11–20 of 127 posts
Fortunately, there are pretty simple policies we can enact to prevent fraud and give faith in elections (both in America, as well as other countries). If you care, I'd perhaps start at https://www.verifiedvoting.org/
I worked as an election judge in the 2012 general election in Arapahoe County, Colorado. We had these exact machines. What isn't pictured is the physical security performed with them. Typically, tamper seals that are identifiable as broken are placed on all access doors (including the power switch, data load slots, etc), access panels, and openings on the device. All seals were verified in tact before and after the e…
I've been an election worker around the country and have never been in a jurisdiction that did seal checks during the election - only once at the beginning and once at the end. Granted, I've never been in a jurisdiction using DREs, but still.
I agree physical security is a defense here, but this just reiterates, to me, how dangerous DRE voting machines are.
Also, what happens if there's a random hardware/software glitch where incrementing one vote actually increments 10 votes? Is this checked for? How much reliance is there on the software and hardware being error free?
Is there any way you can prevent hacks like this that require physical access? I guess cryptographically signing the updates, adding tamper proof seals and requiring multiple people to approve updates would help. The general mantra however is that once a hacker has physical access to your machine all bets are off. Also, what happens if there's a random hardware/software glitch where incrementing one vote actually inc…
The problem is that the actual poll creation is done on a per county basis. I don't know how you would do this in such a way that every random county an precinct in America could have signing keys, firmware updates, etc., just sitting around ready to roll to build elections with.
Really what it seems is that we need more audits on machines. If democracy is to be a pivotal part of our election process we need to release the source code of these machines to ensure that we find and solve problems.
I worked as an election judge in the 2012 general election in Arapahoe County, Colorado. We had these exact machines. What isn't pictured is the physical security performed with them. Typically, tamper seals that are identifiable as broken are placed on all access doors (including the power switch, data load slots, etc), access panels, and openings on the device. All seals were verified in tact before and after the e…
I'd feel a million times more confident in a simple pen and paper voting system.
I think it's high time we start taking these concerns seriously. If state actors can accomplish stuxnet, then hacking a voting system seems well within the realm of technical possibility. Fortunately, there are pretty simple policies we can enact to prevent fraud and give faith in elections (both in America, as well as other countries). If you care, I'd perhaps start at https://www.verifiedvoting.org/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/End-to-end_auditable_voting_sy...
I also found this slide deck from Ron Rivest interesting:
Auditability and Verifiability of Elections ACM-IEEE talk March 16, 2016
Is there any way you can prevent hacks like this that require physical access? I guess cryptographically signing the updates, adding tamper proof seals and requiring multiple people to approve updates would help. The general mantra however is that once a hacker has physical access to your machine all bets are off. Also, what happens if there's a random hardware/software glitch where incrementing one vote actually inc…
We definitely have seals, but for technical solutions, look at how Apple secures their devices. Signed firmware updates, public key crypto, and a well thought chain of trust solve these issues. The problem is that the actual poll creation is done on a per county basis. I don't know how you would do this in such a way that every random county an precinct in America could have signing keys, firmware updates, etc., just…
Is there any way you can prevent hacks like this that require physical access? I guess cryptographically signing the updates, adding tamper proof seals and requiring multiple people to approve updates would help. The general mantra however is that once a hacker has physical access to your machine all bets are off. Also, what happens if there's a random hardware/software glitch where incrementing one vote actually inc…
We definitely have seals, but for technical solutions, look at how Apple secures their devices. Signed firmware updates, public key crypto, and a well thought chain of trust solve these issues. The problem is that the actual poll creation is done on a per county basis. I don't know how you would do this in such a way that every random county an precinct in America could have signing keys, firmware updates, etc., just…
You mean creating and distributing the keys would be problematic if every county had their own keys? Are there any practical solutions to this?
Couldn't you only have a few keys that are used for many counties and updates should be verified and signed by multiple people? Each county could still verify the contents of the update was correct (e.g. correct names on the ballot).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'd feel a million times more confident in a simple pen and paper voting system.
Yes. With paper ballots, cheating is at least detectable because there is literally a paper trail. With touch screens, maybe the results are correct, maybe the machine miscounted. There is no way to really know.