How to Hack the Vote and Steal the Election

divisionbyzero writes "Many people have asked for it so that the government will have to deal with it. So here it is: a guide to stealing an election that uses electronic voting machines written by Jon Stokes over at Arstechnica. From the article: "In all this time, I've yet to find a good way to convey to the non-technical public how well and truly screwed up we presently are, six years after the Florida recount. So now it's time to hit the panic button: In this article, I'm going to show you how to steal an election.""

Lack of ethics

[Scott Lockwood (218839)]

I agree that this is perhaps THE most pressing issue right now for Americans, but is it really ethical to distribute this kind of information? At what point do you take responsibility for what you post, and NOT diseminate information that, in the wrong hands, will cause what you are trying to prevent?

Re:Lack of ethics

[chrismcdirty (677039)]

I'd go as far to say that it is more ethical to distribute it. The information becomes widely known. Maybe someone will hack an election to make it very obviously hacked, thus forcing a re-vote with an honest, verifiable way to count votes.

Re:Lack of ethics

[BoomerSooner (308737)]

I just hope someone does it. MY PARTY!!! lol... the system is screwed.

When people give a shit more about some gays marrying in NJ than they do about genocide in Darfur, military and civilian deaths in Iraq & Afghanistan, and people dying in this country due to being priced out of receiving their necessary meds, we have become a country that has lost focus on things that *actually matter*.

That being said, I'm not optimistic anyone that's in my camp has the guts to steal an election, we'd rather give it away. Liberal media my ass... I wish!

Re:Lack of ethics

[Tackhead (54550)]

> I'd go as far to say that it is more ethical to distribute it. The information becomes widely known. Maybe someone will hack an election to make it very obviously hacked, thus forcing a re-vote with an honest, verifiable way to count votes.

And if they get away with it, honestly, is that really so bad?

DATELINE: January 27, 2009 - President Stallman and GNUHSEC announces arrest of Redmond, WA voting-machine hackers.

President Stallman today announced the disruption of a terrorist plot, allegedly involving electoral fraud originating from a the terrorist organizations known as the Red Mond Alliance and the Darlings of McBride, both of which owe allegiance to a shadowy figure known only as the Monkey of the Thrown Chair.

"Let the elections of 2008 stand as a warning to all who would attempt to defraud the American public", warned Vice President Eric Raymond. "The GNUTIA (Gnu's Not Total Information Awareness) surveillance programme is fully operational, and GNUHSEC (Gnu's Not Homeland Security) agents will not tolerate any future incidents of voter fraud."

He's crafty, that Stallman.

[Kadin2048 (468275)]

Well, you know the old rule: "keep your friends close, and your enemies closer"...

Stallman wouldn't want to execute Raymond too early; it would just precipitate a civil war. You know, BSDers blowing themselves up in LUG meetings, contamination of the Cheetos supply, and caffeinated-beverage shortages. You know, basically all the worst parts of the Bible.

Ethics? We don't need no stinking ETHICS!

[PopeRatzo (965947)]

Here's my prediction. The control of the House of Representatives in the coming election (which is after all, the most important thing, considering it would give Bush's opponents subpoena power to investigate all the sleazy crap he's pulled), will come down to one extremely close race. This close race will be decided, after a recount, and the Republican candidate will win by less than .01% of the votes.

It will be a virtual repeat of the 2002 and 2004 elections. You see, all this nail-biting, down to the wire, razor-thin margin bullshit gives the idiots who watch TV the feeling that, well "it MUST be legit because it was so darn close" and "if there was anything crooked going on, they'd win decisively".

Wednesday, the 8th of November, we will hear how the "values voters" pulled together at the last minute and despite the fact that all the exit polls showed the Dems winning by a huge margin, the Republicans yet again pulled a miracle out of the hat and retained power. Rush Limbaugh will explain that all the prayers of the good Christian Conservatives is what turned the tide.

Because of the clear crookedness of our electoral system (and did you notice that the regions that the Republicans pulled their upsets in during the last elections were the ones that had Diebold machines?), it is probably too late to expect elections, op-ed columns or clever blogs to make a damn bit of difference.

No, I'm afraid it's going to take people, lots of people, in the streets, being decidedly ill-behaved if we're going to keep this nation anything like the beautiful experiment that the Founding Fathers produced. If the principles of the Enlightenment are going to survive, we're going to have to act the way the heroes who created this country acted: badly. Civil disobedience and mass demonstrations, general strikes and boycotts. There's going to be some fighting before this power-grab by the Authoritarian Right who have masked themselves as "Conservatives" will end.

Despite my general laziness and particular enjoyment of online games like Eve-Online, I am prepared to fight, and if necessary, die, for my country. Even if it means that it will be other Americans that I will have to fight to protect the United States of America.

It's going to take a tamper-proof margin of victory in 11 days if this sleazy little tin-pot dictator in the White House and the crooked pricks who are pulling his strings are going to be stopped. It's the only chance we have to put a little oversight on these bad actors.

Re:Lack of ethics

[h4rm0ny (722443)]

You're joking? The people with the motivation to rig the election are the main parties. They're also best placed to get away with it. Who are these "terrorists" that would want to rig the results? As far as a group like Al Quaeda (who I presume you're thinking of here), both the main parties are pretty much identical. They are, after all, funded by the same players and neither has shown much compassion to the people of Saudi Arabia in living memory.

Terrorists want attention and to make a statement. Rigging an election is something that has limited benefit once it is publically known. If an election is or has been rigged, you'll find the culprits much closer to home.

Re:Lack of ethics

[Recovering Hater (833107)]

Or is it more unethical to have access to information that threatens us all and not say anything for fear that some "bad guy" might use it against us? The truth is that some "bad guy" is already sitting around thinking up ways to to use the information or writing the information down for himself from scratch. Security through obscurity never works for long.

Re:Lack of ethics

[Smidge204 (605297)]

People hav ebeen writing reports and letters to the machine manufacturers and politicians since BEFORE the 2004 election warning how unsecure the electronic voting system was. A totally new way to bypass what little "security" these machines have seem to show up on a monthly basis.

People have given sworn testimony in court about the security issues and how their concerns fell on deaf ears in upper management, or sometimes even met with legal threats and unemployment.

Quite simply, proper channels HAVE been exhausted. Either nobody gets it or they are deliberately trying not to hear it.
=Smidge=

Security Through Obscurity

[Spaceman40 (565797)]

A commercial, and in some respects a social doubt has been started within the last year or two, whether or not it is right to discuss so openly the security or insecurity of locks. Many well-meaning persons suppose that the discussion respecting the means for baffling the supposed safety of locks offers a premium for dishonesty, by showing others how to be dishonest. This is a fallacy. Rogues are very keen in their profession, and know already much more than we can teach them respecting their several kinds of roguery.

Rogues knew a good deal about lock-picking long before locksmiths discussed it among themselves, as they have lately done. If a lock, let it have been made in whatever country, or by whatever maker, is not so inviolable as it has hitherto been deemed to be, surely it is to the interest of honest persons to know this fact, because the dishonest are tolerably certain to apply the knowledge practically; and the spread of the knowledge is necessary to give fair play to those who might suffer by ignorance.

It cannot be too earnestly urged that an acquaintance with real facts will, in the end, be better for all parties. Some time ago, when the reading public was alarmed at being told how London milk is adulterated, timid persons deprecated the exposure, on the plea that it would give instructions in the art of adulterating milk; a vain fear, milkmen knew all about it before, whether they practiced it or not; and the exposure only taught purchasers the necessity of a little scrutiny and caution, leaving them to obey this necessity or not, as they pleased.

        -- From A.C Hobbs (Charles Tomlinson, ed.), Locks and Safes: The Construction of Locks. Published by Virtue & Co., London, 1853 (revised 1868).

(c/o Matt Blaze [crypto.com])

In two easy steps ...

[SpooForBrains (771537)]

1. Make sure head of company that supplies voting machines is a vociferous supporter of your party
2. There is no step two ...

Re:In two easy steps ...

[lixee (863589)]

1. Make sure head of company that supplies voting machines is a vociferous supporter of your party

This actually happened a few months ago in Mexico; http://www.correntewire.com/mexico_calderons_broth er_in_law_wrote_the_vote_counting_software_and_its _already_been_hacked [correntewire.com]

If you're not convinced the election has been stolen, check out this excerpt from an article by McNeills:

Victor Romero is a Doctor of physics who specialises in statistics and randomness at the National University of Mexico. He studied the electoral commission computer results closely and he believes there is strong evidence of interference. Dr Romero explained to me a very unusual statistical pattern he noticed with the PRD vote as the tallies came into towards the end. "The PRD was winning and then suddenly at about 70% they start losing and never even gained .01 of a percentage," he explained. It seems incredible that as the last 30% of results came in, the PRD share of votes never increased. "It could be like this and then like that," Dr Romero explains, moving his hands up and down, "More of one party and less than another. But not in order. The order here is completely unexplainable."

Re:In two easy steps ...

[lawpoop (604919)]

It's wrong to take away the voting rights of anybody. Just ask them to step down from any position that puts them in a conflict of interest.

Here in Ohio in 2004, Ken Blackwell was the Secretary of State, who is in charge of running the elections. He was also the head of Bush/Cheney re-election campaign in Ohio. This is was a conflict of interest. He should have stepped down from one position or the other.

Similarly, if an executive of a company that makes voting machines is giving speeches in support of a candidate, or writing in a fund-raising letter stating that he is "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year," [commondreams.org], that is a conflict of interest. Either work for the company, or work for a candidate/party. Go ahead and vote. But don't campaign or participate in fund-raising events. To do make voting machines and actively campaign for a candidate or party is a conflict of interest.

The problem is that when a private company is making voting machines, there is no built-in parity of the system. With the old paper ballot system, representatives from *both* parties were physically present during the voting and the counting, to provide oversight. In the case of black-box machines controlled by a private corporation, they do not have to have representatives from both parties witness the development and implementation of the machines. This will lead to fraud and corruption.

German Petition against voting machines

[by Anonymous Coward]

All germans, please sign this petition:

http://itc.napier.ac.uk/e-Petition/bundestag/view_ petition.asp?PetitionID=294 [napier.ac.uk]

It currently has 13748 votes.

Thanks!

Are you the RIAA?

[RAMMS+EIN (578166)]

Are you the RIAA, going on about "stealing" intangible concepts that cannot be stolen? You can't steal an election, any more than you can steal music.

    -- The Diebold P2P Network Team

Re:Are you the RIAA?

[Maxo-Texas (864189)]

You should be +5 insightful.

A lot of slashdotters who would argue both those ways without seeing a conflict.

It's like the iraqi they had on NPR last night.

A) He wants americans killed and he wants the shiite militia to do it.
B) He wants the americans to stay and protect him from the suni's.

he sees *NO* conflict in these two positions.

Vote from orbit

[Quaoar (614366)]

It's the only way to be sure...

CowboyNeal for President

[jon787 (512497)]

Can we use this to create a CowboyNeal option in the next election.

Why not?

[A beautiful mind (821714)]

I'm not in any way encouraging anyone to actually go out and steal an election. This article is intended solely as a guide to the kinds of information and techniques that election thieves already have available, and not as an incitement to or an aid for committing crimes.

Why not? I'd rather have a hacker with good intentions to steal or otherwise grossly manipulate an election (libertarian party coming out as first) and get the system fixed subsequently, than to have the republican/democrat party keep themselves in power and dismiss the people complaining about election fraud as conspiracy theorists.

Since you cannot validate the correctness of the election either way, I'd opt for the path which fixes the situation.

Motivation

[Original Replica (908688)]

(libertarian party coming out as first) and get the system fixed subsequently"
If you really want election reform you have to make it in the best interest of the the Dem/Rep party. The best way to do that would be to have a third party victory. As long as someone in the Professional Politicians Club get's elected, the powers that be don't care about voting accuracy. They have no reason to.

Here's hoping

[dlc3007 (570880)]

The best thing that can possibly happen for this country and secure elections would be for Buggs Bunny to win 100% of the vote in at least one, preferably multiple districts. Until people see these results come in on election night, they'll never believe that it can really happen.

too complicated

[truesaer (135079)]

That article was way too complicated for the "non-technical public." It was great for tech savvy people, but if he wants to convince the average joe he needs to simplify. We don't need to see 10 different ways the machines can be hacked, just ONE way that is simple, understandable, and presented clearly to the user. Preferably on 1, maybe 2 pages max (before they lose interest).

Ideally, for the layperson you would simply explain that each pricinct's votes are stored in a small database, and that it can simply be edited with a piece of software commonly included in Microsoft's popular Office suite. Then, show a screenshot of access with the GEMS database opened, highlight the vote tally for some candidate, and explain that you simply click in the box and change the number. Then explain how it would be impossible to know what the vote count could be due to the lack of paper...relate it back to punched ballots (just save the ballots and recount em if necessary), optical scanners (again you have the ballots and usually there is a paper log that prints each vote as it is scanned), etc.

All of that is understandable to even the layperson. Most people understand what Microsoft Office is. Most people have heard of a database and understand thats how businesses store all their information. Most people have seen a spreadsheet and a screenshot of someone editing an access database looks almost the same.

Email this story to your representative

[nuzak (959558)]

Go IMMEDIATELY to http://www.house.gov/writerep/ [house.gov] and send them an email/contact form entitled "How to Steal an Election", with the URL http://arstechnica.com/articles/culture/evoting.ar s [arstechnica.com] in the body. Vary the title if you prefer (I'm open to suggestions), and please do add something in your own words about how much the unaccountability and lack of transparency concerns you.

Repeat this process for http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/ senators_cfm.cfm [senate.gov] (the Senate's small enough that they just list them all on one page)

After about a thousand folks do this, a staffer might actually go print out the story and hand it to their congresscritter in a brief.

I'd also like to ask the Ars Technica people to make an exception for this story and make the PDF available to non-subscribers, as it would really help to disseminate this story to the right people. I'm not really sure how to go about contacting them.

Here's my letter (slightly munged of course by slashdot):

I recently came across "How to Steal an Election" at http://arstechnica.com/articles/culture/evoting.ar s [arstechnica.com] which lays out in rather devastating detail how flawed the current system of electronic voting is. I am concerned that our election process has effectively been privatized by a small number of companies, some of which are overtly partisan in their politics, and none held accountable for the numerous and easily-exploitable security flaws in their equipment. One of the equipment companies in particular has taken to smear campaigns and litigation against its critics in an attempt to silence them.

I understand that voting should and must be accessible to the disabled, but this can be done without compromising the security and integrity of our elections. Slot machines in Nevada are subjected to extremely rigorous design standards for security, while voting machines have no such standards at all. This situation cannot go on -- I urge you to secure our elections with appropriate legislation.

[signature stuff removed]

Re:Liberal Vote Counting Procedure

[thrillseeker (518224)]

I remember election night in 2000, I was watching CBS I believe. They called Florida for Gore.

The influence of the provably biased media on elections as they are occurring should be a shameful thing to us and disallowed. I know people who were standing in (a long) line in Florida and heard it'd been called for Gore and so didn't bother to vote (for either candidate) after that - talk about sanctioned disenfranchising.

You can buy them from Diebold

[caffeine_monkey (576033)]

Unbelieveably, Diebold actually has an ecommerce site where you can buy all their electronic voting machine products online, including memory cards, security tape, and access keys. I'm really hoping they verify that you're an elections official before they actually ship the stuff to you:

http://www.diebold.com/nasadmk/cgi-bin/desi_cata log.pl?section=9

Here you go - buy a dozen keys, for you and your friends:

http://www.diebold.com/nasadmk/cgi-bin/desi_cata log.pl?section=9&id=163

On a funny/sad note, the front page of their election products site as a glaring coding error (%=rs("newsdate")%):

http://www.diebold.com/dieboldes/