Voting Machines Vs. Slot Machines
Posted by
michael
on Thu Dec 04, 2003 11:50 AM
from the we-know-what's-truly-important dept.
from the we-know-what's-truly-important dept.
dmh20002 writes "Being a Nevada resident and knowing people who write code for slot machines, I was aware of the stringent measures the state of Nevada uses to vet the security of slot machines. The Nevada Gaming Control Board audits everything about them, both physical and soft, for unintentional and intentional security holes. Hearing the hoopla on voting machines, the contrast was obvious. Slot machines are about money, which is more important than votes, apparently. Now the state of Nevada is looking at electronic voting machines and plan to apply some of the same safeguards. Just applying the Nevada technical standards for gaming machines and vendors to voting machines would be a start, since there don't seem to be any standards for voting machines. A funny/sad sideline is that in Nevada, every year or two a programmer or engineer goes to jail for exploiting slot machines."
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Voting Machines Vs. Slot Machines
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No new technology is required (Score:5, Funny)
(http://frankduff.com/)
Hey, you might even get to vote for three different candidates, or WIN a triple vote.
Re:No new technology is required (Score:5, Funny)
(http://nizo.deviantart.com/gallery/ | Last Journal: Sunday November 25, @11:52AM)
Re:No new technology is required (Score:4, Funny)
(http://www.universe42.com/ | Last Journal: Tuesday October 07 2003, @08:52AM)
voting machines much like slot machines (Score:5, Funny)
(http://slashdot.org/)
Re:No new technology is required (Score:5, Funny)
By contrast, explioting voters will get you elected president.
I've actually programmed slot machines (Score:4, Interesting)
(http://mrdodgy.com/)
Re:I've actually programmed slot machines (Score:4, Funny)
(http://frymaster.ca/ | Last Journal: Monday September 15 2003, @12:58AM)
Heh... (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://www.marotti.com/ | Last Journal: Thursday February 15 2007, @01:48PM)
Good luck putting cameras in every voting booth. People won't mind, right??
Re:Heh... (Score:5, Funny)
No, but I'll check the sex shop next time I'm in the area, they sound fun.
Re:Heh... (Score:5, Interesting)
(https://www.carpanet.net/)
If someone has enough interest they will break it. I supose thats really the morla of the story. And if you do come up with a way to make the voting booth secure... well then they will just run candidates in the two most major parties that are each kind of non-offensive in their own ways but when you boiul them down are basically exactly the same....
Oh wait... they have been doing that for years.
Anyone else tired of haviong to choose between the idiot sons of the rich?
-Steve
Re:Heh... (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://home.comcast.net/~iocat | Last Journal: Tuesday August 10 2004, @03:52PM)
A good example is a beach, X units long, with two snack carts on it. Assume one is at .25X and one is at .75X -- they each have access to .5X and will get half the consumers on the beach who want snacks (assuming people walk to the nearst carts, prices, selection and service are the same, etc.). Now say the first guy moves to .33X. He still gets everyone from 0 - .33X coming to him, but now gets half the people from .33X - .75X, stealing business from guy 2, who promptly moves to .66X to make up for it. Eventually they end up at .49X and .51X (or both at .50X if you want), glaring at each other, each still getting 50% of the business, any intermediate gains lost.
And of course, the people at the ends of the beach get screwed. Now think of the snack shops as Republicans and Democrats. There ya go.
A "DUH!" moment (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://tpno-co.org/)
We should have thought of this a LONG time ago.
What is possibly even more disturbing is the fact that our paid officials, you know, the ones that are supposed to be looking out for our best interests, didn't think of this either. Or, and this is something that must be considered, they did and didn't do anything about it.
Book quote that I think applies here: "If god had wanted me to vote, he would have given me candidates"
Re:A "DUH!" moment (Score:4, Insightful)
(http://users.rcn.com/smallpond1/ | Last Journal: Wednesday April 30 2003, @11:25PM)
Nevada can afford to spend the money needed to check the software because they get a ton of money from the casinos in taxes. How much money does your state spend on elections?
But anyway, think what the voter turnout would be if random voters occasionally won a cash jackpot. I'm guessing over 100%.
Never happen (Score:5, Funny)
Which would remove nearly half the politicians & lobbyists
Audit trail (Score:5, Insightful)
Similarly, I should know that some standards and enforcement is in place when I vote. Otherwise, I'm putting my trust in someone I don't know and who has interests that are probably different than mine.
Voting should not be about trust, it should be about results. Any third party should be able to verify results, regardless of their interest.
Re:Audit trail (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Audit trail (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://www.infiltrated.net/ | Last Journal: Monday February 16 2004, @01:07AM)
A public key cryptosystem and a signature scheme based on di.. (context) - ElGamal - 1985
Receipt-free secret-ballot elections (context) - Benaloh, Tuinstra - 1994
A practical secret voting scheme for large scale election (context) - Fujioka, Okamoto et al. - 1992
Multi-authority secret ballot elections with linear work - Cramer, Franklin et al. - 1996
Verifiable secret-ballot elections (context) - Benaloh - 1987
Universally verifiable mix-net with verification work indepe.. (context) - Abe - 1998
Designated verifier proofs and their applications - Jakobsson, Sako et al. - 1996
Elections with unconditionally- secret ballots and disruptio.. (context) - Chaum - 1988
How to prevent buying of votes in computer elections (context) - Niemi, Rendall - 1994
Public-key cryptosystems based on discrete logarithms residu.. (context) - Paillier - 1999
Some remarks on a receipt-free and universally verifiable mi.. - Michels, Horster - 1996
Receipt-free electronic voting schemes for large scale elect.. - Okamoto - 1997
A secure an optimally efficient multi-authority election sch.. (context) - Cramer, Gennaro et al. - 1997
Receipt-freeness in largescale elections without untappable
An Improvement on a practical secret voting scheme (context) - Ohkubo, Miura et al. - 1999
Re:Audit trail (Score:5, Insightful)
(Last Journal: Monday April 07 2003, @07:39AM)
In a voting system you don't need to trust the participants, you need to trust the process. That's why when you count ballots you have representatives of both parties present so that they can all witness what's going on rather than having to trust a ballot counter. So each ballot counter may have an agenda, but the process prevents abuse by any one participant, so that you can still trust the outcome.
no matter how valuable your point (Score:5, Funny)
(http://circletimessquare.com/)
you've permanently fixed in my mind an image of going into the voting booth, pulling the big lever, and seeing three bars with the faces of gw bush, howard dean, al sharpton, etc. spinning before my eyes
Smart Developers Look for Stuff Like This... (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course, the item about slot machine fraud shows that -- no matter how stringent your precautions are -- if the stakes are high enough, people will try to defraud your system. Some will succeed.
The important thing to keep in mind is that this is just as true for our current voting technologies as it will be for electronic voting.
Sigh, Poor Programmer - Rich Casino (Score:4, Interesting)
(http://www.ibdb.net/)
Sometimes, I think justice in the US may be too harsh. It's a bit out of place when you repent, and obviously don't have a record to show you'll continue with crime, but are still left to rot in a prison where raw grunts rape people. Oh well.
Well, at least he made the casino industry quite rich. They must've been happy.
Re:Sigh, Poor Programmer - Rich Casino (Score:4, Insightful)
(Last Journal: Sunday November 21 2004, @01:09AM)
Hmm... (Score:4, Funny)
(Last Journal: Tuesday January 20 2004, @09:29PM)
They have a lot in common.
Re:Hmm... (Score:5, Funny)
Engineers Exploiting Machines (Score:4, Insightful)
A funny/sad sideline is that in Nevada, every year or two a programmer or engineer goes to jail for exploiting slot machines
Engineers tend not to be highly political, but they certainly are greedy. I think the likelyhood of engineers trying to exploit voting machines is a lot lower than engineers trying to exploit what are essentially money-dispensing machines.
It is true that engineers can be used as tools by those who are more interested in rigging elections, but that's also true with slot-machines. The engineer greed factor is still missing.
Never mind slot machines (Score:5, Insightful)
Gambling Addicts (Score:3, Funny)
it's a matter of who gets cheated (Score:5, Interesting)
While it's worth noting because it shows the potential to cheat even in a closely watched industry (which the voting machine racket clearly isn't), one should note that programmer or engineer (who) goes to jail for exploiting slot machines is trying to cheat the casino. When the casino uses the software to cheat the player ist's a completely different issue.
It's Broke, Buy It Anyway (Score:5, Funny)
(http://www.gh-sts.com/HOWTO | Last Journal: Tuesday November 01 2005, @09:39PM)
From the article:
That study also found the system had a "high risk of compromise."
The state [Maryland] decided to buy the system anyway and Diebold is working on fixes for the security problems identified in that report.
Yea! Way to go Maryland! You know, if I went to buy a new car, and the windshield was broken, the locks didn't work, the engine was hanging by two mounts, and it stalled every 100 miles, I don't think I'd say "oh what the heck" and buy it just because it looked real snazzy and drive it around while the company worked on the problems after the fact.
How idiotically negligent do you have to be to look at a MACHINE THAT WILL HELP IN THE PROCESS OF DECIDING OFFICIAL GOVERNMENT POSITIONS and say "well, it's broken, but we'll buy it anyway"!? People like this need to be jailed immediately. That's absolutely innexcusable.
Re:It's Broke, Buy It Anyway (Score:5, Insightful)
True, but instead people like that have come up with a system where they use our money to buy machines that they can rig and stay in office with. You do understand there's a reason why they knowingly buy defective voting machines, don't you?
Casinos should run all elections. (Score:3, Funny)
(Last Journal: Wednesday May 26 2004, @08:22AM)
Nevada hookers have better slot security (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.pheed.com/)
Building Security (Score:5, Informative)
We're proud of making a secure device (at least as secure as we can make it), and it's in ours and our customer's interest to do so. Most of the security built in isn't necessarily hard to do, but it does take planning, foresight, and desire to integrate it all with the final product.
I hope that a voting machine company can say the same.
Gaming Control Board: Corrupt? (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://www.karljones.com/ | Last Journal: Thursday November 13 2003, @02:33PM)
The Nevada Gaming Control Board audits everything about them, both physical and soft, for unintentional and intentional security holes.
And further:
A funny/sad sideline is that in Nevada, every year or two a programmer or engineer goes to jail for exploiting slot machines."
The sideline article [reviewjournal.com] notes that convicted slot-hacker Ron Harris was a gaming board official for several years, and that he provided "more than nine hours of videotaped statements concerning questionable activities in the control board and the gaming industry."
Maybe Harris is covering his tracks by spreading dirt. Then again, maybe the Gaming Control Board is dirty. In any case, comparing voting with gambling makes me fear for my country.
-kgj
Re:Gaming Control Board: Corrupt? (Score:4, Interesting)
(http://vegasauto.net/m416/)
The Ron Harris case was not one of the board being dirty, it was of an individual being dirty. The other side of the coin is that there were few checks for Ron and he had a lot of trust. Shortly after this happened, Sandia National Labs came in and audited the Gamining Control Board for free. Turns out they were interested in the gaming industry since they are the only other place where EPROM use is so critical and they had interest in finding out how the board handled it.
At any rate, Sandia produced a huge report that showed the Board's short comings including being understaffed in the Electronic Services Division. The Board took the report to the legislature and got a budget approved that allowed them to hire more engineers to work in the lab. They also implemented all of the procedural changes that Sandia recommended. So this actually improved the proceedures of the board. Similar to a new exploit found in the kernel, right.
I got a job there shortly after the approval of hiring more engineers. The people that work for the Nevada Gaming Control Board are all honest, hard-working people. I don't work there any more, but I keep in touch with some of them. The consensus of those that knew Ron was that he had worked hard to build cases against slot cheats only to have their wrists slapped. He knew he could do a better job of it than they did. The only problem of course was that he abused the trust of the people because of the position he held. The judge made an example out of him. And rightly so, I think.
Don't trust Diebold? Use absentee ballots. (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.rexdevious.com/)
Voting vs. Gambling (Score:3, Insightful)
Sign the petition! (Score:4, Informative)
(http://slashdot.org/)
Sign the online petition [thepetitionsite.com] to support HR 2239 [loc.gov].
A voter-verified paper trail is the only way to verify that the system is working. Under this system, the machine would produce a paper ballot, which the voter checks then deposits into a locked box. The paper receipts are counted in the event of a recount (unlike our current requirements, where totals from an end-of-night printout can be used, assuming the machines total the votes accurately). The bill also requires a recount in 0.5% of districts chosen at random to verify that the machines are totalling accurately.
Everyone needs to be involved (Score:4, Funny)
Slot machine integrity is not verified solely by government oversight. Individual members of the community also make an invaluable contribution. People like William Bennett, who selflessly use their own funds to check, recheck and check yet again the accuracy of these machines' odds. Here is someone who has a real passion for testing these machines, who has the guts to trust his own resources to the integrity of the system, who is willing to invest the time it takes to make huge random samples, and who has the clout to make sure that any irregularities would be duly addressed.
Without people like this who provide major resources to help the gaming industry and the Nevada economy in general, we would all be worse off. The next time you walk down the Las Vegas strip enjoying the stunning display of neon lights, take a moment to think about the dedicated people that provide the funds to pay for them, and be thankful.
Money IS more important than votes (Score:5, Interesting)
Consider first the probability that one vote will actually change the outcome of an election: it's nearly impossible. Odds of 1/10e7 are typical. Mathmatically, a vote is just as bad an investment as a lottery ticket. (Which are, as they say, a "Tax on people who can't do math")
Then consider the real difference choosing a different president or governor will make to your life: not much, really. The two dominant political parties have grown very similar to each other. They'll rarely try to make a significant change (and most changes they attempt will be cancelled out by the other party in the next election). So not only is a vote unlikely to pay off, but that payoff isn't likely to change very much.
Thus, looking at all the possibilities, a rationally self-interested person will not waste his time voting. The hour+ it takes out of your day is actually much more valuable than the tiny chance that the vote you cast actually has a benefit to your life.
This is why explicit selling of votes was criminalized: because if it were legal, the free-market would reveal how cheap each vote really is!
PS. Having computed that voting is a waste of time, why do people still vote? Altruism. They vote not only for themselves, but also to share their wisdom with the rest of the country. And for more selfish reasons- like the feeling of success when your guy wins.
PPS. Several mathmaticians have created alternative voting schemes (different from simple majority) which boost the chance that any single vote will change the outcome of an election. But the public, so far, has rarely been interested.
Re:Money IS more important than votes (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://tfandango.blogspot.com/ | Last Journal: Wednesday December 24 2003, @11:03AM)
It's not about a single vote, but about the millions of potential votes that don't get cast.
But you're right, this is a "pie in the sky" perspective. From an individual point of view, one or two votes does not make a difference in any election. But what about millions of millions of people ignoring their rights as Americans to vote? Imagine what history would be like if those people voted? I bet, historically, the world would be a different place all together.
-troy
vice versa (Score:5, Funny)
Think Lotto machine (Score:4, Insightful)
We've already got good voting machines here - they're called Lotto machines. Any wino can walk in with a lotto ticket that he's scribbled on with a piece of road tar, and the machines do a great job of reading the ticket - plus, you get a paper printout for verification - plus, the system knows which ticket went to which store. Audit trails, hardcopy - Hmmm,
But we don't need (or want) all that silly accountability stuff to re-elect Bush do we
Please help, I am sigless - will code for sigs.
Re:Think Lotto machine (Score:4, Interesting)
(http://slashdot.org/)
New voting machines... (Score:3, Funny)
BTW, I recently voted in Virginia.... (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://www.babe-test.com/ | Last Journal: Wednesday September 17 2003, @11:59AM)
My experience went as follows. I stepped in the voting booth. It was a very nice touch screen layout.
1/2 way through making my selections.. Up popped a message that my laptop battery was about to die, and that I'd better plug the machine in, etc. Well, I looked, and it was plugged in.
It turned out that these were not very secure systems at all. The basic platform was Windows on a laptop running non-networked. Storing the data on each machine, to later be combined / counted.
We're a long way from having anything better than punching a card, and eating chads. A hacker could easily do way more damage.
In the above case.... I was at the voting place early. I was #14 in my precinct to vote.
It isn't that hard, kids (Score:4, Insightful)
(Last Journal: Thursday October 17 2002, @10:28AM)
In the weeks after the 2000 Presidential election, I wrote a letter to my congresspeople recommending that the system be rendered electronically by individuals who know about safety-critical, high-availability software. Airplane code, gambling-device code, medical-device code, etc.
This is not by any means new technology or new processes. But because the states see a great need, it has become a new scam for brainless, heartless business jerks to exploit.
Write your state and national legislators. Get the laws changed to ensure that the design and implementation of e-democracy includes the same care that is used when re-counting paper ballots.