http://www.engadget.com/2009/08/13/hang-your-head-sequoia-e-voting-machine-youve-been-hacked-aga/ Engadget Comments for Hang your head, Sequoia e-voting machine; you've been hacked again http://www.engadget.com/media/feedlogo.gif http://www.engadget.com en-us Copyright 2012 Weblogs, Inc. The contents of this feed are available for non-commercial use only. Blogsmith http://www.blogsmith.com/http://www.engadget.com/2009/08/13/hang-your-head-sequoia-e-voting-machine-youve-been-hacked-aga/http://www.engadget.com/2009/08/13/hang-your-head-sequoia-e-voting-machine-youve-been-hacked-aga/"CNN is reporting that Tommy Chong has a slim lead over Marylin Manson, with Stephen Colbert and the AFLAC duck following close behind."

Will e-voting machines EVER be safe enough to trust? Seems like there's no way for the folks in charge to stay ahead of the "bad" hackers (as opposed to the "good" hackers).]]>Aug 13th 2009 9:34AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/08/13/hang-your-head-sequoia-e-voting-machine-youve-been-hacked-aga/http://www.engadget.com/2009/08/13/hang-your-head-sequoia-e-voting-machine-youve-been-hacked-aga/Aug 13th 2009 10:29AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/08/13/hang-your-head-sequoia-e-voting-machine-youve-been-hacked-aga/http://www.engadget.com/2009/08/13/hang-your-head-sequoia-e-voting-machine-youve-been-hacked-aga/
Don't most if not all of the hacks require physical proximity to the machines? How less secure is an electronic system compared to traditional methods. Why aren't we concerned about stuffing ballot boxes? What about the old style mechanical machines...wasn't there a potential for fraud there too?

People will always cheat in some form when it comes to elections. Security for the voting process is similar to a lock - it's not a question of if it can be broken, but rather how much effort would be required.

What's easier - visiting a bunch of machines at every polling station to apply your hack? Or a little voter registration fraud? Or misleading public announcements? Or jamming phone lines for voter ride services?

I agree that we should be concerned about the security of electronic voting machines, and there's definitely room for improvement. Tossing the convenience, accuracy, and speed of the electronic system out entirely, though, is silly. ]]>Aug 13th 2009 11:25AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/08/13/hang-your-head-sequoia-e-voting-machine-youve-been-hacked-aga/http://www.engadget.com/2009/08/13/hang-your-head-sequoia-e-voting-machine-youve-been-hacked-aga/Aug 13th 2009 10:54AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/08/13/hang-your-head-sequoia-e-voting-machine-youve-been-hacked-aga/http://www.engadget.com/2009/08/13/hang-your-head-sequoia-e-voting-machine-youve-been-hacked-aga/Aug 13th 2009 12:09PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/08/13/hang-your-head-sequoia-e-voting-machine-youve-been-hacked-aga/http://www.engadget.com/2009/08/13/hang-your-head-sequoia-e-voting-machine-youve-been-hacked-aga/
I don't believe I've seen a more intelligent comment on here in all my years (many before I actually registered). IMHO, this is a key statement:

"Security for the voting process is similar to a lock - it's not a question of if it can be broken, but rather how much effort would be required."

I would expand that to say security for _any_ process is similar to a lock...

And, that's what I love most about hacking-- coming to the understanding of how much effort is actually required to breach security and making my decisions based on that.]]>Aug 13th 2009 6:02PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/08/13/hang-your-head-sequoia-e-voting-machine-youve-been-hacked-aga/http://www.engadget.com/2009/08/13/hang-your-head-sequoia-e-voting-machine-youve-been-hacked-aga/
Also, would somebody please hack these to use a DualShock Controller? Perhaps a casemod, or is that too much to ask?]]>Aug 13th 2009 9:37AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/08/13/hang-your-head-sequoia-e-voting-machine-youve-been-hacked-aga/http://www.engadget.com/2009/08/13/hang-your-head-sequoia-e-voting-machine-youve-been-hacked-aga/Aug 13th 2009 9:47AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/08/13/hang-your-head-sequoia-e-voting-machine-youve-been-hacked-aga/http://www.engadget.com/2009/08/13/hang-your-head-sequoia-e-voting-machine-youve-been-hacked-aga/Aug 13th 2009 9:50AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/08/13/hang-your-head-sequoia-e-voting-machine-youve-been-hacked-aga/http://www.engadget.com/2009/08/13/hang-your-head-sequoia-e-voting-machine-youve-been-hacked-aga/Aug 13th 2009 10:03AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/08/13/hang-your-head-sequoia-e-voting-machine-youve-been-hacked-aga/http://www.engadget.com/2009/08/13/hang-your-head-sequoia-e-voting-machine-youve-been-hacked-aga/
lol]]>Aug 13th 2009 4:45PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/08/13/hang-your-head-sequoia-e-voting-machine-youve-been-hacked-aga/http://www.engadget.com/2009/08/13/hang-your-head-sequoia-e-voting-machine-youve-been-hacked-aga/
"iPoop, you've got your Simpsons reference all wrong. In the "Citizen Kang" section of "Treehouse of Horror VII," Kang won the 1996 election. Homer said 'Don't blame me-- I voted for Kodos.' So you're OBVIOUSLY not much of Simpsons fan."

*** end Comic Book Guy voice ***

In my defense, I had to look up which episode it was on wikipedia, so I’m not THAT much of a nerd.
]]>Aug 13th 2009 9:56AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/08/13/hang-your-head-sequoia-e-voting-machine-youve-been-hacked-aga/http://www.engadget.com/2009/08/13/hang-your-head-sequoia-e-voting-machine-youve-been-hacked-aga/Aug 13th 2009 9:57AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/08/13/hang-your-head-sequoia-e-voting-machine-youve-been-hacked-aga/http://www.engadget.com/2009/08/13/hang-your-head-sequoia-e-voting-machine-youve-been-hacked-aga/Aug 13th 2009 10:04AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/08/13/hang-your-head-sequoia-e-voting-machine-youve-been-hacked-aga/http://www.engadget.com/2009/08/13/hang-your-head-sequoia-e-voting-machine-youve-been-hacked-aga/Aug 13th 2009 10:11AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/08/13/hang-your-head-sequoia-e-voting-machine-youve-been-hacked-aga/http://www.engadget.com/2009/08/13/hang-your-head-sequoia-e-voting-machine-youve-been-hacked-aga/http://www.cs.princeton.edu/~appel/avc/]]>Aug 13th 2009 12:00PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/08/13/hang-your-head-sequoia-e-voting-machine-youve-been-hacked-aga/http://www.engadget.com/2009/08/13/hang-your-head-sequoia-e-voting-machine-youve-been-hacked-aga/
Worst attempt at a simpsons reference ever.

***End Voice***]]>Aug 13th 2009 10:41AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/08/13/hang-your-head-sequoia-e-voting-machine-youve-been-hacked-aga/http://www.engadget.com/2009/08/13/hang-your-head-sequoia-e-voting-machine-youve-been-hacked-aga/Aug 13th 2009 3:53PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/08/13/hang-your-head-sequoia-e-voting-machine-youve-been-hacked-aga/http://www.engadget.com/2009/08/13/hang-your-head-sequoia-e-voting-machine-youve-been-hacked-aga/
Why is it that you can still get parts for cars and guns made in the 1930s, but we couldn't keep voting machines running that only got used for one day a year?]]>Aug 13th 2009 11:14AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/08/13/hang-your-head-sequoia-e-voting-machine-youve-been-hacked-aga/http://www.engadget.com/2009/08/13/hang-your-head-sequoia-e-voting-machine-youve-been-hacked-aga/Aug 13th 2009 11:35AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/08/13/hang-your-head-sequoia-e-voting-machine-youve-been-hacked-aga/http://www.engadget.com/2009/08/13/hang-your-head-sequoia-e-voting-machine-youve-been-hacked-aga/Aug 13th 2009 11:35AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/08/13/hang-your-head-sequoia-e-voting-machine-youve-been-hacked-aga/http://www.engadget.com/2009/08/13/hang-your-head-sequoia-e-voting-machine-youve-been-hacked-aga/Aug 13th 2009 1:24PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/08/13/hang-your-head-sequoia-e-voting-machine-youve-been-hacked-aga/http://www.engadget.com/2009/08/13/hang-your-head-sequoia-e-voting-machine-youve-been-hacked-aga/
As for the mass-hysteria though...everyone has this belief that paper voting is essentially perfect. News flash, ballots get 'lost' or 'misread' all the time. If you think the old-school mechanical voting machines never have problems...well i'll dig up pictures of plenty of them with 'out of order' signs for you.

And despite all that, I hope everyone realizes you don't vote for the president. The electoral college (which CAN go against the state's popular vote) actually selects the president. Bring along a country-wide POPULAR vote for the prez (and other officials) and i'll actually give a crap.]]>Aug 13th 2009 3:23PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/08/13/hang-your-head-sequoia-e-voting-machine-youve-been-hacked-aga/http://www.engadget.com/2009/08/13/hang-your-head-sequoia-e-voting-machine-youve-been-hacked-aga/Aug 13th 2009 3:54PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2009/08/13/hang-your-head-sequoia-e-voting-machine-youve-been-hacked-aga/http://www.engadget.com/2009/08/13/hang-your-head-sequoia-e-voting-machine-youve-been-hacked-aga/
So in response to Forrest, unverifiable DREs (direct record electronic) voting machines are not convenient or fast (and there's no way to know whether they are accurate). Here in Tennessee, we compared how long it would take 21 voters, taking from 3 minutes to 13 minutes to complete their ballots (with the time to vote increasing 30 seconds for each voter from the fastest to the slowest), to vote on paper ballots counted by optical scan machines vs. the same 21 voters voting on a DRE. The difference: the paper ballot/ opscan voters were all finished voting within 13 minutes -- the DRE group took 2 hours and 48 minutes. That's because with the paper ballots, the act of voting is separated from the act of having the vote counted, unlike with the DREs. So fast voters are not hindered by being stuck behind slow voters in a DRE line from completing their paper ballots and having their ballots counted by an opscan as soon as they are completed. Paper ballot/opscan voting systems are also 30-40% cheaper to operate than DRE voting systems, because it takes 70% less equipment to run an election.

I agree with Dr. Jeffrey Chase at Duck University who said that "DREs are a threat to democracy." I agree with Fortune magazine that selected DREs as the "worst new technology" of 2003. And I also agree with the marketplace that has assigned a resale value of $zero$ to DREs that state after state is dumping now, because no democracy on the planet wants these slow, expensive and insecure "black boxes" anymore.

The only thing that DREs are good for is making election fraud an easy and wholesale process. That is likely why the federal law that introduced them en mass (the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), also known as "Hack America's Votes" Act) was pushed through by Congressman Bob Ney (R-Ohio) without allowing any opportunity to debate the obvious security problems with the equipment. It would be nice to ask Rep. Ney just what he was thinking but he is still in the custody of the federal Bureau of Prisons for his bribery/corruption conviction. ]]>Aug 13th 2009 7:11PM