Voting machines vulnerable, says report by UConn faculty (Paper ballots!)

[TexasLawyer]

Voting machines vulnerable, says report by UConn faculty
State takes extra security steps before election

by Michael Kirk - November 6, 2006 (Advance)

http://www.advance.uconn.edu/2006/061106/06110603.htm

UConn faculty members contracted by the state to evaluate the security of new voting machines to be used in some Connecticut municipalities on Nov. 7 have issued a report identifying vulnerabilities in the system which, if exploited maliciously, could affect the outcome of the election in those precincts.

<snip>

The team of computer science and engineering faculty, led by Professor Alexander Shvartsman, includes Aggelos Kiayias, assistant professor-in-residence; Laurent Michel, assistant professor; and Alex Russell, associate professor.

The full report can be found online here.
http://voter.engr.uconn.edu/voter/Reports_files/uconn-report-os.pdf

The report states that, "based on our findings, {a Diebold AccuVote Optical Scan} can be compromised with off-the-shelf equipment in a matter of minutes, even if the machine has its removable memory card sealed in place.

The basic attack can be applied to effect a variety of results, including entirely neutralizing one candidate so that their votes are not counted, swapping the votes of two candidates, or biasing the results by shifting some votes from one candidate to another. Such vote tabulation corruptions can lay dormant until the Election Day, thus avoiding detection through pre-election tests."

<snip>

[flyingfysh]

1. you don't need to ask high-powered experts

Just ask any working programmer if these machines are a good idea. Those of us who work with computers every day and know all the various ways machines can be hacked can tell you how bad the idea of voting machines is. We would tell you exactly the same thing as the experts have been saying.

[Lance_Boyle]

4. How are they gonna 'ask a working programmer?'

Does this journalist speak Hindi? Cultural sensitivity, man! :sarcasm:

[jpak]

2. K&R

n/t

[TexasLawyer]

3. Anyone who thinks paper ballots are the panacea

should read the study.

Paper ballots are vital for verifying election results, but the machines that count them are hackable "in minutes" with the hack virtually undetectable.

[seafan]

6. Pen and paper ballots that are hand-counted at each precinct, under direct

public observation, with the results telephoned in to the Secretary of State's office will be the solution.

Ban ALL machines for marking and tallying our votes.


It is just taking a while for people to realize it.


We may be stellar in technology in our country, but casting and counting our votes must and shall remain in The People's Hands.

[Daphne08]

7. Agreed! n/t

[Proletariatprincess]

8. Alas...we aren't stellar anymore.

The US has fallen from 4th to 12th place among tech savvy nations. Our bandwidth is much slower( 2 times as slow in most cases) and we pay much more than other countries. We aren't the "can do" nation we used to be....just look at how we handled Katrina and they are still finding bodies at the World trade Center. All of our intuitions are failing or have failed. How can we possible trust anything but paper ballots counted by hand? And even then...it would need to be closely monitored.

[In Truth We Trust]

5. K&R Hand Counted Paper Ballots NOW! DEMOCRACY NOW!!! OR Fascism FOREVER.