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Install PAC-MAN on Sequoia voting machine w/o breaking tamper-evident seals

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Re: Install PAC-MAN on Sequoia voting machine w/o breaking tamper-evident seals

#41

Post by shrikant »

cubicle67 wrote: post #37
yummyfajitas wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also fairly easy for us techies to grasp the hacking of computer systems. But we often forget how insecure and error prone paper systems can also be: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJfj9ySYg0Q Massive voter fraud could be happening every election - it's pretty easy to vote fraudulently and there is almost no way to find out after the fact (I've done it unintentionally). For whatever reason, we are insanely afrai…

I voted on Saturday (Australian election). No id required, 100% paper votes, all counted by hand (as far as I'm aware) and we normally have a result within a few hours of polls in the West closing. Seems to work very well, but I guess one advantage we have is that none of the parties here are worth cheating for.

Might also help that Australia's population is about 22M. The USA are at 308M and India is 1180M - hand-counting ballots might just be a bigger problem with those kinds of numbers involved.

Re: Install PAC-MAN on Sequoia voting machine w/o breaking tamper-evident seals

#42

Post by electromagnetic »

jacquesm wrote: post #2

"We received the machine with the original tamper-evident seals intact. The software can be replaced without breaking any of these seals, simply by removing screws and opening the case." Ouch. Incompetence doesn't even begin to describe it. Or is this by design?

A good design would have riveted the machine shut, ensuring the only way in was through the tamper-evident seals.

At work today (I work in construction) I managed to remove a latch & lock system from a door without damaging either part. I manipulated the door hook with the padlock on and loosened the top screws, which gave me enough room to remove the top two screws on the door frame latch, which gave me enough room to remove the two screws on the door hook. I then removed the bottom two on latch by using the new upward-slack. I forced the latch section around until the middle screw became loose, angled the latch and slowly removed the centre screw. I essentially just broke into the customer's garage with no signs of forced entry.

Had the lock been installed properly (IE no slack in the system) it wouldn't have been easy to remove it with no signs of tampering. However it wasn't installed properly. Incidentally, one of the easiest ways to solve this problem is to take a drill bit and to strip the head of the screws. This leaves only manually forcing of the lock to open it, which takes a lot of effort if you're using 3 inch screws through a proper stud.

Re: Install PAC-MAN on Sequoia voting machine w/o breaking tamper-evident seals

#43

Post by endtime »

seldo wrote: post #8

It is one of the curious facts of modern culture that the people who love technology the most also seem to be the most opposed to electronic voting. I think it's because the people who most understand how computers work also understand that no data can be considered trustworthy if somebody else has been in possession of the hardware. Yet governments continue to trust the impossible promises of the people who make vot…

>no data can be considered trustworthy if somebody else has been in possession of the hardware

Actually, this isn't true, given properly-implemented crypto. Or, I suppose I should say, it's true only with very low probability.

Re: Install PAC-MAN on Sequoia voting machine w/o breaking tamper-evident seals

#44

Post by harto »

JoachimSchipper wrote: post #33
russell wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Half a century ago, literacy tests and trick questions were widely used to keep blacks from voting. That's why it's illegal to do so now.

Nowadays, the US repeals voting rights from those who have committed a felony, have a similar name to someone who's committed a felony, or live in the same neighborhood as people who conflict felonies. And who "just happen" to be black. Civilization has advanced - this is no longer widely accepted - but that doesn't mean it doesn't happen in, say, Florida.

> have a similar name to someone who's committed a felony

Really? How is that justified?

Re: Install PAC-MAN on Sequoia voting machine w/o breaking tamper-evident seals

#45

Post by dandelany »

arghnoname wrote: post #40
dandelany wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not convinced that any method will ever be 100% foolproof, but I think it can be improved immensely, and if we could limit the inaccuracies/fraud to always be less than those incurred by a traditional paper ballot[1], I think I'd approve. In regards to your comment regarding untrusted parties handling the hardware, here are a few counterpoints: - We already trust polling place workers with paper ballots, the poss…

You can't let people look up their vote or their employers, spouse, etc, could force them to vote for preferred candidates. Ron Rivest has a system to make it verifiable and deniable (Three ballot system). There are others.

Rivest has the right idea in terms of thinking about this cryptographically... But the Three Ballot system would be an absolute mess :-P Remember hanging chads? Try telling people that to vote against a candidate, they have to mark them on one of three ballots...

Re: Install PAC-MAN on Sequoia voting machine w/o breaking tamper-evident seals

#46

Post by JoachimSchipper »

harto wrote: post #44
JoachimSchipper wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nowadays, the US repeals voting rights from those who have committed a felony, have a similar name to someone who's committed a felony, or live in the same neighborhood as people who conflict felonies. And who "just happen" to be black. Civilization has advanced - this is no longer widely accepted - but that doesn't mean it doesn't happen in, say, Florida.

> have a similar name to someone who's committed a felony Really? How is that justified?

To the best of my knowledge, not at all.

See e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida_Central_Voter_File for details.

Re: Install PAC-MAN on Sequoia voting machine w/o breaking tamper-evident seals

#47

Post by sesqu »

shrikant wrote: post #41
cubicle67 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I voted on Saturday (Australian election). No id required, 100% paper votes, all counted by hand (as far as I'm aware) and we normally have a result within a few hours of polls in the West closing. Seems to work very well, but I guess one advantage we have is that none of the parties here are worth cheating for.

Might also help that Australia's population is about 22M. The USA are at 308M and India is 1180M - hand-counting ballots might just be a bigger problem with those kinds of numbers involved.

Can't see why it would be. That kind of thing parallelizes really well.

Granted, oversight would likely thin a bit.

Re: Install PAC-MAN on Sequoia voting machine w/o breaking tamper-evident seals

#48

Post by vidarh »

jasonjei wrote: post #26
yummyfajitas wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least two obvious ways to hack your proposed system. Hackers could just add phony UUID/vote pairs to the totals. Activists could claim their vote was stolen if their preferred candidate loses. (We already saw a variant of the latter in 2000. Remember "I couldn't follow the arrow and accidentally voted buchanan"?). Further, if a person's vote is verifiable, it also opens the door to paying people for their votes.

I can't think of a fix for paying people for their votes since that problem still exists today (albeit to a lesser extent than if a voter's vote were verifiable), but I imagine they wouldn't be able to keep it under wraps for very long. Anyone offering to pay money will definitely risk drawing attention to themselves, and I believe ethical people will report suspicious people to voting investigators. As far as the UU…

Secret voting was brought in pretty much as a direct response to widespread coercion and purchasing of votes in many different places.

It reduced the problem significantly by making it impossible (or at least significantly harder) to verify that you vote the way you promised.

The UUID suggestion is worse than the way it used to be, as in the past you generally required people at the polling place to oversee the voting to ensure your people voted the way they were told/paid to do, while with a receipt available, you can monitor more people with fewer people of your own.

Re: Install PAC-MAN on Sequoia voting machine w/o breaking tamper-evident seals

#49

Post by billybob »

electromagnetic wrote: post #29
seldo wrote: post #8

It is one of the curious facts of modern culture that the people who love technology the most also seem to be the most opposed to electronic voting. I think it's because the people who most understand how computers work also understand that no data can be considered trustworthy if somebody else has been in possession of the hardware. Yet governments continue to trust the impossible promises of the people who make vot…

Well firstly these machines should have been riveted shut, leaving the only way to access the machine is by breaking the tamper-seals. (This at least eliminates everyone in the country without corresponding replacement tamper-seals from screwing around inside the machines) Secondly, the OS on these devices should have been stored into ROM; not only is this a bastard way of ensuring people have to use the manufacturer…

Proprietary storage? I'm skeptical. This is contrary to the open-source mentality: let the details of how the system works be known to everyone. Like PGP encryption: nobody's hiding how it works - in fact, more scrutiny helps prove it's safe. You don't hide the mechanism, you just hide your personal key.

Otherewise, you start feeling secure based on your assumptions, like "only we can read these drives" - when maybe your assumption is wrong. Maybe somebody has hacked one machine somewhere and reverse-engineered the connector.

Now you've got an unknown danger out there. Whereas if you're constantly submitting your system to public scrutiny, you'll probably only have known dangers. Which you can fix.

Re: Install PAC-MAN on Sequoia voting machine w/o breaking tamper-evident seals

#50

Post by jackfoxy »

seldo wrote: post #8

It is one of the curious facts of modern culture that the people who love technology the most also seem to be the most opposed to electronic voting. I think it's because the people who most understand how computers work also understand that no data can be considered trustworthy if somebody else has been in possession of the hardware. Yet governments continue to trust the impossible promises of the people who make vot…

How much of the drive for electronic voting is driven by big media? The MSM really covers elections like horse races, and at the finish they want to be able to wrap it before people drift off to sleep for another workday.

I wouldn't mind if election results weren't available for a day or two. The ancient Greeks had a completely tamper-proof voting method (and voting was theoretically obligatory). We should likewise be seeking a tamper-proof voting method, whatever that may be. I would also support obligatory voting (with "abstain" as a choice), and media outlets that cover elections like entertainment should be ridiculed.

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