'Within 36 Hours We Had Total Control of Server, Ability to Change Votes, Reveal Secret Ballots'

[ensho]

http://www.bradblog.com/?p=8109


D.C. Internet Vote Scheme Hacker: 'Within 36 Hours We Had Total Control of Server, Ability to Change Votes, Reveal Secret Ballots'


-snip-

He details tonight that he and a small team of students were happy to participate in the test that D.C. election officials had announced, with just three days notice, inviting hackers to try and penetrate the system they planned to use this November, as developed with the Open Source Digital Voting Foundation.

Halderman writes in his explanation of how they did it:

Within 36 hours of the system going live, our team had found and exploited a vulnerability that gave us almost total control of the server software, including the ability to change votes and reveal voters’ secret ballots.
And if you think that's chilling, Halderman goes on to note that all cast ballots on the system were modified and overwritten with write-in votes, all passwords taken --- including the encryption key, which e-voting supporters constantly suggest will keep such systems safe --- before they went on to install a back door to let them view any votes cast later, after their attack, along with the names of voters and whom they voted for...

-snip-

Halderman, as we also noted yesterday, was also behind hacking Pac-Man onto a Sequoia touch-screen voting machine last August, as well as on the Princeton team which initially hacked Diebold's touch screen system with a vote-flipping virus back in 2006.
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and still people who are in charge of voting in their states are standing around with their thumbs in their mouths.

thank you hackers, keep up the good work even if no one notices.

[ej510]

1. Bradblog has been on this forever and I am glad he has.

[nykym]

2. Yet the Powerbrokers

are still making sure there is a move towards using any or all of these faulted systems. It's only a small software glitch but we can't tell you how or when we will fix it - it's proprietary information you know!

[DBoon]

5. it's not a bug, its a feature

if you don't like how the people have voted, choose a new people

[RaleighNCDUer]

3. These things keep being revealed, and keep being ignored.

I don't know if it is more pathetic or scary.

[valerief]

4. One can only assume hackable electronic voting exists in the US because the

puppetmasters want it that way.

It's clearly unverifiable, so it makes no sense if voting is supposed to be democratic. It is not democratic. It's despotic.

[RaleighNCDUer]

7. Hackable electronic voting exists because it is electronic voting.

There is NO system which cannot be hacked, if it is networked.

[valerief]

8. Right. If the puppetmasters didn't want hackable voting, we'd have paper ballots. nt

[Sherman A1]

16. Precisely

[Chulanowa]

9. I'm not so sure about that

I think there may be a more benign (yet no less stupid) reason.

Money.

Paper ballots are made and collected and counted by the state. These electronic things all have third party involvement. To the "free market" outlook of, well, everyone in our government except Bernie Sanders, this is a good thing.

The effect these things have on the actual elections is simply not considered, since whatever the result, free market money will keep flowing.

[Aramchek]

6. sounds like they need to hire Halderman to develop system security

[Canuckistanian]

10. And these were people who DIDN'T write the code

Imagine all the "tools" available to someone who DID write the code - and their ability to keep it covert, mobile and FAST.

Someone should subpoena Karl Rove's Blackberry.

[Hekate]

11. It's about time. KnR

[bobburgster]

12. In my opinion the below statement by another poster says it all.

Hackable electronic voting exists because it is electronic voting.

[marions ghost]

13. If vote rigging and fraud --electronic or otherwise-- were really prosecuted

in this country, it's likely the results of many many elections would be totally different.

It is advantageous to the PTB to manipulate voting results. We do not have a fair and transparent voting system, and the laws "protecting" us are not used with any consistency.

To doubters: Only a little digging around on the subject easily demonstrates the fallacy of your delusions. Check out Bradblog--an excellent resource!

[chervilant]

14. WHEN?!?!

WHEN are we going to get mad enough to SAY enough already?!

WHEN are we going to stand up to the hedonists who've usurped our nation and rendered it a Corporatocracy?!?

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over, expecting different results...

We can no longer afford to procrastinate. We can no longer afford to sit around on our fat asses and 'blog' our outrage. We ARE at a critical tipping point, and if we continue to respond in the same manner as we've BEEN responding over the past decade, we richly deserve the inevitable outcome.

We need a week-long 'sick out' to protest unemployment.

We need a day of no shopping whatsoever.

We need to hit the Corporatocracy right where it will get their attention: in their pockets!!

We need a revolution, people. WE THE PEOPLE need to take back our nation!

[glowing]

15. agreed!! until we do it united, we won't do it at all.

[Crystal Clarity]

17. I'm glad I live in a town where our paper ballots are hand counted

Most (like 95%) of the little rural towns around here hand count paper ballots. At least this way, people around here can take comfort in knowing that our votes are a true reflection of our intent.

But that helps little in Nationwide races where other states have electronic voting. I really wish that someone would address this issue.

[PVnRT]

18. I cannot understand

why electronic voting is not regulated the same way computer systems regulated by the FDA are.

[bvar22]

19. There is only ONE reason WHY the Democratic Party Leadership...

..has NOT made Election Security a Front Burner Issue.
In fact, The Democratic Party has just presided over the FURTHER consolidation of BBV into fewer "proprietary" hands.
The illusion that the citizens actually have a choice must be maintained.