Re: Diebold Global Election Management System (GEMS) Backdoor Account Allows Authenticated Users to Modify Votes

float_at_lefant.net
Date: 09/29/04

  • Next message: Polazzo Justin: "RE: Diebold Global Election Management System (GEMS) Backdoor Account Allows Authenticated Users to Modify Votes" 
    Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 09:59:17 +0200
To: bugtraq@securityfocus.com

    > How do you know that the software generating the audit trail is playing
    > fair if it's closed source?
    >
    > Sometimes, IMHO, there's just no alternative to pen and paper. Surely
    > the manual method of ticking a box and having multiple human vote
    > counters checking ballots is the best option going, even if it is more
    > expensive. (I confess I've no idea what costs are involved either way.)

    i don't think that you can save a lot of money, if you implement the
    same 'security' and 'auditability'. i've monitored two elections in an
    east european country this year. people's confidence into democracy
    isn't very strong in this country and there might have been some
    incidences that you wouldn't expect within long established democracies
    but in general the premisses are the same.

    from my point of view you cannot guarantee any human auditability
    without a paper trail, in the form that the voting machine prints a
    ballot that will be put into a ballot box within public sight, meaning
    that independent monitors can see that everybody throws exactly one
    ballot into that box. thus you will need some kind of election comitee
    in every polling station that takes care of those ballot boxes (seals
    them after the vote and securely transports them to the next authority).
    like this you will maybe save on the counting, but with voting districts
    not bigger than 2000 people human counting took no longer than 3 hours
    and you will not save on bureaucratic processes that account the proper
    procedures with sealing and handing over the ballot boxes.

    from my expirience with voting in not so established democracies it
    becomes clear that the whole voting process has to be understandable by
    everybody not only some tech geeks and crypto specialists. because if
    some provincial politicians are not able to verify the fairness of the
    vote they will call for a recount. OOS even with Open Source Hardware
    (yes who tells me that Party A's votes don't get counted by a chip that
    calculates 1+1=3) with Public Records cannot be sufficient for that.
    Because if Joe and Jane Average don't understand the process the same
    way Bruce Schneier does they have the right for a manual recount and
    than we haven't saved any money. That's democracy.

    Not everything that can be done by machines is automatically better, as
    if we would do it by hand.

    float 

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  • Next message: Polazzo Justin: "RE: Diebold Global Election Management System (GEMS) Backdoor Account Allows Authenticated Users to Modify Votes"

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