Floridians, beware: monkey can actually hack Diebold voting machines

All politics aside, we're 100% for throwing monkeys at gadgets (both literally and figuratively) to see what they can (and can't) do with them. In this case, Black Box Voting is suggesting that the Diebold voting machines are so flawed that even monkey can 0wn it. Apparently there's a a hidden black box-like record keeping program that resides on Diebold's election software—this is already pretty awful, as vote record keeping should always be paper-based. This application is a "secret" feature enabled by a two-digit trigger (not a "bug" or an accidental oversight; it's a feature), and apparently even an untrained monkey (the real kind) can get in there and manipulate records. So please don't blame us if we're spending a little extra time in the booth trying figure this one out, we shouldn't be more than a couple of minutes (assuming we're of comparable intelligence with Baxter the monkey who, if allowed into a voting stall, might rule the free world with a simple hack).

[Via Newstoday]

[nojetlag @ Dec 19th 2005 2:26AM]

testing the new "cheat me into office again" system :D

[Chris @ Dec 19th 2005 2:26AM]

Doesn't this 'magic' key combination exist only on the vote collation machines (i.e. where all the booth machines results get downloaded to)? I would expect/hope that the booth machines have at most one button per candidate, an 'OK' and a 'I'm too stupid and need to start again' button.
If this two digit combination really does exist in the booth machines then there's only going to be 12 (if 4 buttons) or 20 (if 5 buttons) combinations to try! :eek:

[bozinko @ Dec 19th 2005 2:26AM]

In the light hearted scale of evolution: monkeys are brighter than those Palm Beach Floridians with the neon blue hair.

[Drew Jones @ Dec 19th 2005 2:26AM]

Yes, but will the monkey understand the ballot?

[Mark @ Dec 19th 2005 2:26AM]

If it is so easy to hack these Diedold machines
why dont the Democrats train the best hackers in the business to strike back and hack in to reverse any hacking the Republicans do ????

[mbake @ Dec 19th 2005 2:26AM]

What will happen if Bush "wins" again, but someone then proves that the electronic voting systems were manipulated in his favor? My guess is that even if the prepetrators are caught, it won't change a thing. If necessary, the Supreme Court will step in to stop the investigation.

Greg Palast showed that the FL Bush/Harris team committed voter fraud in 2000, and the NAACP subsequently successfully sued Florida for it. Yet in spite of the fraudulent election, George Warmonger Bush is still in office; and instead of being punished for their crimes, Jeb Bush is still governor and Katherine Harris is now a member of Congress. Jeb "won" by a landslide in 2002, but all records of the election were lost forever in the bottomless bit bucket. Did he really even win? No one will ever know.

[sapphire @ Dec 19th 2005 2:26AM]

Two reasons: 1) in general democrats are not as amoral as repuglicans, so they would be less likely to do hack in.
2) Repuglicans OWN the three companies that make the vote-stealing machines that we will be "voting" on. These manufacturers control the "proprietary" vote-stealing software, and can change the keycodes and such at will to enable only their agents (technicians) to be able to change the vote. THEY DON'T NEED TO HACK IN, THEY CAN JUST STEAL THE VOTE OUTRIGHT AND NOONE (with the exception of 50 million Democrats) WILL BE ANY THE WISER.

Question for you: why is it only democrats that are raising the alarm about the vote-stealing machines? Republicans are amazingly silent on this issue.....generally speaking they would be shouting "four more years," and sending vicious emails to the home addresses of the company executives if they were concerned that THEIR votes were going to be stolen. Admit it, Mark, Repuglicans just don't have solid moral fiber -- as much as they scream it from the roof tops.

[Bruce Mackay @ Dec 19th 2005 2:26AM]

Democrats can't hack the machines because they are owned by the Republicans. I prefer counting votes anyway. What's wrong with that? Democrats have already shown that they can do it. They just don't want to do it. Something about Democracy.

[JohnM @ Dec 19th 2005 2:26AM]

Why does everyone assume that it's going to be the Republicans that are going to hack these things? It seems to be the anti-Bush people that feel that it's not morally objectionable to break laws to prevent Bush from getting back in office. I didn't hear about a lot of demonstrators breaking into the Democrat Convention to disrupt things.

[Some guy @ Dec 19th 2005 2:26AM]

JohnM writes - "Why does everyone assume that it's going to be the Republicans that are going to hack these things?"

Because, JohnM, the Republicans have form. It is a matter of record that they fixed a national election, so there is genuine concern they will try to do so again.

[Democrat @ Dec 19th 2005 2:26AM]

what is so complicated about these voting machines??? cant we just hit a button.
blue for kerry , red for bush?

why is so complicated that people will fuck them up ? is it a like an SAT test or somthing to vote for one of 2-5 people?

gues what my friedns on IRAQ are fucked now and cant vote. yay http://www.thetoxic.com/a_soldiers_opinion.html

[Andy Stephenson @ Dec 19th 2005 2:26AM]

Want to learn to rig an election?

Go here get the software and have fun.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=2260756

[D'Glenn @ Dec 19th 2005 2:26AM]

Why can't Democrats just go in and undo whatever the Republicans do? Ignoring the ought-to-be-obvious reasons not to do it if we could, consider this:

1) To some extent it's like "sniping" on eBay; who gets there last before deadline.

2) With no audit trail, there's no way to tell what tampering has been done and needs to be undone! The same reason the machines are so *fundamentally* flawed in the first place also means that any would-be do-gooder can do no more than guess at what they need to change to make things fair again.

The whole mess is a problem no matter who is doing the tampering, be it Republicans, Democrats, Al Queda, or pranksters.

[Nick @ Dec 19th 2005 2:26AM]

1) Democrats are more morally inclined?
Why is it that Bush won the vote based on moral values then? People who saw moral values as the most important issue in the election voted for Bush by about a 75% margin.

2) Republicans are more likely to rig an election?

Why's this? Just because people voted for Bush by almost a 4 million voter margin, doesn't mean it was rigged. And dear God, Democrats are still talking about 2000! INCREDIBLE. All this talk about Bush not even winning the election, and not even being able to gain the popular vote. How come you didn't hear Republicans whinning all the time when Clinton won by electoral votes and lost the popular vote?



It was implied there were more nefarious factors at work, including the rather paranoid suggestions that hackers and/or partisans loyal to President Bush could program touch-screen voting machines to perform perfectly during public testing but then somehow be reprogrammed to skew in favor of Bush on election day.

Democratic paranoia in Florida is driven mainly by the fact that the new touch-screen voting machines provide no "paper trail." But according to this press release from Sequoia (http://www.sequoiavote.com/article.php?id=54), each of their machines "prints results of ballots for recount and audit purposes."
(realclearpolitics.com)

I mean, we knew going into the election that people were going to complain about the results no matter what happened, but Bush won so convincingly, you'd like to think people would just realize "ok, we lost..just have to deal with it." But it's more like "Ok, we lost...but uhm, lets see what we can dispute this time."
Give me a break. It was won convincingly, so just accept it and move on with your lives, please.

[ManiaC @ Dec 19th 2005 2:26AM]

As much as I love to bash politicians, the moral flaws of the people in office aren't at issue. The crappy voting machines are.

I personally want my vote recorded on paper.

[Sredlums @ Dec 19th 2005 2:26AM]

@Nick (post 14):
with all due respect, but "And dear God, Democrats are still talking about 2000! INCREDIBLE." has got to be one of the most stupid things I have heard in al long time...
What is your point??
It seems to me that when the honesty of the 2004 election is being discussed, it is 100% relevant to take the manipulatons of the previous election with THE SAME votingmachines in to considderation.
And these happened to be in 2000, and no attempt by you to make that sound like too long ago to matter can make that less of a fact.
Oh, and you ask "Republicans are more likely to rig an election?"...
Euhrm...well, maybe because the manufacturers of all these votingmachines are Republicans?
Or because it's at least suspicious that they don't want to reveal their source code (doesn't EVERYBODY agree that software and hardware for a VOTING machine should ALLWAYS be completely open and clear for everybody to check if it's working without flaws or corruption???).
Or maybe just simply because they've done it before (and before, and before...)?
I am not from the USA, but even I am ashamed by one of the most corrupt people on earth being the president of such a big 'democratic' country.
Guess we can't really blame him though, because being an offspring of such a corrupt family I'm affraid he just doesn't know any better...