Is it morally correct to publish flaws in voting machines?

hsmith · 10-26-2006, 03:39 PM

SUch as hacks that could alter votes?

I say, it is imperative that hacks be published to show the true flaws of this whole "electronic voting" scheme. The problems ar ewell known, but not well known enough by the typical public to make much of an impact.

AVengeance · 10-26-2006, 03:48 PM

absolutely YES. The inSECURITY must be exposed.

Phantom · 10-26-2006, 03:57 PM

Ya, the whole idea that hiding a failure as a security measure is a joke. The people who really want to get the info will get it and the only people prevented from getting the info will be the ones who would never use it.

motivez · 10-26-2006, 04:19 PM

All of our voting machine software should be open source. The public has a right to know how the voting machines work from a code perspective, and to ensure that the code is as secure as possible.

It's not only morally correct, IMO, but it's a moral imperative.

DosEquis · 10-26-2006, 04:21 PM

Personally i think the ballets should go back to pen and paper and be hand counted, and verified. I dont care if it takes two weeks to count all of them, the person who won and the people who voted for him deserve an accurate count.

Scrum · 10-26-2006, 04:27 PM

Originally Posted by DosEquis

Personally i think the ballets should go back to pen and paper and be hand counted, and verified. I dont care if it takes two weeks to count all of them, the person who won and the people who voted for him deserve an accurate count.

And FFS, if we are going to allow electronic voting, please don't accept bids from companies with blatant partisian ties. How difficult is that?

motivez · 10-26-2006, 04:42 PM

That's another reason why I'm against the "private sector" doing everything.. those people have their own interests that aren't necessarily the same as the interests of the voters, and we can't really hold them accountable when our government is so beholden to those kinds of special interests and their money.

It seems like a public open source project for the code would be the best solution, managed much in the same way some large project like Debian is managed, with a council and such.. while contracting out the hardware to a company.

hsmith · 10-26-2006, 05:05 PM

Originally Posted by motivez

That's another reason why I'm against the "private sector" doing everything.. those people have their own interests that aren't necessarily the same as the interests of the voters, and we can't really hold them accountable when our government is so beholden to those kinds of special interests and their money.

It seems like a public open source project for the code would be the best solution, managed much in the same way some large project like Debian is managed, with a council and such.. while contracting out the hardware to a company.

you think the government would be any better at doing this?

please. the gov't would be the same if not worse.

hsmith · 10-26-2006, 05:05 PM

Originally Posted by DosEquis

Personally i think the ballets should go back to pen and paper and be hand counted, and verified. I dont care if it takes two weeks to count all of them, the person who won and the people who voted for him deserve an accurate count.

i agree.

motivez · 10-26-2006, 05:12 PM

Originally Posted by hsmith

you think the government would be any better at doing this?

please. the gov't would be the same if not worse.

Where did I say government should do it by themselves?

I don't like the idea of private companies with profit motive doing controlling such a vital aspect of our elections, especially when the people running those companies are partisan and have close ties with specific high ranking political officials for one specific political party..

Again, I think the software should be a non profit open source project much like Debian is run, with the hardware being contracted out.

Having one company do both with closed source code is ridiculously stupid.

archangel003 · 10-26-2006, 07:28 PM

The things are coded in Microsoft Access. Oh, they stripped even that token layer of security off, too, to facilitate the wireless internet access.

Geniuses.

kinggovernor · 10-26-2006, 11:38 PM

security by obscurity never works, ask Microsoft

willis · 10-27-2006, 08:01 PM

Originally Posted by hsmith

SUch as hacks that could alter votes?

I say, it is imperative that hacks be published to show the true flaws of this whole "electronic voting" scheme. The problems ar ewell known, but not well known enough by the typical public to make much of an impact.

i agree with it being imperative that articles like this are written

Nonphixion · 10-27-2006, 08:18 PM

Open source or not, just keep these Preatorian Machines away from Ohio conservatives.

Kytro · 10-27-2006, 08:55 PM

Hand counting is more "accurate" ?

The Diebold machines are a joke and should not be used. They should have a paper audit trail as well.

Kytro · 10-27-2006, 08:57 PM

Should voting results be shown as voting is occurring?

I often hear people say this is bad as it may change someone's mind, but I don't see why that is bad.

JaJae · 10-27-2006, 09:04 PM

Originally Posted by motivez

All of our voting machine software should be open source. The public has a right to know how the voting machines work from a code perspective, and to ensure that the code is as secure as possible.

It's not only morally correct, IMO, but it's a moral imperative.

Making it open source gives even more risks. Politicians should be allowed to have experts "test" it. But open source is very risky considering almost all of them work over a network connection.

Scrum · 10-27-2006, 10:17 PM

Originally Posted by JaJae

Making it open source gives even more risks. Politicians should be allowed to have experts "test" it. But open source is very risky considering almost all of them work over a network connection.

Then we aren't ready for tham and they should not be used.

Kytro · 10-27-2006, 10:24 PM

Originally Posted by JaJae

Making it open source gives even more risks. Politicians should be allowed to have experts "test" it. But open source is very risky considering almost all of them work over a network connection.

There is no evidence to back that up at all.

JaJae · 10-27-2006, 10:41 PM

Originally Posted by Kytro

There is no evidence to back that up at all.

Hacking electronic voting machines - Computerworld Blogs
FBI investigates hack at e-voting software company | CNET News.com

Most of these machines run on a network and almost all run on popular operating systems. There's a huge risk that someone could go in and tamper with the machine/s. If the source code is open source you're just opening yourself up for disaster on election day.