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Software Encryption Security Your Rights Online

More E-Voting Software Leaks Surface 283

Christopher Soghoian writes "Sound like something you've seen before? Wired News reports that the software which runs Sequoia's AVC Edge voting machines has been accidentally placed on another company's publicly available FTP server, although this time it's the binary, rather than the source that's been leaked. Machines running this software were used in California's Riverside County for the 2000 presidential election and for last month's California gubernatorial recall election. The system also has been used in counties in Florida and Washington state."
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More E-Voting Software Leaks Surface

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  • by adamruck ( 638131 ) on Thursday October 30, 2003 @01:05AM (#7344693)
    I dont know a whole lot about cyrpto, but if its a big deal if a binary got leaked, perhaps the software isn't that secure to begin with. We all know security through obscurity doesn't work.
    • I think we'd all feel a bit safer if they went ahead and leaked all the source for all the different machines.

      Who wants their vote to be tallied by a black box? This is too complex for buerocracy crippled government oversight. We have a right to know exactly how our vote is being recorded!

      Just my opinion.
    • Why aren't people getting as offended over this as they do over the old style votomatics?!

      This all seems a lot worse than hanging chads to me.
      • This all seems a lot worse than hanging chads to me.

        It is worse.

        Imagine if the same fiasco happens with our current electronic voting machines.

        There would be absolutely nothing to recount, and people will be even more furious because their first assumption will be a corrupt system.

        What could be done to appease them? Nothing short of a re-election, which AFAIK is not even a legal option.

        Actually, as long as any election remains unauditable, people will always presume that it was rigged. People even
    • Machines running this software were used in California's Riverside County for the 2000 presidential election and for last month's California gubernatorial recall election.

      SkyNet put it there!

  • How do you "accidentally" put software on a public FTP server ... this is ridiculous. Makes me glad to not be an American :)
    • You don't. Someone who was upset with what happened during the elections probably posted it so tech people could find the flaws and make the people in charge look foolish.
    • where you from? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by alizard ( 107678 )
      I know that in at least 1 EU nation, the request to examine voting machine and vote counting software was responded to by "Oops, the foriegn company forgot to give us a copy."

      The company was NOT a USA company

    • You're right. The /. writer-upper added that themselves for reasons only they know.
    • That's okay - we're glad you're not an American too.
    • How do you "accidentally" put software on a public FTP server[?]

      Trivial:

      By FTPing it TO a directory that is read/write for anonymous FTP, rather than read only or login-required.

      Easy to do if a company is trying to deliver a copy of an executable to a customer and both the person doing the delivery and the person receiving it aren't on their toes, or if the person receiving it doesn't have enough sysadmin privileges to configure the FTP server and the sysadmin who does isn't cooperative or available.

      No
  • Open Source (Score:3, Interesting)

    by ottothecow ( 600101 ) on Thursday October 30, 2003 @01:06AM (#7344707) Homepage
    This wouldnt be a problem if they used OSS to vote. The problems could be caught and fixed before a vote...and nobody has to keep the info secure.
  • by hampton2600 ( 654273 ) on Thursday October 30, 2003 @01:06AM (#7344709) Homepage
    If these systems were really secure, then finding out the code shouldn't be important. Just because I know the RSA 128-bit algorithem, doesn't mean that I can break it in a second!

    Also, why isn't the federal government coming out with a standard software framework for voting?

    This seems obvious to me, at least.

    Not that I trust my government to be the best coders, but heck... get the DOD on it. They are pretty good at these problem domains.

    Maybe they'd run it off of source forge....

    -hampton2600.
    • Yeah, because if the federal government does it, it is efficient, reliable, and effective.
      • by namespan ( 225296 ) <namespan.elitemail@org> on Thursday October 30, 2003 @01:50AM (#7344956) Journal
        Yeah, because if the federal government does it, it is efficient, reliable, and effective.

        Blah blah -- the government boondoggle meme strikes again. Yes, it has its roots in some truths, and that's why it exists. But...

        The problem is, there are in fact examples of government programs and agencies working and working well. Our, poor, terribly innefficient government programs are responsible for creating the world's best military. My locality might be an exception, but we've got incredible public library resources that I'm so happy with I'm *glad* when I get library fines. The Interstate Highway system makes cross country travel effecient and quick -- which keeps the cost of goods lower -- at least, those you buy that were shipped from somewhere else.

        Yep -- I know, private firms were involved in the creation of each of those things. Doesn't change the fact that some branch of our poor, incapable, incompetent government commissioned and managed those projects.

        And yes, I know -- the DMV is frustrating to deal with. But I can tell you that the service of the DMV and even the IRS looks positively stellar compared to any number of private entitities -- several health insurance companies, Sprint, Microsoft Customer support, and the hosting company I called last week (no, not some dinky provider either -- I'm talking freakin' Interland here). All of whom should have, in theory, been erased by the invisible hand or otherwise kicked in the pants by the market. But in fact, these beaurocracies are no better than most mediocre government beaurocracies.

        So it's fun to repeat, but remember to look at the facts while you're thinking about it. Our beloved commercial driven-to-efficiency-by-the-market companies have produced an absolute steaming heap of bovine excrement when it comes to an e-voting product. And yes, it's still taxpayer subsidized, because our governments are paying for these products -- and not just the costs, but also the profits.
        • Our, poor, terribly innefficient government programs are responsible for creating the world's best military.

          Given that ALL militaries are, by definition, owned by the government (except I suppose a handful of mercenary outfits, which simply don't have the resources to design their own fighter jets), that's hardly a compelling argument. Indeed, looking at how much is spent on the military, I think the only lesson to learn there is "even if you've got a horribly inefficient process, if you throw hundreds o

        • All of whom should have, in theory, been erased by the invisible hand or otherwise kicked in the pants by the market. But in fact, these beaurocracies are no better than most mediocre government beaurocracies.

          How true. Heard a great line a few days ago - something to the effect of "the problem with the invisible hand is that it often isn't there."

          Haven't heard any stories about wealthy Californians' homes spared by their hyper-efficient private fire departments this week, either.
        • examples of government programs and agencies working and working well.

          Which ones? The only good service I've recieved from government organizations was when I dealt with the tax collectors (property tax, mainly).

          Our, poor, terribly innefficient government programs are responsible for creating the world's best military.

          Like other people have said, $5,000,000,000 gets contractors riled up like nothing else. You should see the $2,000,000 contracts (a typcial pork-barrel domain), where the inefficiency

    • the files also contain Visual Basic script and code for voting system databases that could allow someone to learn how to rig voting results. The programmer spoke on condition of anonymity.

      that's what we're talking about here: VB script! I'm sure it's real secure.

      No kidding it's time for a standard: OS, access to the boxes, protocols, install procedures, app, app validation, audit, the works.
    • by Anonymous Coward

      Also, why isn't the federal government coming out with a standard software framework for voting?

      Be careful what you ask for, or Executive Order 192519 may declare Diebold to be the sole contractor for electronic voting software. Or maybe Halliburton would like to expand its service roster to include "trustworthy software development" ;)

      --
      Rate Naked People [fuckmeter.com] at Fuck Meter! (not work-safe)

    • You're getting your public and symmetric key lengths mixed up.

      Supposedly, 128-bit RSA can be factored in a few seconds or less most home pc's.
    • Also, why isn't the federal government coming out with a standard software framework for voting?

      There is good reason.

      The lesson should already have been learned. You don't want a single point that can be corrupted. There is good reason that each state is left to its own devices, and its own decisions etc about elections. It is a hell of a lot harder to rig 50 elections than it is to rig 1.

      You want to let each state experiment with things. Eventually a system that works will eventually be left.
      • Well, this could be true - but there are two problems: 1) it's a bit like currency - wouldn't it be harder to counterfeit if there were hundreds of currencies rather than just one? Not really, all you need to do is counterfeit the least secure to get rich. Similarly, all a nefarious zealot needs doo is throw one key county election, in one state to throw the national election, some lame backwater filled with confused old people, some distant dingleberry of a state... Just make some simple little ambigu
  • haha (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I was reading the headline and I thought I read it as "ubernatorial election", made me ponder for a moment.
  • by LordSah ( 185088 ) * on Thursday October 30, 2003 @01:12AM (#7344735)
    ...but I lack the prehensile tail.

    (sigh)
  • by skank ( 106609 ) on Thursday October 30, 2003 @01:13AM (#7344740) Homepage
    from the article

    Neumann, the security expert, said, "This means that anyone could install a Trojan horse in the MDAC that won't show up in the source code." Jaguar employees, Sequoia employees or state election officials could insert code that wouldn't be detectable in a certification review of the code or in security testing of the system, he said.

    Now all we need to do is write a trojan to get Tux elected president!!

    Karma -2 (Not Funny)
    • Bah, vote Ficus!
    • Ficus [commondreams.org] in 2004!
  • E-Voting (Score:5, Insightful)

    by mizhi ( 186984 ) on Thursday October 30, 2003 @01:15AM (#7344753)
    I think that no matter how many assurances there are (and there aren't a whole lot right now) we're never going to be able to take care of lingering doubts about the security and fairness of e-voting.

    Right now, voting software is obviously not ready for primetime and the companies that make it need to have some sort of oversight committee making sure they're not playing games or royally fucking things up.

    There was enough of a commotion in FLA about hanging chads that people's confidence in machines are shot. And those are relatively simple compared to secure e-voting software!

    It seems that the more we try to "high-tech" the voting process, the more problems and uncertainty we will introduce into the system.

    So, right now I'm leaning towards a really low tech solution: simple paper and pen for ballots.

    I know I'm a geek and supposed to love technological solutions. And I do, but with something as important as voting, until they get it to be as reliable as pen and paper, I say screw the machines because as a geek, I also know how unreliable software can be.
    • I'm leaning towards a really low tech solution: simple paper and pen for ballots

      Makes a lot of sense. Pretty hard to tamper with ink, and even then, you'd need to do it a ballot at a time.

      Right now it seems as though the owner of Diebold is openly rooting for Bush. Using a computer, his company can affect a lot of ballots very quickly. That worries me.

      If the owner of the Flair Pen company was rooting for Bush, I wouldn't worry in the least because pens can't be controlled via modem... I hope.
    • It seems that the more we try to "high-tech" the voting process, the more problems and uncertainty we will introduce into the system.

      Not necessarily. It depends on what the interests of the parties involved are. More "high-tech" processes can, in fact, give you more guarantees that election results have not been tampered with. How about something like following:

      0. When starting a vote process, assign a unique one-way hash to each voter;
      1. Have voters vote electronically, and record their electronic vote

    • There are lots of ways to create auditable trails for e-voting, but they aren't interested in offering the feature. Why not? I conclude it's because the lack of auditing is precisely the point. That's hos Diebold plans to "deliver" Ohio.

      That reason why Database Technologies (DBT) was given the job of "scrubbing" felons from the Florida voting rolls was not that they were cheap (500 times more than the company they replaced) nor that they were efficient. Katherine Harris several times shifted the standa
  • Here we go again... (Score:5, Informative)

    by tinrobot ( 314936 ) on Thursday October 30, 2003 @01:16AM (#7344758)
    Let's see, the software is written on a Microsoft base, is closed source and... shudder... appears to be prone to tampering. Just like Diebold and I would imagine every other vendor's software.

    We need to get the source in the open, and more importantly, we need to have these machines give paper ballot reciepts as well as an internal audit tape like those found on ATMs...

    There is a bill in the House (H.R. 2239) that already has a lot of support and addresses a lot of these issues. Please urge your representative to support it as well.


    • Vote Buying. .....and..... Coersion

      Every time someone suggests Ballot Receipts, I wonder whether they don't understand the concept of "free and fair elections", or just don't want them to happen.
      Here's a hint: "secret ballot". It's one of the key concepts of democracy.

      • I don't understand how a piece of paper equals coercion.

        If you marked a paper ballot with a pen, and dropped the ballot in a box, then that would also be coercion? Seems like that's the way its been done for centuries.

        What makes it different if the paper comes out of the voting machine before it gets dropped in the box?

        In fact, there is no difference. Why do we even need the voting machine?
        • I don't understand how a piece of paper equals coercion.

          If you marked a paper ballot with a pen, and dropped the ballot in a box, then that would also be coercion? Seems like that's the way its been done for centuries.

          What makes it different if the paper comes out of the voting machine before it gets dropped in the box?


          It doesn't, what you're describing is a ballot, not a receipt. A ballot receipt would be something the voter takes with them. If the voter takes anything with them which shows who they vo
      • Yes - ballot receipts are a huge mistake if and only if the voter keeps the receipt when leaving the polling station.

        A printed receipt which the voter can examine (to verify the vote was recorded as intended) then deposits in a secure ballot box is something else entirely. This allows validation of the electronic vote count as well as a fallback in the event of a recount.
        • Yes - ballot receipts are a huge mistake if and only if the voter keeps the receipt when leaving the polling station.

          That's not a paper reciept, that's a paper ballot. The electronic results could be used, especially in the case of a blowout but the paper ballot would/should be the official ballot.
          • I think we're pretty much in agreement here - you use the electronic tabulation because it's basically instantaneous. Presumably recounts would be more common in close races than in blowouts, and if you need a recount, you go by what the paper says.

        • by laird ( 2705 ) <lairdp@gmail.TWAINcom minus author> on Thursday October 30, 2003 @02:59AM (#7345265) Journal
          Paper receipts are worthless -- not only do they rely on everyone keeping theirs (and turning it in when asked, etc.) in case of a recount, but there's no guarantee that the vote printed on the receipt matches the vote recorded in the eVoting system.

          The only system that works is having people make marks on paper that they can look at and verify, then put into an independent tallying device to count the votes, which rejects invalid votes immediately so that they can be corrected. And in the even of a recount, the paper can be re-scanned.

          Astoundingly enough, such devices not only exist, they're cheap, reliable, and fairly widely used -- scantrons! They have the lowest error rate of any voting mechanism, and cost almost nothing.

          I have no idea why anyone would even consider an untested (and un-auditable) touchscreen terminal that costs thousands of dollars instead of a scantron that costs almost nothing (the forms cost about 10 cents, and the election board can borrow the scantron from the local schools).

          Luckily (http://newshound.de.siu.edu/spring03/stories/stor yReader$1954) not everyone is so enamored of technology that they overlook the obvious.

          But just to keep us on our toes, these morons (http://clients.enfocom.com/avs/products_winvote.h tml) actually put wireless LAN interfaces on their touchscreen machines ("The functionality linchpin of the WINvoteTM system is its wireless LAN (IEEE 802.11b) system - called the Wireless Information Network (WIN) -- that enables the user to communicate remotely with the major components of the voting system.")

          Isn't anyone with a brain cell writing the requirements for these voting systems? You'd think that secure and auditable would be adjectives that you'd want in a voting system.
          • paper receipts are worthless -- not only do they rely on everyone keeping theirs, in case of a recount, but there's no guarantee that the vote printed on the receipt matches the vote recorded in the eVoting system.

            Right, so if you were to design a system like this, one has to make sure the paper ballot gets turned back in (think ballot prints out, big flashing lights go off, ballot has to be re-inserted into box under touchscreen before lights stop flashing). AND you have to spot-check a certain fraction

            • "And as for the wireless LAN support - gak. GAK. Looking at that page made my brain hurt. That's just such a really really bad idea."

              The part that scares me is that all of the commercial eVoting systems are so obviously flawed that I can't imagine how anyone ever bought them. Don't these towns have _anyone_ who can point out obvious flaws? It's not like it takes a rocket scientist to realize that combining a wireless LAN with voting just might increase the opportunity for fraud. Or that all of these system
          • > But just to keep us on our toes, these morons (http://clients.enfocom.com/avs/products_winvote. h tml) actually put wireless LAN interfaces on their touchscreen machines ("The functionality linchpin of the WINvoteTM system is its wireless LAN (IEEE 802.11b) system - called the Wireless Information Network (WIN) -- that enables the user to communicate remotely with the major components of the voting system.")

            /me turns in his moron card, hangs his head in shame, and walks away, having been completely

    • Its a binary that was put on an ftp server, explain how it being written for a windows platform and being closed source has anything to do with that?. Believe it or not, not everyone can make a profit by giving away software and selling support (os model i believe). OSS isnt the answer to everything and isnt a quick fix.
      • Closed source software is great for things like banks and automobile ignition systems, but when it comes to deciding the future of our democracy, I would like to know EXACTLY what is going on inside the code.

        Call me old-fashioned, but I don't think companies need to make a profit off of elections. It introduces some very serious conflicts of interest.
      • They can release the source code for public verification and auditing without licensing it for actual use in an election, so people would be able to audit it to establish trust, but would still have to go to the company to license the system. Compare this to a patent -- you completely and publicly document your invention, and have a monopoly on its use. Without public disclosure, there's no reason for anyone to trust you...
  • Yeah, right (Score:5, Funny)

    by lildogie ( 54998 ) on Thursday October 30, 2003 @01:19AM (#7344774)
    > Also, why isn't the federal government coming out with a standard software framework for voting? ... get the DOD on it.

    Yeah, have the military run the elections. Great idea...NOT.
    • Yeah, have the military run the elections. Great idea...NOT.

      At least in the US, as it is now, that would work just fine. The US military has a deeply ingrained institutional respect for the civilian leadership and the democratic process that selects those leaders, regardless of who it picks. The military mostly hated Clinton, for example, but still fully accepted him as their Commander in Chief and would never have attempted to subvert the political process in order to oust him.

      Members of the armed f

  • by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 30, 2003 @01:19AM (#7344780)
    Earlier today I posted the lists.tgz archive of Diebold's damning mailing list exchange to Freenet, as has been requested repeatedly in threads related to the electronic voting issue.

    The key is:

    CHK@sgOjWAy4g-0bf0m5biyqnEzWloENAwI,OXw8OfHPfsmL d0 68BtICKg/lists.tgz

    If I can obtain the AVC Edge binary, I will do the same with it.

    Let loose the DMCA notices, boys. It won't do you a damned bit of good now.
  • can be found here: http://www.programmersheaven.com/zone1/cat252/1308 3.htm [programmersheaven.com]

    I guess in 2 days we'll know who really won the California recall vote. :)
  • by Pope Raymond Lama ( 57277 ) <<gwidion> <at> <mpc.com.br>> on Thursday October 30, 2003 @01:44AM (#7344927) Homepage
    Here in Brazil, were we have had last year the largest elections using proprietary-software-equiped-polls, it seens that there have been more than a
    couple of frauds last year.

    The latest news are these ones [estadao.com.br] (In Portuguese. Use
    the fish [altavista.com] to read in English).

    There have surfaced accuatins of votings being sold at R$10,00 (~U$3.30) each one, and of a candidate that had more than 1000 votes while they were being counted ending up with zero votes.

    I just hope they get to the only one true: these eletronic polls, as they are, are nothing but election-buying machinnes.
    • Babelfish (or perhaps the Brazilian site) appeared slashdotted, so here's a copy of the english translation of the article linked above:

      PF investigates project of frauds in the election of the River

      Rio De Janeiro - the Federal Policy opened inquiry to investigate a presumption project of fraud in the elections for state deputy of the last year. On the basis of denunciation of a defeated competitor, Ronaldo Antonio Da Silva, of the PT of the B, the PF selects a supposed net of venda of embezzled votes. It
  • State agencies (Score:2, Insightful)

    by tehanu ( 682528 )
    As I've said before, the agencies responsible for buying this equipment and software should bear a good deal of the blame for anything that goes wrong. It seems to me that some gross negligance or incompetence is going on here. If the government was hiring a private company to do security related work, you bet that they would have standard procedures set out, vetting, interviews, background checks etc. by people who are actually familiar with the security area. Yes I know it doesn't always work, but they

    • > As I've said before, the agencies responsible for buying this equipment and software should bear a good deal of the blame for anything that goes wrong. It seems to me that some gross negligance or incompetence is going on here.

      Problem is, the people who should take them to task for it will be the people who just got erroneously elected (or appointed by same), and will therefore be the least likely of all people to make a fuss over the error.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • I had a long discussion this weekend on voting software with a friend who was an executive with one of the firms manufacturing voting equipment... (I won't say which one.)

    I asked him: "Since you make money on your hardware what's the problem with open sourcing your software?" He hemed and hawed but then said: "Our programmers are not good enough that we want to let the world see our code!"

    I got a little irate and said: "Well its our votes getting counted." He then said: "Well there is something else.

    • Re:voting software (Score:2, Informative)

      by watermodem ( 714738 )
      I asked him one other thing: Could you please implement a hash with our social secuirty number and a digital pin-number which would typed in when voting? Then we can go back after the election and verify online that the vote was counted as we cast it. The pin wouldn't be known by anybody but the individual voter so our privacy would still be secure.

      His response: We talked about it but this would make full internet voting possible. The API and protocol would be documented. We would not have a captive prod

      • Re:voting software (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Stalky ( 31519 )

        Could you please implement a hash with our social secuirty number and a digital pin-number which would typed in when voting? Then we can go back after the election and verify online that the vote was counted as we cast it. The pin wouldn't be known by anybody but the individual voter so our privacy would still be secure.

        Are you sure about that? If someone wished to purchase your vote, would he not simply say, "Here, use this PIN when you vote", and then check your vote himself before giving you the money

  • Idiots... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by herrvinny ( 698679 )
    Why the hell are all these problems cropping up? Voting is simple enough, add one to the vote counter of a candidate/issue, like this:

    vote++;

    (WARNING: The code above is probably owned by SCO too, so just to be safe, I'm mailing a check for $699 tomorrow morning)

    Is this really so hard? I'm working on my own OSS voting program. You can see the early version at herrvinny.com. It supports multiple choice (you can select several options together, or just one option), write in, no choice, etc. Anyone in UW
  • I checked ftp.jaguar.net, and you can login as anonymous/email@idiots.com. Look in the /pub directory, and you can get all of the files still!

    You would think these guys would disable it after a slashdot posting... They must be busy playing pirated half life 2 demos.

  • That's quite a relief that it's binary!

    % strings democracy-enforcer.exe | grep http
    http://votingHQ/cgi-bin/addvote.cgi?pass=hac kme
  • by geekwench ( 644364 ) on Thursday October 30, 2003 @03:17AM (#7345313)
    1) Dark or light colored rocks? How passe. Let's mark these clay tablets instead.

    2)Clay tablets take too long to dry. Votes could be changed in the meantime. Pen and paper is better.

    3)Pen and paper is too slow to tabulate. We're switching to these cool punch cards.

    4)People are apparently too stupid to use punch cards. Long live the touch screen system!

    5)These electronic voting boxes can apparently be h4x0r3d by any halfway intelligent three-year-old with a spoon and an old emery board. This system, however, is foolproof...

    *pulls out basket full of rocks painted black or white*

  • by Slur ( 61510 ) on Thursday October 30, 2003 @04:50AM (#7345604) Homepage Journal
    Here's the most recent This Modern World [workingforchange.com] comic by Tom Tomorrow for those of you who are into biting political humor....
  • I found a pretty interesting list of the available voting software [electioncenter.org]. At least I thought it was interesting.
  • by sharkey ( 16670 ) on Thursday October 30, 2003 @11:08AM (#7347265)
    Neumann, the security expert,

    So, he quit his mail route?

  • by GMFTatsujin ( 239569 ) on Thursday October 30, 2003 @11:58AM (#7347868) Homepage
    ... but I get a little nervous when I look at a brochure for voting booths with product lines named "Edge" and "Advantage."

    What's next? The "Backdoor" line?

  • Between this, and the Diebold fiasco it would seem a good idea for an open source/Linux project to write a secure voting system. With many governments opening up to the idea of open source, it might just fly (and make for fair elections too).
  • by ftide ( 454731 )
    Article by Victoria Collier: http://truthout.org/docs_03/102503C.shtml [truthout.org]

    *Very informative* articles by Votescam.com
    http://votescam.com/chap1.html [votescam.com] (1 of 5 chapters)

    Technological excerpts:
    "Nothing was said in the press about the secretly programmed computer chips inside the "Shouptronic" Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) voting machines in Manchester, the state's largest city.

    These 200-pound systems were so easily tampered with that the integrity of the results they gave -- and George Bush was the ben

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