How safe is our e-voting system now? This report makes me want to go back to pen and paper days again. More details on the actual paper here .
From the MSNBC report:
Felten and graduate students Ariel Feldman and Alex Halderman found that malicious programs could be placed on the Diebold by accessing the memory card slot and power button, both behind a locked door on the side of the machine. One member of the group was able to pick the lock in 10 seconds, and software could be installed in less than a minute, according to the report.
The researchers say they designed software capable of modifying all records, audit logs and counters kept by the voting machine, ensuring that a careful forensic examination would find nothing wrong.
The programs were able to modify vote totals or cause machines to break down, something that could alter the course of an election if machines were located in crucial polling stations.
It was also possible to design a computer virus to spread malicious programs to multiple machines by piggybacking on a new software download or an election information file being transferred from machine to machine, Felten said.
It's getting so bad that I'm not even sure pen and paper will suffice. We may have to do the whole "show of hands" deal. Well, okay, that may be a tad unfeasible. Drawing names out of a hat? Arm-wrestling competition?
Posted by: m | September 14, 2006 at 07:34 AM
Can't we borrow from Canada ?
Posted by: Sujatha | September 14, 2006 at 08:35 AM