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Help Black Box Voting Examine ES&S Software
from the ooh-fresh-code dept.
From Bev:
"ES&S 'Unity' central tabulator software.
Software stash: three zip files --
http://www.blackbox1.org/ems.zip
http://www.blackbox1.org/un5.zip
http://www.blackbox1.org/Unity.zip
User Manuals for ES&S software can be found here:
http://www.bbvforum s.org/forums/messages/2197/2864.html
This is the ES&S central tabulator software, the ES&S counterpart to the Diebold
GEMS central tabulator software. No source code, sorry, and no software for the
precinct machines. This is reportedly one generation back, but from what I'm
told has significant similarities to the new stuff. I would appreciate it if
you can provide me with feedback on your impressions after looking at it. You
may want to Slashdot it or whatever.
Best,
Bev Harris
Founder
Black Box Voting
Don't bother (Score:4, Insightful)
The fact that it is closed and "secret" is offensive enough on its own to protest for change. If democratic election is not the most obvious case for open source (and open hardware), then nothing is.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Don't bother (Score:4, Insightful)
To be more precise, you will be able to prove that the source code in front of you combined with those compiler/linker options generates the same binaries as exist on the machine. If your compilation does not generate the exact same binaries, then someone has some explaining to do.
This is the advantage of OSS voting code - it allows independent verification of the process without requiring a huge amount of trust to be invested in any stage of the process.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
That's what the parent was saying - can you guarantee that the public source code is actually used at the time the votes are tallied? Verifying binaries is not enough.
=Smidge=
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No, you cannot prove it, because you cannot know that the software/hardware isn't lying to you. It's like a rootkit, designed to fool you into thinking everything is normal while simultaneously subverting the machine. It's only even conceivabl
Re: (Score:3)
Not only that... (Score:3, Insightful)
People--- Maintaining the integrity of anonymous transactions just isn't compatible with the nature of complex computing systems. Even fully-identified transactions, as in banking, are precarious enough to warrant an industry of anti-malware (which sadly, often cannot create a secu
Re:Don't bother (Score:4, Insightful)
Software is an illusion. You, as in a non-employee of an electronic voting firm, will never be able to prove that whatever software you audit and trust is actually running on the machine. You will never be able to guarantee that there isn't malicious code in the machine. You will never be able to prove it has no bugs. You will never be able to prove that it actually stored your vote in its internal memory exactly as you recorded it.
However, you can be sure that a printed ballot has correctly recorded your vote, because you can read it.
Give me a printed paper ballot, and I won't need to check the software for bugs. If it prints my ballot correctly, it's good enough. If it screws up, it's buggy. That easy.
Parent
Re:Don't bother (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not talking about a paper summary, I'm talking about a paper ballot.
That's the point. You can do whatever the hell you want inside the machine, perform whatever trickery you want, but if it prints a ballot with the choices I made on it, then that is all that matters and your trickery was for naught.
Anticipating the next question of "why electronic voting at all then?", the answer is the same reason we moved to it in the first place: preventing poorly formatted ballots from causing invalid votes, and for accessibility reasons.
Parent
Re:Crazy idea... (Score:4, Interesting)
Yeah, and in theory, it could also tell you if it couldn't read the ballot because it was badly formed. Okay, machines can already do that, though in some notable cases in Florida this capability was disabled (but people just assumed it was because those voters were idiots).
I do think an electronic ballot machine has some advantages. I like the part of e-voting where I can easily browse candidates, click buttons that show the full text of any propositions or measures being voted on, easily change a vote if I decide to change my vote, and so on. I like the idea of eliminating penciling errors by having the computer print it. I like the accessibility options e-voting can give.
In my ideal e-voting world, you'd have one machine that prints ballots on card stock in a human-and-machine readable format (with the same markings, not human-readable-text and a barcode). You'd take the ballot it prints out and put it in a different machine that could count the vote. In fact, because the format of the ballot would be a matter of public record, anyone could make a ballot counting machine and after passing some basic certification (that it doesn't mangle ballots for example) could bring it to the election to verify that their machine got the same count as everyone else's machine.
Of course something simple like you describe works. As long as there is the paper record which is considered authoritative, and the machine count only an initial estimate, then that's a voting system I support.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Agreed - this is very much a case of a social problem, not a technical problem.
Either the source code should be open sourced or the source code should be checked by and independent, technical-savy third party.
Throwi
Re:Don't bother (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't get me wrong: I'm not saying it's not a good idea.
What I'm saying is this: since, even if recounts must be requested every time, a permanent voter-verified paper trail (and a true comprehensive system with regular audits and comparisons between paper vote counts and tabulations) solves almost everything, why are we instead trying to essentially unseat established, commercial enterprise e-voting vendors?
Wouldn't a more productive approach be to simply get a paper trail into place, since even an open source system is almost as worthless without one?
Keep in mind, too, that an open source system still needs to go through complex certification processes and code freezing just like the commercial products do. Even though the commercial products aren't "open source", the certification process allows for the necessary level of inspections by election agencies and external entities. The problem was the certification procedures being routinely ignored or bypassed for convenience, something that can just as easily happen with an "open source" solution.
The problem is that doing an electronic, anonymous, secret ballot that also exists in a system that attempts to enforce one-vote-per-person, combined with all the complexities and vagaries of local municipal and county systems is a lot harder than doing a vertically integrated system for one corporate customer (such as a bank).
Keep in mind, too, that much of the legislation (such as the Help America Vote Act) that essentially mandated e-voting in the hopes of ensuring uniform access to modern voting equipment was done in response to complaints about unfairness and inconsistency with manual systems in the 2000 elections, and not just in Florida. The one critical error was not explicitly recognizing that an electronic secret ballot is a hard thing to do, even without corruption, fraud, and incompetence, and a paper trail wasn't specifically mandated. And no, that wasn't by design. It was an error of omission.
Now, states, counties and municipalities have had to shell out hundreds of thousands, and sometimes millions, more dollars to add and retrofit certified paper trail functionality to existing systems (which, indeed, many are doing). But all e-voting vendors offer it. It just costs a lot of money.
So instead of trying to push out enterprise vendors with multi-million dollar contracts (which is essentially what demanding "all open source" would do, since no commercial vendor is going to open up ALL of their software and hardware code and designs), why not just work to get a permanent voter-verified paper trail in place in as many places as possible as soon as possible, perhaps even mandating it via legislation, since that will be required no matter what system is implemented?
What's more important: the egos of the people who have a vendetta against Diebold, Sequoia, and ES&S, or actually getting a mechanism into place as quickly as possible that guarantees votes will be accurately cast and counted (and at a minimum immediately shows if there is a problem? (And yes, I DO expect the burden of actually looking at the piece of paper to verify that it's correct to fall on the person who is voting.)
Parent
Re:Don't bother -- excellent point for paper audit (Score:3, Interesting)
Very good point. I hope you get modded up.
The State of California now requires a paper audit trail. I asked a friend of mine who works as a poll worker volunteer about the system used in Orange County, California. She gave me a detailed and intelligent response with specific information on how it works now. I posted these under another article, but it didn't the attention that I thought her remarks merited. I am also interested in any responses to them.
The "OC" uses voting machines with a paper aud
Is this the real software? (Score:2)
No source code, sorry (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The first thing you want to do is figure out, broadly, what it's supposed to do. Install the software. Get it running. Look over the buttons and menu options. Look over the manual. Next I'd start examining the likely inputs and outputs. What data gets fed into the so
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
It's been about five years since I touched one, but they work well enough. They do a fine job of identifying basic blocks, variables, and functions, and produce code that can be fed back into a compiler. The big problem is that it's still largely unreadable because it doesn't have any of the conceptual meanin
Legality (Score:4, Interesting)
So much for the center... (Score:5, Funny)
slashdotting (Score:5, Funny)
Yes. Yes, we will.
Now stand back and let us get to work. We live for this shit... To some people it's just a job, but not to us, man. It's a passion. When we saved those baby orcas by slashdotting all of S.P.E.C.T.R.E.'s servers it was like.... wow, man. I've never felt so free.
I don't think of myself as a hero. I'm just doin' my job, ma'am.
Software for Precinct Machines (Score:2)
The s
Atter the analysis is done... (Score:4, Insightful)
We should take a vote using GEMS to see if the Diebold software is good or not
Seriously though, I'm a little disapointed in the comments so far. First, this is not a political/partisan issue. Second, you don't need the source code to evaluate the operation of this software. Sure, it would be easier if we had it, but are you telling me that nobody here knows how to run a debugger or decompile some simple windows code ??? How many of you are drooling at the chance to take a whack at this stuff ? Go to it !@
For you people whining about no source code, how about you leave the real hacking to the real hackers and go back to your QA jobs
The procedure is what matters. (Score:4, Insightful)
The important thing isn't the voting software, it's an effective voting procedure.
There is a known effective voting procedure using paper ballots, ballot boxes, and little old ladies (err... party representatives) to count them. This procedure has one important property: fraud attempts tend to get thwarted because the little old ladies will yell when something fishy happens. ANY VOTING SYSTEM WITHOUT THIS PROPERTY SHOULD NOT EVEN BE CONSIDERED.
It may be possible to design a voting procedure using computers that is similarly effective. Here's the important thing: it needs to retain the property that little old ladies observing the process can immediately tell if something fishy is going on. NO FULLY COMPUTERIZED SYSTEM CAN HAVE THAT PROPERTY.
Someone suggested the following system here on Slashdot:
At the central tallying location, for each race:
If any candidate, observer, or 50 signatures question the validity of the counting machine's results - a manual recount occurs for that precinct. Every time - no "but that would be effort" bullshit.
This system takes all the properties of the hand count system and preserves them while spending money to gain two properties: Ballot generating machines for the blind, and fast counting for people who think that matters. Ballot generating machines are an easy problem, and sorting / counting machines are pretty cheap. We might have to use heavy cardstock for the ballots to survive the sort/count process for every race - that's $50 I'm willing to spend.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Unfortunately, we are now caring a lot more about accuracy. The current manual processes can't handle the requirements for 100% accuracy or at least accuracy way beyond 0.9%. Could
FYI: This is now reported on Black Box Voting (Score:5, Informative)
How was this obtained? (Score:4, Insightful)
No point in getting into the goods and bads of electronic voting, because all we have here is somebody not associated with ES&S posting a copy of the ES&S software. Another slashdotter has posted at least three times in this discussion that this is all legit because he called and spoke with Bev Harris -- but Bev Harris is *not* from ES&S. Her validation does not make the software legal to obtain.
I found a very interesting little news article from two years ago: http://www.seattleweekly.com/news/0410/040310_new
"Harris started surfing the Web. On Jan. 23, 2003, she hit the mother lode. On an unprotected Web site, she found 40,000 files of Diebold Election Systems' source code--the guts of software to run touch-screen voting machines.
Given her past actions (and without getting into the ethical or moral value of her crusade) I highly doubt that she has the legal right to distribute the software that she's making available today.
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That's good enough for me!
Re:I won't ask... (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't see any mention of this on the real blackboxvoting.org site, and blackbox1.org was just registered anonymously a month ago through "Domains by Proxy".
Could this be an attempt to infect thousands of Slashdot users with a trojan? Seems odd to have these binary downloads from an unknown server, with no official attestation... even the user who submitted the story, Gottesser, was created recently and has no real info in the profile.
Parent
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
story is legitimate, I just talked to Bev by phone (Score:5, Informative)
Kaan
Parent
Re:story is legitimate, I just talked to Bev by ph (Score:4, Insightful)
(Nothing personal, just illustrating the chains of trust necessarily involved in any security.)
Thanks for checking. If you really did
Parent
Re:story is legitimate, I just talked to Bev by ph (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:story is legitimate, I just talked to Bev by ph (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Hi, I'm Bev Harris. There's nothing fishy here. (Score:5, Informative)
I won't say where they came from. I've checked them out to the extent possible, and they appear to be the real thing. In any situation like this you have to consider that the software might have changed significantly, or that someone could have left a honey pot out there, but I don't think this is a honey pot, not going to publish why on an Internet site. There is a good possibility that current versions have significant changes. Looking over these files should tell us a lot about how the ES&S programmers think, programming styles, etc. I haven't had time to look at the files at all, and I'm not a programmer. This program is designed to run on Windows, according to the user manuals, so I imagine you can just install it and start tinkering, as we did with the Diebold GEMS program. Some of the material refers to "Aero," which is definitely an older version that grew into the Unity program.
No source code was provided (no source code was provided for the Diebold GEMS program, either, remember). The software is only for the election management system/central tally system, and we have so far been unable to get programs for the precinct-based individual voting machines, nor for the ES&S equivalent of the memory card, which they call the "PEB".
Black Box Voting is receiving very credible reports of ES&S meltdowns in several states, though they always seem to have a temporary technician around to promise everyone their vote was not lost. Hard to explain, of course, since 18,000 votes are missing in action right now in Sarasota Florida, with about 300 votes separating the candidates for a U.S. House of Representatives race.
We are getting reports of ES&S anomalies from BOTH political parties.
If anyone has any questions, you can e-mail me at the e-mail address on the blackboxvoting.org Web site.
Best,
Bev Harris
Founder
Black Box Voting
Parent
Re:Hi, I'm Bev Harris. There's nothing fishy here. (Score:5, Insightful)
It would help significantly if there were a post either on the home page of blackboxvoting.org, or in the bbvforums.org forums under your name. This way there would be some credible record that this information did truly come from Bev Harris.
Parent
Ask and ye shall receive... (Score:3, Informative)
Ask and ye shall receive... there's an update on their primary website
http://www.blackboxvoting.org/ [blackboxvoting.org]
Legit? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Legit? Yes (Score:5, Informative)
I spoke to her for about 5 minutes, explained that an article showed up on
This is not a phishing scam, it's really from Bev, and she's trying to solicit help from the
Oh, and yes, I'm posting this same comment in reply to all of the "is this real?" comments... Moderators: please do not mod me down without calling them yourself (go to blackboxvoting.org for phone number).
Kaan
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Already done. Check http://www.blackboxvoting.org/ [blackboxvoting.org] and see for yourself.
Slashdot phishing? (Score:2)
Did anybody fall for this ploy and actually download and run those executables?
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I'm a little disapointed that
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I asked Bev the same thing, she didn't want to say very much about it. So I'll add my own commentary: legality aside, if you piss off somebody big enough, they will find a way to shut you down, no matter what. Black Box Voting has had problems with this in the past (as explained in Hacking Democracy, where Bev originally found Diebold's Gems
They are on the same server though (Score:2)
blackbox1.org 1 NS ns.rackspace.com 86339s
blackbox1.org 1 NS ns2.rackspace.com 86339s
Additional records
ns.rackspace.com 1 A 69.20.95.4 159770s
ns2.rackspace.com 1 A 65.61.188.4 159770s
Answer records
blackboxvoting.org 1 NS ns.rackspace.com
Re: (Score:2)
Ah, another Republican so bumfuzzled by the English language that they don't understand the difference between an adjective and a noun. Can't you at least get the proper name of a website right?
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http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Kelvin%2 0Mace/2 [democratic...ground.com]
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Here's one difference: (Score:3, Insightful)
None of us can buy the secret voting system software that we are forced to use as the sole means of exercising our voice as owners of our own government. Citizens own the government, not the other way around.
When you own something, you have to have a way to convey your management decisions. As citizens, the way we invoke our management rights is through our vote, and th