoted to installing electronic voting machines in each of America's 180,000 precincts. But as midterm elections approach this November, electronic voting machines are making things worse instead of better. Studies have demonstrated that hackers can easily rig the technology to fix an election - and across the country this year, faulty equipment and lax security have repeatedly undermined election primaries. In Tarrant County, Texas, electronic machines counted some ballots as many as six times, recording 100,000 more votes than were actually cast. In San Diego, poll workers took machines home for unsupervised "sleepovers" before the vote, leaving the equipment vulnerable to tampering. And in Ohio - where, as I recently reported in "Was the 2004 Election Stolen?" [RS 1002], dirty tricks may have cost John Kerry the presidency - a government report uncovered large and unexplained discrepancies in vote totals recorded by machines in Cuyahoga County.


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but good news also in the article -

The heartening news is, citizens are starting to fight back. Voting-rights activists with the Brad Blog and Black Box Voting are getting the word out. Voter Action, a nonprofit group, has helped file lawsuits in Arizona, New York, Pennsylvania, Colorado and New Mexico to stop the proliferation of touch-screen systems. In California, voters filed suit last March to challenge the use of a Diebold touch-screen system - a move that has already prompted eight counties to sign affidavits saying they won't use the machines in November.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/092106R.shtml

[jokerthief]

That is really scary. We should just stick to paper ballots.

[whiskeytown]

I seriously think a voter machine that doesn't offer a physically verifible paper trail is treasonous -

it goes contrary to the accountability that is necessary for a Democracy or a Republic to function -

but I don't belive the party in charge wants a Democracy or a Republic to function, so no surprise there.

rb

[jokerthief]

This is a very serious problem. I did some more research on this and found this very alarming article:

How to Hack an Election in One Minute

[Nepa]

[ QUOTE ]
This is a very serious problem. I did some more research on this and found this very alarming article:

How to Hack an Election in One Minute

[/ QUOTE ]

I wonder if I can buy one of those cards on ebay. That looks pretty easy.

No wonder they do not let 3rd parties test the voting machines. Princeton basically had to steal the machine to show that it is possible to be hacked.

[whiskeytown]

I think this is virtually treasonous -

the company that makes them also manufactures ATM's that leave verifible paper trails - the memos from internally show that they would try to make the cost so prohibitive that no one would want a paper trail in their voter machine.

This tactic of having to steal to prove insecurity is typical - in the 90's, Congress passed the Digital Millenium Copyright Act which means any attempt to publish weakness in a system, even for educational and patching purposes, can be construed as a copyright violation and taken down -

it's a way insecure software could be left "secure" from the general public - hackers of course have no need for any of that - nothing is secure just cause it's hidden -

the finest computer security work comes from publically reviewed, tested, and verified software - our Encryption algorithm - AES was done so - if the code has to be secret to be secure, then it's not a good code -

these guys have no concept of computer security - they've learned nothing from 10 yrs of failure after failure - but at the core, the DMCA doesn't protect Americans, it protects big business and their incompetence -

as you might guess, the DMCA went down under a Republican Congress - thank you Bill Clinton for letting that slip thru, nimrod.

rb

[jokerthief]

[ QUOTE ]

This tactic of having to steal to prove insecurity is typical - in the 90's, Congress passed the Digital Millenium Copyright Act which means any attempt to publish weakness in a system, even for educational and patching purposes, can be construed as a copyright violation and taken down -

it's a way insecure software could be left "secure" from the general public - hackers of course have no need for any of that - nothing is secure just cause it's hidden -

[/ QUOTE ]

Amen. I have always been mystified at how aggressivly white hat hackers have prosecuted. It just doesn't make any sense. They basically give corporations a free security analysis and yet are punished. It's so stupid because making the weakness public knowledge doesn't make the threat any more dangerous since those who are capable of exploiting it already knew about it anyway.

[bobman0330]

[ QUOTE ]
I think this is virtually treasonous

[/ QUOTE ]

To quote Inigo Montoya, "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."

[whiskeytown]

to build a voting system for a democracy that can be easily altered to alter the outcome

to do it in such a way to hide accountability, to threaten with lawsuits people who would bring such accountability -

to put into place a voting system which makes our Democracy more insecure, and to do it deliberately

that, to me, is treason against the Citizens and Govt. of the United States - that is taking one of their most valued and cherished rights and selling it to a highest bidder - that is anathema to the core principles of Democracy and open, accountable elections which can be verified by anyone.

and it was done deliberately -according to leaked memos and court records - to avoid having to put a paper trail in the machines, Executives suggested adding such an enormous surcharge for a paper trail that no State Legislature would approve the extra expenditure -

I stand by the claim.

rb