Reply #7: from zdnet -- Panel: E-voting vulnerable [View All]

[nashville_brook]

GAITHERSBURG, Md.--Overlooked bugs and malicious code pose a plausible threat to software on electronic voting machines, a panel of election experts said Friday.

At a conference held by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, part of the U.S. Commerce Department, election officials, computer scientists and academics weighed in on steps that should be taken before, during and after elections to protect the voting systems against software-related problems. Voting has gone increasingly electronic during the past couple of election cycles, but the devices remain without national, uniform security standards.

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Some panelists imagined scenarios in which attackers posing as voters could slip corrupted "smart cards" into electronic voting machines that rely on such media or use a "signal"--say, a series of touch screen presses--that would trigger the software to swap votes to another candidate.

They also expressed concern that, if voting machines were hooked up to wireless signals, someone could sit outside the warehouse where the machines were stored--or simply use a PDA inside the polling place--to transmit malicious software to the voting machines.
The solution? Design the systems with as few additional frills as possible. "I don't know if I'm going out on a limb on this, but wireless and voting do not mix," Shamos said, drawing applause from the audience.

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paper ballots. good old fashioned techonology. it's not beyond human ability to COUNT.