Reply #8: Diebold website [View All]

[Bushfire]

puts out two press releases Friday. They are failing badly at damage control, and it will also be interesting to watch their stock price in the next week.
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Technical Response To The Johns Hopkins Study On Voting Systems

Diebold is in the process of performing a complete review of the lengthy research article about one of Diebold’s election products, dated Wednesday, July 23.

A prior version of Diebold’s touch screen software was analyzed while it was running on a device on which it was never intended to run, on an operating system for which it was not designed, and with minimal knowledge of the overall structures and processes in which the terminal software is embedded. In addition, many of the weaknesses attributed to the operating system on which the software was tested are inapplicable to the embedded operating system actually used by Diebold. As a result, many of the conclusions drawn by the researchers are inaccurate or incomplete with respect to the security of this particular element of Diebold’s voting system.

The researchers installed and analyzed a prior version of the AccuVote-TS software on a typical personal computer, on which a generally available Microsoft® operating system was installed. This personal computer on which the software was analyzed also had an internet or continuous modem connection, a keyboard, and disk drives. The exploitation of many weaknesses attributed to Diebold’s software resulted from this configuration, which does not exist when the software is used in a Diebold voting terminal.

A continuous or unmonitored internet or modem connection would be necessary in order for last minute or stealth changes to be downloaded to a voting terminal. As installed by Diebold, this voting terminal contains neither. Diebold does not connect its voting terminals to the internet. All downloads to the terminals for purposes of programming take place over a secure connection to an isolated server, to which the voting terminal is generally only briefly connected. Once the changes have been made, the terminal is disconnected, the software tested, the terminal is locked and a tamper-indicating device affixed.

more...

http://www.diebold.com/technical.htm spin, spin, spin...

on edit: spellun'