U.S. Diebold voting machines can be hacked spending only $10.50 and controlled by remote.

This issue has come up in past elections, but no one seems to care as long as their Candidate wins.

The current electronic voting machines that approx. 25% of American voters will be using next year are the Diebold Accuvote touchscreen.

Voting machines used by as many as a quarter of American voters heading to the polls in 2012 can be hacked with just $10.50 in parts and an 8th grade science education, according to computer science and security experts at the Vulnerability Assessment Team at Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois. The experts say the newly developed hack could change voting results while leaving absolutely no trace of the manipulation behind.

The more realistic way to insert these alien electronics is to do it while the voting machines are waiting in the polling place a week or two prior to the election," Johnston said. "Often the polling places are in elementary schools or a church basement or some place that doesn't really have a great deal of security.

www.salon.com...
www.gmanews.tv...

It's crazy how easy it is to steal an election....

We should just use mechanical voting machines.
Or check off boxes on a piece .... of ..... paper.

Dont expect it though, the government likes complicated, expensive BS.

American elections and the blatant lack of a paper trail.

Nothing to hide folks, no sirree!

Yet again further proof that our elections can be readily manipulated/stolen.

So, I guess this will make the politicians decide we have to go with a paper-based ballot right?

Right?

< Insert sound of crickets here! >

reply to post by R3KR


Every election I've voted in, I lived in rural areas, and we used the old-school mechanical type.

I had no idea how vulnerable the newer machines were though, pretty shocking...

Originally posted by Signals

Voting machines used by as many as a quarter of American voters heading to the polls in 2012 can be hacked with just $10.50 in parts and an 8th grade science education, according to computer science and security experts at the Vulnerability Assessment Team at Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois. The experts say the newly developed hack could change voting results while leaving absolutely no trace of the manipulation behind.

It's crazy how easy it is to steal an election....

No need to fear, most American voters have none of the latter.
2nd.

To anybody who says that counting by hand would be too time-consuming, I disagree. You can make it efficient so that votes are distributed in 3 bins: Candidate A, Candidate B, and Other. Black out the bins so people can't see inside. Then at the end of the day, line up each stack and flip through quickly just to make sure they are sorted correctly. Then, compress down (using something heavy) and measure each stack, then divide proportionally from the total votes. I.e. if Candidate A's stack is 8 inches high, B is 6 inches, and other is 2 inches, then A would have received 50% of the vote, B 37.5%, and Other 12.5%.

Granted, there would likely be a 1-2% margin of error, but for most cases, that's fine as most states aren't that close. In the event a state election was close, the votes could be recounted by hand, but I'd imagine that wouldn't happen very often.

reply to post by Signals


This is an absurd thread, which proves nothing. The premise is: If you give me physical access to your voting machine, and $X worth of electronic parts, I can make your machine do such and thus.

Do you see how ridiculous your premise is? How absolutely silly?

I mean, if you give MacGyver a coffee can and a potato he will convert your elbow into a dirty bomb. Same thing.

All electronic security BEGINS AND ENDS WITH physical security. If you want to protect your equipment, lock the doors and control the access.

All these replies of how easy it is to steal an election this way, dream on.

And for those who want to go back to a paper ballot...forget it. A paper ballot is one of the easiest ballots to nullify. I got that from a corrupt, cigar smoking Boston precinct worker many moons ago.

Stalin is often credited for saying "It's not who votes that counts, it's who counts the votes" .

reply to post by mishigas

This is an absurd thread, which proves nothing.

Well, at least I am consistent

So you are saying no one has access to these machines in between election days? That they are watched over by armed guards in secured areas?

Ever heard of pollworker sleepovers?

Supervisory poll workers, following 16 hours of training, do indeed take voting machines home so the equipment can be readily set up at polling places on Election Day. It would be impractical, at best, if not impossible, for the county to distribute voting machines to the precincts in time for the polls to open at 7 a.m. on election morning. There are 10,000 of them.

www.cs.ucsb.edu...

reply to post by Signals

So you are saying no one has access to these machines in between election days? That they are watched over by armed guards in secured areas?

Did I say that? Please...you know I didn't. I said the exact opposite -- I said Security begins and ends with physical security. Lock your doors.

That's also common sense, btw. And identifying scenarios whereby the machines are vulnerable are the exact things that security audits will find.

Just makes me want to hurry up and get out there to vote.