Voting-Machine Makers To Fight Security Criticism

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A47436-2003Dec8.html

Electronic-voting-machine companies announced yesterday that they are banding together to counter mounting concerns about whether their machines are secure enough to withstand tampering by hackers.

Although less than 20 percent of the nation's counties use electronic voting machines, their use is growing in the wake of the problems with punch-card ballots in Florida that threw the 2000 presidential election into turmoil. Last year Congress passed the Help America Vote Act, which provides funds for states and localities to modernize their election systems.

But several academic and cyber-security experts argue that the new machines, which let voters make their choices on video screens, have disturbing security flaws.

<snip>

Security experts also worry about mischievous insiders at the voting-machine companies. That fear was fanned when Walden W. O'Dell, chief executive of Diebold Inc., told Republicans in an Aug. 14 fundraising letter that he is "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president."

[stickdog]

1. Great that they are banding together.

Now all we have to do is ban them forever.

[Myra]

2. Now they can create a file called save_vote_fraud.zip and put it...

in the same directory as rob_Georgia.zip.

[alittlelark]

10. I'm sick of the looting.........

votes, treasury..it's all the same. In a convoluted and ugly way.:puke:

[Jeebo]

3. That's not what I'm concerned about...

<<Electronic-voting-machine companies announced yesterday that they are banding together to counter mounting concerns about whether their machines are secure enough to withstand tampering by hackers.>>

Grrr, I wish somebody would tell those Diebold and ES&S and Sequoia people that outside hackers are not the only thing I'm worried about; I'm also worried about THEM, the companies themselves, and the people inside their companies. I don't trust THEM to count our votes accurately and honestly. Why doesn't anybody ever tell them that to their face?

Ron

[glitch]

4. I wonder about that too

Everybody seems to pussyfoot around the issue, except the folks demanding open source. The media sure doesn't mention it.

[dusty64]

14. Much to my surprise they actually

did mention it, but there is SO much more below the surface. The MANY "christian" reconstructionists in these companies and their VERY extremist and frightening beliefs and desire to turn our country into Afghanistan is certainly worthy of attention.

[glitch]

28. you're right, I should've said mention it 'much'

The ownership by christian reconstructionists is my biggest concern, I would love to see full exposure of that on the front page of the NYT.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

20. Exactly.

I'm less worried about outside hackers than inside Hacks!

[joeunderdog]

29. The most haunting part of the Repukes brash style of politics

is that they operate as if their incumbancy is not in the balance. They vote for things that are not popular (despite bogus poling) and ram thru their agenda as if they fear no reprisal. Bush goes after overtime pay, the environment, Vets, the poor, minorities, women and anyone else he can offend, and he does so without worry about losing votes.

It's as if the outcome of the next election is already IN THE BAG.

Does anyone else wonder how he can justify such an offensive style? What does he know?

[loudsue]

34. Bingo! Their "Look over there" approach is weak, at best.

Hey buddy!!! It's not just the outside hackers we're concerned about!!!!

Good point, Jeebo!! Let's drive it home in our e-mails and activism. This is central to the whole argument.

:kick:

[Fridays Child]

5. Will one break away and do the right thing?

Properly timed and marketed, such a move could become an industry coup.

[proud patriot]

7. It would be brillant if they did

cause they would be the one to get contracts .

[ParanoidPat]

6. Gee! Wasn't the secret teleconference a couple of months ago?

You remember, the one that David Allen from Plan 9 Publishing (Bev's publisher) sat in on and reported about here? :shrug:

Hmmmm, I wonder why they waited so long to make this 'announcement'? :evilgrin:

How quickly they forget! :)

[shirlden]

24. This is very likely from that secret meeting

That meeting was set up by our old friend R. Doug Lewis of The Election Center and is a major part of the (dare I say conspiracy) going on over these electronic vote stealing machines and the Help Steal American's Vote Act.
The League of Women's voters posted a pdf this week full of industry BS. They have totally lost their credibility by posting a paper that was no doubt written by and as a part of this PR assult by the ITAA.

All Duers need to join this fight. What good is it going to do you to campaign for "your candidate" if your vote is going to be counted by Diebold?

Go to blackboxvoting.org and join us.

:kick:

[Dover]

8. Did something big happen yet, as Bev promised the other day?

She and others who have been working on this issue mentioned there is another big whammy coming up soon to crack open this e-voting problem even further.

[PennyLane]

9. Some Local Ohio Stuff

This is getting a lot of attention here, as Diebold is located in
Columbus.

Election reform or deform?
By Nick Wilkinson

"Imagine it’s Election Day 2004," U.S. Rep. Rush Holt (D-NJ) said in May 2003. "You enter your local polling place and go to cast your vote on a brand new ‘touch screen’ voting machine. The screen says your vote has been counted. As you exit the voting booth, however, you begin to wonder. How do I know if the machine actually recorded my vote? The fact is — you don’t."


http://www.daytoncitypaper.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=381&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0

[Zhade]

32. Hmmm. Is this a direct quote?

Aside from the problems discovered by Compuware, there are other larger issues at play. According to Dill, one of HAVA’s most contentious aspects was the absence of a "voter verifiable paper receipt," which he claims voters need in order to be sure their vote was cast correctly. Dill founded verifiedvoting.org, which dedicates itself to advocating against current versions of the DREs.

I know, I know, I sound like a broken record here, but -- BALLOT. Not receipt. A receipt is utterly worthless for use as part of an independent verified audit trail.

I hope this was a misquote - I assume Dr. Dill knows that a receipt in the sense of a slip of paper the voter takes home does not meet the necessary requirements of such a trail.

[Eloriel]

33. No, Dill insists on this language --

and IMO it plays right into yhe VoteHere "solution" which he also believes is worthy of a look.

Very disheartening.

[Myra]

13. Big news still coming I think.

And no I don't know the details.

[grannylib]

31. I don't either, but I think part of it may have been a really organized

letter-writing/commentary-submitting thing; I have been seeing a lot more attention being paid to this issue in the last week or so...but I hope there is more to come and that there is more we can all do to help

[PennyLane]

11. $500 dollars Doesn't Seem Like Much to Eat!

.......if you can add the paper trail and sew up the market!

[shirlden]

22. The 500 bucks figure is vendor BS

In Santa Clara County Calif. the vendors offered to include ballot printers at no extra cost. There are at least two vendors who now offer ballot printers on their Dres. The EVM project is working hard on completing their open-source, ballot printing, Hava compliant voting machine will will sell for under a thousand bucks and will not be owned by Repug thugs with their own agenda.

Please, DUERS, go to blackboxvoting.org and join your state forum to become active in the fight.

:bounce:

[GalleryGod]

12. Looking at the Posts Around here, Are We Even VOTING THis year?

IMHO.:shrug: or Just Cyber-Polling?

[The Zanti Regent]

15. Every Democrat should DEMAND an Absentee Ballot

and we should moitor EVERY polling Place!

[Sideways]

30. You Dear Are Tiresome

Trolling about looking for shit to kick up....drop it already. You are just so tired. Go to bed. Really. Just go to bed.

[DrBB]

16. Hey guys, here's an idea

How's about you band together to actually IMPROVE YOUR SOFTWARE, hm? How's about you put as much effort into FIXING all those security holes as you do into papering 'em over with PR and telling people to look the other way? Then you wouldn't have these problems.

Good news here: I like the way O'Dell's idiot comment is becoming the soundbite for this whole issue. Seems a lot of journalists have started covering this not least because O'Dell's idiotic statement gives them an easy way to encapsule the whole issue.

[Robb]

17. I can see the next headline

"Diebold assures the press that our nation is confident about their voting machines."

"...In a nationwide poll conducted by Diebold, 94% of Americans are confident in touchscreen voting. Activist's cries of irony were met with silence."

[baldguy]

18. How would we know if they fixed the software?

They won't show the source code. They won't let independant auditers test the equipment. All they say is "trust us!"

Only, they haven't been to trustworthy so far, have they?

[Just Me]

19. Fight rather than fix security concerns,...

,...and why, precisely, would they do that? If they are sincere in providing a reliable product, wouldn't they invite rather than fight security skeptics. Don't know about anyone else, but this "fight" just embrazons suspicion,...in my view.

[Fovea]

21. Two Words...

Paper Audit.

[shirlden]

25. Paper Audit not good enough

Four words.....Voter Verifiable Paper Ballot.


:kick:

[corarose]

23. I see riots in the future where voters/public will

Go in take the machines and toss them out in order to be able to have a free election but it won't be any time soon it will take several more sElections before that happens.

[shirlden]

26. The suggestion has been made that

we attend the Dem convention in Boston and stage another "Tea Party" by throwing the voting machines into Boston Harbor. Properly costumed, of course.

:bounce:

[corarose]

27. So how do you organize this?

Silently right? Sounds like a good Idea.