The Diebold Hack Test Mystery
from the it-comes-and-goes dept
We've already said why we though that the State of California was making a mistake in hiring a single hacker to try to break into Diebold's e-voting machines. The main issue is that it puts the burden on the wrong party. Diebold should be required to show how secure their e-voting machines are -- something they appear afraid to do. Letting just a single hacker have at the system is a bad idea. Should that hacker not break in, then suddenly Diebold (and various politicians) may use that single data point to say that the machines are perfectly fine. However, the whole story is getting confusing. While the original hack was supposed to take place this week, on Monday there were reports that it wasn't yet scheduled. Technocrat.net is pointing to a forum posting on the Black Box Voting Site that outlines the confusing timeline of this story. It appears that the California Secretary of State Bruce McPherson invited Black Box Voting to hack into the Diebold machine on November 30th. He later asks them to confirm, even changing the time on the 30th when it will occur. They confirm... and never hear from him again. At the same time, both McPherson's office and Black Box Voting separately approached the same security expert to handle the hacking -- though it turns out he's busy. McPherson's office, without ever getting an official word from the hacker, announce to the press that he's the guy who will perform the hacking. Then, earlier this week, McPherson seems to deny that he ever set a date for the test. In other words, no one seems to know what's going on.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
No Subject Given
[ link to this | view in thread ]
How to hack an election
http://www.equalccw.com/dieboldtestnotes.html
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Too prepared
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Should We Be Surprised
http://www.illmethinks.com
g
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Should We Be Surprised
[ link to this | view in thread ]