THE DIEBOLD MACHINES ARE BACK
Thu Jan 10, 2008 12:15
72.201.67.36
THE DIEBOLD MACHINES ARE BACK TO HAUNT US?THEY MUST BE STOPPED DEAD IN THEIR TRACKS!!!
SEE VIDEO:
http://existentialistcowboy.blogspot.com/2008/01/princeton-university-reveals-how-gop.html
Princeton tested an AccuVote-TS which it obtained from a private party. The experiements were designed to determine whether the machine could be hacked under "real election practices", realistic scenarios in the real world. Princeton found the machine vulnerable to a number of "extremely serious attacks" that "undermine undermine the accuracy and credibility of the vote counts it produces." In other words, DieBold machines can be hacked and most have been.
Princeton points out that computer specialists are skeptical of Direct Recording Machines (DRE), essentially general purpose machines running specialized election software. The biggest flaw, according to Princeton, is that DREs are dependent upon the "correct and secure operation of complex software programs" In the real word, that simply does not happen. Ominously, DRE failures most likely go undetected.
Main Findings The main findings of our study are:
1. Malicious software running on a single voting machine can steal
votes with little if any risk of detection. The malicious software can modify all of the records, audit logs, and counters kept by the voting machine, so that even careful forensic examination of these records will find nothing amiss. We have constructed demonstration software that carries out this vote-stealing attack.
2. Anyone who has physical access to a voting machine, or to a memory card that will later be inserted into a machine, can install said
malicious software using a simple method that takes as little as one minute. In practice, poll workers and others often have unsupervised access to the machines.
3. AccuVote-TS machines are susceptible to voting-machine
viruses ? computer viruses that can spread malicious software automatically and invisibly from machine to machine during normal pre-and post-election activity. We have constructed a demonstration virus that spreads in this way, installing our demonstration vote-stealing program on every machine it infects.
4. While some of these problems can be eliminated by improving Diebold's software, others cannot be remedied without replacing the machines' hardware. Changes to election procedures would also be required to ensure security.
...
Abstract This paper presents a fully independent security study of a Diebold AccuVote-TS voting machine, including its hardware and software. We obtained the machine from a private party. Analysis of the machine, in light of real election procedures, shows that it is vulnerable to extremely serious attacks. For example, an attacker who gets physical access to a machine or its removable memory card for as little as one minute could install malicious code; malicious code on a machine could steal votes undetectably, modifying all records, logs, and counters to be consistent with the fraudulent vote count it creates. An attacker could also create malicious code that spreads automatically and silently from machine to machine during normal election activities ? a voting-machine virus. We have constructed working demonstrations of these attacks in our lab. Mitigating these threats will require changes to the voting machine's hardware and software and the adoption of more rigorous election procedures.
--Ariel J. Feldman, J. Alex Halderman, and Edward W. Felten,Security Analysis of the Diebold AccuVote-TS Voting Machine
An update: Iran has charged that US Navy video purporting to be Iran boats is a clumsy fake, obviously intended to provoke Iran and/or world opinion. Are we dealing with another Gulf of Tonkin incident? Sorry Bush! You are the little shit who cried wolf. I believe Iran! No one believes your sorry ass anymore! The high ground belongs to Iran --not you and your sorry, criminal administration.
Iran has called the grainy video and audio released by the Pentagon, allegedly showing Iranian Revolutionary Guard Boats confronting US warships, "fabricated" and accused America of using archive footage to stitch them up.
"The footage released by the U.S. Navy was compiled using file pictures and the audio has been fabricated," the English-language channel Press TV quoted a senior in the Revolutionary Guards as saying.
"The voices and pictures broadcast by the Pentagon about the latest incident have been fabricated so clumsily that the pictures and voices in the video are not even synchronized," added the source.
US National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley echoed President Bush's earlier description of the Iranian move as "provocative."
"This is a provocative act - not a smart thing to do, and they are going to have to take responsibility for the consequences, if they do it again," Hadley said, adding that his comments should not be seen as a threat.
On Tuesday, The Pentagon released a short video that showed Iranian speed boats nipping around US warships in the Persian Gulf, with audio of heavily-accented English threatening, "I am coming to you. ... You will explode after ... minutes." In the video, the Iranian boats appear to ignore repeated warnings from the US ships.
--"US Navy Video Is A Clumsy Fake"
Additional resources:
* Full research paper [PDF]
* Executive summary
* Frequently asked questions
* Our reply to Diebold's response
* Princeton e-voting studies
SEE VIDEO:
http://existentialistcowboy.blogspot.com/2008/01/princeton-university-reveals-how-gop.html
Princeton tested an AccuVote-TS which it obtained from a private party. The experiements were designed to determine whether the machine could be hacked under "real election practices", realistic scenarios in the real world. Princeton found the machine vulnerable to a number of "extremely serious attacks" that "undermine undermine the accuracy and credibility of the vote counts it produces." In other words, DieBold machines can be hacked and most have been.
Princeton points out that computer specialists are skeptical of Direct Recording Machines (DRE), essentially general purpose machines running specialized election software. The biggest flaw, according to Princeton, is that DREs are dependent upon the "correct and secure operation of complex software programs" In the real word, that simply does not happen. Ominously, DRE failures most likely go undetected.
Main Findings The main findings of our study are:
1. Malicious software running on a single voting machine can steal
votes with little if any risk of detection. The malicious software can modify all of the records, audit logs, and counters kept by the voting machine, so that even careful forensic examination of these records will find nothing amiss. We have constructed demonstration software that carries out this vote-stealing attack.
2. Anyone who has physical access to a voting machine, or to a memory card that will later be inserted into a machine, can install said
malicious software using a simple method that takes as little as one minute. In practice, poll workers and others often have unsupervised access to the machines.
3. AccuVote-TS machines are susceptible to voting-machine
viruses ? computer viruses that can spread malicious software automatically and invisibly from machine to machine during normal pre-and post-election activity. We have constructed a demonstration virus that spreads in this way, installing our demonstration vote-stealing program on every machine it infects.
4. While some of these problems can be eliminated by improving Diebold's software, others cannot be remedied without replacing the machines' hardware. Changes to election procedures would also be required to ensure security.
...
Abstract This paper presents a fully independent security study of a Diebold AccuVote-TS voting machine, including its hardware and software. We obtained the machine from a private party. Analysis of the machine, in light of real election procedures, shows that it is vulnerable to extremely serious attacks. For example, an attacker who gets physical access to a machine or its removable memory card for as little as one minute could install malicious code; malicious code on a machine could steal votes undetectably, modifying all records, logs, and counters to be consistent with the fraudulent vote count it creates. An attacker could also create malicious code that spreads automatically and silently from machine to machine during normal election activities ? a voting-machine virus. We have constructed working demonstrations of these attacks in our lab. Mitigating these threats will require changes to the voting machine's hardware and software and the adoption of more rigorous election procedures.
--Ariel J. Feldman, J. Alex Halderman, and Edward W. Felten,Security Analysis of the Diebold AccuVote-TS Voting Machine
An update: Iran has charged that US Navy video purporting to be Iran boats is a clumsy fake, obviously intended to provoke Iran and/or world opinion. Are we dealing with another Gulf of Tonkin incident? Sorry Bush! You are the little shit who cried wolf. I believe Iran! No one believes your sorry ass anymore! The high ground belongs to Iran --not you and your sorry, criminal administration.
Iran has called the grainy video and audio released by the Pentagon, allegedly showing Iranian Revolutionary Guard Boats confronting US warships, "fabricated" and accused America of using archive footage to stitch them up.
"The footage released by the U.S. Navy was compiled using file pictures and the audio has been fabricated," the English-language channel Press TV quoted a senior in the Revolutionary Guards as saying.
"The voices and pictures broadcast by the Pentagon about the latest incident have been fabricated so clumsily that the pictures and voices in the video are not even synchronized," added the source.
US National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley echoed President Bush's earlier description of the Iranian move as "provocative."
"This is a provocative act - not a smart thing to do, and they are going to have to take responsibility for the consequences, if they do it again," Hadley said, adding that his comments should not be seen as a threat.
On Tuesday, The Pentagon released a short video that showed Iranian speed boats nipping around US warships in the Persian Gulf, with audio of heavily-accented English threatening, "I am coming to you. ... You will explode after ... minutes." In the video, the Iranian boats appear to ignore repeated warnings from the US ships.
--"US Navy Video Is A Clumsy Fake"
Additional resources:
* Full research paper [PDF]
* Executive summary
* Frequently asked questions
* Our reply to Diebold's response
* Princeton e-voting studies
- THE DIEBOLD MACHINES ARE BACK ? Thu Jan 10 12:15