Diebold e-Voting Machines Can Be Opened With Standard Hotel Key Available Online
from the great-security dept
As Diebold continues to try (weakly) to defend itself from yet another batch of evidence that their security isn't particularly secure, Ed Felten points out another weakness in Diebold's defense. The company likes to claim that on top of the computer security aspect (which study after study has found is lacking) they have "physical" security. Avi Rubin's report from the field last week showed that the "security tape" and "security tags" on the machines aren't particularly secure at all (removing them and replacing them without anyone noticing is easy -- and apparently done quite often). However, a colleague of Felten has also noticed that the "lock" on the box uses an off-the-shelf standard key seen for things like hotel minibars. Apparently, it's quite easy to buy an identical key online or at an office furniture shop. In other words, the physical security isn't so secure. It's just designed to look secure, so they can say it's secure.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.
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Why isn't this company held accountable?
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How many times do we have to see this?
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Re: How many times do we have to see this?
They're not nearly as incompetent as they'd have you believe.
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Why don't they?
Think about it. We could even have a direct democracy and bypass politicians all together.
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Re: Why don't they?
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Re: Re: Why don't they?
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Re: Why don't they?
(for those of you just joining us at home: that was a joke, with actual valid reference and deep meaning that is on topic)
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Re: Why don't they?
If more people understood our voting system, then there would be demand for change. But the polititions do NOT want that to happen...why should they, when they're basically the only ones who know the rules of the game?
It doesn't matter if our votes are counted perfectly or made up by a random number generator at this point, because the system is broken. Debating the security of voting machines is just a distraction from the real task: we need to debate the very structure of our voting system!
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Re:
Diebold gets a cut on the front end from counties purchasing machines, and a cut on the back end from the politicians who want to win the election any way possible. Great business plan...
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Here is something to debate...
Given the rule that people are generally stupid...do we really want a true democracy?
Also, readers of this site are probably slightly more intelligent than say inner city folk and trailer trash that continually vote for more handouts...do we really want people that desire free handouts voting? I certainly don't. I pay enough property tax to put kids that I don't have through school. If I were to take my property tax and invest it, I'd have more than enough to pay for schooling for the children I may have in the future. Why can't anyone else be trusted to do this?
Landowners ONLY should vote in local elections.
A more extensive civics course needs to be required at the highschool level or independantly partially subsidized by the gov't. The basis of this course costing a few hundred dollars is to only allow people who actually care to vote. If someone can't figure out how to raise $200 or so by the time they're 18...I really don't think I feel comfortable having them anywhere near a ballot box. I'll stop now... *hides under asbestos plate*
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RE: Here is something to debate...
I am not a property owner but I know more than the average person - are you sure I couldn't vote wisely?
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The Road Political e-Monarchy
The lack of funding and the donation of time from developers has enabled politicians to control who wins public bids forvoting machines.
Many efforts have popped up on sites such as
http://evm2003.sourceforge.net/
http://www.openvotingconsortium.org/
http://www.openvotingfounda tion.org/
Diebold obtained its certification wrongfully by not declaring some of the custom components of their software as custom components. This exempted these components from oversight by independent testing authorities (ITAs) assigned to the task.
Upon examining the inner workings of one of the most popular paperless touch screen voting machines used in public elections in the United States, it has been determined that with the flip of a single switch inside, the machine can behave in a completely different manner compared to the tested and certified version.
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Everyone Must Be Able to Vote
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Seems like no one mentioned...
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Can you tell me where I can buy a key for one of those?
Diebold can obviously create a machine secure enough to dispense money and keep a paper trail the bank can follow.
So Diebold is not incompetent.
Why do they have difficulty with vote machines then?
The obvious answer, in my opinion, is that Diebold is corrupt.
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if it ain't broke…
On the contrary, I would like to emphasize the great contribution to democracy of another technology, namely chemistry, which permitted the invention of the TRANSPARENT ballot box.
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Not even a 1337 g33k can understand this...
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