Researchers Hack Voting Machine for $26

Fox News ^ | 9/30/11 | Matt Liebowitz

[antidemoncrat]

Researchers from the Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois have developed a hack that, for about $26 and an 8th-grade science education, can remotely manipulate the electronic voting machines used by millions of voters all across the U.S.

[antidemoncrat]

Gee. It only takes an 8th grade education. I guess that means the Democrats will be able to influence the next election.

[RC2]

Easy to control any information via electronics. Paper sounds good to me. It worked for over 200 years. Don’t fix something that ain’t broke.

[GOPJ]

It’s already ‘fixed’. And the MSM backed it at the time - which means it’s what dems wanted. That’s a hint.

[MNDude]

Paper + ID card

[Prokopton]

You need unobserved and unmolested access to the circuit boards in the voting machine. Give me unobserved and unmolested access to a paper ballot box and I can “hack” it also by simply stuffing it with premarked ballots. Much easier than splicing in a new electronic circuit.

[momf]

SOME of them, anyway!

[lwoodham]

“Paper + ID card”

..and a dated Tattoo seal on your forearm that you voted.

[Explorer89]

A finger dipped in purple ink will also work well.

[Pessimist]

I saw this elsewhere.

Yeah. “Simple”, provided you have physical access to the machine and can disassemble it without leaving a trace, etc.

By that standard, an ATM is “simple” to crack too.

[GraceG]

I think we should break out the purple dye and see how the dims fare in the next election.

[Red Badger]

Purple inks seems to work well........

[Little Ray]

I like the purple dye idea, too.

[PoloSec]

So apparently hackers will decide the next election. Each candidate will have to hire their own hacker and anti-hacker and then let the battle begin.

This scenario would make a good pre-election movie.

[Blood of Tyrants]

So anyone WITH ACCESS to the machine could do it? Looks like controlling access is the key. Besides, potentially you would have to access hundreds of the machines to make a national election difference.

[LaybackLenny]

ALTERNATE HEADLINE: “Dems confident in regaining House, keeping Senate, White House”

[Tatze]

Its really very simple. Use the electronic voting machines to make your choices and print out a voter verifiable paper ballot. At the end of the day, the manual paper count better match the electronic count. Redundancy AND a paper trail!

[freeandfreezing]

This looks like another example of government funded research to find out what everybody already knows - if you can take apart something, modify it, and then put it back in service without anybody noticing you can perpetrate pretty much any kind of crime you want - including fixing elections.

This can and has been done with ATM machines, card swipe terminals in supermarkets, etc.

In actual practice taking the voting machines apart and hacking them involves breaking in to and working for hours in government buildings without being noticed, creating replacement seals that can pass the inspection of poll workers, etc. It is more of a movie plot than a practical idea.

So why did we spend taxpayer money on the research in the first place?

[sam_paine]

Oh for crying out loud.

Far easier for a single, high-school dropout campaign worker to simply throw a box of paper ballots in a dumpster.

If you have (1) unlimited access to the machine, (2) and can take the case apart and (3) can solder a daughtecard onto the circuit board -which is obvious for later fraud investigation- and can (4) control thousands of machines in real time to “blank the screen and change the vote” from only yards away from dozens? thousands? of polling stations....

Really? This is a concern?

[Onelifetogive]

...can remotely manipulate voting machines...

The private market is so much more cost effective than govt. The govt spends billions in food stamps to accomplish the same thing.

[sam_paine]

EXACTLY!