Princeton publishes how-to guide for hacking Sequoia e-voting machines

If you're American, it's nearly time to do your civic duty and pick the lesser of two evils for the greater good... and then to wonder if that vote actually got counted. With Diebold admitting its own machines are utterly insecure, competitor Sequoia is now under the microscope and, after a little quality time with the company's machines, Princeton researchers have filed a 158 page report on the ease of replacing their ROMs and winning yourself an election. Okay, we know what you're thinking: "Hacking hardware isn't exactly easy when the computer is in a locked box." Amazingly, it is. A researcher was able to bypass the physical security mechanisms in 13 seconds, despite never having picked a lock before. Now you're thinking: "But you'd need to do that on hundreds of them!" Not so; once infected that malicious code can spread itself to others, and, with no paper trail and an easily bypassed internal audit system, you're well on your way to whatever dark corner of Washington, D.C. you care to occupy!

[Via Ars Technica]

[rock99rock @ Oct 24th 2008 10:23AM]

So Mickey Mouse has an even better chance of winning this year?

[Rocketboy @ Oct 24th 2008 10:51AM]

Not if Frank Zappa has anything to say about it!

[rock99rock @ Oct 24th 2008 12:38PM]

@thedesolate1

Fitting name. Your posts always stink of bitterness.

Heres a little song i wrote.
I hope you take it note-for-note.

Don't worry, be happy now! OOOOOO oo oo oo oooOOooooooo.

[thedesolate1 @ Oct 24th 2008 1:04PM]

Not quite.... sometimes I'm being serious. Most of the time sarcastic. Its just that i need to optimize my work and in other cases others sarcasm meters need to be augmented. I see everything for what it is though that is for sure. So yes the machines are being fucked with and their are real things on the line that matter to you and I but No I don't think Mickey Mouse will lose this election. We have net neutrality friendly hackers right on it!

Now sing along with me:
"Why must the children play in the street?

Broken hearts, faded the dreams

Peace on earth to everyone that you meet

Don't you worry, It could be so sweet"

[ghex88 @ Oct 24th 2008 2:13PM]

I've never posted anything serious b4. And here goes my first serious post.
In my humble opinion, the US will be in an economic and financial disaster if McCain were to run the country.
Heck, I am not even American and not care so much who will win (although I did stayed for a few years in the states during College).

When you see empty trucks driving around Iraq just so that it could be tracked by GPS so the contracting company can bill the goverment to pay them ridiculous prices for nothing, then you know something is wrong.

If you quite follow the financial bailout plan, you would be shocked about how the Bush administration (via Paulson) originally wanted to give premium money for something that people would call toxic and worthless in exchange for nothing. The gov should have asked for equity stakes from the companies in exchange of buying all that worthless assests that are going to be foreclosed anyways. Only after bewilderment and ridicule from EU states did the original bailous plan was scrapped. Now Paulson is in a state of panic because the gov should at least be seen to be doing something (regardless of its effectiveness).

Throwing money at hedgefunds and investment banks is not solving the root cause. The root cause is the american people are suffering. The American people cannot pay their mortgage. It's that simple. The gov should look into that and not look at the well being of those hedgefunds' and investment banks' owners.

America is a great country with wonderful friendly people. I hope one hideous evil will not be preceeded by another evil.

[Darwin @ Oct 24th 2008 11:56PM]

for those actually willing to sit through the video, everything before 43 minutes is just about how the process is supposed to work. He doesn't get around to the cracking until 46 minutes in.

[Valgas @ Oct 24th 2008 10:24AM]

Helloooo President McCain!

[Daren @ Oct 24th 2008 10:39AM]

what happened to the liberals bitching that McCain wasnt computer savvy.

[GenBanks @ Oct 24th 2008 11:01AM]

You typically don't have to be liberal to make fun of someone's computer skills. You just have to be a bit geeky... like us technology blog dwellers.

[StalematE @ Oct 24th 2008 12:33PM]

of course mccain would have to have someone hack it for him... he wouldn't be able to do much damage on his own... unless you can hack it with a blackberry. He did invent them afterall...

[who? @ Oct 24th 2008 12:43PM]

It would explain why the Republican party never seems to worry about winning (have you actually watched a debate? At best McCain ties Obama). I mean, for Christ's sake, Palin would be one [missed] heartbeat away from the presidency!

Most of my family (about 20 people) have all pledged to move to Canada if that happens. God save us all.

[Magallanes @ Oct 24th 2008 12:58PM]

@Daren :Nobody is saying that Mccain is a hacker, cracker or Neo in disguise, the "McCain's team" is able to do it or to contract some else (CIA) to do the dirt job.

[Mr. B @ Oct 24th 2008 10:29AM]

Those are the machines we use in New Orleans.

[catbeller @ Oct 24th 2008 1:07PM]

I've been voting absentee since these cheatomatics arrived in my town. And I will do so until we go back to paper and pencil.

And no, you can't fix it with open source geekware. You don't know what is currently running on any PC, and you never will. Nor on the aggregator PC. And the cards. And who's accessing the databases online. There is no fix for this. You can design around stupidity, but never around malicious intent. Esp. when the fixers may actually work in the company that makes and services the damned machines.

[lorddshadow @ Oct 24th 2008 5:52PM]

Lesser of two evils? Hmm...this is hard. Should I vote for:


Cthulhu or Stephen Colbert?

[Greg Rullo @ Oct 24th 2008 10:29AM]

That is just wonderful. American ingenuity.

[eggothewaffle @ Oct 24th 2008 10:34AM]

At least these have multi-touch.

[j_g_puff @ Oct 24th 2008 10:57AM]

So you can casually flick through the candidates' holiday snaps before finalising your vote?

[eggothewaffle @ Oct 24th 2008 11:01AM]

...In the future, all of your mindless partisan voting will be done on a big ass table.

Which is all slanty and shit.

[j_g_puff @ Oct 24th 2008 11:05AM]

I can make a big astable.

Just give me a giant 555 timer and a few mammoth capacitors.

[sharpfang @ Oct 24th 2008 11:11AM]

...so you can vote both candidates at once if you time your click right.

[phanbouy @ Oct 24th 2008 12:47PM]

can i have a side of extra big ass fries?

[Mycroft @ Oct 24th 2008 10:36AM]

Not to get all tin-foil-hat-like but wouldn't Obama be in a better postition to, you know, yank the election, seeing how he the the techno-champion? Is backed by Google? Is going to create a "Technology Czar" cabinet position? Knows how to use a computer? etc.

[Paul @ Oct 24th 2008 11:07AM]

The likely answer is no. The people that own these voting machines tend to be a conservative bunch... like how Diebold guaranteed Ohio for Bush well before the election took place.

Do I believe fraud took place? Hard to say, but I fall on the side of "probably not." Though it is doable, any irregularities for a THIRD cycle in a row would be the start of a whole new type of "change."

[sharpfang @ Oct 24th 2008 11:13AM]

You don't need to be computer-savvy to hack a computer.

[sir_mycroft @ Oct 24th 2008 11:22AM]

You are all probabley right. Anyway, it is still easier to steal an election by having people vote more than once. Or by having the dead vote.

Cue Sean Conery: "That's the Chicago way!"

[Valicore @ Oct 24th 2008 11:25AM]

He might be if he actually needed to yank the election.

[CraigJ @ Oct 24th 2008 10:39AM]

Ron Paul can still win!

[Tim @ Oct 24th 2008 11:55AM]

Vote Bob Barr, man. thats my plan.

[iEye @ Oct 24th 2008 10:42AM]

"Ooooh, its one of those electronic voting dealies"!

[brian @ Oct 24th 2008 12:29PM]

ohhh they have the internet on voting machines now!

[LongshotX @ Oct 24th 2008 10:49AM]

I am sure the desperate Republican Party is all over this.

[Rocketboy @ Oct 24th 2008 10:52AM]

Because when the Dems lose, it's because of voter fraud, but when they win it's because that the people voted fairly? You can't have it both ways.

[kempcross @ Oct 24th 2008 11:35AM]

Sure you can. Because a majority of the electorate *hopefully* can't be stupid enough to vote republican again after having the worst president we've ever had.

[somedude @ Oct 24th 2008 11:49AM]

idiot

[rock99rock @ Oct 24th 2008 12:46PM]

@kempcross

Wow. You know idiots are on both sides of the tape... Just because one slipped through is no reason to punish the party. Truth be told after everything that has happened, i STILL think we are better off than we would be with Kerry.

For the record, i'm not voting for either of those tools on Nov 4th.

[who? @ Oct 24th 2008 12:55PM]

You know why George Bush was (dare I say the most) hated as a president? Because more American citizens voted for Al Gore (A Nobel Peace Prize winner) than George Bush (The Man Who Started a War).

These are all facts, it's up to you to formulate your own opinion on the matter, then answer these questions:

Who did the American people really pick? Who would have been better for the country?

[catbeller @ Oct 24th 2008 4:25PM]

Well, we've now given even the stupidest of them a manual on how to do it.

[Charles R Hamilton @ Oct 24th 2008 2:06PM]

Worst President? You are clearly not old enough to remember Jimmy Carter!

[SjG @ Oct 24th 2008 2:40PM]

Worst President? You are clearly not old enough to remember Herbert Hoover!

[phanbouy @ Oct 24th 2008 6:14PM]

Well Shrub does now have the lowest approval rating in history -- lower than Nixon when impeached

[who? @ Oct 25th 2008 9:30PM]

I do believe he was the worst president, but what I said was that he was the most hated, which (as phanbouy pointed out) is true.

[Joe H @ Oct 24th 2008 10:53AM]

Its not nearly as bad as the actual issues occurring during early voting, elsewhere in the country.

"voters... complained that when they tried to cast a vote for Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, the machine recorded a check in the box for Republican presidential candidate John McCain."

http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/10/voting-machine.html

Dan Rather did a great expose last year on how horrible the ES&S voting machines that were used in this county are. Apparently the issues brought up haven't been fixed yet, with low-cost shoddy touchscreens. http://www.hd.net/drr227.html

[BigD145 @ Oct 24th 2008 2:41PM]

The machines aren't any more secure, either. Lots of people have access to the buildings that most machines are kept.

[Nate @ Oct 24th 2008 7:08PM]

they should have a code assigned to each voter and post the results online so that you can verify that your vote was registered the way you actually voted

[Wwhat @ Oct 25th 2008 7:41PM]

That would jeopardise the anonymity of voting tremendously though.

[Neon @ Oct 25th 2008 8:30PM]

That's why he said a voter code. If you could just look up THX 1138 to make sure that your vote was counted, I'd be all over it.

[Brad87 @ Oct 24th 2008 10:59AM]

You're doing it wrong!

[Mobius_1 @ Oct 24th 2008 11:01AM]

How about a show of hands? :P

[who? @ Oct 24th 2008 12:57PM]

What about handicapped people? Not everyone can afford this stuff http://www.engadget.com/2005/02/18/the-thought-controlled-robotic-arm/ !!!