$7.5 M Awarded to Study Electronic Voting

[dooner]

Yahoo News (John Hopkins News Release)
8/16

BALTIMORE - Armed with a $7.5 million grant from the
National Science Foundation, Johns Hopkins University is leading a new effort to improve the reliability of electronic voting machines.

The project's goal is to design the most foolproof, transparent voting system possible, officials said Monday.

"I don't think with today's technology we can have a voting system that is fully electronic that can be trusted," said Avi Rubin, a computer science professor. He will head a new Hopkins center called ACCURATE, short for A Center for Correct, Usable, Reliable, Auditable and Transparent Elections.

Rubin told The (Baltimore) Sun he hopes the center will provide information in time for the 2008 presidential contest, but that its research will take longer.

Rubin has been an outspoken critic of computerized voting. In 2003, he co-authored a report that found voting machines from Diebold Elections Systems were vulnerable to hackers, multiple votes and vote-switching.
(snip)

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050816/ap_on_re_us/electronic_voting;_ylt=AuxcbP.fnRj9T6eKrvr.yICs0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA3OXIzMDMzBHNlYwM3MDM-

[annabanana]

1. The more honest brokers on this task, the better..

Rate this puppy UP

[iconoclastic cat]

2. $7.5 million really isn't very much money.

[annabanana]

3. peanuts, really

I'd like to see a whole lot more thrown that way..

[Kelvin Mace]

9. It beats $0

or the $1 million that went to Bev Harrtis and produced NOTHING.

This is a good developement.

[iconoclastic cat]

10. It beats a kick in the crotch, too.

[nashville_brook]

4. here's something on the researcher -- nominted too, always good news

no matter what the sum.

anyone know anything about his past research? this is from
http://www.avirubin.com/

Dr. Aviel D. Rubin is Professor of Computer Science and Technical
Director of the Information Security Institute at Johns Hopkins
University. Prior to joining Johns Hopkins, Rubin was a research
scientist at AT&T Labs. He is also a co-founder of Independent
Security Evaluators (securityevaluators.com), a security consulting
firm. Rubin is author of several books including Brave New Ballot
(Random House, 2006) Firewalls and Internet Security, second
edition (with Bill Cheswick and Steve Bellovin, Addison Wesley,
2003), White-Hat Security Arsenal (Addison Wesley, 2001), and Web
Security Sourcebook (with Dan Geer and Marcus Ranum, John Wiley &
Sons, 1997). He is Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions on
Software Engineering, Associate Editor of ACM Transactions on
Internet Technology, Associate Editor of IEEE Security & Privacy,
and an Advisory Board member of Springer's Information Security
and Cryptography Book Series. Rubin serves on the DARPA Information
Science and Technology Study Group. In January, 2004 Baltimore
Magazine name Rubin a Baltimorean of the Year for his work in
safeguarding the integrity of our election process, and he is
also the recipient of the 2004 Electronic Frontiers Foundation
Pioneer Award. Rubin has a B.S, ('89), M.S.E ('91), and
Ph.D. ('94) from the University of Michigan.

[KoKo]

5. I hope this will be good...but Hopkins has ties to Bush..

I can't remember off top of my head, maybe someone else can. And, wasn't there a joint elections report with MIT/UCLA that already did a report after 2000 which compared the methods of voting. I did some research on that and one of the MIT people involved with the report was a big Bush donor and supporter. That report did have a few computer scientists who didn't seem to have an "axe to grind." I looked up every name on that report and it's how I found the Bush guy from MIT.

[Kelvin Mace]

8. Rubin and his team have excellent cred on this issue

they don't belong to anyone.

[dooner]

6. Avi Rubin is a good guy

Here's another thread about a tech conference he spoke at recently:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=203&topic_id=386276

[NMDemDist2]

7. kicked and nominated n/t

[Chicago Democrat]

11. We need even more money... but compared to prior efforts THIS IS GODSENT

Let's hope its an honest attempt. More money should be raised....


Hey Jane Fonda, could Ted spare a few million?
Hey George Soros, lets make America a Democracy again like the Ukraine?

[theplutsnw]

12. Does NO ONE see the irony in this???

Since Andy had his surgery at Johns Hopkins! This sounds like good news to me. It is at least a start.

[dooner]

15. wow, didn't think of that. n.t

[Demeter]

13. By The Time This Study Is Complete

the issue will be moot--there won't be any elections in this country any more.

[mom cat]

14. Plain printed paper ballots could be ready for an election next week!

Until the perfect electronic solution is available...use paper.:think: