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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]
Dutch government orders reforms in response to hacked voting machines
Even though the issue of electronic voting security has yet to be taken seriously in the United States (we're looking at you, Diebold), the Dutch government appears to be very concerned about the shenanigans that hackers recently pulled with one of Nedap/Groenendaal's old-school machines, and has taken several steps to ensure that the equipment is as hack-proof as possible prior to the November 22nd national elections. According to a translated article on the site Nu.nl, officials have ordered Nedap to double-check every single terminal, replace all of the weak software, and install unflashable firmware so that the simple "Diebold memory hack" can't be replicated in the Netherlands. Furthermore, all of the machines will be retrofitted with an iron seal that will presumably prevent unnoticeable access to their innards, and two additional independent checks will be performed to add another layer of redundancy: a certification institute will make sure that Nedap has performed all of the necessary upgrades, and the machines will be spot-checked for accuracy once again on election day. Finally, the Dutch intelligence service AIVD will reportedly look into the RF emissions that enable snoopers to wirelessly establish a vote tally, although it doesn't sound like the inquiry will have any immediate effect on this gaping security hole. Despite these changes and increased oversight, though, it seems that the voting group responsible for the original hacks is still not confident that all of the problems have been solved; we certainly see their point, however, we'd suggest that a government that at least acknowledges and makes moves to alleviate these serious concerns is already far more progressive than one that seems to be waiting around for an e-voting "Enron" before taking the initiative to sort out this significant threat to the democratic process.[Via Slashdot]
