Interesting People mailing list archives
Re hacking voting machine vendors
From: "Dave Farber" <farber () gmail com>
Date: Sat, 31 Mar 2018 19:48:21 +0900
Begin forwarded message:
From: Gordon Peterson <gep2 () terabites com> Date: March 31, 2018 at 11:48:37 AM GMT+9 To: dave () farber net Subject: Re: [IP] hacking voting machine vendors I'm SO tired of nonsense from people (like talk show host Brad Friedman) who keep spouting idiotic, stupid BS about how "hand marked, hand counted paper ballots" are the only reliable, trustworthy, robust and auditable voting technology... OR that they are enough to achieve that. NEITHER is true. First of all... when filling out hand marked paper ballots, PEOPLE MAKE MISTAKES. They ambiguously mark their ballots, they don't realize that voting a straight party ticket does NOT result in them voting in races where their party might not have a candidate running, they don't realize how voting in one race affects another choice (like cases for "vote for three out of this group of five"). They might not understand about propositions, bond issue votes, and other issues. A good touchscreen system for voting can call attention to races they missed voting on (in case the undervote was not intentional), it can make sure that the vote is not illegal (like an overvote which will get thrown away) or ambiguous. Once the voter has verified their choices are the way they want them, this first stage system should then PRINT an UNAMBIGUOUSLY marked, HUMAN-READABLE, UNMODIFIABLE, hardcopy paper ballot. The user then verifies that this definitive printed paper ballot IS the way they wish to vote. Done correctly, NOBODY can later modify this paper ballot by surrepetitiously adding marks onto it after the voter has checked it. That is NOT true on hand-marked, hard-copy paper ballots. It's impossible to later tell which marks on such a hand-marked paper ballot were made by who! When the voter has verified the hardcopy version of their ballot, they slide it into the second-stage scanner/counter/lockbox. When the polls close at the end of the day... both the first-stage and second-stage systems print independent results tapes which reflect the ballots as printed, and the voter-verified-hardcopy-ballots as scanned. The election judge and their clerks sign each tape produced by each stage. When the judge drops off the results at the dropoff location that evening, they hand off most of the first and second stage tapes to the county, or other official election authority. BUT: the judge also hands a printed copy of both the first stage and second stage result tapes DIRECTLY to a member of (at least) both of the Republican, AND the Democratic party. Each of these THREE recipient groups can INDEPENDENTLY confirm that the first and second stage results agree. Each of these THREE recipient groups can INDEPENDENTLY tally the results, both city-wide, county-wide, and state-wide (and even nation-wide). This prevents tampering with the vote totals by any officials involved with the election. Any discrepancies found in the totals can be investigated and resolved/confirmed, including if necessary by re-examining the definitive, machine-printed, voter-verified, UNAMBIGUOUSLY marked, hardcopy paper ballots. And some percentage of the randomly chosen paper ballots can and should be hand-counted to confirm that the counts agree with the printed results tapes... just to be sure. Note that it is VIRTUALLY IMPOSSIBLE for ANY hacker, ANYWHERE, to tamper with these votes. Through the Internet, through the tallying systems, the voting machine manufacturer, or whatever. The voter has verified their indelibly marked paper ballot; the counts from both stages must agree, and three separate and independent organizations have parallel-tallied the results. The rubbish about insisting on "hand-marked, hand-counted paper ballots" does NOT address, nor does it solve, many of these issues. So whenever we hear this idiotic crap from Brad Friedman, or the gullible folks who believe his nonsense, we need to call them on it, and point out just how they've been deceived. And as a second point, note that mailed-in paper ballots, and Internet voting, is INHERENTLY flawed because it is IMPOSSIBLE to guarantee that nobody (in some position of power) is looking over the voter's shoulder, or otherwise making sure that they're voting "the right way"... maybe selling their vote, for money, sex, drugs, alcohol, or whatever. Those voting methods should NOT EVER be allowed other than in VERY well-justified individual cases (e.g. a voter who is on extended holiday abroad or something). On 3/30/2018 5:10 PM, Dave Farber wrote: Begin forwarded message:From: "J.M. Porup" <jm () porup com> Date: March 31, 2018 at 2:05:30 AM GMT+9 To: farber () gmail com Subject: hacking voting machine vendors Hi Dave, For IP, if you wish... Want to hack a voting machine? Hack the voting machine vendor first https://www.csoonline.com/article/3267625/security/want-to-hack-a-voting-machine-hack-the-voting-machine-vendor-first.html Thousands of voting machine vendor employees' work emails and plaintext passwords appear in freely available third-party data breach dumps reviewed by CSO, raising questions about the security of voting machines and the integrity of past election results. best, jmp -- J.M. Porup www.JMPorup.com
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- Re hacking voting machine vendors Dave Farber (Mar 31)