More Diebold flaws and weakness..

[DoctorYO]

http://www.wired.com/news/evote/0,2645,65031,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_1

"Voting activist Bev Harris and a computer scientist say they found more vulnerabilities in an electronic voting system made by Diebold Election Systems, weaknesses that could allow someone to alter votes in the election this November."

"Harris demonstrated the vulnerabilities to officials in the California secretary of state's office several weeks ago and will be showing them to federal legislative staff and journalists Wednesday in Washington, D.C. Harris and another activist have filed a lawsuit against Diebold in California, which the state has joined, maintaining that Diebold engaged in aggressive marketing to sell millions of dollars worth of equipment that it knew was insecure. Harris and the activist stand to make millions from the suit if they and the state win their case."

(the state of california felt stongly enough by Mrs harris's findings to file suit so imo this is not some frivilous Rathergate..)

"Diebold said because the two sets of data are coupled in GEMS it would be impossible for someone to change the summaries without changing the precinct data that feeds the summaries. And if they did, the system would flag the change."

"But Harris said it's possible to change the voting summaries without using GEMS by writing a script in Visual Basic -- a simple, common programming language for Windows-based machines -- that tricks the system into thinking the votes haven't been changed. GEMS runs on the Windows operating system."

"You have to know in advance what you want to change," Thompson said, "but it's pretty easy to write a script to find the data that you want to change. If you want Stan Smith to have more votes than he currently has, you write a line of your script that says select everything in the table where candidate equals Stan Smith, and increment the votes. Then you delete the votes from another candidate by the same amount."


You would think that all software involved would be ROM and such roms would be held to some type of standard on a federal/state level not a private company level... (Diebold)


My opinion on the matter is that if Diebold  or any company that tries to build the best system for whatever trade or business they do, then why does Diebolds vote machine have all of these vulnrabilities.. this is rudimentry stuff from a computer security standpoint..

Why cant our voting machines have checks and balances..(if a vegas slot machine does, what the American vote is less important..) If my EL cheapo adding machine in front of me (calculator with ribbon) has a paper trail why can't the highest decision american voters get to make have no such checks and balances..  Whether your republican or democrat or plain ole american this should concern you..

if a political party / entity can call the shots or influenece a election now then whos next...  China..  Iran..  DPRK.... tampering with us..

The vulnrabilites that exist in the diebold machine from a computer engineer standpoint are so bad that you would be hard not to consider some type of other agenda by the diebold company...  

we all have windows machines here.. wtf are these people thinking.. (just from the standpoint in security; less use or obscurity is better. .  WTF>....  WTF>>>>  Visual Basic....  scripts this crap is childs play...


There has been biased and questional statements by Diebolds current leadership in support of a certain canidate..  IMO that discredits your ability to be fair..why taint your company as fair and balanced when you go on the record stating political preference...  

Thats the problem...

I encourage everyone.. (parties aside..) to use the absentee ballot system if you want your vote to count..

human nature is human nature..  dont fool youself that the powers at be will count your vote with no record of such physical transaction....



DoctorYo

[Skuzzy]

This is pretty old news.  Voting absentee will not change the fact  these machines (already installed in Florida, if I recall) can be manipulated in about 30 seconds or less.
The security problems have been known for quite some time now.

[DoctorYO]

This is new vuln.. the original Vulns were when MIT think tank busted them..

This is new attack on GEMS..  with visual basic notepad attack..(script kiddies rejoice..) I might add..

The other vulns found before was against the voting machine itself..

This is against the machine that tallies those voting machines..


DoctorYo

[Skuzzy]

Yes, I am aware of that.  I watched a security analyst demonstrate the problem on the news one night.  That was a few months ago.
I have no idea what you are referring to about MIT though.  The guy that demostrated this was just a security hack.

[AKS\/\/ulfe]

I don't understand why they would move to electronic based voting ballots in the first place.

Cracking electronic devices is only a matter of time, and these systems seemed to have been hurridly put into place.
-SW

[Skuzzy]

They were sold to the states based on how easy it is to use and how foolproof they are (i.e. voters will make fewer mistakes).

All the government facilities I have ever dealt with had very little security knowledge about thier network.  Sort of frightening.

Of course, we are assuming our votes actually mean anything.  After all, the electoral college will not be using these devices.

[rpm]

Anything Windows based is hackable. Anything hackable will be hacked. Diebold and a couple other voting machine companies have a lot of questions floating around, including ethics. It's a disaster waiting to happen.

[john9001]

"""Voting activist Bev Harris """

translation:::: the neo-cons are trying to steal another election.

[Scootter]

We have this crap thanks to a few whining tards here in Florida who can't punch a hole in a card and who cant read or follow 2nd grade directions.

This same group now whines saying there is no paper trail (there is of course) but it was the paper cards that were blamed in the first place, go figure.

[ra]

There is nothing wrong with the old voting methods.  The dum basses in Florida caused this whole mess with their crying.  Windfall for Diebold.  

I would trust dangling chads before I would trust a digital vote.

[Karnak]

Originally posted by john9001
"""Voting activist Bev Harris """

translation:::: the neo-cons are trying to steal another election.

translation of the translation:::: I don't care becuase if it is stolen, it will be stolen for my guy.

[rpm]

Originally posted by Scootter
We have this crap thanks to a few whining tards here in Florida who can't punch a hole in a card and who cant read or follow 2nd grade directions.

This same group now whines saying there is no paper trail (there is of course) but it was the paper cards that were blamed in the first place, go figure.

Better check again. There is no paper record kept with the digital voting. That was one of the reasons California stopped using them.

[Scootter]

Originally posted by rpm371
Better check again. There is no paper record kept with the digital voting. That was one of the reasons California stopped using them.

Already have Aug 31 when I voted in the primary here in the county. There is a paper receipt that is checked with the votes cast by the unit, this is kept with the records in the election office. I inquired about the accountability and there is a total kept in the machine that is cross checked with the paper print out and the magnetic card that the vote is cast on is also retained, thus three separate RETAINED backup checks.

 http://www.sequoiavote.com/article.php?id=56

I have no idea what system they have on the left coast but it sounds like a bad one.

Now you go get informed

[DoctorYO]

We have this crap thanks to a few whining tards here in Florida who can't punch a hole in a card and who cant read or follow 2nd grade directions.

There is nothing wrong with the old voting methods. The dum basses in Florida caused this whole mess with their crying. Windfall for Diebold.

I dont agree I was here for that election..

The voters in the past had no such problems.. why the 2000 election..  I tell you why.. It was a heated highly contested race..  I dont put it past both parties for shananagins for that election..

exp A..

What would stop a poll worker or even a counter from ticking extra checks on the ballots then presenting them as a disqualified vote..

Its not rocket science...

By checking 2 ticks you bring discredit to that persons vote most likely throwing it out..

So these claims of floridian incompetence is the work of letterman and mainly Jay Leno.. the rest of the media followed suit and now we have His-story as opposed to History..

Then the time crunch came in and kathreen harris outsmarted (supreme courted) the democrats becuase there not called the dumbocrats for nothing...

But these claims of incomptence are unfounded..

We have a high ratio of elderly here but being elderly doesn't make you incompetent, they have voted like how many times in their life..  Like riding a bike..

But magically the most contested vote in my lifetime there was alot of crapola..

mark my words i highly expect more shenanagins this election too..  Taking bets on what state this time has a problem..


California, Florida, New York, or Insert your favorite.. (anything with a high electorial college rating would be most tactical)

My money is on florida again..  Considering what has already happened this year with felon list voter intimidation in TB and other crapola. Hey i would pull strings for my brother if i could thats human nature.... make your own deductions..


DoctorYo

[lazs2]

ahh... yer guy is gonna lose so... being a democrat it is best to get "alternative" ways in place.  

lazs