e-vote
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Nearly half of the votes in Estonia's election were cast online
While many parts of the world are still struggling with voting machines, Estonia appears to be embracing online voting with gusto. In the country's recently finished parliamentary elections, nearly 44 percent of votes were cast through the i-voting system -- a major milestone when just 16 percent of Estonians voted online in 2009's EU elections. The result isn't a total surprise when the nation has spent most of the past two decades digitizing government functions, but it's still no mean feat given everything involved.
British locales to pilot internet / electronic voting schemes
While Americans (and the Dutch) are still trying to figure out exactly how to implement this "e-voting" thing without hackers exploiting them, people cracking them open (literally), and machines counting votes in triplicate, it looks like the Brits are disregarding all the red flags already waving and are giving it a go in select locations. New pilot schemes are slated to "help people vote more conveniently at the Local Government Elections in 13 local English authorities come May 2007," and while some areas simply get the option to vote in advance, Bedford, Breckland, Dover, South Bucks, Stratford-on-Avon District Council, and Warwick District Council will be graced with "electronic scanning technology to count ballot papers," while Rushmoor, Sheffield, Shrewsbury & Atcham, South Bucks, and Swindon will actually be able to "use the internet or telephone" to cast their vote if they so choose. The move is apparently tailored to fit the "more modern lifestyles" that most folks (mostly younger) are living, and officials hope that opening up the internet as a voting medium will convince chair-sitters to get off their butts surf on over and vote. Whether or not some trickster finds a loophole in the web-based voting system (or changes his / her voice up on a couple call-ins) to sabotage everything for everyone remains to be seen, but the Electoral Commission should be publishing the "findings" from these trials this August before choosing to keep (or axe) said methods.[Via Slashdot]
Hacking e-voting machines can be hard, Diebold shows you how
You know, we could almost admire Diebold's "in face of all odds" kind of determination to ignore the haters and continue to assert that its e-voting machines are secure -- but this is just taking it too far. Alex Halderman, who was part of a team that discovered Diebold was using a rather standard sort of hotel mini-bar key to "secure" its machines from tampering, has pointed out that Diebold is showing vote-tampering wannabes just how it's done. Halderman and company refrained from posting images of the actual key, just to deter any casual voting hax0rs out there, but Diebold one-upped 'em all by posting pictures loud and proud of the keys on its own website. You have to be a Diebold account holder to actually buy one, but anyone could copy the key design from the pic -- which sounded like a great idea to Ross, who made three homemade keys based on the online pics, two of which worked to unlock the Diebold machine. Care to comment, Diebold? Oh, that's right, you're doing that whole quiet, dignified thing. As an aside, up to one-third of the e-voting machines which were used widely in the Brazilian elections in October last year showed signs of manipulation, with all sorts of number disparities and obvious fraud or malfunction. Those poor e-voting machines just can't catch a break. Check out a video of this latest Diebold hacking after the break.Read - Diebold reveals e-voting keysRead - E-vote fraud runs rampant in Brazil
Dutch pull 10% of their voting machines, more to come?
While the US struggles to work out the say, kinks with its own flavor of voting machines, the Dutch just decided to partially chuck some of theirs after the Dutch intelligence service (AIVD) discovered just how vulnerable they are. The 1,187 or so machines to be pulled are all manufactured by Sdu and only make up 10% of the machines used across the Netherlands. Just how insecure are they? Well, the Sdu e-voting machines not only leak radiation like a rogue state, but they also transfer cast ballots with the help of a built-in GPRS modem -- all this makes them easily hackable from up to 30-meters away. The 34 affected municipalities, including Amsterdam, can now install themselves some spankin' new chess playin' voting machines from Nedap which the remaining 90% of the Dutch population will already be bellied-up to during the November 22, general election. Thing is, they too, are currently under intense scrutiny due to their own form of "spurious emissions" amongst other security concerns. Uh, paper and pencil anyone?[Via The Register]
