Posted on 08/02/2007 3:45:59 AM PDT by lifelong_republican
"...the team was able to bypass security in every machine they tested..."
(Excerpt) Read more at canada.com ...
Schoolchildren could count them on video security as a part of learning civic duty.
Just another government “sink” full of money for a project where the drain stopper isn’t working properly!
For most govt. contractors, taxing entities have a pile of free money that is bigger than the private sector that they feel belongs to them.
That wouldn’t stop the Democrat from tossing in a box of fake ballots when nobody is looking, or voting twice (or more) or...
You are so right YouGoTexasGirl! You said it.
This has been a taxpayer robbery under threat
by racketeers. They’re forcing local officials
to use garbage computers sold for exhorbitant
prices with unaffordable maintenance only to
force unreliability, delays, and failures of
elections on the voters.
Voter Identification...Voter identification... Voter identification. One has to produce picture identification to buy a six-pack, to buy cigarettes, to drive a car but not to vote? It’s insane. All I have to do to vote is step up to a table and state an address. In return, the poll worker says a name, I nod my head and I’m handed a ballot. I’m waiting for the day to be told that I’ve already voted. ;-)
It’d be crude, clumsy, and detectable to load a ballot box the old way. With the electronics it’s easy and carries little risk of detection.
There are different types of computer security. Part of it is keeping unauthorized people from connecting a laptop to the voting machine. If they cannot connect a cable then they cannot hack.
Are we supposed to believe that paper ballots are free from voter fraud?
It’s a piece of cake to fake voter identifications
on electronic “rolls”, and even if the voters are
properly identified, their votes could be lost or
changed electronically with ease, too.
Studies have shown that for all their known faults, paper ballots are more securable and reliable than the electronics, which can be hacked in many ways including the installations of the firmware in the secret manufacturing sites in Communist China.
“Studies have shown that for all their known faults, paper ballots are more securable and reliable than the electronics, which can be hacked in many ways including the installations of the firmware in the secret manufacturing sites in Communist China.”
Studies paid for by those who oppose modernization of the voting system. Modernization to include actually using ID’s to verify the people are who they say they are.
Electronics are perfectly able to be secure. After all our entire banking system is run on computers. I believe thats the real fear. that the system will be made secure and the people who have helped dead people vote for years will be stopped.
Over my lifetime I’ve lived in and voted in three states. In both New York State and Virginia I voted using the old-fashioned voting machines where I pulled the levers behind a curtain. I would think it would be easy to jigger with those results too. In both cases I had to at least sign my name. When I moved to Massachusetts I was given a paper ballot that I had to mark with a pencil and then put through a scanner. After using the voting machines for years I felt like I was voting in a third world country. To make things worse, I didn’t have to sign my name to anything. I would think that it would be easy to screw with those results too but I do now understand the value of a paper record to back up what is reported on a machine.
The banking system uses paper trails as backups
and is audited.
There’s a big difference there.
Rhombus you make excellent points. Thank you.
The voting machines have lost, faked, and switched
votes in known instances and have the potential to
do so any time they’re used.
If they spit paper, it need not match the tallies.
They’re designed to conceal election subversion.
“The banking system uses paper trails as backups
and is audited.”
You honestly believe that the entire banking system uses paper backups? Here’s a hint, they don’t.
Auditing is easy. Not against auditing or adding security.
Funny how everyone thought electronic voting machines were the magic answer to the punch cards in 2000... and now here we are. ;-)
Fraudulent voters, illegal alien voters, etc. are not addressed, only the old "Diebold" excuse for losses, as usual.
Photo ID is not important, but claiming "disenfranchisement" and "electronic voting errors/cheating" is.
“Electronics are perfectly able to be secure.”
As an EE who has done a lot of design of secure computer systems and cryptographic systems, I don’t share your opinion.
Anything that doesn’t leave a paper audit trail is not acceptable, in my opinion.
Additionally, when systems like these are compromised, they are compromised in a big way and it’s difficult to detect.
Remember the recent ruckus over the breaking of the DVD copy protection scheme?
They spent millions of dollars to develop this protection scheme and all the “experts” said it was secure.
It was broken by a bunch of neophyte hackers with too much time on their hands.
JMHO!
Yes, return to paper ballots.
You’re right, Rhombus, a lot of people
got sold a bill of goods on them, but
the computer scientists never really
found ways to make them secure enough.
The horrors of HillBama will be brought in
with electronic election subversion.
It’s far easier to rig electronics than to
use any of the previously-known methods,
and far easier to get away with it.
“ATM systems have all sorts of internal auditing, and they provide you with a paper record of your transaction that you can verify on the spot. If there is a discrepancy, you can immediately go into the bank and have it resolved. If your monthly statement shows transactions that you never made, you can get your bank to fix them. ATM systems also include cameras that can be used to identify criminals or to prove that a genuine customer was using the ATM. Banking systems are not anonymous, as elections are required to be. Also banks are insured for losses (and there are considerable losses at ATMs), while elections are not insured. Election systems are thus significantly more difficult to design and build than ATM systems.”
http://www.verifiedvoting.org/article.php?id=5018
You’re absolutely right, of course.
Thank You!
bttt
I agree with you.
Paper ballots can be watched.
Counts can be observed and duplicated.
There’s a heck of a lot more to banking systems than ATM machines. ATMs aren’t even a fraction of the systems that process trillions of dollars a day.
You’re thinking of the Vote-Matic machines. They were fine, afaik. A bit bulky by todays’ standards!
My spidey-sense starts tingling when people start talking about a “verifiable paper trail.” As a concept that is OK, ut a fundamental tenet of democracy is a secret ballot, a concept that is lost on many today. A voting “receipt” is just a nice way of buying votes outright. That’s when democracy morphs into mob-rule, which is another matter.
Yet election electronics aren’t even
as good as ATMs.
Americans deserve real physical ballots
with observable and repeatable counts.
The receipt systems are totally flawed.
The paper needn’t match the ‘counts’.
“Yet election electronics aren’t even
as good as ATMs”
The electronics are fine, its the people and programming that may need improvement.
“Americans deserve real physical ballots
with observable and repeatable counts.”
Americans ‘deserve’ valid elections. Physical ballots are expensive, error prone (yes I’m from Florida) and easily forged.
The electronics aren’t suitable, according
to computer scientists and such as the GAO.
Properly ID’d voters can still have
their votes lost, switched, or faked
by the electronics.
“Anything that doesn’t leave a paper audit trail is not acceptable, in my opinion.”
Most of the banking system does not have a paper trail. They do have extensive audit trails though.
“Additionally, when systems like these are compromised, they are compromised in a big way and it’s difficult to detect.”
As a computer security professional its not all that hard to secure these kinds of systems and detection isn’t all that hard either. I’m not disputing that the existing systems need improvement. I am disputing that electronic voting is any less secure than paper ballots.
“member the recent ruckus over the breaking of the DVD copy protection scheme?”
Apples and oranges. Copying a DVD is much different than hacking into a computer system.
“It was broken by a bunch of neophyte hackers with too much time on their hands.”
It was broken by a bunch of professionals using simple hacking methods. Most hacking methods are simple as they exploit known deficiencies.
Bring the machines up to industry standards and apply proper physical controls and they will be plenty secure.
“The test was initiated by Bowen to try to crack the voting system, hoping to reveal any holes or leaks. The team was given full access to the machine’s source codes and manuals, which some argue would be extremely difficult for the average hacker to get their hands on.
During the tests there were able to access the internal components of the machine by unscrewing screws. They were also able to load on malicious firmware which they could use to manipulate election results and access election management systems.”
From the article. With this kind of access I could hack ANY system thats ever been created. yes even an Apple. This study is a complete fraud designed to undermine popular support for electronic voting. It has no basis on reality.
Using this same standard for paper ballots I would be able to print my own ballots and stuff the ballot boxes.
The machines aren’t remotely up to industry standards,
so patriotic Americans should not use them.
The tests repeatedly show vulnerabilities to hacking,
and the machines aren’t, in practice, kept in even
remotely secure conditions.
They’re also extremely unreliable.
Do you know what a MTBF is?
There isn’t a proper design implemented, much less any component thereof.
The systems are costly, unreliable, vulnerable to being hacked, and inconvenient for voters.
The backups would merely reiterate
the faulty algorithms.
That’s part of the issue of no valid
recounts being possible on the electronics.
The loss in confidence in the voting system will be the straw that breaks the camels back.
So-called democrats will oppose any means - by any means - to insure election honesty.
“The tests repeatedly show vulnerabilities to hacking,
and the machines aren’t, in practice, kept in even
remotely secure conditions.”
If the machines aren’t kept in secure locations then paper ballots are not kept secure. Its a bigger problem then electronic voting.
With the access these folks had you could do anything to any system every built. Do you understand what it means that they were allowed to install firmware?
Another is for citizens to stop using absentee ballots. The chain of control is completely broken in that process.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1518679/posts
Vote Early, Vote Often
The new electronic machines should come with a scanner that creates an electronic date stamped copy of the ballots and these should be available for inspection on the internet along with the record of the machine recording.
At the end of the day the dwarfs then activate their cloaking device and move the modified ballots to the original box. At that point they are then transported to the local county election headquarters to make sure their plan is successful.
I swear, I saw this with my own eyes.
As many have said already, Photo ID's should be required at all polls across the nation. Plus, a paper trail and a paper record to verify the number of voters that came to that poll and the number of ballots turned in. Electronics are a good tech, but not secure. If we all knew the truth through all the years of voter fraud across the nation, we'd be sick.
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