Friday, July 28, 2006

In case you missed it, this "little" bombshell about blackbox voting machines and security flaws (don't you love how we're fighting to establish democracy over there but have no problem with allowing our own democracy to be flushed down the toilet):
Recently, computer security expert Harri Hursti revealed serious
security vulnerabilities in Diebold's software. According to Michael
Shamos, a computer scientist and voting system examiner in
Pennsylvania, "It's the most severe security flaw ever discovered in a
voting system."

Even more shockingly, we learned recently that Diebold and the State of
Maryland had been aware of these vulnerabilities for at least two
years. They were documented in analysis, commissioned by Maryland and
conducted by RABA Technologies, published in January 2004. For over
two years, Diebold has chosen not to fix the security holes, and
Maryland has chosen not to alert other states or national officials
about these problems.

Basically, Diebold included a "back door" in its software, allowing
anyone to change or modify the software. There are no technical
safeguards in place to ensure that only authorized people can make
changes.

A malicious individual with access to a voting machine could rig the
software without being detected. Worse yet, if the attacker rigged the
machine used to compute the totals for some precinct, he or she could
alter the results of that precinct. The only fix the RABA authors
suggested was to warn people that manipulating an election is against
the law.
<..>
We must ask, how did software containing such an outrageous violation come to be certified, and what other flaws, yet to be uncovered, lurk in other certified systems?
Uh, yeah, good questions.... But does anyone care?

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