E-Voting Bites

CBS News ^ | Oct 23, 2006 | Genevieve Smith.

[wouldntbprudent]

What will happen in November? Are electronic voting machines secure? One need not believe in a vast plot to rig the elections to take those questions seriously — and to be pessimistic about the answers.

When Princeton researchers announced in September that the Diebold Accuvote TS voting machine software was vulnerable to tampering, it was the first time that independent computer scientists had confirmed the weaknesses long suspected in techie circles. A few days later, in a minute-and-a-half segment on Fox News, Professor Edward Felten demonstrated just how easy it would be to steal an election (to which the blonde and tanned anchors responded with the canned surprise you'd expect from a demonstration of a new food processor).

[rlmorel]

Yeah. We all know how much the Liberals trust those things, and how qualified they are to use them...

[mysterio]

I don't care how much liberals trust or don't trust paper ballots. A 14 year old kid can't hack a paper election.

[cydcharisse]

I love these old mechanical machines. They've worked, never a hint of scandal, easy to operate and count the votes simply and accurately.

I dread the new "improved" stuff we've got coming to us.

[ThomasThomas]

If it's rolled up on a spool, how do they prevent reconstruction of the order in which votes were cast?


The rolls are not assessable to the poll workers and would be read only if there were a recount by the worker in the counting office. Each polling place has several voting machines. Also after you made all your choices it is printed on the paper for you to view, then you have the choice of changing if you made a mistake. There must be a process that marks these as not valid and then prints your new choices. In case of a recount these must be removed somehow. At my poll I go to any open machine. Other than these things I don't know what is done at the count office.

[supercat]

The rolls are not assessable to the poll workers and would be read only if there were a recount by the worker in the counting office.

In a proper secret-ballot election, it's impossible for anyone to ever tell how a particular person voted unless the election was all but unanimous in a particular precinct (if there were 300 ballots cast in a precinct, 299 of them were for Joe Quimby, and one was for Lionel Hutz, the person who voted for Lionel Hutz would know that each of the other 299 ballots was cast by someone voting for Quimby).

If the ballots are stored, in order, on a paper roll there's no way a voter can be sure people won't discover how he voted. By contrast, if someone drops a card into a box which is large relative to the number of cards such that the card can fall randomly, then (especially if the box is turned over occasionally) it's impossible to associate any particular ballot with any particular voter.

[ThomasThomas]

I have never seen anyone wearing gloves to vote. Paper ballots are touched by each voter leaving fingers prints. My polling place is in a privately owned clubhouse where cameras would be easy to hide. Impossible is impossible. The best we can do is highly improbable. As for the Lionel Hutz, Quimby vote. Quimby would get Fat Tony to replace all the paper ballots with his own.

[rlmorel]

Yes...a 14 year old can hack a paper ballot.

The most secure computers around can be hacked if physical access to them is granted.

Paper ballots can be added to, altered, removed or destroyed if access to them is not strictly monitored. When someone can confirm on each and every singular base by base casis that ALL ballots are in custody of a VERIFIABLY trusted organization, then I will concede that paper is inherently safer.

[Neidermeyer]

The real problem is trust,, for decades the League of Women Voters in Miami-Dade stole elections for RATS by pre-punching ballots for the RAT candidates (using a drill press with a smooth punch ,, doing dozens of ballots at a time),, in 1992 they were caught by 2 Miami Herald reporters in the act who took some of the "spoiled" ballots to the Dade AG (Janet Reno) ,, Reno had the reporters arrested for stealing the election materials... it was then that Clinton saw her value and picked her up for his team.. Using the drill press for punching ballots lead to some off-center punches , and some incomplete punches ("pregnant") .. of course all ballots that had both a valid Bush punch and the manufactured Gore punch were automatically invalidated..

I don't like the electronic machines ,, they will always be susceptible to hacking ,, best to go with the punch card or scanner options.

[kevkrom]

Sure, lets go back to hanging and pregnant chads while we're at it

Optical scan ballots have the lowest error rates, period. No punch-cards, simply mark the correct box. You can even make sure your ballot scans correctly before you drop it in the ballot box.

It's simple, accountable, and has a complete paper trail.

[LibLieSlayer]

The hacker couldn't break their encryption. MS is a joke... and if you don't think that MS leaves holes and backdoors on purpose, I have bridge to sell you! LOL

LLS

[wouldntbprudent]

Yes, your observation reminds me of one made by Walter Williams re gun laws and the District of Columbia.

Seems D.C. has some of the strictest gun laws in the nation, while nearby VA has some of the most lenient. D.C. residents were complaining that people went to VA to get guns.

Williams observed that that may be, but that the "guns" didn't start killing people until they were brought into D.C., so what do you make of that?

[wouldntbprudent]

Yep, and this ride lasted, what, 3-4 months? I remember thinking, what a great country---we have a very great question regarding the succession of power and we just calmly (institutionally, I mean---there was nothing "calm" about it for me) go about the steps created by our Founding Fathers, and the subordinate levels of government, for sorting out the question.

[wouldntbprudent]

Never heard that particular story.

[DBrow]

For one thing, the video is obviously cut-and-pasted. There is nothing in the visuals that unambiguously verifies what the voiceover is saying. You see multiple cuts of button pushing (without seeing the card being used btw), then more cuts, then ta-dah! A tape with printing on it, which the voice tells us is the result of their Magic Software.

This software is absolutely amazing- it has a long list of functions, all undetectable, it can delete itself without a trace (truly magical- ask a geek if Windows CE allows files to autonomously delete themselves without a trace). The malware can propagate over a network (before deciding to delete itself) and take over the operating systems of other machines without a reboot or detection.

Installing the malware via memory card requires leaving the infected card in the slot after breaking the seal, otherwise a reboot would load the correct software. "Merely" replacing the eeprom requires considerable access, and I doubt that the motherboard can reprogram its own eeprom, so tampering would be evident.

They did not demonstrate that their malware works or even exists- they just made assertions backed up with a video James Randi would throw out in a picosecond. Their written report is filled with caveats like "it could be done", "it is possible that", "it may be.." and so forth.

They even claim that getting access to the eeprom boot chip is undetectable!

In reality, the poll worker would notice that the machine was turned on, and that the security seals were breached (and if the poll worker is in on it you are hosed even with paper ballots). In any case, checking the security seal will reveal tampering. Checking the contents of the memory card will show tampering with that, unless the malware can detect being transported to a forensic computer lab and then erases itself.

The Princeton research should be looked at in the same light as that other example of scholarly research, the proven fact that the WTC collapsed because some team of people pre-planted demo charges, then faked plane crashes. In that case, you have a scholarly written report by real college professors and a pasted-together video on YouTube.

The "fact" that a mini-bar key can open a voting machine remains to be proven. I have seen lots of mini-bars, and most open with the electronic card room key. In Albuquerque, there was a key, and it was not stamped Diebold. The mini-bar key is a made up story- he pulls a Diebold key out of his pocket, says it's a hotel mini-bar key, and the reporter goes, Gosh! with no more follow up than Barbara Walters interviewing Hillary Clinton.

That would only work in the few states where the requirement is that all of the voting machines be keyed the same- not the case everywhere.

What the Princeton prof has done is create a fantasy that allows one to take an election that did not turn out correctly and throw it to the courts, since if there is no sign of tampering, then the entire system must have been tampered with because there is no evidence at all of tampering- just what that Princeton guy says.

Remember the college prof who stated that the Pyramids in Egypt were built by flying black people with wings, but the white people destroyed all the evidence? Maybe you'd find it interesting, if all it takes is a prof with a story.

[DBrow]

never a hint of scandal,

Mayor Curley in Boston would disagree.

[cydcharisse]

Referring to NY state elections since I've been voting (1962)

[supercat]

You see multiple cuts of button pushing (without seeing the card being used btw), then more cuts, then ta-dah! A tape with printing on it, which the voice tells us is the result of their Magic Software.

The video itself is not proof of anything; it is merely an illustration of the points made in their white paper.

Some essential facts gleaned from the white paper were that, at least in the version tested...

1. Someone could boot the machine off a memory card, and have that card alter other software contained in the machine.
2. The machine itself ran code from a medium which was rewritable under program control.
3. Physical security for the machines consisted of a relatively generic low-security lock. Many cheap file cabinets, mini-bars, and other such things use simple locks from a number of vendors. Such locks often have less than 100 different keys across all applications and keys are hard neither to get nor to duplicate.
4. While you are correct that a virus' attempt to spread could be detected if someone examined an infected memory card, this does not imply that it would be detected before an election. Further, infected machines could remove all trace of the virus from themselves after the election. If the virus isn't detected until after an election, it may be impossible to tell which machines were infected and whether such infection affected the election.
5. Although Diebold claims these flaws are fixed, that they exist in the first place is evidence IMHO that Diebold was never serious about security.
6. Nothing I have read gives any indication that Diebold has added any security against insider attacks, which are an even more insidious problem than the outsider attacks noted by the observers. Any machine with such clear weaknesses against outsider attacks will almost certainly have worse weaknesses against insider attacks.

A good voting system should be at least as secure as paper ballots against both outsider attacks and insider attacks. Diebold is perhaps clueless about preventing the latter, since ATMs face very different risks from voting machines (among other things, since ATMs log every transaction, any funny business will be detected and tracked down).

[supercat]

That would only work in the few states where the requirement is that all of the voting machines be keyed the same- not the case everywhere.

BTW, why should Diebold supply any sort of lock? Far better to design the machine so it cannot be opened if a padlock is attached to either/any of two or more spaces. That way each party can supply their representative with a padlock that they trust and not have to worry about whether any voting officials have surreptitiously copied the keys.

[Ramius]

A good voting system should be at least as secure as paper ballots against both outsider attacks and insider attacks.

You're kidding, right? Paper ballots are secure? Like the ones in Chicago? The ones in Seattle? LOL... yeah, right...

[supercat]

A good voting system should be at least as secure as paper ballots against both outsider attacks and insider attacks.

You're kidding, right? Paper ballots are secure? Like the ones in Chicago? The ones in Seattle? LOL... yeah, right...

I said at least as secure. If a system can't even manage that level of security, what's the point?