Posted on 09/22/2004 11:22:01 PM PDT by ETERNAL WARMING
Touchscreen Hack Effort Called 'Monkey Business' Wednesday, September 22, 2004 By Joseph Bacchus and Stacy Kaper
Critics of the Diebold (search) touch-screen voting machines turned their attention Wednesday from the machines themselves to the computers that will tally the final vote, saying the outcome is so easy to manipulate that even a monkey could do it.
And they showed video of a monkey hacking the system to prove it.
In the minute-long video produced by Black Box Voting (search), Baxter the chimp is shown deleting the audit log that is supposed to keep track of changes in the Diebold central tabulator, the computer and program that keeps track of county vote totals.
Bad Monkey! No buscuit!
This only proves a monkey can do it. I still say it's beyond the capabilities of everyday liberals!
I'm still getting Orwellian headaches over these machines. How easy it would be to rob the citizens of their vote and they won't even know they've been robbed.
I know I'll be insisting on paper ballots at my polling place. No way in Hell I'm letting any crooked Leftist (redundant, I know) turn my vote over to Kerry, Boxer and their ilk.
Is the article posted somewhere? There's no link.
Voting machines, where votes check in but they don't check out. Or where votes multiply under cover of darkness.
It's easier to rig the pull-down lever machines that they use in NY and other places before you could ever "rob citizens of their votes" using the Diebold machines.
The former PR head that is in charge of this voting machine hullaballoo (who also was the PR rep for Burkett in 2000), is blowing smoke up our collective butts.
From what I understand, there are redundancies built into the system. For those of you unfamiliar with the system, this is how it works:
1) You go to the polls and do whatever ministerial acts that are required to sign in to vote. For example, in Georgia, you fill out an affidavit that you live where you claim you do, and show the poll sitter your identification.
2) the poll sitter gives you a SIM card, which looks like one of those DirectTV cards that they use to record what channels you can watch and what pay-per-view movies that you paid for.
3) you put the voting card into the machine and it loads the ballot. You vote by touching the screen for the candidate you want to vote for.
4) When you finish, the machine lets you review your ballot to ensure that you didn't vote wrong.
5) When you tell the machine that the ballot is okay, you get the card back. Presumably, the machine records your vote to the machine itself AND the card.
6) You give the card to a poll sitter on the way out.
As a result, there are MULTIPLE places where your vote is recorded, on the DIEBOLD machines and on the cards themselves. From my understanding, the vote can be recreated by rereading the cards.
In contrast, if you vote on an old lever machine, your vote just moves the odometer-like device and adds a vote to each. There is no paper trail. If there's an irregularity, your vote evaporates.
Please correct me if I am wrong.
With an audit trail, paper backup, encrypted, bar-coded digital signatures on each paper copy, etc., electronic voting COULD be a big improvement.
Diebold SUX0rZ for screwing it up.
The whole electronic voting thing is a huge waste of money. In my little hick town we use the fill in the dots forms like kids use on standardized tests. Then we use the scanner (that the schools already own) to read them. Results are nearly instantaneous and no hanging chads. Now if a bunch of rednecks in VT can figure this out why is it so difficult for everyone else?
"Would you like to touch my monkey?"
,,, spank that monkey!
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