QuantumFog

September 15, 2006

Voting for fun and profit

Ed Felton does computer hacks the way Emeril does étouffee. Does it well enough to teach computer science at Princeton University. Ol' Ed has a cautionary note for ya, borne of his nascent talent for grubbing around in other people's computer code.

One day, somebody gave him a standard issue Diebold AccuVote-TS voting machine, like the ones used in the Maryland elections last Tuesday.

So, Ed and a couple of grad students set to the task of seeing how easily elections can be rigged. They find three ways for anyone to get to the innards of the machine and introduce a program that alters the elections results. They even make a video so you can do the same.

QuantumFog's ardent readers may recall a missive regarding the sleight of hand that can be used in computers. Ed's program uses stealth to avoid inspection and erases itself when the job is done.

As you're watching it, keep a coupla things in mind. The memory card used in the video can be bought by anyone. Two, watch what can be done with the printout.

The research was released a couple of days ago in the form of a pdf file.

If companies like Diebold are really serious about fraud, they would offer a million dollar award to anyone proving they've hacked an election. And the election board would offer full immunity. Hackers would be all over the thing like cockroaches on a Tijuana toilet bowl. If nobody wins it, its secure.

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