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Readers have reported that this story contains information that may not be accurate.Scientists Prove that Voting Machines are being Hacked
article.wn.com — Computer scientists from California universities have hacked into three electronic voting systems used in California and elsewhere in the nation and found several ways in which vote totals could potentially be altered.
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- bratpack8, on 11/27/2007, -8/+282no paper trail, no evidence. unbelievable that these machines are moving forward.
- xGrill, on 11/27/2007, -71/+3For everybody that is going to recommend using open source software, your idiots.
Whats the easiest way to find a backdoor? Look at the source.- Dipsomaniac, on 11/27/2007, -6/+51Moron, that's also the best way to make sure there aren't any holes. OSS is more secure than proprietary.
- giveer, on 11/27/2007, -6/+21*ahem*.. sorry, but: YOU'RE idiots.
sigh...- spawnfree, on 11/27/2007, -1/+13No, they are in fact, his idiots
- objectcode, on 11/27/2007, -2/+33anyone who is good at reverse engineering software is going to find holes in proprietary software.
- Scottamus, on 11/27/2007, -0/+16what about my idiots?
- mightydavefish, on 11/27/2007, -0/+26Thanks for playing.
Try again when you get a clue on how security or programming or open source works. - bolognium, on 11/27/2007, -0/+13wow, one of the best things about open source flew right over xGrill's head..
- yuravian, on 11/27/2007, -1/+21That's one reason I always vote absentee. It is in itself a paper trail, not to mention I don't have to deal with the crap at the polls.
- MWeather, on 11/27/2007, -2/+6My state sends out early voting signup forms to every registered voter. Pity they don't send the actual ballot without a signup.
- mightydavefish, on 11/27/2007, -1/+12But you are even LESS able to determine if your vote was counted. You have a "paper trail", but you can't follow it.
- WhiteRaven, on 11/27/2007, -1/+6Stupid. You blindly put your ballot in the mail and thereafter have no way of knowing what has happened to it. There's no paper *trail*, there's just an individual piece of paper that can be lost or even intentionally discarded.
- nalf38, on 11/27/2007, -0/+7In Oregon, we get a confirmation via snail mail that our absentee ballot was counted...and if it wasn't counted, the reason why. Absentee ballots are more secure than voting machines, if you do it right.
- falseleftright, on 11/27/2007, -2/+19Very believable, given the nature of our government in recent years. Hacking Democracy showed some of this a few years ago.
http://www.hbo.com/docs/programs/hackingdemocracy/ - Baku, on 11/27/2007, -3/+11Of course voting machines are hackable... all the scientists had to say was "George Bush is President... who in their right mind would vote for him?"
- MacEnvy, on 11/27/2007, -1/+8You're making the assumption that at least half of the country is in their right minds. I'm not so sure about that.
- gerbil20, on 11/27/2007, -5/+1Like... everybody.
- GuacamoleSan, on 11/27/2007, -1/+4And then you look at the people living in the western and southern areas of the United States and go "oh...yeah. These people voted for him."
- AriaGloris, on 11/27/2007, -3/+2http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v439/CHir/000ADF ...
- AriaGloris, on 11/27/2007, -3/+2British news paper > http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v439/CHir/bush-1 ...
- profOblivion, on 11/27/2007, -0/+7Look to the north if you want to know how to run an election. Federal/provincial elections have paper ballots + two people at each polling station + multiple polling stations per location + a representative of each political party present during vote counting. The municipal elections are tallied electronically, but it's done from a Scantron type ballot so there's still a paper trail. As far as the population argument goes with respect to the cost of such an election, yes the total cost would be greater in the US but you can't tell me that the per-capita cost would be prohibitively high, and certainly not too expensive for holding on to democracy!
Point being, the paper ballot system was never broken. Why the hell did anyone decide to try and fix it? (Heh, "fix"...)- WhiteRaven, on 11/27/2007, -6/+4This fascination with "paper trails" is completely illogical. There is no *trail*. There are individual, anonymous pieces of paper that are prone to forgery or malicious destruction at every turn. Paper ballots are NOT secure at all. Where did this myth come from?
- profOblivion, on 11/28/2007, -0/+5If something goes wrong with paper ballots, chances are much higher that someone will catch it. It's very hard for ballots to disappear from a box with so many people watching at any time. The procedure at the booth is this: you hand your voter registration card to the elections officers; they ask for photo ID to make sure you are who you say you are; they cross your name off in the book; they give you a ballot and they sign it; they fold it up and hand it to you; you go behind the little screen and mark your X, fold it in three on the dotted lines, and put it in the box. The ballots have serial numbers which are not recorded unless the ballot is spoiled, just to make sure that EVERY ballot is accounted for at the end of the election - they aren't matched to names, obviously.
Now this isn't to say that the system is infallible - obviously it's not perfect. But it would be at most impossible and at least highly, highly impractical to pull off anything on any kind of scale which could actually turn the outcome. So maybe paper "trail" isn't the right word. But I wouldn't say they're "not secure at all."
- profOblivion, on 11/28/2007, -0/+5If something goes wrong with paper ballots, chances are much higher that someone will catch it. It's very hard for ballots to disappear from a box with so many people watching at any time. The procedure at the booth is this: you hand your voter registration card to the elections officers; they ask for photo ID to make sure you are who you say you are; they cross your name off in the book; they give you a ballot and they sign it; they fold it up and hand it to you; you go behind the little screen and mark your X, fold it in three on the dotted lines, and put it in the box. The ballots have serial numbers which are not recorded unless the ballot is spoiled, just to make sure that EVERY ballot is accounted for at the end of the election - they aren't matched to names, obviously.
- WhiteRaven, on 11/27/2007, -6/+4This fascination with "paper trails" is completely illogical. There is no *trail*. There are individual, anonymous pieces of paper that are prone to forgery or malicious destruction at every turn. Paper ballots are NOT secure at all. Where did this myth come from?
- actionscripted, on 11/28/2007, -0/+3A Dan Rather reports episode on HDNet suggested that perhaps the hanging-chad fiasco in Florida was an intentional catastrophe meant to help progress the adoption of electronic voting machines. Workers at the plant where the punch cards were made were interviewed and all agreed that they were forced to release cards with known defects by their supervisors.
Tin foil hat?
(full episode: http://www.hd.net/drr227.html)
- xGrill, on 11/27/2007, -71/+3For everybody that is going to recommend using open source software, your idiots.
- yodaazpirant, on 11/27/2007, -25/+147we don't need these machines. if anything, some open source Linux PCs could do the trick. with some simple (and I do mean simple...like one page of code) software to simply tabulate numbers and print reciepts, and send updates to a main server. easy and cheap and effective and open.
the fact that they started using closed machines should suggest that things are pretty corrupt, or people are just amazingly trusting, naive and/or stupid.
i could set up a polling location in a week, and it would be easy to duplicate nation wide in time for the elections. and i'm just one programmer.- martinjd, on 11/27/2007, -16/+79This is where it becomes clear that you are not a programmer. Would you care to show me *one* page of code that does the following?
- Insures that one person can never vote more than once
- Connects to a remote database and increments the proper values
- Filters out insertion hack attempts and invalid entries
- Doesn't allow any means for the current voter to see the previous vote(s) on the machine
- Makes all transactions through a secure connection (which is harder to implement in a non-browser client)
- Has a user interface that conforms to proper accessibility guidelines
That would at least get you started. Oh ya, and that's all just for the client. You of course need your central server - probably clustered due to all the traffic . The bandwidth is probably reasonable, but there would be an obscene about of server hits with the whole country voting. And then you need someone who really knows what they're doing in setting up the firewall. You also need to make sure that the clients have the IP of the server hard coded in - you don't want a malicious DNS server routing your vote to the wrong server...
The bottom line is that when you have high security and high volume use mixed together - it's never quick and easy.- jcaino, on 11/27/2007, -11/+18While i won't comment on the length of code required, it would be pretty easy. Why wouldn't you be able to use a browser for the client? Hell - you could probably do all this with a LAMP server and code everything in PHP.
- TheSwashbuckler, on 11/27/2007, -0/+13The basic code would be simple. Add real security with detection for hacking (you know, like a REAL system) and it would become quite large.
Think security's easy? I invite you to look at all the CVEs for the various components of the LAMP stack. - m0tbaillie, on 11/27/2007, -1/+9While I don't think the code, if written correctly, would be entirely complex, I *do* think that PHP would be the absolute *worst* language to write such a system in. It is notoriously one of the more exploit-afflicted languages. Python or Perl would be far better choices.
- martinjd, on 11/27/2007, -0/+1It's not that you couldn't come up with a secure solution using a php framework (such as LAMP), but the out-of-the-box security would leave much up to the development. I would definitely go with a .net of java back end that has more robust and fully developed security features and protocol support.
- lintmonkey, on 11/27/2007, -0/+6He didn't specify font size.
- TheSwashbuckler, on 11/27/2007, -0/+13The basic code would be simple. Add real security with detection for hacking (you know, like a REAL system) and it would become quite large.
- localzuk, on 11/27/2007, -3/+22You wouldn't have a single central server - you'd have a server at county level, state level, regional level (ie, a group of states) etc... Each counts up the numbers from the ones below.
And yes, the code would be pretty simple - not a single page, but not huge.- killakan, on 11/27/2007, -2/+3Yes, there would be district-level, county-level, state-level, and regional-level servers. But guess what, eventually, there would be a single national server that those connect to.
And you completely miss the point of the post which is: There has to be security between the individual voting machines and the server they talk to, and between each server and the upstream server they talk to.
The devil is in the security between the machines. - martinjd, on 11/27/2007, -0/+2That would be an unnecessary and redundant server architecture. All clients would communicate with the same central server (or cluster) and increment the vote tally for the client's district (each district would have it's own count variable/row in the database). Remember, the goal in database structure is to remove any and all redundancy. By only storing vote counts for districts, there is absolutely no redundancy. You can tally state/region/county votes by adding up all district tallies that are part of a particular state, and so on.
- darkcooger, on 11/27/2007, -0/+5Personally, I'd prefer each voting machine keep its tally to itself and let vote counters check it once the polls close. Then all you need is a calculator. Why on God's green earth would we want networked voting machines? The easiest way to secure them on the network is to take them off the network...
Keeping it all separate also maintains the current situation where nobody knows the standing vote until it's over.
- killakan, on 11/27/2007, -2/+3Yes, there would be district-level, county-level, state-level, and regional-level servers. But guess what, eventually, there would be a single national server that those connect to.
- Otto, on 11/27/2007, -3/+13Just about everything you describe could be put together from open source, known to be solid and secure, parts in under a month, by one or perhaps two programmers. The hardware design would take slightly longer. The user interface would probably have to be left up to a committee.
But the point is that no closed system can be *known* to be secure. Security does not rise out of obscurity. Security only comes about when everybody has the opportunity to look over every single piece of the system and find possible flaws and see how they have been accounted for.
Nobody sane would trust an encryption system that was not open for all to see. Why should be trust closed voting systems?- martinjd, on 11/27/2007, -5/+1That's true. Although technically, open source cannot be known to be absolutely secure either. You wouldn't be seeing security patches and upgrades in every linux distro if it was already air tight. Open source also has the (potential) disadvantage in that if anyone did want to attempt to hack it, they can simply browse the code for openings, as opposed to a tedious trial and error approach. With that said, I'm a huge fan of open source and if I were contracted I would probably implement a number of open source solutions myself. I would just be extremely careful and stick to products that were well documented (the bain of open source).
All that aside, my comment said nothing about not using open source. I simply said that it would be more complicated that a single page of code.
- martinjd, on 11/27/2007, -5/+1That's true. Although technically, open source cannot be known to be absolutely secure either. You wouldn't be seeing security patches and upgrades in every linux distro if it was already air tight. Open source also has the (potential) disadvantage in that if anyone did want to attempt to hack it, they can simply browse the code for openings, as opposed to a tedious trial and error approach. With that said, I'm a huge fan of open source and if I were contracted I would probably implement a number of open source solutions myself. I would just be extremely careful and stick to products that were well documented (the bain of open source).
- benplaut, on 11/27/2007, -1/+16Let's do it in a single line. In Perl.
(That's a joke)- martinjd, on 11/27/2007, -1/+3I'm a little partial to cobol...
- jeremyjx, on 11/27/2007, -2/+2Don't forget Fortran 77...
- keeganspeck, on 11/27/2007, -0/+2Why don't we make it easier and just use *****?
- nakani, on 11/28/2007, -0/+3Everything's easier with *****
- bono4u, on 11/28/2007, -0/+1single line must not be a problem, depends on how long the line may be, in some languages the limit is 255 characters per line others don't have such restrictions.
- mburk, on 11/27/2007, -0/+5I also gotta say that the "obscene amount of server hits" from the whole country voting is probably less than traffic at Google for a single day. Don't think it'll be a problem. We don't care that much about voting, unfortunately.
- martinjd, on 11/27/2007, -1/+1I'm sure that's true. But Google also has server farms located across the globe. They couldn't handle 1/100th of their traffic from a single server.
- enri, on 11/27/2007, -0/+8Yet it was done in Australia.
http://www.wired.com/news/ebiz/0,1272,61045,00.htm ...
Summary:
* System is running Linux.
* Developed by a private company but all code is open source (license details unknown).
* Several bugs were reported by the public and subsequently patched.
* From concept to production in six months.- martinjd, on 11/27/2007, -6/+1Jeez people, I didn't say anything about using open source. I said it couldn't be done in "one page of code".
10 minutes later: "b..b..bu..but open source!"
- martinjd, on 11/27/2007, -6/+1Jeez people, I didn't say anything about using open source. I said it couldn't be done in "one page of code".
- Robbothehood, on 11/28/2007, -1/+0Wouldn't open source be more easily subject to disruption seeing as how everybody has access to it?
- jcaino, on 11/27/2007, -11/+18While i won't comment on the length of code required, it would be pretty easy. Why wouldn't you be able to use a browser for the client? Hell - you could probably do all this with a LAMP server and code everything in PHP.
- RabidAngel, on 11/27/2007, -2/+46As someone with a very accomplished IT career, I can agree that this would not be extraordinarily difficult to implement. It wouldn't take a week, but it could realistically be done (designed, built, tested) within a few months or a year. Something is very wrong and it reminds me of the claim that someone "accidentally" deleted millions of emails.
- killakan, on 11/27/2007, -14/+5"the fact that they started using closed machines should suggest that things are pretty corrupt, or people are just amazingly trusting, naive and/or stupid." - Does not follow. That is merely an assumption on your part.
- Double0Doug, on 11/27/2007, -4/+2I don’t think we should get too hung up on security when it comes to voter machine fraud. I don’t disagree that the systems need to be more secured and using an open source model is probably a really good idea, but we need to focus on other ways to identify and eliminate voter fraud.
For example: the public should have access to voting records down to the minute if they are so desired. A competent statistician (not me) could crunch these numbers and identify potential fraud by variations in results over time. - PhoenixAvatar2, on 11/27/2007, -9/+2Open Source is well and good and all, but this is one case where you would not want the software to be open source, at least publicly. Security is essential here, and a very good way to do it is by keeping toe program code out of potential exploiter's hands.
- HippyInASuit, on 11/27/2007, -0/+6You do not understand what you're talking about.
- cybrguy, on 11/27/2007, -0/+4If you delve deeper you have 2 ways of looking at this,
1. You have an open source system that EVERYONE can see and confirm that it is secure. Having the code in the open only makes it insecure if you messed up.
2. You have a closed source system which hides the problems which IMO is really bad because that means IF there are security issues, they could stay hidden from the public. DieBold has already been shown to have some problems which they did not aknowledge publicly until they were pointed out. Lastly, I would say any company who makes official use voting machines should undergo a lot of scrutiny. It should be assumed that they will be trying to cheat the system in one way or another only to maximize the level of scrutiny a new system must go through. - darkcooger, on 11/27/2007, -0/+7You are describing what is known as "security through obscurity," and it is a fallacy. Besides that, as citizens, we have a right to know how our votes are to be counted, and that includes inspecting the source code of the voting machine that does the counting.
- WhiteRaven, on 11/27/2007, -3/+2You may test the software and hardware as many times as you like with mock elections. The source code is not necessary to insure accuracy.
- jonathansoeder, on 11/28/2007, -0/+3yes it is.
unless($corruptThisElection_BecauseWeDonateMillionsToThisSpecificCandidate eq "true")
{
count_vote_normally();
}
will pass through mock election testing, and why there can be no such thing as security when you have obscurity in the election process, be it in the voting machines or anywhere else. - WhiteRaven, on 11/28/2007, -2/+4This would require that the particulars of an election been known before the software is compiled. These are systems that will be designed to be used *generically* year after year by thousands of different election bodies. AND, those electing bodies are free to test the machines using *real* ballot issues and candidate names under conditions where they *know* what the ingoing votes are.
In other words, it is very, very easy to check the machines to make sure they are fair while it is prohibitively difficult if not impossible to design them so as to favor or disfavor any single issue.
- jonathansoeder, on 11/28/2007, -0/+3yes it is.
- WhiteRaven, on 11/27/2007, -3/+2You may test the software and hardware as many times as you like with mock elections. The source code is not necessary to insure accuracy.
- WhiteRaven, on 11/27/2007, -1/+2Access to the original code gives potential hackers a road map to use as the attempt to find vulnerabilities. The point of confusion here is that those that support Open Source are worried about the *intentional inclusion* of "back doors" in proprietary software. I guess if your the paranoid type, that's a reasonable concern. However, just because such intentional vulnerabilities are unlikely to survive in OS code does not make OS better. You me be taking away the possibility of intentionally "bad" code but you are handing malicious hackers the road-map to make it easier to find un-intentional vulnerabilities.
In America, we have 50 states and thousands of local governments and they all need to hold elections. This means that there is a *marketplace*. A marketplace full of not only potential customers but also divergent and conflicting political ideologies. The purveyors of election hardware and software must be *competitive*. Any malicious intent on there part is certain to be discovered. They have amble incentive to fix problems as they come to light.
While neither solution is perfect, I think that maintaining confidential, proprietary code is an important layer of security and, thanks to the diversity of people using the systems and competition among different vendors, it is extremely unlikely that any of these vendors could pull off any kind of malicious manipulations or enable other parties to do so.- KicktheDonkey, on 11/28/2007, -1/+1"Access to the original code gives potential hackers a road map to use as the attempt to find vulnerabilities."
And that's why Windows is the most secure operating system on the market, eh?- WhiteRaven, on 11/28/2007, -0/+1No, Window's lack of security is a result of it's "all things to all people" design philosophy. It's permissive by nature rather than secure by nature.
- KicktheDonkey, on 11/28/2007, -1/+1"Access to the original code gives potential hackers a road map to use as the attempt to find vulnerabilities."
- profOblivion, on 11/27/2007, -2/+3"We don't need these machines." Forgive me for sounding possibly archaic, but you don't need ANY kind of voting machines. I've never been clear on this question: what exactly is the argument for electronic voting machines?
- jaderobbins, on 11/27/2007, -2/+1saves time and money, do you LIKE paying taxes?
- mOdQuArK, on 11/28/2007, -0/+2Ballot-printing machines can be pretty useful: imagine nice, clean easily-readable ballots (with no hanging chads or misfilled circles), containing only those choices that the voter actually picked so there's no confusion about what the voter "really meant".
Vote-counting systems are a whole 'nother issue, and as long as they aren't designed & audited to withstand malicious attacks (from both inside & outside), they shouldn't be allowed anywhere remotely near a real election. - pdbailey, on 11/28/2007, -1/+2There are two advangates, one near term, one longer term.
Near term: blind people can vote in private and "verifiably" that is the other person with them can't change the vote without their knowledge (unless it's a voting machine made by the current vendors).
Long term: instant run-off voting. In this scheme you rank options and they eliminate from the bottom, moving you to your next best when your best is eliminated. - bono4u, on 11/28/2007, -0/+1You are right it is not needed and it has nothing to do with old fashioned, it has all to do with controllable, recountable and less vulnerable against third-party changes.
But surly new technologies are always tempting our imagination and all would be easier, faster, better. I don't say that new technologies can't be as good or better as the old fashioned way but till the systems are fail-save you have to live perhaps more often with events like 2000 election.
- RecordHigh, on 11/28/2007, -0/+2As someone that has quite a bit of experiencing managing online surveys with 10s of thousands of respondents over a relatively short period of time, I can tell that you are forgetting that a survey -- or, in this case, an election -- must be done perfectly right out of the box. It's not like you can just try again and again until you get it right. If anything goes wrong that prevents people from voting when they show up at the poling place or casts doubt on the results of the election, then you've got a major *****-storm on your hands. To prevent this kind of disaster requires a lot of planning, testing, load balancing, redundancy, contingency plans, etc. I can guarantee you that a week of your half-assed programming just isn't going to cut it.
- martinjd, on 11/27/2007, -16/+79This is where it becomes clear that you are not a programmer. Would you care to show me *one* page of code that does the following?
- KMye, on 11/27/2007, -10/+124I'm completely opposed to any electronic voting without a paper trail verified by the voter before they leave the booth. That said, this submission needs to be buried for A) a completely misleading and inaccurate title, B) being blogspam linking to Infowars blogspam of a NYTimes article (here's the original if you want to read it : http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/28/us/28vote.html ) and C), not as important, but this is from July.
- WhiteRaven, on 11/27/2007, -1/+3I don't understand how knowing that the paper is intact when you leave the booth is actually any kind of reassurance. Why trust the people that have access to the paper any more than you trust people that have access to files and code and hardware?
- jonathansoeder, on 11/28/2007, -1/+2Because they can publish their findings in public, peer reviewed settings, and hopefully help others to reproduce their findings.
- WhiteRaven, on 11/28/2007, -1/+2I don't think you understood my comment. Who can publish what findings? I'm talking about the act of voting and what can happen to ballots after the voter has left.
- KMye, on 11/28/2007, -0/+1What other option do we have??
- jonathansoeder, on 11/28/2007, -1/+2Because they can publish their findings in public, peer reviewed settings, and hopefully help others to reproduce their findings.
- thebrawl, on 11/28/2007, -1/+1Anything short of making vote data public is corruptible by those keeping the data private and therefore destined to fail.
- buckrogers1965, on 11/28/2007, -0/+1I would love to see every ballot in every election scanned in and recorded in lossless png format on 100 year optical disks, with the polling data from the polling place the ballot was collected also attached, and then make those disks available for $10 to anyone that wants one.
- WhiteRaven, on 11/27/2007, -1/+3I don't understand how knowing that the paper is intact when you leave the booth is actually any kind of reassurance. Why trust the people that have access to the paper any more than you trust people that have access to files and code and hardware?
- janeuner, on 11/27/2007, -25/+254"Scientists Prove that Voting Machines are being Hacked" should actually read "Scientists Prove that Voting Machines can be Hacked"
Buried for being inaccurate and sensationalist. Resubmit with a proper headline.- NaziHatinChimp, on 11/27/2007, -4/+51No *****. This guy deliberately ***** the headline.
- mediatedthought, on 11/27/2007, -1/+5Yeah that statement leads you to believe that scientists prove that voting machines are being hacked IN ELECTIONS.
well put janeuner.
- mediatedthought, on 11/27/2007, -1/+5Yeah that statement leads you to believe that scientists prove that voting machines are being hacked IN ELECTIONS.
- ewarner, on 11/27/2007, -2/+15My first thought exactly. I hate it when people read an article then make up a scarier headline that exaggerates the actual point of the article.
- m0tbaillie, on 11/27/2007, -3/+3I agree that it's a pretty ***** thing to do, but the only way to get anybody to take notice of anything in this country is to scare the ***** out of them (9/11, GWOT, WMD, Iran/Iraq/N. Korea, etc. etc.)
- VitriolAndAngst, on 11/27/2007, -1/+2Sure, go back to sleep. They put in 3 databases into the diebold machines that report different stats based on whether you are polling, auditing, or whatever -- but hey, no reason to believe that is for a corrupt purpose.
- jonathansoeder, on 11/28/2007, -0/+1I guess we should take for granted that most people are ignorant, or amnesiac, but the idea that elections are being hacked is not sensationalist when you consider the fact that elections have already -been- hacked because of ridiculously insecure electronic voting systems. See the HBO Documentary Hacking Democracy. Read the Conyers Report.
The Evidence is irrefutable. Elections have already been hacked because of these systems.
It is not just the voting machines, it is the vote tabulation software. It has already been shown that major systems used Microsoft Access to tabulate votes. In any microsoft access database, if you go into design view, you can edit the data in individual tables by hand. Any constraints in the system, any security logic in the scripting software that is part of that database file is therefore irrelevant. This is not news to anybody with the most basic experience with or understanding of microsoft access in particular and database / programming theory in general.
- beef623, on 11/27/2007, -4/+5Aren't they being hacked to prove that they can be hacked?
- HunterZ, on 11/27/2007, -9/+4I turned my nose up at the title before I got farther than "scientists prove". The scientific method cannot prove, only disprove.
- gnick, on 11/27/2007, -0/+4I wonder if I am capable of ingesting Skittles...
I hypothesize that I can.
* Ingests Skittles *
Hmm... The data clearly shows that I am capable of ingesting Skittles.
I have just proved my hypothesis that I possess the ability to ingest Skittles. Simultaneously, I have discovered that Skittles are tasty.
It is now time to publish my results on digg and retest for confirmation.- lukas88, on 11/28/2007, -0/+1Hunter is right. Although you did just prove it, with what most of us consider "the scientific method," you would have to change your hypothesis slightly. Bear with me if this sounds crude:
null hypothesis: It is impossible for you to ingest skittles.
alternative hypothesis: It is possible for you to ingest skittles.
This is how a researcher would set up his hypothesis. The point of the test would be to accept or reject the null hypothesis. The alternative hypothesis, which is the opposite of the null, would be indirectly supported by your test..
In other words, your test (ingesting skittles) wouldn't be direct evidence that the alternative hypothesis is true, it would only serve to help us with our decision to accept or reject the null. Null reject. Accept the alternative hypothesis. Bartender, a round of skittles for me and my mates!
- lukas88, on 11/28/2007, -0/+1Hunter is right. Although you did just prove it, with what most of us consider "the scientific method," you would have to change your hypothesis slightly. Bear with me if this sounds crude:
- gnick, on 11/27/2007, -0/+4I wonder if I am capable of ingesting Skittles...
- VitriolAndAngst, on 11/27/2007, -1/+4The reasons for the voting machines are so lame.
We put up with bad code, huge errors, costly budgets (which re-inforces the reelection of incumbents), and lame-ass excuses for all the coincidences that must be proved evil beyond a shadow of a doubt. And now, we are all supposed to pretend that the Voting machines are anything but a scam?
No, the title is accurate -- BECAUSE, you don't program in back doors designed to fix an election unless your intent is to fix elections. It takes extra work to provide 3 databases, to give a response differently for an audit versus a vote count. Remote changes and weird routines that start adding votes to the other candidate if they get to high for the wrong candidate. You don't do that if you are on the up and up.
We've had too many statistical anomalies proven; like Bush picking up votes only in areas with voting machines. We've had Diebold programers fresh off probation for hacking admitting that they helped rig votes.
I could fill pages of Evidence of voter suppression, fraud, the whole attorney firings which were about forcing Prosecutors to trump up charges against Dems and ignore the real cases against Republicans.
These Voting Machines = NO DEMOCRACY. That would be a clearer headline. But saying you "can hack" a machine with built in hacking functions is saying a dog "can lick his privates" -- it's kind of inevitable, the ability becomes the function. - obliviousfool, on 11/27/2007, -3/+9You are right. The headline should read "Computer scientists prove voting machines can be hacked; mathematicians prove that votes are not being counted; lawsuits with missing evidence prove that boxes of ballots have been thrown away; existing laws prove that the Supreme Court has no jurisdiction over how states count their votes and that Congress has the final say over contested electoral college votes; e-mails sent to the wrong address prove that caging was going on; and people forced to wait in the rain prove that you can disenfranchise voters!" Of course, that's a lot for a headline.
- WinnemuccaMac, on 11/28/2007, -5/+1Sour grapes.
- obliviousfool, on 11/28/2007, -0/+2Yeah, I'm a little bit sour about watching the death of representation in America. I hope you like Hillary. She seems to be the next chosen president. You'll get 8 years of her "charming laughter" whether you like it or not!
- WinnemuccaMac, on 11/28/2007, -5/+1Sour grapes.
- moraldebate, on 11/27/2007, -5/+4What if it said "Scientists Prove That Micah From Heroes is Hacking Into Voting Machines"?
- jonathansoeder, on 11/28/2007, -1/+4At this point you're basically arguing semantics considering the fact that Elections HAVE ALREADY been rigged due to hacked voting machines.
- WinnemuccaMac, on 11/28/2007, -1/+1Proof, please. Semantics require details.
- obliviousfool, on 11/28/2007, -0/+1The proof that the 2004 election was stolen has been provided over and over.
http://www.appliedresearch.us/sf/Documents/ExitPol ...
http://electionarchive.org/ucvAnalysis/US/Exit_Pol ...
The methodology, however, was varied. The electronic voting machines only played a part.
- obliviousfool, on 11/28/2007, -0/+1The proof that the 2004 election was stolen has been provided over and over.
- WinnemuccaMac, on 11/28/2007, -1/+1Proof, please. Semantics require details.
- buckrogers1965, on 11/28/2007, -0/+3It is clear from the exit polls that every election since 2000 has been systematically and massively manipulated in support of the republican party. I am a lifelong conservative Republican and former Army officer, and I can see this. Why can't you?
- NaziHatinChimp, on 11/27/2007, -4/+51No *****. This guy deliberately ***** the headline.
- macweirdo42, on 11/27/2007, -17/+91This is America. We don't believe in science.
- RabidAngel, on 11/27/2007, -7/+12Amen.
- baalzebub, on 11/27/2007, -12/+7your comment is both sarcastic and so very true!!!
the religious right & the NeoCons are wanting to take over the USA and these vulnerable/crackable/hackable voting machines is how they are trying to do it... - 4degrees, on 11/27/2007, -1/+7we only believe the science "buddy jesus" tells us about.
- halohunter, on 11/27/2007, -14/+21Are Americans this lazy? Just use normal paper voting like we do in Australia, I'm sure many people will appreciate having a job and the security of human based counting. You don't even have preferences!
- inhaler, on 11/27/2007, -2/+7It's not that we're lazy, we just find ways to call into question even paper ballot voting: i.e. hanging chads, etc.
- bono4u, on 11/28/2007, -0/+1First of all find a way to legitimat the election of 2000 then perhaps find new ways of voting which could be even more vulnerable.
- Mothrog, on 11/27/2007, -7/+15Our citizens are too ***** stupid to use paper. See 2000 Presidental Election in Florida. I'm surprised that they haven't gone to the McDonalds cash register style of voting machine where everything's pictures.
- MWeather, on 11/27/2007, -0/+9Then voters would actually need to know what the candidates look like. Outside of the presidential election, that's not likely. People need the R and D to know who to vote for.
- bono4u, on 11/28/2007, -0/+1So the 2000 election was only rigged by voters who don't know to use paper? Come on, voters who didn*t may vote because their names were on obsure list of criminals(names collected in other states compared with names in Florida), about 160000 not counted votes, a juridictional dession which leads to "election" inspite of a new voting perhaps that was kind of lazy and some other things that happend in this night supported by Bush family syndicat.
- CrackyJSquirrel, on 11/27/2007, -5/+7Its not about laziness, man some people have dumb comments. Its about convenience and technology.
So you have no convenience or technology in your life? Because that would make you lazy by your logic.. - objectcode, on 11/27/2007, -2/+10not all of us chose this electronic voting system
- Zuggy, on 11/27/2007, -3/+1There are several factors, these are ome of the ones I've heard from friends, family, colleagues, co-workers, etc.
1. the most covered, people are lazy
2. many people have the illusion that just because it's electronic it's more secure then paper
3. It's a lot faster for a machine to count then people, thereby saving money by not having to hire more people to count
4. many (most?) US voting machines are made by Diebold, the same guys that make ATM's so it should be secure
5. The most disturbing, people don't care- bono4u, on 11/28/2007, -0/+1but the question remains is save voting better or the supported lazy voting? Do you want to be sure your vote is counted or do want to lose the last really part of freedom you have. Better think twice and make sure that all is going in the correct way, i would say. Better waiting vor the really safe system and till then do it old fashioned.
- m3t00, on 11/27/2007, -1/+5Our government is controlled by corporations and media propaganda and we are struggling to take it back. Lawyers are expensive and mostly owned by the corporations so be patient. If all else fails we still have firearms. The new voting booths are powered by Windows Vista so rest easy. Everything is under control.
- 000dnj, on 11/27/2007, -0/+2lol
- darkcooger, on 11/27/2007, -0/+7See, in Mississippi, in both the 2000 and 2004 elections (the only two Presidential elections I've been eligible to vote in), we used optical scan vote counting machines. So our ol' buddy #2 pencil and a piece of paper, and you fill in the bubble next to your guy's name. Easy to do, easy to count, easy to verify. When I heard about punching holes in the cards a la Florida, I wondered how people could complicate something so simple as voting...
- DoscoJones, on 11/27/2007, -0/+4In Oregon they do it all by mail. More states should work that way.
- evlpanda, on 11/28/2007, -1/+2I don't about how secure our paper voting system is here in Australia. We voted last weekend. My wife voted for the first time as an Australian citizen and was floored, completely disillusioned, by how insecure it was. When she used to vote in Soviet Russia (yes they did) they were required to identify themselves with a passport and the vote was marked using a pen. We require no identification and we use a pencil.
Next time I'm going to test the "system" by going to another polling ...place and using some else's name. "Hello, I'm Mr. Smith" woman looks through list which is in front of both of us, "Ah, there I am Paul". Not too hard to give a name that hasn't been crossed off, especially if it is nearing end of the day. "Thank you Paul, here's your voting card, the pencils are over there". That's about it for ID in Australian voting. Someone please correct me, no really, if I've missed something.
I think our system only works because Australians, generally, are so damn honest by nature. For exampe where else in the world do you have fruit stalls by the side of the road with nobody manning them? You take your fruit and put the correct money in the box.
- inhaler, on 11/27/2007, -2/+7It's not that we're lazy, we just find ways to call into question even paper ballot voting: i.e. hanging chads, etc.
- jmpeagle, on 11/27/2007, -5/+31wow, way to contradict your headline in your description
- UnWeave, on 11/27/2007, -4/+3Agreed. Title is misleading. But still... If it can be done, it probably is.
- SSCrow, on 11/27/2007, -6/+6Can't we just have analog voting machines?
Slid in your Identification, And click one of two buttons for each question asked.
Its hard to hack something if you have very limited input.- LeRenard, on 11/27/2007, -0/+2Do you yes or no not want to yes vote for Candidate X?
- xenuxenuts, on 11/27/2007, -0/+3that seems awfully digital to me
- davdev, on 11/27/2007, -2/+3It's against the law to ask for ID at a polling station.
- gnick, on 11/27/2007, -0/+2Yes, no, or Pat Buchanan?
- samcrut, on 11/27/2007, -0/+3Many cracks don't use the public interface. You pick a lock that's only a little more secure than a childproof pill bottle and then you're inside the machine. Once inside you use a memory card to introduce code or inject votes.
- jmpeagle, on 11/27/2007, -2/+2you need to be able to write in candidate names
- LeRenard, on 11/27/2007, -0/+2Do you yes or no not want to yes vote for Candidate X?
- jim1977, on 11/27/2007, -5/+25This has been know for at least four years; there are more than a few discrepancies between the electronic and paper ballots.
Hail to the thief! - AshamedAmerican, on 11/27/2007, -5/+17Come on digg, time to get this "No *****" section up and running!
- paganmonkeyboy, on 11/27/2007, -4/+14yeah - way to mislead and blow your cause out of the water by not being honest and accurate - and i even think they were hacked...credibility ZERO
- chuckbergeron, on 11/27/2007, -1/+8That's fine, with voter apathy at all time highs nationwide I don't think it's a big deal.
/end sarcasm- rarson, on 11/27/2007, -0/+3I get tired of trying to talk about politics with people, because they just don't care. Even when I tell them it's our duty to shape the direction of our country. They just don't see how they can do anything so they continue voting for whoever the TV tells them to vote for. This stuff has been ingrained in their heads forever. They can't see beyond the things they've been told. Their lack of any ability to think for themselves really baffles me.
- darkcooger, on 11/27/2007, -1/+2I don't think it's the case that people can't think for themselves, but rather that they don't care enough to bother with thinking for themselves. You say it's our duty and I agree, but a lot of people will just ask what difference it makes to them. What they don't realize is that it will affect them, later if not today, and action now could prevent the problem from ever happening in the first place (or rather, action yesterday could have prevented the problem). As it is, they'd rather not bother fixing something that isn't already broken, preferring to wait until it breaks.
- buckrogers1965, on 11/28/2007, -0/+2A lot of people think that you shouldn't talk about politics. Amazes me that people in a democracy won't talk about issues or candidates.
- rarson, on 11/27/2007, -0/+3I get tired of trying to talk about politics with people, because they just don't care. Even when I tell them it's our duty to shape the direction of our country. They just don't see how they can do anything so they continue voting for whoever the TV tells them to vote for. This stuff has been ingrained in their heads forever. They can't see beyond the things they've been told. Their lack of any ability to think for themselves really baffles me.
- alpinecow, on 11/27/2007, -6/+37Buried for massively misleading title...while I agree hackability is worrisome, no scientist has proven that "machines are being hacked."
- falseleftright, on 11/27/2007, -14/+2They prove that the machines can be hacked...isn't that enough for you?
- killakan, on 11/27/2007, -1/+8No, it is not enough when the title says the machines ARE being hacked.
I can prove you can kill someone, should we charge you with murder?
- killakan, on 11/27/2007, -1/+8No, it is not enough when the title says the machines ARE being hacked.
- samcrut, on 11/27/2007, -3/+3They're being hacked by the scientists. The logic is circular, but it's proof none the less.
- jonathansoeder, on 11/28/2007, -1/+2They have been hacked already. This is enough reason to say they will continue to be hacked until they no longer can be.
- falseleftright, on 11/27/2007, -14/+2They prove that the machines can be hacked...isn't that enough for you?
- speel, on 11/27/2007, -6/+7***** pisses me off that this still exists , still in action, and still no one does anything about it.
- ElAssoWipo, on 11/27/2007, -3/+23Well duh, the man who hacked them testified before a United States justice that he hacked them and was asked to do so by a governmental official.
Here's the video of that testimony: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEzY2tnwExs
Of course, they buried it immediately and "forgot" all about it.- cybrguy, on 11/27/2007, -0/+4Awesome video, I'm suprised I never saw it before. I love the part about the chinese spy who was caught sending missile technology to china and got away with nothing but a $100 fine.
- MikeFallopian, on 11/27/2007, -3/+3Obviously this is a cause for concern. However, can't regular (paper ballot) voting machines be "hacked" too? To access electronic machines you usually need a physical key - with that level of access to a conventional machine couldn't someone simply add or remove paper ballots before the results are tallied?
- 4degrees, on 11/27/2007, -3/+3yes paper voting can be "hacked". Simply throw the ballot box(es) in the river.
- apeweek, on 11/27/2007, -1/+3The issue here is the ease and speed with which thousands or millions of votes can be changed. Altering paper ballots takes a lot longer. The other issue is transparency. The counting of paper ballots can be viewed and verified by observers. Nobody can observe or verify what a computer is doing. Transparency is far more important than speed or convenience, because transparency is the only surefire way to stop fraud.
- samcrut, on 11/27/2007, -0/+2That "key" is a simple key you can buy in your neighborhood. They are not secure and personally, I think it's abundantly clear that they're insecure by design. They talk them up like they're secure, but they're not.
- buckrogers1965, on 11/28/2007, -0/+1The electronic voting machines will open right up with a paper clip in a few seconds.
- skubiszm, on 11/27/2007, -4/+10How else do you make sure the right candidate wins?
- k3ano, on 11/27/2007, -1/+7I don't know why the page links to Alex Jones but here's the original article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/28/us/28vote.html?_ ...- k3ano, on 11/27/2007, -1/+1*****, I didn't see the same comment above, bury me
- falseleftright, on 11/27/2007, -0/+9Wouldn't it be nice if I could wall into a polling station, enter a booth, vote, and receive a tamper proof receipt. I would then take this tamper proof receipt and present it to a manual counter. The manual counter would copy my tamper proof recipt and its unique id number. This way, you would have two vote counts going at the same time. If there were discrepencies between the manual counter machine and the voter machine (I'd like the tallys checked every half hour), then we would know if there was malfeasance going on. We need to be able to monitor our voting real time, not days/weeks/months after. Clearly, after the fact vote discrepencies don't matter with our supreme court (unless of course, an anti-establshment guy got in).
- darny, on 11/27/2007, -7/+3Everyone here is yapping on about doing away with closed voting machines, and electronic voting machines, but with the way things are going in this country, why are we bothering to choose anyway? If the invisible hand of corruption wants candidate A elected, it will find a way, machines or paper or ink fingerprints or beans or whatever, to get it done.
- ZenOfJazz, on 11/27/2007, -1/+3First, an electronic end-to-end voting system is not what we should be aiming for.
What is needed is a useable GUI client, that produces a 2 part paper ticket/ballot.
The first part is your receipt, for you to carry away, showing your vote. The second is a computer and human readable ballot. The ballot can then be scanned and stored, to enable re-counting if needed.
building an end-to-end digital voting system provides to many opportunities for "hidden" changes.- mithrasinvictus, on 11/27/2007, -0/+2You should not be allowed to carry anything away to prevent people selling their vote ( / being coerced to vote a certain way)
- Mockylock, on 11/27/2007, -7/+1Well, considering most savvy "hacks" are predominantly liberal, I doubt there was a large influence in the final outcome.
- apeweek, on 11/27/2007, -1/+3Offset by the fact that most criminals are conservative.
- shinythings, on 11/27/2007, -4/+3What's worse, that these are being hacked, or the friggin old people in Florida can't figure out how to use them?
- killakan, on 11/27/2007, -7/+11Title is misleading. The scientists hacked into the machines at the request of the state of California. At no point in time did the scientist prove that the machines ARE being hacked, but rather that the machines COULD be hacked.
Buried as inaccurate and alarmist.- buckrogers1965, on 11/28/2007, -0/+2They were built easy to hack. On purpose. And they have been extensively gamed since then.
You just flip open the lock, it's easy, then you pull out the memory card and put in a new memory card. The machine reboots and executes code from the memory card. The code installs itself to every machine because the power cord that daisy chains the machines together is also a local area connection.
There is absolutely no need to execute code from the memory card. None. There is absolutely no reason to have the power cables act as a local area network.
The machines also don't check to see if the votes are all zeroed out for every candidate. If you start every memory card with -25 votes for the candidate you want to lose and +25 votes for your candidate on every voting machine, then at the end of the day your candidate is up 50 votes, and the vote total matches the number of people that voted on that machine. The only reason that you would not ensure that the vote totals are zeroed out at the start is because you were designing a system to be rigged.
Strange how blatantly right wing corporations build machines, those machines all seem to favor republicans anytime they malfunction, and people can still just not conceive that the past few elections were rigged.
- buckrogers1965, on 11/28/2007, -0/+2They were built easy to hack. On purpose. And they have been extensively gamed since then.
- deaks, on 11/27/2007, -4/+6misleading title, no one proved anything except that the possibility exists that someone out there somewhere possesses the ability to hack voting machines. no proof that it's been done. buried as inaccurate and misleading: resubmit.
- Fhwqhgads, on 11/27/2007, -0/+4and you trust your government to not take advantage of this? Please tell me you're not that blind.
- NeMoD, on 11/27/2007, -5/+10so Ron Paul should win this election hands down?
- YojimboJango, on 11/27/2007, -2/+6We can only hope.
- scoottie, on 11/27/2007, -2/+4couple questions still need to be answered. were they local to the machines or did they hack them remotely? if they were local did they need any extra equipment (i.e. laptop)? if they needed extra equipment how easily would it be to smuggle said equipment passed the voting officials? how long did it take them to hack it? If it was an extended period of time how close would it get to a reasonable time someone could be in a voting booth without raising suspicions?
Do you people that accept this without asking questions like being sheep?- YojimboJango, on 11/27/2007, -1/+6ANSWERS
1. Reading the article it looks like they were just testing local hacks.
2. They would probably need a laptop, but if you could get access to a voting machine before the election to learn the setup (a scenario that would exist if a politician paid you to hack a county) you could probably run a script from something as simple as a PDA or a cell phone.
3. The election officials around here are normally senior citizens. I'd say it wouldn't take much to sneak a laptop past them, much less a pda. Worry more about the election officials being the ones to hack the machines.
4. If they knew what they were doing and could just run a script, the hack could work faster than it would take to cast a vote.
5. If it would take a long time to hack (which it wouldn't) you would just have to pay the election official to be the hacker. They have all the time in the world to do it.
I inferred most of these answers from a general knowledge about computing and what I read in the article. They aren't going to publish more details than the article has for security reasons. Who's the sheep now? - buckrogers1965, on 11/28/2007, -0/+1All you need is a memory card and a paper clip. You can hack the machine in about 2 minutes.
- YojimboJango, on 11/27/2007, -1/+6ANSWERS
- Fhwqhgads, on 11/27/2007, -7/+7[Reported by Diggers as Possibly Inaccurate]
You Amrericans just can't stand the truth. How dare anyone question your blind faith in the voting system!- LastVisibleDog, on 11/27/2007, -3/+6you euroweenies (or similar variant) can't read - it is an inaccurate title (not to mention Blind Faith was an English band)
- Jammer, on 11/27/2007, -2/+4News Flash: A bunch of people figure out that computers can be hacked. Oh, the horror of it all. Who knew?
- dupswapdrop, on 11/27/2007, -3/+6Well just how did bush get in if the vote wasn't hacked?
- rivalius13, on 11/27/2007, -1/+3I wonder will Fox say that the polls were hacked when Ron Paul wins the election....
- jaymzdean, on 11/27/2007, -8/+7My fellow Americans,
Blind faith in government is ***** stupid.
You bunch of ***** stupid sheep.
Anyone who practices blind faith in their government deserves the absolute ***** worst.- rivalius13, on 11/27/2007, -3/+2No, come on, tell us how you really feel.
- jaymzdean, on 11/27/2007, -4/+2I'm sorry if you didn't understand what I said, but I can't translate it into sheep language for you.
- Fhwqhgads, on 11/27/2007, -1/+2oh snap!
- gnick, on 11/27/2007, -0/+2How hard is "Baaaaa"?
- jaymzdean, on 11/27/2007, -4/+2I'm sorry if you didn't understand what I said, but I can't translate it into sheep language for you.
- MikeFallopian, on 11/27/2007, -2/+0So what do you think of the Bush administration? Pro or con?
- LastVisibleDog, on 11/27/2007, -4/+2yadda yadda yadda - the sky is falling....
- betweenthebars, on 11/27/2007, -3/+3Because you said "*****" in every sentence, this makes you credible.
- jaderobbins, on 11/27/2007, -2/+2Here! here!
- rivalius13, on 11/27/2007, -3/+2No, come on, tell us how you really feel.
- TypeC, on 11/27/2007, -6/+6They haven't proved the machines "ARE being hacked", they showed they CAN be hacked.
Burried for sensationalist/intentionally inaccurate title.- OswaldKenobi, on 11/27/2007, -2/+2Thank you. I'm burying for the same reason. Nowhere in the article does it say that these researchers have any proof that voting machine have been hacked in the past or are being hacked in the present, just that the possibility exist that they could be hacked. I wonder how many of the sheep on digg will even notice that.
- kreneskyp, on 11/27/2007, -2/+2and im burying both of you because you are more outraged at a slightly off title than the fact that our elections could be hacked. funny you calling someone a sheep when you're the one blindly trusting our oh so benevolent government
- rivalius13, on 11/27/2007, -1/+1And you're blindly following the conspiracy theorists. What's wrong, tinfoil hat on too tight?
- kreneskyp, on 11/27/2007, -1/+1I didn't say that anything HAD been hacked, just that it was POSSIBLE. Its been proven in many different experiements that e-voting machines can be hacked and there are no paper trails. Its a gaping hole just waiting to be abused. I'm just following the facts. Maybe you should try using those instead ad hominem attacks
- rivalius13, on 11/27/2007, -1/+1And you're blindly following the conspiracy theorists. What's wrong, tinfoil hat on too tight?
- BlackStrain, on 11/27/2007, -2/+4Freedom is slavery.
- Richandler, on 11/28/2007, -0/+1That's democracy, not freedom.
- bunglega, on 11/27/2007, -3/+7I worked with touch screen voting equipment for a living at one point in my career. Any system can be hacked or tampered with ... ever hear the expression stuffing the ballot box? Give the right person unfettered access to a computer system and of course he can find a way to hack into it. Physical security is more important when it comes to this issue. There is no way you could enter a polling place, cut the serial numbered zip tie that holds the memory card door close, switch the card, close the door and replace the zip tie (with the same serial number) and exit the polling place without someone knowing. The way to throw the election is at the tabulation computer ... if someone is going to throw an election at that level then it is an internal job and NO system is safe from that. As far a paper trail? You will NEVER be given a copy or receipt of your ballot ... this opens the door to buying votes! (Hey, I'll give you $20 bucks to vote for so and so ... just bring me your receipt!) The paper copy will be maintained by the state just like any other paper ballot would be maintained. They are simply a means to manually audit the election results in case fraud is suspected. But if you don't trust the machine, why would you trust anything it prints? Absentee is your best bet if you are paranoid about this - but even that doesn't guarantee your ballot will be scanned.
- gerbil20, on 11/27/2007, -1/+6That was a stupd thing - offering a logical explanation on Digg.
- GuacamoleSan, on 11/27/2007, -1/+1Yeah the government's going to have you excecuted publicly in the street, fool
- gerbil20, on 11/27/2007, -1/+6That was a stupd thing - offering a logical explanation on Digg.
- ryptide, on 11/27/2007, -0/+2Hasn't this been public knowledge for 6 years or more?
- gerbil20, on 11/27/2007, -2/+2Warning! The content may be buried.
- tehstyles, on 11/27/2007, -3/+22 years ago my friend hacked into a voting machine.
4 years ago another friend worked at a polling both, and their computer shut down. Then he fixed it. - NDzImpy, on 11/27/2007, -3/+3This article was first buried from a Government IP listed address!
- GuacamoleSan, on 11/27/2007, -2/+5Lol of course this is labeled as innacurate by the government.
- arthurdent3, on 11/27/2007, -2/+2While these machine may be hacked to alter the votes, we also need to find a way to make sure that only valid voters can vote. How we do this I am not sure but with the growth of illegal immigration and now states and town giving people licenses on a whim we need to find other methods to ensure only "Living" US citizens can vote.
I find it interesting how people get all upset over these electronic machines but don't seem to care that in every election dead people vote and other people are not allowed to vote. - stephbangm, on 11/27/2007, -3/+8You don't have to be a scientist to know that our elections are hacked: http://www.hackingdemocracy.com/
- scottmc, on 11/27/2007, -1/+2More details: http://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/elections_vsr.htm
- LastVisibleDog, on 11/27/2007, -5/+4Not this again: Republicans control the voting machines and that is why the Republicans won big in 2006......no......wait........
- buckrogers1965, on 11/28/2007, -0/+2They rigged the elections by 5% according to the exit polls. Fortunately the citizens voted against them by 10% in the biggest landslide in history. Don't you remember how confident they were of having republicans win right until the end of election day?
- senatebuddy, on 11/27/2007, -3/+3It's funny, but true what they say: Americans really don't seem to care that their elections are being rigged.
I personally clicked and read "David Puddy Explains Why Video Games Aren't Funny" before "Scientists Prove that Voting Machines are being Hacked," what does this tell me about myself? - GhostyBoy, on 11/27/2007, -1/+3However this gets brought up, this should be the FIRST thing everyone is talking about ALL THE TIME. There is no democracy whatsoever with compromised voting integrity.
This is the obvious "ace in the hole" to stay in power. - tarm, on 11/27/2007, -1/+3Hey everyone, I looked but I don't think anyone else voiced this idea. Since we're all sitting here on digg theres a really good chance that most of us are very technically inclined. Why don't WE hack the voting machines so we can at least alter the results so we get an honest politician in office and not one of the corporate stooges? I mean seriously, lets use their weapon against them.
- betweenthebars, on 11/27/2007, -0/+2Although this initially might appear to be a good idea, the fact that no two diggers can agree on what two colours create green when mixed might prove to be somewhat of a roadblock.
- BetterWatching, on 11/27/2007, -0/+1Colbert for President
HACK THE VOTE!!!
- sHockz, on 11/27/2007, -3/+3How hard would it be just to print a receipt of your vote with your social x'ed out until the last 4 digits. like
--------------------------------------------------------
xxx-xx-1111
Voted: Ron Paul
Registered: Republican
--------------------------------------------------------
Wow, dont we have a machine like this already? Aren't they called ATM's? Request money, receive physical paper, and money....sound familiar? In our case, vote, receive slip, leave.....wow, is it that f'king hard? no, of course not.
so plz, explain to me why we needed scientists to verify this fact, when it was quite apparent to begin with ::cough::BUSH::cough::- jaderobbins, on 11/27/2007, -0/+3i don't know, that whole "anonymous" vote that allows them to vote without fear of retaliation for that vote.
- ScionAltera, on 11/28/2007, -0/+2Yeah, that's a bad idea. Your boss comes up to you before the election and says to you: "You're fired unless you bring me your voting receipt and it says you voted for Mitt Romney." A better idea is if the machine prints the receipt, you have a chance to view it before you leave the voting booth and contest it if it's incorrect. Then before you leave, you dispose of the receipt in a paper shredder.
- buckrogers1965, on 11/28/2007, -0/+3Or the printed receipt is your ballot and you take it over to a ballot box and drop it in and it becomes the document used in any hand recounts.
- henro112358, on 11/27/2007, -2/+0Ahh yes, the audit trail from Florida's paper punch ballots worked very well in 00. It's obviously a MUCH better system. What B.S. Luddite thought process leads to thinking paper systems can't be hacked?
- ccunni, on 11/27/2007, -2/+2When it comes to presidential elections voting machine security is really irrelevant as long as we continue to use the electoral college. I recall a certain Bush v Gore election that demonstrated the meaninglessness of the individual American vote.
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