AJC: Dare accepted on electronic voting machines

Programmer says she can crack system

FOLKS, THIS IS OUR OWN DEMACTIVIST!

http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/0803/23voting.html
Atlanta Journal Constitution

In the end, Friday's two-hour discussion of whether computers should be the sole tabulators of Georgia voters' ballots came down to a challenge.

Roxanne, a 51-year-old computer program developer from Cumming, said she and a few expert friends could crack Georgia's $54 million touch-screen voting system in a matter of minutes.

The dare was made and accepted at the first of a series of seminars at Kennesaw State sponsored by Secretary of State Cathy Cox to defuse questions about the vulnerability of the statewide system she installed last year.

Election officials promised to provide a voting machine, and a computer server into which votes from the machine are fed.

Bev Harris

couple questions:

1) has the dare been completed? If not, when will it be?

2) I'm assuming this is hot news, but there's no date, nor does the article attend to the dangling dare after it stops discussing it. While I'm aware of the pile of crap that is touch-screen voting (hereafter referred to by me as TSV), I must say this article leaves questions to be answered.

Is my first question answered as of yet, do you know? I'm following this closely....

Best regards

k

edited to indicate a future-use acronym.

But depends on when Georgia makes machines available, and we are coordinating schedules now.

Bets on them suddenly having a reason to not provide the machines, given the track record of the overall issue at hand? ;)

that we're going to use their machines. After they put the revisions on in May?

Surely not.

Eloriel

:shrug:

One clever lady. And as tenacious as they come.

Eloriel

Two huge stories in one day:

David Allen -- crashes secret voting industry meeting where they are discussing giving over $200,000 to a PR whitewash effort by ITAA ES division, a group whose director is the Sr. Vice President of SAIC, the firm commissioned to do the study on Diebold to decide if it is secure or not

http://www.blackboxvoting.com

http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/0803/23voting.html

and Roxanne, who goes by the name DemActivist here, who crashed a meeting in Georgia and got voting machine examiner Dr. Brit Williams so flummoxed he agreed to her challenge to hack a voting machine -- in front of an Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporter, who promptly held him to it.

Go getem' DEMActivist!

One question - will the machine be sequestered under lock and key until the challenge? Does that even matter?

Some details to be worked out.

Okay, now it is legit. Calling all DU computer programmers and experts for coordinated strategy meetings in private BBV forums this weekend. PM me if you can attend.

A long time ago maybe 6 months ago rox wrote me to say you were getting one of these machines to test out.What ever happened to that?Find out in seconds if they are rigged?Gee if you were really serious about this you would of contacted the experts i know which are "real" experts in embedded systems.If you break this whole thing open god bless you if not then why all they hype.

Oh and btw rox how come you gave me your login to your server to fix programs if you are a programmer?It would seem you could fix stuff pretty easy since you know so much about systems yet i fixed stuff there you couldn't figure out.

"will the machine be sequestered under lock and key until the challenge? Does that even matter?" funny how the meeting was on a Friday, and they have the weekend to plan their strategy as well. i should hope they would allow DemActivist to select a machine at random from one of their precints. probably won't happen, but could be worth trying.

That would make it harder to crack?

snip>
Bring it on, said state election officials.

Of course, the objection "Are you saying there's no such thing as a secure and accurate computer? You don't fly on airplanes?" is pointless.

What is the incentive for a programmer to bring a plane down, harming public confidence in his product and ultimately damaging his employment possibilities?

What is the incentive of a Diebold exec who has stock options worth millions and has been promised a billion-dollar contract by a candidate?

if these voting computers were up to FAA spec we prolly wouldn't have a problem to start with.

This should get the word out, I hope she makes real good on her claims. Not just shows them their errors, but really really brings the message home to them and the rest of the U.S.

If she can do it and I believe she can, then the whole floppy house of cards comes tumbling down. I trust Brit Williams as far as I trust that psycho in the WH. There is no way he will "play fair". His reputation is on the line.

:bounce:

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

Darn, I wish I could help with the programming but I'm not up to date enough on some things.

However, I am a techie and knowledgeable enough to be a helper or an assistant. And, I live only 3 hours away from Atlanta.

and BEST of wishes.

one regret--DemaActivist's ID is blown now, thanks to this thread.
I understand the excitement, and I'm thrilled too. I'm just saying....

Except for that, this is very good news--I'll be watching for more details.

You have the chance to bring down some very important people, and improve democracy...I'd say that's worth it.

http://slashdot.org/articles/03/08/23/1423243.shtml?tid=103&tid=126&tid=172&tid=99

Some interesting comments are showing up, like:

"The Diebold system does have major flaws. I was just at the Crypto2003 conference where one of the talks was on the faults in this system. Amongst other things, when they pointed out the major errors in code, the company replied back calling DES (or DSA, I forget) a compression scheme, and they implemented an algorithm from Handbook of Applied Crypto for purposes of encryption with a value listed in the book that says explicitly 'Do not use this for cryptographic purposes.' "

And:

"It was actually worse than this -- they used a Linear Congruential Generator, which is a very cheap method of generating 'random' numbers. Those numbers might work well for simulations, but for cryptography they're totally predictable once you've seen just a couple of output values. Cryptography relies upon the unpredictability of random numbers for security, so LCGs should never be used for that purpose."


On edit: The comments included one with a link to an open-source voting project:

http://gnosis.cx/voting-project/announce.html

Scientists and engineers from the Silicon Valley have started a project aimed at developing a PC based voting machine they claim will be easier to use, more tamper-resistant, and cheaper than commercially available voting machines.

The target for completion of the demonstration project is mid-October. If successful and fully funded, certified ready-to-use software could be available in about a year.

<snip>

The concept has already been demonstrated in Australia where, in 2001, the Australian Capital Territory government commissioned the development of open source software to run on trailing-edge PCs set up in polling places as voting machines.

The current open source software development project, known as EVM, includes participants from around the United States as well as developers from overseas. EVM will differ from the Australian system in several ways. Most importantly, the machine will include a printer from which a completed paper ballot will be produced. It will work with either a touch screen PC monitor or a regular PC monitor and mouse.

Is anyone here familiar with this project?

but, but, but then there are not millions in profits to scam off of taxpayers! </sarcasm>

This would be an excellent option; but the problem of right wing hackers controlling election outcomes still exists.

I am still for the Canadian option of paper ballots. The entire country, 30 million people, paper ballots counted up within hours...

At a minimum, a paper trail; you have to wonder why they are so against the paper trail.

:toast:

oh yes, according to him there is no "voting machine issue" (as told to me on a web chat with AJC). I hope this story bites him in the butt too!

As soon as the meeting broke up Galloway came up to me and said "Can I have your name, please?" and when I gave him my name, I said "does this mean you'll answer my emails now?"

Galloway: Did you email me?

ME: Yes, you, Colin Campbell, and Jay Bookman.

Galloway: Well, we don't email Jay Bookman. He's an editorial person. We don't even READ Jay Bookman - at least not publicly.

I'd like to come down and say hey from Illinois!

I'll find out for you and let you know. Sonny flies a chopper, shall we ask him to come get you?

"Roxanne, a 51-year-old computer program developer from Cumming, said she and a few expert friends could crack Georgia's $54 million touch-screen voting system in a matter of minutes."

Is this 10 minutes, 30 minutes, 60 minutes, or longer...? If they give you 10 minutes, ask for 45...compromise somewhere in the middle...

No discussion of time at all. It's not a bet, or competition or sport or game. If it should take even 1 second longer than "the agreed upon time limit," then the whole thing is lost, no matter what else happens.

For that reason, IMO, there should be as few "ground rules" as possible, or put another way it should be as wide open as possible. Yes, there'll have to be some agreements and arrangements, but for the most part it should just be an open demonstration.

Eloriel

Can she had 110 zillion votes to Democratic Candidate for 2004 pretty please :bounce:

I'd rather we stuck to the challenge that they prove that their machines and networks and software are secure (which of course they can't).

It seems an awful lot is riding on Roxanne.
If she succeeds (who "measures" this success?), then great for our side.
If she fails (again, who gets to measure this), then they will claim victory - that their systems are secure against voter fraud. Though, obviously to us (and many others), such a conclusion could not be drawn.

If she fails, it will be a PR disaster for anti-BBV people. Hopefully not something that can't be recovered from.

Reminds me of when in high school our basketball team challenged our volleyball team to a volleyball match. On quick examination, the volleyball players had everything to lose and nothing to gain from such a match. The volleyball coach put a stop to it.

Strategy is proceeding behind the scenes.

Bev

They should have gone right that minute to attempt this...not after the voting company can shore up security and protect the inherent illegitimacy.

I too smell a trap.

:kick: