Religions > Atheism > OT: Never mind the chads, here's computerised election chaos
| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"maff" |
| Date: |
09 May 2004 05:12:10 AM |
| Object: |
OT: Never mind the chads, here's computerised election chaos |
Never mind the chads, here's computerised election chaos
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/business/story/0,6903,1212281,00.html
John Naughton
Sunday May 9, 2004
The Observer
Remember the farce of the 2000 US presidential election? All that
business with hanging and dimpled chads? So traumatised were American
legislators by the experience they said 'never again!'
In a Gadarene rush from paper-based systems more than 30 states have
opted for computerised voting which works rather like banks' ATMs -
but by collecting votes rather than dispensing cash. Henceforth, US
elections will be efficient and accurate, with fast counting.
John Naughton
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&selm=18510aff.0311300238.35bfa859%40posting.google.com
.
|
|
| User: "bob young" |
|
| Title: Re: OT: Never mind the chads, here's computerised election chaos |
09 May 2004 06:32:06 AM |
|
|
--------------E5149F6EB960751BA21A8DEE
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
maff wrote:
Never mind the chads, here's computerised election chaos
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/business/story/0,6903,1212281,00.html
John Naughton
Sunday May 9, 2004
The Observer
Remember the farce of the 2000 US presidential election? All that
business with hanging and dimpled chads? So traumatised were American
legislators by the experience they said 'never again!'
In a Gadarene rush from paper-based systems more than 30 states have
opted for computerised voting which works rather like banks' ATMs -
but by collecting votes rather than dispensing cash. Henceforth, US
elections will be efficient and accurate, with fast counting.
A logical development from this would be the virtual vote where each and every person in a country votes on any issue
at any time when requested to do so at the press of a button.
John Naughton
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&selm=18510aff.0311300238.35bfa859%40posting.google.com
--------------E5149F6EB960751BA21A8DEE
Content-Type: text/html; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
<!doctype html public "-//w3c//dtd html 4.0 transitional//en">
<html>
<p>maff wrote:
<blockquote TYPE=CITE>Never mind the chads, here's computerised election
chaos
<br><a href="http://observer.guardian.co.uk/business/story/0,6903,1212281,00.html">http://observer.guardian.co.uk/business/story/0,6903,1212281,00.html</a>
<p>John Naughton
<br>Sunday May 9, 2004
<br>The Observer
<p>Remember the farce of the 2000 US presidential election? All that
<br>business with hanging and dimpled chads? So traumatised were American
<br>legislators by the experience they said 'never again!'
<p>In a Gadarene rush from paper-based systems more than 30 states have
<br>opted for computerised voting which works rather like banks' ATMs -
<br>but by collecting votes rather than dispensing cash. Henceforth, US
<br>elections will be efficient and accurate, with fast counting.</blockquote>
<p><br>A logical development from this would be the virtual vote where
each and every person in a country votes on any issue at any time when
requested to do so at the press of a button.
<br>
<br>
<blockquote TYPE=CITE>
<p>John Naughton
<br><a href="http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&selm=18510aff.0311300238.35bfa859%40posting.google.com">http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&selm=18510aff.0311300238.35bfa859%40posting.google.com</a></blockquote>
</html>
--------------E5149F6EB960751BA21A8DEE--
.
|
|
|
|
| User: "stoney" |
|
| Title: Re: OT: Never mind the chads, here's computerised election chaos |
15 May 2004 11:41:10 AM |
|
|
On 9 May 2004 03:12:10 -0700, (maff), Message ID:
<18510aff.0405090212.4a1ed9df@posting.google.com> wrote in alt.atheism;
Never mind the chads, here's computerised election chaos
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/business/story/0,6903,1212281,00.html
Never mind the chads, here's computerised election chaos
John Naughton
Sunday May 9, 2004
The Observer
Remember the farce of the 2000 US presidential election? All that
business with hanging and dimpled chads? So traumatised were American
legislators by the experience they said 'never again!'
In a Gadarene rush from paper-based systems more than 30 states have
opted for computerised voting which works rather like banks' ATMs - but
by collecting votes rather than dispensing cash. Henceforth, US
elections will be efficient and accurate, with fast counting.
That's the theory. Yet the reality is that the plan is fraught with
difficulties. The machines being purchased for use in the forthcoming
presidential and local elections have come under sustained fire from
academics in computer science.
One group of specialists, led by Professor Aviel Rubin of Johns Hopkins
University, examined the computer code used in voting machines sold by
the Diebold corporation and summarised their conclusions in the starkest
possible terms.
The team's analysis showed the voting system to be 'far below even the
most minimal security standards applicable in other contexts'. They
wrote: 'We identify several problems including unauthorised privilege
escalation, incorrect use of cryptography, vulnerabilities to network
threats, and poor software development processes.
'We show that voters, without any insider privileges, can cast unlimited
votes without being detected by any mechanisms within the voting
terminal software. We show that even the most serious of our outsider
attacks could have been discovered and executed without access to the
source code.
'In the face of such attacks, the usual worries about insider threats
are not the only concerns; outsiders can do the damage.
'That said, we demonstrate that the insider threat is also quite
considerable, showing that not only can an insider, such as a pollworker
modify the votes, but that insiders can also violate voter privacy and
match votes with the voters who cast them.
'We conclude that this voting system is unsuitable for use in a general
election.'
Other experts have come to similar conclusions on other types of voting
machine.
Until this week, electoral officials in most of the 34 states committed
to computerised voting this autumn stuck doggedly to the mantra that
their systems were trustworthy. These assertions were, not surprisingly,
echoed by the makers of the kit.
Diebold, for instance, responded to Professor Rubin saying: 'The
clinical research focused almost solely on software code, and overlooked
the total system of software, hardware, services and pollworker training
that have made Diebold electronic vot ing systems so effective in
real-world implementation.'
But last week California threw a large spanner in the works by saying
computerised voting machines were not yet ready for November on the
grounds of unreliability (machines in more than half San Diego county's
precincts malfunctioned in the 2 March presidential primary), security
worries, and procedural issues about federal certification of Diebold's
technology.
The withdrawal of such a large and important state from the rush to
computerise disturbed electoral officials in other states. But for many
of them the die is cast: they are so far down the road to relying on
machines there is no going back.
The basic security problem is straightforward. Voting machines are
computers, and computers are intrinsically insecure and malleable - they
can be programmed and reprogrammed to do anything. Any votes cast on an
unreliable or compromised machine can be discounted or altered by it.
Further, there may be no way of determining, after the event, whether or
not such a thing had happened.
Professor Rubin and his team have shown that voting machines are
vulnerable to hacking and reprogramming; and in a paperless election
there may be no way of checking whether such a weakness had been
exploited.
The solution is for the machines to leave a paper trail - via an
attached printer - that would be available for later inspection.
Simple, isn't it? But the US Electoral Assistance Commission last week
heard election officials from some states arguing that any attempt to
'retrofit' print systems to their space-age voting systems could lead to
chaos in November.
Jeb Bush, governor of Florida and the President's brother, told
reporters that no printers for making receipts had been made for the
voting machines in his state - and he indicated that he was not
concerned about using the machines.
Interestingly, the chief executive of Diebold, Walden O'Dell, donated
more than $100,000 to George Bush's re-election campaign and, according
to the New York Times, wrote to Republican contributors in August saying
he was 'committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the
President next year'.
He may well be a man of his word; last time, some parts of Ohio used
Diebold machines. But in one place, Precinct 216, those machines gave
Democra hopeful Al Gore minus 16,022 before the error was spotted. Even
Chicago mayor Richard Daley, inventor of the first 'voting machine',
never managed that. Stay tuned.
john.naughton@observer.co.uk
www.briefhistory.com/footnotes/
(c) 2004 Guardian Newspapers
Stoney
"Designated Rascal and Rapscallion
and
SCAMPERMEISTER!"
When in doubt, SCAMPER about!
When things are fair, SCAMPER everywhere!
When things are rough, can't SCAMPER enough!
/end humour alert
alt.atheism military veteran #11
{so much for the 'no atheists in foxholes' rubbish}
.
|
|
|
|
|
Related Articles |
|
|
