California official gives ok to voting systems that failed security audit

Yeah, remember those white hats that took out three separate systems with ease in a California e-voting system security audit? Well what do you know, the eminently wise and honorable California Secretary of State Debra Bowen up and decided Friday that those severely vulnerable Diebold, Hart, and Sequoia voting terminals would still be cleared for takeoff, provided the companies in question supply their machines with updated firmware, disabled access to unused ports, kill the wireless connections, and so on. So basically, the companies that deny up and down their voting systems are even vulnerable are now directly responsible for making them less vulnerable per seemingly vague security-hardening guidelines. As usual, we suggest preempt these fools' garbage tech entirely and go low-fi on it: if you suspect your district is or will be using e-voting machines, send your votes by mail.

[Thanks, Daniel]

[Alexander @ Aug 5th 2007 2:51PM]

blame ARNOLD lol he chose option 3

[kevnaca @ Aug 5th 2007 3:23PM]

Dugg for Simpsons Movie reference!

[AlexP @ Aug 5th 2007 3:40PM]

Dude the movie sucked - all the funny parts were in the adverts and it came 7 years too late.

[Mr.Ortiz @ Aug 5th 2007 3:59PM]

I was completely unexcited for this movie. Then I saw the trailer and I got REALLY excited for it. Then I saw the TV commercials and I got unexcited again. Maybe I'll catch it on DVD.

[Rob @ Aug 5th 2007 2:59PM]

This is complete bull. But, politicians do whatever the hell they want because the majority of the qualified voters don't exercise their right to vote due to their disenchantment with the self-chosen candidates. We live in a country that "We The People" doesn't have much of a meaningful tone to it anymore. Nowadays it's more like "We the Republicans and Democrats in Office."

Unless people take the power back and start to make these clowns accountable, the same will just keep on repeating from town to town, to state, and then the entire country. At this pace, we're screwed. Or maybe, we already are and just too afraid to realize it.

[Rich Nixon @ Aug 5th 2007 3:50PM]

That advice is terrible. If my district is using a flawed method of counting votes, I should send mine by mail? Oh - well that's great; so my vote will be properly counted but all the other votes will go through the rigged system. If someone wants to steal the election via these insecure machines, I'm going to bet they'll push the numbers enough so that my 1 honestly counted vote isn't going to matter.

[crescentdavid @ Aug 5th 2007 3:54PM]

Only in the shadier of 3rd world countries and the US do you find such shoddy methods of security. Name one business that would allow hardware proven to be insecure to be re-used with add-on measures only, reusing the same non-secure machines, without additional testing.

[Fubar @ Aug 6th 2007 8:27AM]

"Name one business that would allow hardware proven to be insecure to be re-used with add-on measures only, reusing the same non-secure machines, without additional testing."

Apparently, anyone with a traditional lock on their front door....

[Dave @ Aug 5th 2007 3:58PM]

I agree with the suggestion that everyone send their votes by absentee ballot. Request it now!

http://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/elections_m.htm

[JJ @ Aug 5th 2007 4:02PM]

The IQ of politicians post-Bush Jr. continue to amaze me at how much it lowers each and every year. -_-;

It's like a plague that can't disappear. I'm mailing my votes in next election.

[m @ Aug 5th 2007 4:10PM]

yeah, be sure to vote by mail-- because absentee ballots are totally tamper-proof?!? please, engadget, stick to giving advice on something you know.

[jay @ Aug 5th 2007 4:10PM]

what the hell engadget? Did you read the article? Anyone reading the lead-into this post has the wrong idea of what actually happened...

She completely banned one system which would have been used in LA (due to not sending code in time) and is barely allowing the others to be used. Only one machine per polling station, and can only be used by people who are handicapped, and ONLY if they comply to the most visible security vulnerabilities as stated in SoS's reports.

And if you take the time to read these reports... you see that they are pretty in depth and show that SoS obviously knows about their problems and is trying to take steps to fix these horribly broken machines. The press conference stressed that Debra Bowen hopes that these re-certifications and severe limiting of the machines use will force the companies (diebold et al) to release open-source code and technologies like optical scanners so that all elections will have a paper trail...

slamming this progress and telling people to send ballots in by mail is a step completely backward... only handicapped people will be able to use these machines anyways... go back to reporting the latest mac rumour ryan...

[strider_mt2k @ Aug 5th 2007 6:02PM]

He's gotcha there.

[PseudoNoise @ Aug 6th 2007 12:38AM]

Indeed, here's how our local (very conservative) paper is responding:
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/20070805-9999-1n5machines.html

Howling mad like pitiful wounded animals, those voting machine reps are.

[Luke @ Aug 6th 2007 10:40AM]

jay's right - Ryan Block seems to have misrepresented the Secretary's decision.

From the LA Times:
"County election officials scrambled on Saturday to develop contingency plans for the February presidential primary election after California's secretary of state imposed broad restrictions on electronic voting machines that she said are susceptible to hacking."
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-voting5aug05,0,2292664.story?coll=la-home-center

Some others...
Dallas Morning News: http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/bus/stories/DN-diebold_06bus.ART.State.Edition1.35a5c6a.html
San Jose Mercury News: http://www.mercurynews.com/breakingnews/ci_6546774

[Damien @ Aug 5th 2007 9:28PM]

Awesome! Now we can always get leaders like GWB!

[Mike @ Aug 5th 2007 9:51PM]

I really don't understand why it's so difficult to make a secure voting machine.

[snapa @ Aug 5th 2007 10:09PM]

That Dr. Evil and Mini ticket sure gets my vote!

[Triangle Man @ Aug 5th 2007 10:17PM]

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2007/08/05/BAVARD46B1.DTL&type=politics

Oh yay. :)

[Chinese Man @ Aug 5th 2007 10:18PM]

Paper trail please!

[Reinier @ Aug 6th 2007 3:22AM]

Argh!

Take about 2-3 hours to read the Secretary of State site that was setup to report all the findings on the e-voting systems :

http://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/elections_vsr.htm

It details how they were able to hack the machines, suggestions for other hacks, etc. Quite the enlightening read...

[M @ Aug 6th 2007 8:39AM]

Are you sure? How about id checks and backward statistical samples?

[will @ Aug 6th 2007 9:47AM]

But she is requiring these machines to print out the user's vote so it can be confirmed.

[Elliott @ Aug 6th 2007 10:16AM]

Vote by mail is, quite frankly, the most democratic and least vulnerable voting mechanism that is currently used. Unfortunately, it seems to be in areas where absentee ballots are an option and not standard that they are counted long after the other ballots have been tallied. Assuming there's a reasonably significant number of absentee ballots, it somewhat reduces they're weight when they're only opened in the event of a close vote. Oregon, on the other hand, is a 100% vote by mail state. I think that in the 8 or so years that the system has been in place, people have been happy and satisfied that their votes are safe and counted properly. Voting by mail is great, but you need everyone to do it in order to make it work best.