[CarrotAndStick]

How will it do that? What is doing the “handshake” between the board and the USB key to allow such a transfer?

You can stick a USB key into a USB port, but unless the key is programmed in a specific way (the hard part), it won’t do anything.

[Spktyr]

Actually, no.

The Diebold machine is (as I recall) actually a fully functional computer. As long as the USB drive is formatted in a way that a Windows box can read it, slapping the switch over and inserting the key causes it to copy its log file over to the drive. It’s some sort of diagnostic, I think. Or that was the original purpose.

FYI, all the Diebold voting machines run Windows CE.

[LibWhacker]

I was thinking that perhaps that is what throwing the switch does; i.e., tells the machine to automatically dump and erase, or maybe even download data from the USB drive?

[Does so]

"...unless the key is programmed in a specific way (the hard part), it won’t do anything..."

Would the Dims be able to manage sophisticated programming? The Chinese can.