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]
posted October 24th 2008 10:19AM
Helloooo President McCain!
what happened to the liberals bitching that McCain wasnt computer savvy.
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.
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...
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.
@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.
Those are the machines we use in New Orleans.
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.
Lesser of two evils? Hmm...this is hard. Should I vote for:
Cthulhu or Stephen Colbert?
That is just wonderful. American ingenuity.
At least these have multi-touch.
So you can casually flick through the candidates' holiday snaps before finalising your vote?
...In the future, all of your mindless partisan voting will be done on a big ass table.
Which is all slanty and shit.
I can make a big astable.
Just give me a giant 555 timer and a few mammoth capacitors.
...so you can vote both candidates at once if you time your click right.
can i have a side of extra big ass fries?
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.
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."
You don't need to be computer-savvy to hack a computer.
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!"
He might be if he actually needed to yank the election.
Ron Paul can still win!
Vote Bob Barr, man. thats my plan.
"Ooooh, its one of those electronic voting dealies"!
ohhh they have the internet on voting machines now!
I am sure the desperate Republican Party is all over this.
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.
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.
idiot
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?
Well, we've now given even the stupidest of them a manual on how to do it.
Worst President? You are clearly not old enough to remember Jimmy Carter!
Worst President? You are clearly not old enough to remember Herbert Hoover!
Well Shrub does now have the lowest approval rating in history -- lower than Nixon when impeached
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.
Not if Frank Zappa has anything to say about it!
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
The machines aren't any more secure, either. Lots of people have access to the buildings that most machines are kept.
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
That would jeopardise the anonymity of voting tremendously though.
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.
You're doing it wrong!
How about a show of hands? :P
What about handicapped people? Not everyone can afford this stuff http://www.engadget.com/2005/02/18/the-thought-controlled-robotic-arm/ !!!
Sweet!
Do you think we can use this to run Quake on the voting machines?
Nov 4: election day or nationwide lan party? You decide.
haha that would be the tits! I can just see it now, some guy spending 45min to cast his vote...
Massive LAN party. UT3 DM: first to 15. Winner gets to choose the next president.
"Please shoot the candidate you wish to vote for."
@jorvay
You already know what will happen in Florida... "Ohhhh, I thought I was supposed to shoot the one I DIDN'T want to win..."
Here in Canada, we still cast our votes with a pen and a piece of paper. I wouldn't have it any other way.