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Edward Snowden Demonstrates How Easy It Is to Hack a Voting Machine

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Re: Edward Snowden Demonstrates How Easy It Is to Hack a Voting Machine

#121

Post by EvilTerran »

worldsayshi wrote: post #99
EvilTerran wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Scantrons are a big improvement over electronic-only counting, but they can struggle with imperfectly-filled-in ballots... another good alternative, which avoids that particular problem, is to have a machine where you make your selections by button-press - but it prints them onto a physical card, lets you verify the printout through a window, then drops it into a built-in ballotbox. The machine itself can keep count,…

Or just some kind of simple mechanical stamping or cutting machine that assures that each vote is registered in the same way but in an easily understandable and transparent format.

> cutting machine

Do you remember "hanging chads"?

But yeah, that's the crux of the idea: have a machine take the voter's choices, to effectively eliminate accidentally-spoiled ballots (the design of the "hanging chads" machines was sorely lacking on this point); but then have it produce a physical record, visually checked by the voter, to enable auditing & recounts.

Counting the hard copies would be the definitive source of truth, just like traditional paper ballots - any automated score-keeping would just be a bonus for early result reporting (although might also stand in for the manual count in "safe seats" where no-one cares to dispute the expected result).

Re: Edward Snowden Demonstrates How Easy It Is to Hack a Voting Machine

#122

Post by stuart78 »

cwisecarver wrote: post #107
Procrastes wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi Hacker_9. In Texas, where I vote, the machines don't even print paper. We just have to trust that the machine correctly recorded our vote. The reasons for the machines are, 1. cost cutting over manual counts, 2. profiteering by well connected companies, 3. And potentially making sure only the "right" votes count, although that part isn't proven. In California we were able to vote at home with a mail-in, paper ball…

If we have to use machines why wouldn't we just source two machines from rival vendors. One machine takes the vote from the voter through whatever method, records the vote and prints a receipt that clearly states that voters choices. Machine two reads the receipt in front of the voter and keeps a second tally of votes. The two tallies are then compared at the end of the night.

Too logical ;)

Re: Edward Snowden Demonstrates How Easy It Is to Hack a Voting Machine

#123

Post by sandworm101 »

lisivka wrote: post #86
NumberCruncher wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using paper ballots you can at least re-count the votes and validate the results of the election. With the electronic system like this you can not validate the results. Does it use an open source firmware? How can you make sure that there is no IF vote = Clinton AND random line in the code?

Yep, you can recount fake paper votes, but how you will distinguish fake votes from real ones? Remember, votes are anonymous, so you cannot track vote back to live being to ask. And even if you will be able to do so, live being can lie you about his vote, to protect himself, or just to not look dumb in eyes of others.

>>> ... but how you will distinguish fake votes from real ones?

Easy. Serial numbers. Like any other anonymous system (paper money, raffle tickets etc) you assign a number to every valid ballot. Should the same number appear twice, or not appear, then you know something fishy is happening. Any extra fake ballots should be discovered, so long as the originals are not removed from the systems. Throw the numbers around randomly and creating undetectable fakes become very difficult.

Re: Edward Snowden Demonstrates How Easy It Is to Hack a Voting Machine

#124

Post by labster »

lisivka wrote: post #86
NumberCruncher wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using paper ballots you can at least re-count the votes and validate the results of the election. With the electronic system like this you can not validate the results. Does it use an open source firmware? How can you make sure that there is no IF vote = Clinton AND random line in the code?

Yep, you can recount fake paper votes, but how you will distinguish fake votes from real ones? Remember, votes are anonymous, so you cannot track vote back to live being to ask. And even if you will be able to do so, live being can lie you about his vote, to protect himself, or just to not look dumb in eyes of others.

Explain "fake paper votes". I'm not sure that this is a real problem with normal auditing -- record all voters that come into a precinct, what time they appear, and compare to the number of received ballots. Comparing signatures of voters to the file signature is common for absentee voting. It's just far harder and riskier to mess around with compromising paper ballots than a mistake (or "mistake") in a line of code.

Re: Edward Snowden Demonstrates How Easy It Is to Hack a Voting Machine

#125

Post by naasking »

lisivka wrote: post #86
NumberCruncher wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using paper ballots you can at least re-count the votes and validate the results of the election. With the electronic system like this you can not validate the results. Does it use an open source firmware? How can you make sure that there is no IF vote = Clinton AND random line in the code?

Yep, you can recount fake paper votes, but how you will distinguish fake votes from real ones? Remember, votes are anonymous, so you cannot track vote back to live being to ask. And even if you will be able to do so, live being can lie you about his vote, to protect himself, or just to not look dumb in eyes of others.

> Yep, you can recount fake paper votes, but how you will distinguish fake votes from real ones?

You already have a log of who showed up to vote. Compare the number of shows S with the number of ballots V which must be Edit: and this all statistically correlates with exit polls. It's very, very hard to fake all three of these in order to rig an election.

Re: Edward Snowden Demonstrates How Easy It Is to Hack a Voting Machine

#126

Post by boomboomsubban »

lisivka wrote: post #110
gedy wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why exactly would Putin prefer Trump? Honest question as both Hillary (as SoS) and Bill Clinton have been rather soft on Russia - Trump favoring domestic oil production, etc seems would be less preferred. Look how aggressive Russia has become in the past 8 years.

Putin prefer Clinton, because they will continue Obama's course, which allowed Russia to begin two wars. But, if Putin will say "I like Clinton, vote for her", it will cause opposite effect, so he said "I like Trump, vote for him" to have desired effect.

Opposed to Bush's course, which only let Russia start one war. Plus,saying Russia started the Syrian war is a huge stretch, the US had already been involved for years.

Re: Edward Snowden Demonstrates How Easy It Is to Hack a Voting Machine

#127

Post by naasking »

ThomPete wrote: post #35

This is missing the point though. The american voting system is actually very secure. It's highly decentralized, machines are not connected to the internet, implemented in many different ways, which means that they would have to do many attacks many different places without being discovered to even have an effect. 75% of them have paper trails which would require an even bigger achievement to change enough off as it'…

> It's highly decentralized, machines are not connected to the internet, implemented in many different ways, which means that they would have to do many attacks many different places without being discovered to even have an effect.

Or modify the program loaded on the machines before they're distributed. It's probably easier than you think.

Re: Edward Snowden Demonstrates How Easy It Is to Hack a Voting Machine

#128

Post by rbanffy »

sandworm101 wrote: post #123
lisivka wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, you can recount fake paper votes, but how you will distinguish fake votes from real ones? Remember, votes are anonymous, so you cannot track vote back to live being to ask. And even if you will be able to do so, live being can lie you about his vote, to protect himself, or just to not look dumb in eyes of others.

>>> ... but how you will distinguish fake votes from real ones? Easy. Serial numbers. Like any other anonymous system (paper money, raffle tickets etc) you assign a number to every valid ballot. Should the same number appear twice, or not appear, then you know something fishy is happening. Any extra fake ballots should be discovered, so long as the originals are not removed from the systems. Throw the numbers around…

The order has to be random or you can trace votes to individuals if you keep the order in which they voted.

Re: Edward Snowden Demonstrates How Easy It Is to Hack a Voting Machine

#129

Post by kayamon »

Zombieball wrote: post #33
hacker_9 wrote: post #3

Why do Americans use voting machines exactly? I mean, it just prints out their choice at the end right? What benefit do they actually gain from having pressed buttons instead of using a pen? It just seems to fuel the hacking conspiracy every time a president is elected. In the UK we turn up, go into the booth with the paper slip, and tick our choice with a pen. Then we fold it and post it into a container which later…

A former co-worker of mine wrote software for voting machines in Brazil. He described to me a few reasons why electronic voting machines are important. To be honest I forget the majority, but one story that stuck with me: One common scheme electronic voting machines help prevent is forced votes. A bad guy gets their hand on a single empty ballot and writes the name of the candidate he wants to win on it. He then come…

> One common scheme electronic voting machines help prevent is forced votes. A bad guy gets their hand on a single empty ballot and writes the name of the candidate he wants to win on it. He then comes to you and threatens you and your family.

I'd be willing to bet money that this scenario has never, ever happened.

Re: Edward Snowden Demonstrates How Easy It Is to Hack a Voting Machine

#130

Post by lisivka »

boomboomsubban wrote: post #126
lisivka wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Putin prefer Clinton, because they will continue Obama's course, which allowed Russia to begin two wars. But, if Putin will say "I like Clinton, vote for her", it will cause opposite effect, so he said "I like Trump, vote for him" to have desired effect.

Opposed to Bush's course, which only let Russia start one war. Plus,saying Russia started the Syrian war is a huge stretch, the US had already been involved for years.

War in Georgia was pretty fast, isn't?

At other hand, Ukraine has USA guaranties[1], which were absolute guaranties before Obama, but now they are useless.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum_on_Securit...

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