Electronic Voting Researcher Arrested In India 188
whatajoke writes "Hari Prasad, a security researcher in India who had demonstrated the vulnerability of electronic voting machines used in all elections in India, was arrested by the police on charges of stealing an electronic voting machine. The election commission of India has maintained that EVM are non-hackable. The election commission had previously provided access to the device to the security researchers for a day and asked for a hack in only that time."
governments (Score:3, Insightful)
It doesn't matter where you are, there is a government there, some are worse than others, but all of them have evolved into similar structures with the relationship between a citizen and government of a country is very abusive, and the government is the one doing the abuse.
Name a country, any country, there are people there abused their governments, it is what it is. Feels like terrorism against governments is the only meaningful life pursuit at this point.
Re:governments (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, or maybe he really stole a voting machine. Shouldn't people usually be arrested for doing that?
Oops... (Score:4, Insightful)
Who's making these hackable machines? (Score:5, Insightful)
I just don't understand, it's like building a car that explodes at the slightest impact [wikipedia.org] and then arresting people that expose it. Wouldn't it be easier just to make a better voting machine?
Re:governments (Score:5, Insightful)
So those few who do, are easy to eliminate.
Take your own country USA for example, as an Indian, I can't help but laugh when I see people being used as mere pawns in the bi-partisanship circus. The right and the left both are equally suckered in to believing that the other side is evil, and will be the end of your country if given a chance to govern. Very few realize that both are sides of the same coin. Same BS sold in different flavor.
Re:Disgusting Moderation (Score:4, Insightful)
One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter.
AFAIC fighting governments in any way is fighting against oppression for freedom.
Re:governments (Score:5, Insightful)
As for having no government... I can't really grasp what that would mean. Government is the entity with the power to make others bend to its will. I have a hard time seeing a group of people of any appreciable size where such an entity does not arise.
Get a grip. (Score:5, Insightful)
Its beyond offensive and disgusting that any post that defends and advocates terrorism like the above does is moderated insightful.
The moderators should be ashamed of themselves here.
Who's advocating terrorism?
This is what was said:
Feels like terrorism against governments is the only meaningful life pursuit at this point.
Notice the "Feels" part? The poster was expressing feelings of outrage and his frustration with his inability to stop Governments from abusing their power. He was expressing the frustration that Democracies or Republics still do not prevent a Government from abusing its citizens. No matter how we vote or who we vote for, what letters we write that fall on deaf ears, or protest and get our asses kicked by the cops, it seems as though, we the little people get shit on. People who are trying to show how possible finagling of the voting process gets done and hopefully prevent some of those injustices end up being victims of the powers that be.
I'm sure with events in the present and past, many of us had fantasies of disintegrating Congress (See "Mars Attacks!"). Would we do it? No. The only thing we can do is express our outrage and impotence with regards to controlling a government.
The rich and powerful have been doing this since time began. They manipulate the populace with jingoism, bogus issues to distract us, and in the background, they're taking their power to boost their own pathetic (much wealthier) little life.
Re:governments (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, but have you ever heard of any government just giving up its powers? That is completely unheard of, that's the trillion dollar reason why there were so many revolutions all over the world, civil wars, so called 'terrorists' etc., understand, they all were fighting the machine one way or another.
Lately the masses have been brainwashed so much, they completely don't understand this, but think back through some of the revolutions and civil wars... you know, many kings had their heads chopped off...
Machine-ASSISTED voting (Score:5, Insightful)
Machine-readable paper ballots have three major flaws:
1) cost and bulk
2) not usable without assistance by blind and those who can't use a marking pen
3) High waste or too costly with multi-precinct ballots or multi-language ballots, where a single voting station may have hundreds of different ballots and keeping a sufficient supply of each is difficult.
To help with #2 and #3, you can use a machine that prints the ballot "on-demand," either blank or, if the voter wants to use the touch-screen or other machine-input to indicate his vote, filled out.
The voter fills out the ballot if he didn't have the machine do it for him, examines it for correctness, and puts it in the ballot box as you would with a machine-readable paper ballot today. From here on out the system is identical to today's machine-readable paper ballot system.
This would allow those who cannot mark a ballot but who can read the filled-in ballot the ability to cast their vote unassisted.
Blind people could use on-site "reading" machines to verify the ballot unassisted or, if they didn't trust the government, they could bring their own document-reading hardware, or bring a trusted sighted friend to verify the ballot is accurate.
By printing non-common languages or outlying precinct ballots only "on demand" or only as needed to have a small supply of each at any given time, it would save paper.
Re:OT: How to build an trustable voting machine (Score:5, Insightful)
There are two contradictory things which must happen for machine voting.
1. Each person must be identifiable as having voted and see the result of the vote.
2. Each vote must be anonymous.
Machine readable ballots make sense, but they still leave the possibility of simple fraud. Take a stack of ballots and replace them with your own skewed ballots. This means that each ballot must have a unique identification, while at the same time have no way of revealing the name of the voter. I've heard of states allowing mail in ballots, this makes some sense although things do get lost in the mail. The best solution I can come up with is a ballot that you have to pick up in person from the DMV possibly. It has its own serial number and when you pick it up it is entered into the system, not as a vote from you, but simply as a vote. Your information is also entered into the system. Neither is time/date stamped and both are randomized as much as possible to hide voter identity.When you have made your educated vote you return the ballot to the polling station. If there is any doubt then the number of people who voted can be checked against the number of ballots. Also it seems logical that an individual can check to see if he/she voted, for example if I voted in the last presidential election, but I didn't actually vote it would be a sign of fraud.
Anybody who claims "unhackable" (Score:5, Insightful)
I heard an interview with an enthusiastic Indian programmer/marketer (sorry, I don't recall if I heard his exact job description), in which he claimed that very soon Indians would be vote via mobile phones. What a recipe for disaster. It's difficult to think of a less reliable and verifiable voting mechanism-- though it would certainly destroy anonymity for honest voters. It's not impossible that someday an open source, mobile voting platform will be more secure than existing mechanisms. But that will be many years in the future, and not developed quickly and cheaply in a nation overrun with corruption (so our best bet is somewhere in Scandinavia).
Where there is a large incentive to cheat (to gain money, power, women), many people will try to cheat. Especially in societies with more habitual defectors than habitual cooperators (such as the US and India). Anybody who says otherwise is trying to cheat you.
Re:Disgusting Moderation (Score:4, Insightful)
Fighting governments in any way is beneficial for freedom? That's terribly simplistic and downright false.
Would you consider fighting a democratically elected, egalitarian government, in order to replace it with a tribalistic theocracy, to be fighting for freedom??
Would you consider working to bring down a government, which then gets replaced by a multitude of corrupt fiefdoms with the local rulers deciding the fate of anyone they don't like, to be fighting for freedom??
The world is not black and white, it's not ones and zeroes and short boolean expressions. Every action has consequences that even the smartest of us cannot predict.
Hell, I'm the first guy to follow the entire Bill Of Rights to the letter, and I'm not even American, but you have to realize that the only thing more oppressive than an oppressive government, is a complete lack of government, when the powerful are given complete free reign over the rest.
Re:Who's making these hackable machines? (Score:4, Insightful)
Wouldn't it be easier just to make a better voting machine?
Why would they need a voting machine ?
There are several major problems with voting machines in India:
1) you cannot double-check the vote, thus cheating is easy, even if you have secure machines.
2) a lot of people in India don't know how to read, and simple tasks like voting with a computer is impossible for them.
3) machines need electricity. In India, there can be an outage at any time of the day.
Before using expensive voting machines, India's governement should concentrate on improving the infrastructures, like water, electricity and roads.
Re:Disgusting Moderation (Score:3, Insightful)
If history teaches anything is that all governments eventually become unbearable and then they are replaced by a violent event of some sort. This has happened enough time for us to draw the correct conclusion, which is that people cannot set up a good government that will remain good forever.
I bet on eons of history being more right than you are.
Re:governments (Score:4, Insightful)
Flamebait? Come on, mods. You can find very similar statements in the writings of Thomas Jefferson. Like this one: "The tree of liberty must from time to time be refreshed with the blood of tyrants."
Re:governments (Score:5, Insightful)
You think Jefferson would be electable in the USA today? I think not.
Re:Disgusting Moderation (Score:1, Insightful)
people cannot set up a good government that will remain good forever
You are right about that. However, there have been hundreds of revolutions. How many of those have set up good governments? I can only name one: The American Revolution. All others have only replaced a bad government with another one. The French revolutions, the Bolshevik revolution of 1917 and the subsequent civil war, the numerous Marxist revolutions and Juntas in Central and South America etc etc have all accomplished only more oppression.
Good government is always an evolutionary process. Western Europe and North America are a clear example of this, and the sorry state of the rest of the world only proves the point.
Re:Disgusting Moderation (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: according to the article (Score:4, Insightful)
While you're correct as a matter of principle, the legal theory of "innocent until proven guilty" (while self-evident) is only valid (again, from a legal point of view) in the United States (which is why I'm glad I live here now - the justice system sucks balls in India). I assure you that things are quite excellent in the US when you compare it to the rest of the world.
A blanket shout-out to everyone in this thread - this is a different country we're talking about. Check your US-centric legal opinions at the door before posting ;)
Re:OT: How to build an trustable voting machine (Score:3, Insightful)
Do you really want illiterate people voting? What makes you believe they would be informed about the issues and candidates, especially when you consider that the literate have a huge advantage in this area and still remain so ignorant? If you agree that they are likely to be uninformed about those things, what makes you desire that people who are uninformed about their system of government and the issues of their time should vote?
If it were up to me you'd have to pass an incredibly tough civics test before being permitted to vote. You'd have to pass it each election during which you vote. Particularly emphasized would be what the Constitution does and does not say, the notion that the federal government has no powers at all (AT ALL!) except those granted to it by the Constitution, the difference between a republic and a democracy, the difference between interstate and intrastate affairs, the separation of powers, the correct role of the executive, legislative, and judicial branches and the checks/balances available to each. That would make for a good start.
The civics test would be limited to facts that are not in dispute. It would include the facts and just the facts but not the multitude of interpretations available for them. That part, the interpretation of how they should manifest and the specifics of their implementation, is what voting is supposed to decide.
If only 3% of the entire US adult population were able to pass this test, I really wouldn't care. It'd be sad that so few are actually qualified to understand how our system works before deciding who is fit to run it, but so be it. The remaining 97% retain the option of learning and may decide whether this is important to them. If 95% of the entire US adult population wanted to educate themselves about our system and passed this test, I'd be fine with that too. It'd be a drastic improvement, an eradication of ignorance and would likely transform the media away from deciding elections by 5-second sound bites and emotional rhetoric and towards rational justifications for proposed policies. But in either case, the test must be both very tough and comprehensive.
When it comes to voting, quantity in and of itself is undesirable. What you need is quality. If you can have both, that's wonderful. If you must choose, quantity is expendable.
A friend of mine was illiterate for several years (Score:2, Insightful)
She became blind as an adult.
It took her several years to learn to read Braille.
In the meantime, she was illiterate.
Before becoming blind she earned a 4-year college degree.
The late CEO of Wendy's Restaurants, Dave Thomas, was illiterate until well into adulthood.
By the way, we had literacy tests in America for decades. They were fraudulently used to keep non-whites and other "undesirables" from voting. Even if they had been used in an objectively fair manner, they would've had the effect of keeping the uneducated voiceless by keeping them out of the political process.
Re: according to the article (Score:4, Insightful)
So their "friend" provided them with something they had no legal right/reason to have and they were holding it when the officer arrested them.
Seems like a pretty accurate example of "I was just holding it" to me.
Re:Get a grip. (Score:3, Insightful)
"Occasionally the tree of Liberty must be watered with the blood of Patriots and Tyrants."
— Thomas Jefferson
It's a popular sport to pull the Founding Fathers out of context, to prove a point.
King George could not be voted out of his seat. I dare say that Thomas Jefferson, if he were to live today, would advocate peaceful means to oust anyone from power in the US.
To be sure: I am not saying that Parent is saying otherwise, I know he is just offering a quote.
However, the general mood of this thread is something like "tyranny demands exceptional means to be used". Which is fine, but if you live anywhere in the Western world today, you have no moral justification for violence against the system.
Because the system is far from perfect, but is far better than a tyranny.
Re:Who's making these hackable machines? (Score:3, Insightful)
> Allowing secret ballots (No one except you knows who you voted for) and ballots that can't be cheated on is nigh impossible
Watch this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?&v=ZDnShu5V99s [youtube.com]
So it is possible.
To me paper ballots are good enough though, and especially when there are masses of uneducated people. It is easier for them to understand how the paper ballots work and how they are secured and counted (assuming you have a good system for all that).
There is a very important requirement for voting systems that many people forget (and that includes very smart cryptographers): convincing the losers and their supporters that they lost.
If it's too "magical" a system for them to understand, they might refuse to admit defeat. And then you get stuff like riots and civil wars. There's no way to avoid that completely - there'll always be sore losers, but one must take this factor into account when evaluating all voting systems.