[DBrow]

Physical security also consists of tamper seals and locked rooms.

How does the program delete itself without a trace? This is "Magic Software" that can on paper or in specs do anything.

The machine booted its election program from an embedded eeprom. Details about the election was loaded from a card- not the operating program, according to Diebold.

As for Diebold not releasing any info about hacks, you never read info about LoJack, and Master does not sell lockpick manuals. I wonder why...

The infection could also be detected after an election, during an investigation. The claim that the virus is undetectable and deletes itself tracelessly is unproven. If true, it would be a first in the virus world, especially for such a magic virus that has so many features.

A good voting system must be much better than paper ballots. Many want a return to paper just because it was so insecure; all the hacks for the paper system have been worked out for years and people are good at it by now, with occasional problems like 99% or even 115% turnouts.

I'll believe the Princeton "experts" when they conduct a real demo, with FBI, James Randi, FEC, and maybe Jimmy Carter watching.

[supercat]

How does the program delete itself without a trace? This is "Magic Software" that can on paper or in specs do anything.

It's pretty easy, at least if one isn't concerned about people using advanced forensic techniques on the machines in question. If one is only concerned about removing all trace from a file-level view, it's really easy. The fake software, upon installing itself, renames the old version. Then, when the fake software is run for the last time, it deletes itself from the disk/flash (still running in RAM) and then renames the old version back to its proper name.

If one is worried about people doing sector-level analysis, things are a bit tougher. For best stealth, one should identify some highly-compressible files in the original installation. Compress them, and put the malware in the space that's freed up. The last time the malware is run, it should uncompress those files and put them back where they belong.

Why do you regard these techniques as some impossible magic? The techniques have been common in bootloader design for a long time.

[supercat]

The infection could also be detected after an election, during an investigation.

Horse. Barn door.

If in a particular election, some machines are found to have been compromised and the number of voters who used those machines exceeds the difference between the vote tallies the top two candidates received elsewhere, how can the election be salvaged?

Of course, at least in Washington State, such a thing wouldn't matter so long as the Democrats win. But not all states have such attitudes.

BTW, why use WINCE? I've designed graphical systems on 'bare metal' that would be entirely adequate for use in a vote entry device. Such a system can be constructed to account for every byte of RAM or flash usage. Can the same be said for WINCE?