paging Jim March diebold at it again

[woerm]

http://openvotingfoundation.org/


fair use and all that leaglesse
PRESS RELEASE -- JULY 31, 2006


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Subject: WORST EVER SECURITY FLAW FOUND IN DIEBOLD TS VOTING MACHINE
Contact: Alan Dechert
Reference: PICTURES
(Click on thumbnail. Click again on lower half of picture for high resolution)

SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA -- “This may be the worst security flaw we have seen in touch screen voting machines,” says Open Voting Foundation president, Alan Dechert. Upon examining the inner workings of one of the most popular paperless touch screen voting machines used in public elections in the United States, it has been determined that with the flip of a single switch inside, the machine can behave in a completely different manner compared to the tested and certified version.

“Diebold has made the testing and certification process practically irrelevant,” according to Dechert. “If you have access to these machines and you want to rig an election, anything is possible with the Diebold TS -- and it could be done without leaving a trace. All you need is a screwdriver.” This model does not produce a voter verified paper trail so there is no way to check if the voter’s choices are accurately reflected in the tabulation.

Open Voting Foundation is releasing 22 high-resolution close up pictures of the system. This picture, in particular, shows a “BOOT AREA CONFIGURATION” chart painted on the system board.

The most serious issue is the ability to choose between "EPROM" and "FLASH" boot configurations. Both of these memory sources are present. All of the switches in question (JP2, JP3, JP8, SW2 and SW4) are physically present on the board. It is clear that this system can ship with live boot profiles in two locations, and switching back and forth could change literally everything regarding how the machine works and counts votes. This could be done before or after the so-called "Logic And Accuracy Tests".

A third possible profile could be field-added in minutes and selected in the "external flash" memory location, the interface for which is present on the motherboard.

This is not a minor variation from the previously documented attack point on the newer Diebold TSx. To its credit, the TSx can only contain one boot profile at a time. Diebold has ensured that it is extremely difficult to confirm what code is in a TSx (or TS) at any one time but it is at least theoretically possible to do so. But in the TS, a completely legal and certified set of files can be instantly overridden and illegal uncertified code be made dominant in the system, and then this situation can be reversed leaving the legal code dominant again in a matter of minutes.

“These findings underscore the need for open testing and certification. There is no way such a security vulnerability should be allowed. These systems should be recalled”

OPEN VOTING FOUNDATION is a nonprofit non stock California corporation dedicated to demonstrating the need for and benefits of voting technology that can be publicly scrutinized.


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JIm,

Have you heard on this one?

I know tihe eprom issue had come up before was it part of your suit as well?

 

[molonlabe]

.

 

[Jim March]

Heard of it?

Yeah, you could say that.

Half the pictures of that Diebold machine on that site were taken by me, with my camera. Ownership of the pics was transferred to the owner of the machine (coughEBay!cough). The owner also had his camera out .

See also:

http://www.bbvforums.org/cgi-bin/forums/board-auth.cgi?file=/1954/36340.html

 

[Jim March]

As to the lawsuit...ye Gods don't get me started.

We filed in Alameda County. At the time they were running THIS machine. The California AG's office blocked all discovery and settled it out from under us.

Had THIS fiasco been discovered in that case three years ago like it should have...well both California and myself would have had some more pocket change.

:banghead:

But the worst part is that the WHOLE states of MD and GA are running on this trash right now, today, including this coming election.

 

[Kharn]

And MD Governor Ehlrich (R) asked for $20mil so we could use paper ballots rather than Diebold equipment, the (D) legislature told him to not revert back to old technology and denied the funding. :banghead:

Kharn

 

[Jim March]

Trust me: one of the KEY destinations for those pics is the MD governor's office.

Arrangements are being made as we speak to make sure that happens.

 

[Wiley]

Georgia? Let's see.

-Cathy Cox (GA Sec. of State, Dem.) says the Deibold machines are absolutly great, wonderfull, everybody should have the highest confidence, yada, yada, yada.

-McKinney(Dem., GA 4th district) did not take the Dem. primary by three points. She's like 20 points behind in the polls for the runoff (Aug. 8).

HANK JOHNSON------27,529--44.4 %
CYNTHIA MCKINNEY--29,216--47.1 %

It will be interesting to see if McKinney looses the runoff.

Ri-i-i-i-g-ht....

 

[ctdonath]

Just saw an ad here in GA for some Democrat. Struck me that the first thing she assured viewers of was "protection of voting rights". Hmmm. This in a state where the Dems are he11-bent on stopping any and all voter ID methods. Gotta wonder if "protecting voter's rights" means the right to vote early and often...

 

[Jim March]

Ok. You have to look at vote fraud through two lenses:

1) "Retail fraud" - affecting votes onesies and twosies, or at most a few at a time. Paper alterations, fraudulent ID, everything Tammany Hall pioneered 100+ years ago. The problem is, you need large numbers of people involved so it's risky. Union involvement isn't unheard of. Tends to be "more of a Democrat trick" but that's almost overbroad.

2) "Wholesale fraud" involves fewer criminals affecting larger numbers of votes. The only historical examples were when ballot boxes were taken out of sight and manipulated on a large scale, such as triggered the Battle of Athens (TN) in 1946 - crooked "special deputies" took the boxes back to the jail for the previously tolerated "hack sessions". Returning GIs decided not to tolerate it, 1,500 shots later they got their way. Today that sort of "in your face" mass fraud is impossible for reasons related to PR and better media access. But electronic voting provides a newer and easier way to do the same thing: affect mass numbers of votes with a small body of crooks, in some cases as few as one.

Right now wholesale fraud is seen as a "Republican thing" because of GOP ties to a lot of the major voting system vendors (Diebold and ES&S in particular, the two market leaders). This is certainly how DemocraticUnderground and DailyKos views it...and with SOME justification. Some damned peculiar things have been going on in Florida and Ohio.

BUT: it may be way overly simplistic to attribute fraud motives to ideology ("Neocon" or otherwise). Plain ol' greed is a more likely motive and neither party has a monopoly. Second, once a voting system is "rendered hackable" there's no guarantee exactly who is going to tweak on it.