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[News] Proprietary Software Continues to Fail in Voting Machines Everywhere

  • Subject: [News] Proprietary Software Continues to Fail in Voting Machines Everywhere
  • From: Roy Schestowitz <newsgroups@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Tue, 25 Dec 2007 03:05:45 +0000
  • Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy
  • Organization: Netscape / schestowitz.com
  • User-agent: KNode/0.10.4
More Voting Machine News

,----[ Quote ]
| Ohio just completed a major study of voting machines. (Here's the report, a 
| gigantic pdf.) And, like the California study earlier this year, they found 
| all sorts of problems...  
`----

http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2007/12/more_voting_mac_1.html

Open source is inevitable. Linux also (unless Windows goes open source). Even
medical equipment and the stock market have moved to Linux for reliability
recently.


Recent:

S.F. supervisors' panel backs Sequoia voting machines

,----[ Quote ]
| Such so-called open-source code would allow for public scrutiny of the 
|                ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
| accuracy of the equipment and act as a guard against tampering with 
| elections. The problem is, no company sells open-source systems, citing  
| concerns about giving away their technology to competitors.  
| 
| [...]
| 
| The contract also mandates that Sequoia switch to open-source code within a 
|                   ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
| year if another company brings such a product to the market. Supervisor Tom 
| Ammiano, who sits on the committee, also recommended the creation of a task 
| force to evaluate the city's options in the future, including whether San 
| Francisco could create, manufacture and sell its own voting technology.    
`----

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/12/06/BAQ5TOSG7.DTL


ES&S e-voting system used in California cracked wide open

,----[ Quote ]
| "Once done, all the files can be accessed and potentially modified, including 
| sensitive files such as the password file which can be cracked by openly 
| available cracker programs. New users may be added with known passwords and 
| used by the same attacker or other attackers later."   
`----

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20071205-security-testing-uncovers-severe-security-flaws-in-ess-voting-machines.html


Related:

California to Start Review of Voting Machines

,----[ Quote ]
| Vendors have time to submit their machines including documentation
| and source code until July 1st or face severe restrictions, including
| decertification, for the 2008 elections. Scheduled to start next week,
| the review will include a red-team attack and going through the
| source code.
`----

http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/05/09/2140206&from=rss


,----[ Quote ]
| ...California Secretary of State Debra Bowen commissioned the study
| which pitted two hacker teams, better known as "Red Teams" against
| voting machines manufactured by Diebold, Hart and Sequoia....
| 
| Abbott's team was able to access election data directly by exploiting
| vulnerabilities in the Diebold machine's Windows operating system - an
| operating system that all three e-voting machines use....
| 
| Vigna's team also found physical security on the Sequoia voting
| machine to be inadequate.  They gained access to the machine's insides
| by unscrewing a few locks and discovered that the screws with not
| protected by seals....
| 
| The study adds that all three machines used some form of Windows
| operating system and that each machine's  firmware was easily
| overwritten by the teams...
`----

http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/33137/118/


End the secrecy of electronic voting

,----[ Quote ]
| We have no opportunity to determine whether electronic voting machines are 
| properly programmed to record and count our votes -- merely because the 
| corporate vendors of these machines insist on keeping their programming  
| "source code" a trade secret.
`----

http://www.contracostatimes.com/opinion/ci_6550239?nclick_check=1


E-voting vendor succumbs to California source code demands

,----[ Quote ]
| "... there are serious concerns regarding the motivations and apparent 
| personal agendas of a number of the currently proposed examiners," ES&S 
| exec StevenPearson wrote in a letter agreeing to turn over the source 
| code.
`----

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/06/28/evoting_source_code_disclosure/


John Edwards supports "open source" for voting systems

,----[ Quote ]
| John Edwards has become the first presidential candidate to support 
| "open source code" for election systems. 
`----

http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2007/2662#3258828628252476494


Microsoft Muscles the NYS Legislature

,----[ Quote ]
| Microsoft’s proposed change to state law would effectively render 
| our current requirements for escrow and the ability for independent 
| review of source code in the event of disputes completely meaningless 
| - and with it the protections the public fought so hard for.
`----

http://nyvv.org/blog/bolipariblog.html


Halt e-voting, says election body

,----[ Quote ]
| Despite the commission saying security needed to be "strengthened", Mr Will 
| said: "We are pleased that the evaluations point to a high level of system 
| security and user confidence in e-voting systems tested and that the security 
| and integrity of the polls was not compromised.   
`----

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6926625.stm


Most vote machines lose test to hackers

,----[ Quote ]
| "The vendors appeared to have designed systems that were not high assurance 
| (of security)," said Bishop, a recognized expert on computer security. "The 
| security seems like it was added on.''  
`----

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/07/28/VOTING.TMP&tsp=1


State legislators keep e-voting apps in public hands

,----[ Quote ]
| Microsoft, whose Windows software is used in some of the vendors' devices, 
| sought to amend the law to avoid the strict escrow provisions.  
| 
| [...]
| 
| But Lipari had his worries before the matter was resolved. Earlier 
| this month, in his blog, he called Microsoft the "800-pound gorilla 
| of software development" as he called attention to its plans. Microsoft, 
| he said, had been steadily lobbying legislators and circulating an 
| unsigned document that would redefine the law.
`----

http://www.linuxworld.com/news/2007/062507-state-legislators-keep-e-voting-apps.html?fsrc=rss-linux-news


,----[ Quote ]
| "Nineteen machines had 21 screen freezes or system crashes, producing a
| blue screen and messages about an "illegal operation" or a "fatal
| exception error."
|
| "Especially with this blue-screen problem, you don't know whether it's
| the printer drivers, you don't know whether it's Diebold's own code or
| whether it's Windows,"
`----

http://www.verifiedvotingfoundation.org/article.php?id=6257


,----[ Quote ]
| Problems found in an audit of Diebold tabulation records from an Ohio
| November 2006 election raise questions about whether the database got
| corrupted during the tabulation of election results...
| 
| The database is built from Microsoft's Jet database engine. The
| engine, according to Microsoft, is vulnerable to corruption when a lot
| of concurrent activity is happening with the database, such as what
| occurs on an election night [and Microsoft advises againt using Jet in
| a complex environment]...
| 
| The report mentions that election staff had trouble with the server
| crashing and freezing on election night....
| 
| The report notes that with punch card machines election officials used
| to be able to determine definitively if all ballots had been counted
| in the results....
`----

http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2007/04/diebold_vote_da.html

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