Electronic Voting: Your Worst Nightmares are True

jfreon writes "On Democracy Now Bev Harris of BlackBoxVoting fame, disclosed (near the end of the transcript) that in the compromised 1.8Gigs off Diebold's FTP site they uncovered "an actual election file containing actual votes on election day from San Luis Obispo County, California". Problem is, the date stamp was 3:31pm - during voting hours! The Diebold system uses a wireless network card. Worse: "So that means if they can pull the information in, they can also send information back into those machines. ""

WS FTP

[Anonymous Coward]

Next time when they decide to use WS FTP someone should tell them to disable the WS_FTP.LOG files. *shakes head*

I'll vote for an independent party

[pheared]

Go ahead, throw your vote away!

Boycott

[Ignorant Aardvark]

In typical slashdot fashion, we must protest this gross error in security the only way we know how - BOYCOTT!! If millions of geeks suddenly stop voting, the elected officials are going to HAVE to listen to us ... right?!

i hope we don't over-react

[vectus]

I think the safest thing we can do now is to wholly invest in this new technology and pretend the problems aren't there. If we change things around at all or abandon this technology, hackers and terrorists win. Think about that.

seriously guys...

[PoPRawkZ]

before we worry about the voters figuring out the ballot system, let's worry about how the voters are educated about the candidates in the first place. at least someone with the knowledge to hack the voting system in the first place is educated. their choice for our nations leaders would better suit the technology savvy of us anyway. what are we worried about? the ball is in our court.

Re:Slashdot is a small portion of the public

[bradkittenbrink]

actually, shouldn't we try to keep this quiet? doesn't this mean that we can manipulate elections now without the general public finding out? say goodbye to DMCA, UCITA, etc...

Calm down everyone

[Henry V .009]

As the next President of the USA, I promise to make fixing this problem one of my top priorities.

Wouldn't matter.

[grub]

Republicans are too dumb to figure out this stuff and Democrats are too honest to monkey with it. Leave the system as it is. :P

Worst nightmare???

[Arslan ibn Da'ud]

Are you kidding? If the vote is this easy to rig? Congratulations, CmdrTaco, you've been elected!

votedriving?

[Anonymous Coward]

Great, now we'll have people cruising by with cantennas and VoteStumbler trying to get extra votes in for that black guy from Hackers

Reading doesn't imply writing

[Hayzeus]

So that means if they can pull the information in, they can also send information back into those machines.

Not necessarily. Just because a resource can be read from doesn't mean it can be written to. With proper design...

Oh -- we're talking about Diebold? Nevermind...

Why bother?

[SHEENmaster]

The mainstream press has been silenced after the Communist party won a landslide victory in the latest presidential election recount.

Dammit,

[SmurfButcher Bob]

...next thing you'll know, we'll get an actor elected as president.

Thank god the DMCA prohibits the disclosure of this type of info, because if anyone finds out... we'd be screwed.

Upon Further Examination...

[The_Rippa]

The following names were found in the data...

Edgar Neubauer
Prudence Goodwyfe
Mr. and Mrs. Bananas
Humphrey Boa-Gart
Snowball I

As expected they all voted for Sideshow Bob

Falicious logic in article

[Angostura]

OK, now there are some pretty serious implications if the files described in the transcript are what they appear to be. However, I have to say, I'm not that impressed by the quality of some of the reasoning:

... you see, a modem is always two way. If you can pull the information in, you can also push it back through the pipeline the other direction. So that means if they can pull the information in, they can also send information back into those machines.

What is wrong with this picture? And if nothing is wrong why can't I edit the Slashdot home page?

Re:Slashdot is a small portion of the public

[BWJones]

He he. Headlines from the future: Harold P. Winkerbody comes out of nowhere to be the first 17 year old governor of California. He succeeds in changing the state name to Kalifornia, legalizes skateboarding in all public places, legalizes consumption of beer by minors and then is impeached after it is discovered he hacked into the system to rig the votes when he was elected.

A Slashdot business plan

[McAddress]

1.Break into voting machine
2.Change votes
3.??
4.Profit!

Re:Slashdot is a small portion of the public

[JoeLinux]

We, the illuminati, have been doing this for years...I mean...wait....damnit, I was supposed to log in as anonymous.

At last

[nnnneedles]

us geeks will rule the world!

Muahahaha....

Re:Slashdot is a small portion of the public

[Lord_Slepnir]

Except that not just upstanding citizens would have a chance to manipulate the votes. Which would mean that Cowboy Neal is going to be our next president, with Natalie Portman of the Hot Grits party as Vice President. George W Bush will find that he will have (-1, Troll) votes in each precinct.

And with code like this???

[Eberlin]

// Voter Validity Checks if voterID is an int
// If it is, then dude, it must be valid!

voterIsValid = KindaVerifyVoterValidity(voterID);

// A switch would be better but the way I
// see it, there are only two candidates:
// the one I want to win and "who cares"

if(vote > 1 && voterIsValid == True){
vote_for_my_candidate++;
vote_for_whoever = GenerateRandomNoise();
}

I call shenanigans!!!
(go home and get your brooms!)

Re:The system is not the biggest problem

[micromoog]

Sounds great. In fact, let's just make IQ tests mandatory for everyone. Only people with IQs over 100, nay, 120 should be considered competent enough to make political decisions. It's about time we started a class war based on something more meaningful than money or power.

</Vonnegut-based sarcasm>

Re:Slashdot is a small portion of the public

[Anonymous Coward]

Freedom of religion really means freedom of flavour of Christianity, you do realize that, don't you?

Re:Slashdot is a small portion of the public

[Sgt York]

Dammit!

I'm a bitter liberal type now? Damn damn damn! I always thought I was a conservative, but because this scares the piss right out of me, and you said that that makes me a bitter liberal type, I guess I must be.

Crap.

Re:Slashdot is a small portion of the public

[km790816]

Illuminati? You mean The Stonecutters?

We Do (The Stonecutter's Song)
2F09 - 8th January 1995

Who controls the British crown?
Who keeps the metric system down?
We do! We do!
Who keeps Atlantis off the maps?
Who keeps the Martians under wraps?
We do! We do!
Who holds back the electric car?
Who makes Steve Guttenberg a star?
We do! We do!
Who robs the cave fish of their site?
Who rigs every Oscar night?
We do! We do!

They don't know how the votes are counted...

[t0qer]

Harris told Democracy Now!: "We now know that the machines that they're making that count the votes are not secure from tampering. And add to that, we've got a situation where everything inside the machines is secret, we're not allowed the see how they count the votes. So this is not an acceptable situation."

I know! I checked out the souce code from the h4x0r3d FTP site. In fact, I even recognize the hardware it was written for! (Atari 800) It was written in atari basic. The offending code looks like this.

35 if gwb algore then goto 40
37 goto 45
40 gwb=gwb+(algore-gwb)
45 goto 10

You can tell by the line numbering that this was put in as an afterthought. Ya I bet those bastards didn't think anyone could still decipher archaic line numbers and goto statements of atari basic, BUT IM STILL HERE HAHAHA!

Welcome!

[Anonymous Coward]

I, for one, welcome our new Presidential overlord.

Re:Slashdot is a small portion of the public

[smack_attack]

To understand this person's anger, you have to understand the Al Gore factor, it can be explained with these simple slides:

*dims lights, turns on overhead projector*

Voice-over: "This is a picture of Al Gore inventing the Internet (badly altered photo of Gore standing next to a VAX)."

VO: This is a picture of Al Gore beating up the pope (bad cut and paste of Al's head on Muhammad Ali's body, hovering over the pope in a boxing ring).

VO: This is a picture of Al Gore on vacation (picture of Cheney in women's lingerie, slapping his ass).

VO: AHEM!
*quickly pulls picture off projector*

TVO: his is a picture of Al Gore (picture with hand-drawn horns and thin moustache).

VO: In conclusion, Al Gore is the Devil. Vote Republican, unless you love Satan.

In Communist...

[CumInHerTaco]

In Communist Russ... *beep* ...upload complete. In Communist America, the computer votes you!

Re:Falicious logic in article

[travdaddy]

What is wrong with this picture?

If there was some kind of "read-only memory," I'm sure they would have given it a name by now.

Democracy is overrated anyway

[Anonymous Coward]

I, for one, welcome our new Republican overlords.

Re:Voting machine manufacturer wants votes for Bus

[Luscious868]

Ah yes, you've hit the nail right on the head with this one. It is all a part of the vast right wing conspiricy that Hilary Clinton warned us about.

It was started by Ronald Reagan and fellow conspiritors a few months after he won the White House. Reagan and his parterns knew there was a long road ahead to world domination but that it was possible. He know that in order to take over the world, he would need to defeat the USSR and stack the Supreme Court. His vice president, George Bush, was also involved. When Bush became president he continued to stack the Supreme Court with other conspiritors and oversaw the final break up of the Soviet Union. Bush engineered the Golf War so we could build a military presence in Saudi Arabia and be one step closer to the oil in the Middle East.

Alas, Bush was defeated in the 1992 election and the evil Republican plan was put on hold. Bush recruited Newt Gingrich and several others to continue on with the dastardly plan. Newt and fellow conspiritors decided that Clinton must go, the only question was how. They engineered and Republic revolution and take over the House and Senate in the 94 elections. Once they had control of bouth the houses of Congress it was time to make a move on Clinton.

They tried Travelgate, Filegate, Whitewater and finally found something with the potential to stick in Monica. But alas, Monica-gate failed. Alough Clinton was impeached, the impeachment was not successfull and Clinton remained president.

Enraged, the Republicans decided that they would not lose again. The approached George W. Bush several years before the 2000 presidential primary and asked him, along with several prominant neo-cons, to join the conspiricy. Everyone agreed.

The Republicans then commanded as many CEO's as possible to begin moving their companies overseas, where they could afford cheaper labor and evade taxes. Part of the money that they saved could be funnelled illegally back to the RNC and to state Republican parties where they were able to buy votes for George W. Bush and run attack ads against his primary challengers.

Bush emerged victorious in the primaries and then the campaign began to defeat Al Gore. The evil Republicans continued to raise millions of dollars to purchase attack ads and buy votes. When it appeared there was a tie in Florida, George W. Bush didn't break a sweat. It seemed the Reagan and Bush Sr. were correct when they determined it would be necessary to stack the Supreme Court. With evil Republican operatives lead by Scalia and Thomas on the court, the result of the Florida supreme court case went in Bush's favor. Everything was begining to fall back into place.

George W. Bush was ready to begin the process of world domination. To ensure that Bush would win the next election, his cronies began purchasing companies that produced electronic voting equipment. He would fool the US into going electonic after the Florida 2000 fiasco. He would turn the Democrats anger against them to ensure reelection in 2004. The campaign for world domination could commence.

Bush beefed up the Military and sent secret evil Republican operatives to Afganistan to recruit the help of several unwhitting Al Queda operatives who reluctantly agreed to hijack aircraft and fly them into the World Trade Center Towers, the Pentagon and the Capitol Building. The hijackings were to occur on September 11, 2001.

After the hijackings Bush invaded Afganistan. Altough Afganistan was not strategically important to Bush, it would provide the staging ground to test the effectiveness of our military against the defenseless masses.

Afganistan went off nicely, altough there would need to be some improvements made before the second wave of the plan could be implemented.

Two years passed by as Bush rebuilt the military. In that time Bush was also able to engineer a tax cut for the wealthiest Americans so they could in turn line the pockets his cohorts and ensure victory in the next election.

When the military was back u

Re:Why bother?

[Malc]

You guys need to be introduced to the Monster Raving Loony Party [omrlp.com]. Check out their policies: although written in a serious manner, some of them are quite silly, such as reducing class size by making the children sit closer together ;) Somehow their rock star leader has become the longest standing party leader in the UK, and they consistently field candidates across the country in every election.

My Worst Nightmare?

[holzp]

Those guys in the IT room. Naked.

The proper way to hack an election....

[holzp]

Everybody knows the proper way to hack an election is legally through the Supreme Court, not with computers, duh.

Re:Slashdot is a small portion of the public

[H310iSe]

Prediction: Wars between political campaigns and hackers over the 1337 space of the voting booth results in Ohio registering over 30 billion votes in the next Presidential election, with Luke Skywalker edging out both Dean and Bush, and the Democratic candidate coming in a distant 4th.

Re:Slashdot is a small portion of the public

[H310iSe]

Well, you write to your favorite reporters. I've written to The Register before and gotten a good response. Next, you write a letter to the editor and send them to your favorite news outlets. Do some research and find a voter's rights group and use their resources/voulenteer; and, lastly, you put on a chicken suit, attach a bungie cord to your back, set yourself on fire and jump off the most publicly visible spot you can find. When they finally get you down, presuming you survive the fire, you'll be face to face with hundreds of reporters. Improvise.

This is a great question, btw, mod parent up...

Re:Why bother?

[TClevenger]

Bummer. I voted for Jethro Q. Bunn Whackett Buzzard Stubble Boot Walrustitty, not knowing that the Silly Party changed its name.

Re:Let's not neglect the donkeys

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, how could I get elected if dead people couldn't vote? They're my best constituents - they vote and don't ask for favors.

--
Typical "fat-cat" politician

Gee.

[InThane]

Seems you know something about the next election.

I smell a Diebold employee. ;)

Re:Slashdot is a small portion of the public

[Geek of Tech]

Why not just hack it and make CmdrTaco president? Yeah...... and then CowboyNeal could be vice-president..... and we could all be senators........

Slashdot is now a major portion of the public

[Anonymous Coward]

What are the symbols for "warvoting" and "warvoting during training"?

what he forgot to say

[alizard]

Walden O'Dell, chief executive of Diebold Inc., told Republicans in an Aug. 14 fund-raising letter that he is ``committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year.''

He should have gone on to add: "whether or not anybody in the state of Ohio votes for Bush or not".

Re:MSFT and Republicans dead in one global blow

[sg_oneill]

The Republican party will be dispanded, and perhaps a world war (over intelectual property) will occour. Laws on software will radically change for the better in 2012-2015 bringing the US inline with less recent but still new international IP law.

Furthermore, a Cabal of Masons and Catholics will deploy mind control lasers to manipulate the dollar, crash the stock market and prepare the way for Jehova-1 and the Yeti's impending invasion.

Only "Bob" [subgenius.org] can save us now.