quanticle writes "According to Ars Technica, California testers have discovered severe flaws in the ES&S voting machines. The paper seals were easily bypassed, and the lock could be picked with a "common office implement". After cracking the physical security of the device, the testers found it simple to reconfigure the BIOS to boot off external media. After booting a version of Linux, they found that critical system files were stored in plain text. They also found that the election management system that initializes the voting machines used unencrypted protocols to transmit the initialization data to the voting machines, allowing for a man-in-the-middle attack. Altogether, it is a troubling report for a company already in hot water for selling uncertified equipment to counties."
1: Do like the rest of the world, and use a HB #2 pencil.
2: EFF and the rest of the American White hats get together and develop an Open Voting system, that are freely implementable by any state, that can withstand public scrutiny and peer review.
All communications protocols are authenticated, encrypted and signed.
There are multiple, redundant backups of all data, including a hard copy paper trail that can be authenticated by a unique signature printed on each ballot
Voting machine is all open source -- no binary-only anything, no exceptions. This includes the OS -- so Linux or *BSD. It also includes the firmware, so something like OpenFirmware or whatever.
[quote] # All data is stored encrypted and signed.
All data should be stored in plain text, and signed with multiple hashes, keys and/or ciphers. [/quote]
i think you nailed that one. most people forget that encryption is no good if you already have access to the key, and the software must have the key if it's supposed to make use of the data in the file. thus, a hacker has the key
remember people: signing good. crypting, not so good
In other words, you want commodity software that anyone could easily, and cheaply copy/use. Great for citizens & taxpayers, not so good for the manufacturers. They might actually have to do real work to demonstrate the added value of machine x against machine y. So, sorry, it's about as likely to happen as M$ open-sourcing Windows, (although in other news, I hear that they've offered to show the Chinese Gov. ALL of the windows source code in order to ally suspicions of backdoors - probably in fear of the
Once you have a voter verifiable paper trail the rest becomes redundant. Though having enough security on the machine so you don't have to rely on the paper trail is a good thing. But honestly, I don't see why the geeks are so upset here. This is our chance to rock the vote, and make sure that our votes actually count... more than once. If the current politicians aren't going to fix the voting machines, then lets flip a few bits, "elect" the EFF into office, and have this, plus copyright, patent, and net
You've thrown the word encrypted around a lot. I think signing is more important. But how do you ensure voter anonymity, but yet retain a way of checking that the machine hasn't just created 1000000 keypairs, and 1000000 votes, and signed them? Sure, let me generate my own keypair on my Linux, and sign my vote with them (perhaps encrypting with the Voting Authority public key), but that doesn't stop fake votes being introduced into the system, unless I somehow register my public key with the system, thereby
1: Do like the rest of the world, and use a HB #2 pencil.
Hm, I could use an eraser to get around that. Do you realise that if paper was software, we could close down all the producers and distributers of erasers (or probably office equipment in gerneral!) in the states for selling devices for circumnavigating security?
And your finger prints aren't all over the card that you turn in currently?
If the ATM had a firmware upgrade that reported a hash of your bank account number with the vote, that would be sufficient to verify uniqueness and avoid double voting. And it wouldn't be traceable. The only problem I have is that the banks would be facilitating this. I'd have a hard time letting a company, who's main goal is to make money, get involved in the voting process.
Now, that begs the question, Are the ATM's good enough for your money? They are after all made by the same companies that can't make voting machines.
I have never lost any money due to an ATM. Although banks have.
The problem is that the ATM/Voting Machine manufacturers look at their equipment as only needing protection from the outside. The unwashed masses that use the equipment to get cash or cast a vote can't be trusted at all. The insiders at the bank can be trusted, after all bankers wouldn't steal their own money (in most cases). That trusting of the insider mind set is being transfered to voting machines where the same thing can't be said about
In a security situation, despite how obvious this was, it's important not to spill the beans on exactly how it was done. It's the difference between, "can be hacked with a few lines of Perl," and listing the script out so that any script kiddie can do it.
There may be states with laws and certifications processes not as stringent as California still using these devices. Best not to tell everyone precisely how to break into them. I hope other states will insist that their machines be retooled, but that might d
I'm sure it's hard to hack a sheet of paper and a cardboard box. Please, leave democracy "unhackable", because where there's no paper for voting, there's no hard proof that you really did it...
I'm sure it's hard to hack a sheet of paper and a cardboard box. Please, leave democracy "unhackable", because where there's no paper for voting, there's no hard proof that you really did it...
... and scratch our votes into shards of pottery. How's that for hard proof ?
Actually, there are problems there as well. Illinois in the Kennedy/Nixon race. LBJ in Texas. Louisiana in...well, pick a year. Gerrymandering/re-districting. Keeping the electoral college/getting rid of the electoral college. Nothing is, has been, or will be perfect with the vote...we just have to continue to hold people accountable and try and make it as publicly accessible while keeping the ballot secret. I'm pretty far-right, but I think at the LEAST there should be limited open-source scrutiny o
Those machines have been proven time and again that they're insecure, not reliable and that it takes special knowledge to even start verifying their results. Now we add ease of manipulation to the fold.
How much more does it take to see that it is a BAD idea?
Yes, paper voting is costy. But we're not talking something where cost is the deciding factor. Democracy is about two things: People participating in the government of their country, and people trusting the government of their country. In a democracy, people have (ok, should have) a say in their country's behaviour. And this in turn should give them a feeling of belonging, they should feel their country takes them serious and as more than just peons who can be ordered around, because they chose their government themselves. This usually means more trust and faith in their rulers, because they themselves chose them (not some divine right to rule or military force, they installed their government).
Especially the latter part is at risk. If you cannot easily debunk any claims of voting fraud, because the means to vote offer themselves for easy manipulation, you open your country for claims of illegal manipulations that cannot be disproved. You destroy the faith people have in their country and the support. Not that it was really necessary these days, people already started losing faith in the democratic process and democracy altogether. But this has the potential to be the last straw.
Cost is not an argument when it comes to voting. If you want people to support the government as wanted by the majority, you have to make sure that it will be seen as the will of the majority. If fraud is easy, dissenting people will always claim foul play and you will not have any chance to call them bad losers. You can't prove them wrong, quite the opposite, we have seen now time and again that they have every reason to be suspicious.
Those machines have been proven time and again that they're insecure, not reliable and that it takes special knowledge to even start verifying their results. Now we add ease of manipulation to the fold
The problem is, a lot of people don't trust the human counters.
Every vote is assigned to an ID. Not your ID, but a relatively random numerical one. When the voting is done, the entire votes database is made available on DVD (or whatever medium is appropriate to storing 300 million records. I wouldn't expect much space at all, I'd bet the IDs take up more space than the actual data.
Then independent organizations can tally the votes themselves and verify that the election was on the up and up. They can also allow people to check their votes in the database to verify individually that the database itself is correct. Assuming the database has been distributed in whole to all of the various organizations, mis-votes should be easy enough to discover.
Then it only remains that you need to protect people's anonymity. A ticket that can be used to verify an individual vote on behalf of a person can also be used to verify that vote to the satisfaction of a vote-buying machine (or worse.)
A solution is to obscure the information by giving each voter not one, but a list of ID numbers and told which one is theirs privately. That way, nefarious organizations wouldn't be able reliably say they've been given the correct number, which should kill their scheme. It's not a perfect solution, though, and I can already see flaws in it, but that just means it needs a bit more work before it's ready for prime time.
To tamper with millions of paper ballots would require a massive conspiracy. To tamper with electronic voting machines, apparently all you need is a 16 year old kid and a computer.
That's why with paper voting they have other people watching the counters and verifying their results. People from all interested parties can easily watch what's going on, to make sure everything is on the up-and-up. The same can't be said for machine, as it's really hard to verify that a machine is counting correctly.
I believe the most important thing about e-voting is that you can't pic up a random person from the street, explain him how it works, and after it ask him if the process of voting was done correctly.
Paper voting on the other side is so easy that manipulation is easy to realize.
I mean the only point of e-voting is that some poor government officials can go home earlier.
I want Democracy for everybody.
The point of e-voting is to remove human error (in all shapes and forms) from the counting process. Assuming that at one point the electronic voting machines can be made secure enough, it's a much better way of getting accurate numbers than by paper voting.
electronic voting machines can be made secure enough
That's currently the big if right now. It's just not transparent enough, and it's like all the companies building machines forgot completely about security; substituting a little theater instead. In addition, I don't like how a single machine or media failure can take out all of a machine's votes for the election. Two or three of those can throw elections today.
In addition, most of the advocates of paper voting have been talking about optical scan ballots. This opens up recounts to multiple solutions - Company X's scanner, Company Y's scanner, verified by hand if deemed necessary.
I am not one of those who believe that hand counting is automatically the most accurate - but optical scanning is old tech at this point, very accurate, and most importantly - auditable.
Secure and accurate Voting is always going to be complicated and tough - especially when you figure that you normally have at least two parties with people willing to cheat, who may be in the system.
I mean the only point of e-voting is that some poor government officials can go home earlier.
...there's more money to be made than with paper and pencil voting. Producing cheap, insecure machines without a paper trail increases companies' profit margins. Lawmakers have be lax and slow to respond, probably because their hands are so comfortable in those companies' pockets. Obviously, the only ones who care are "some" of the voters. Hopefully, that will become "most".
That is exactly the problem with e-voting: You have to trust.
With normal pen-and-paper voting, all skill you need is being able to count and discriminate between various candidates being chosing on the paper. You don't believe my count? You think I'm trying to fix elections? Here's the ballot, count for yourself.
With e-voting, you face a problem. You need very special skills to actually conduct a recount (if it is possible at all). Don't believe me that I'm not trying to fix elections in my favor? Sucks to be you if you don't happen to have the skills.
Exactly. I'm a software developer. Most people would say I'm a pretty smart guy. However, it would still take me a lot of research to be able to verify that an electronic voting system is even secure. If I could verify it at all. And still when I walk up to the machine on voting day, it would be impossible for me to verify that the machine was running the correct software, unmodified hardware, and was actually doing what the original design said, and not something else.
Paper voting on the other side is so easy that manipulation is easy to realize.
Not to be pedantic, but the system in question does use paper (just not easily human readable). People mark machine readable paper ballots, and the PBC can be used to check the ballot before they turn it in to ensure that it is not over- or under-voted, etc. From the description of how they are using the PBCs, it sounds like they are trying to avoid some of the kinds of problems reported in Florida 2000, by letting a voter s
The paper seals were easily bypassed, and the lock could be picked with a "common office implement". After cracking the physical security of the device, the testers found it simple to reconfigure the BIOS to boot off external media. After booting a version of Linux, they found that critical system files were stored in plain text. They also found that the election management system that initializes the voting machines used unencrypted protocols to transmit the initialization data to the voting machines, all
If the machines have paper seals in an accessible place, then you could very easily DOS the vote of a district that is known to be unfavourable to you simply by slicing the seal with your thumbnail, without ever having to hack the machine at all!
If the machines have paper seals in an accessible place, then you could very easily DOS the vote of a district that is known to be unfavourable to you simply by slicing the seal with your thumbnail, without ever having to hack the machine at all!
That's true, but anything accessible to the public could be potentially vandalized. At least the jurisdiction in question is using the PBCs to let the voters check their ballots, and not necessarily for counting the precinct results. If the machine were vandaliz
...can be a good thing, but this really concerns me. I'm all for changing with the times, don't get me wrong. I just feel that electronic and software items which play such a critical role in the much corrupt political system we have today do need more oversight from public entities, not private companies or political agencies. I feel we are far from where we need to be for electronic voting in the US to be reliable or trustworthy. I do have hope that it can be an option in the future though.
I opt to kill a few trees to retain the paper method for now. I was forced to use an electronic voting machine (Diebold) in my district during the last local election in my state. I will not be using one regardless come the next election. Anyone can manipulate the machine behind the privacy fence surrounding the machine, without anyone knowing about it. Who is to say it cannot be tampered with even before the people are given access to the machine to cast their vote. I do not feel comfortable using an electronic voting device at this time.
I am almost 100% convinced that major elections do not matter anymore in this country in this day and age. The rich, and the corrupt have a strangle hold on our government and the media. Just look at the biased mass media coverage that is happening today. It is as if the media has already made the decisions for us about the elections, and those who own the media have very powerful ties to the government. There are no real debates between candidates, but they are still called debates. There are no tough questions, and there are no truthful straight forward consistent answers but from a couple of candidates, which are silenced and kept from the publics knowledge by powerful people whom are in control. I do have some hope, but it is fading fast.
I honestly feel that there will be another civil war in this country if things continue the way they are. It will not be the Whites against the Blacks, against the Hispanics, etc... It will be the poor against the rich. You know where the corporations and the corrupt politicians will stand when this happens. Change takes ballots or bullets. Sooner or later people will be tired of trying to make change peacefully with ballots.
It may not happen in my lifetime, but I think it will happen sooner than anyone thinks if the current path is followed. All it will take is someone high up in the military to finally get fed up with the corruption to take the action of cleaning house. We have already seen first hand the dissent in the military ranks all the way to the top. Several generals have peacefully resigned/retired and spoken in protest to the insane, illogical decisions made by the current administration and the path it has taken us down. Sooner or later someone with a bigger set of balls will do something about it if this continues.
It would not be a good thing to have this happen, but if things continue the way they are I would sadly be in support of it. It would be a rough road, but change is needed in a bad way. We are currently on a path of assured economic destruction, which will have effects far and wide around the world. We should learn from the past history of other, once large and powerful Republics. It seems to me that we are doomed to repeat history unless there is change.
I hold the hope though, that this vast information highway called the internet will tip the field in the favor of the people in due time. The option to see and read more news from many sources, rather than the few sources force fed to the masses controlled by the powerful and corrupt few. The internet has broadened my view of things. This too may not happen in my lifetime, but I hold hope that it will foster a peaceful change in time.
I hope for a peaceful change, but I am very afraid of what could and might happen.
The first round of tests focused on the physical security of the Polling Ballot Counter (PBC), which the Red Team researchers were able to circumvent with little effort. "In the physical security testing, the wire- and tamper-proof paper seals were easily removed without damage to the seals using simple household chemicals and tools and could be replaced without detection," the report says. "Once the seals are bypassed, simple tools or easy modifications to simple tools could be used to access the computer and its components. The key lock for the Transfer Device was unlocked using a common office item without the special 'key' and the seal removed."
You can stop reading the article here. Once physical security has been breached it's all over. With the machine open, you now have complete control over it, even to the point of changing out the hardware. This also applies to any machine that handles money, including ATM's.
All the software security measures in the world won't protect you if physical security is breached. So, if the physical security of a voting machine cannot be maintained at least as well as an ATM, or better yet a slot machine in a casino (constant surveillance), then using the voting machine in the first place is NOT secure.
WhiteHat Voting (Score:5, Insightful)
1: Do like the rest of the world, and use a HB #2 pencil.
2: EFF and the rest of the American White hats get together and develop an Open Voting system, that are freely implementable by any state, that can withstand public scrutiny and peer review.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
JAM
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
All data should be stored in plain text, and signed with multiple hashes, keys and/or ciphers.
# All communications protocols are authenticated, encrypted and signed.
Only to the extend tat no one can say that for instance booth #5 voted on candidate X.
You don't want to shroud the data in mystery or obscurity, merely make them tamper-proof (resistant).
# There are multiple, redundant backups of all data, including a hard copy paper trail that can be authenticated by a
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
# All data is stored encrypted and signed.
All data should be stored in plain text, and signed with multiple hashes, keys and/or ciphers.
[/quote]
i think you nailed that one. most people forget that encryption is no good if you already have access to the key, and the software must have the key if it's supposed to make use of the data in the file. thus, a hacker has the key
remember people: signing good. crypting, not so good
Re: (Score:2)
Great for citizens & taxpayers, not so good for the manufacturers. They might actually have to do real work to demonstrate the added value of machine x against machine y.
So, sorry, it's about as likely to happen as M$ open-sourcing Windows, (although in other news, I hear that they've offered to show the Chinese Gov. ALL of the windows source code in order to ally suspicions of backdoors - probably in fear of the
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
But honestly, I don't see why the geeks are so upset here. This is our chance to rock the vote, and make sure that our votes actually count... more than once. If the current politicians aren't going to fix the voting machines, then lets flip a few bits, "elect" the EFF into office, and have this, plus copyright, patent, and net
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Hm, I could use an eraser to get around that. Do you realise that if paper was software, we could close down all the producers and distributers of erasers (or probably office equipment in gerneral!) in the states for selling devices for circumnavigating security?
~Pev
ATM Machines (Score:4, Interesting)
It will even print a receipt.
If it good enough for your money it is good enough for your vote
Re:ATM Machines (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Only for the people who don't vote the way you want. It would only take a couple of elections and you could make them all go away anyway.
See? Nice and tidy
Re: (Score:2)
If the ATM had a firmware upgrade that reported a hash of your bank account number with the vote, that would be sufficient to verify uniqueness and avoid double voting. And it wouldn't be traceable. The only problem I have is that the banks would be facilitating this. I'd have a hard time letting a company, who's main goal is to make money, get involved in the voting process.
Re: (Score:2)
Now, that begs the question, Are the ATM's good enough for your money? They are after all made by the same companies that can't make voting machines.
I have never lost any money due to an ATM. Although banks have.
The problem is that the ATM/Voting Machine manufacturers look at their equipment as only needing protection from the outside. The unwashed masses that use the equipment to get cash or cast a vote can't be trusted at all. The insiders at the bank can be trusted, after all bankers wouldn't steal their own money (in most cases). That trusting of the insider mind set is being transfered to voting machines where the same thing can't be said about
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
... manufacture daisy wheel printers.
"common office implement" (Score:4, Funny)
Jolyon
Re: (Score:2)
It's the difference between, "can be hacked with a few lines of Perl," and listing the script out so that any script kiddie can do it.
There may be states with laws and certifications processes not as stringent as California still using these devices. Best not to tell everyone precisely how to break into them. I hope other states will insist that their machines be retooled, but that might d
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
"Hi! Looks like you're trying to right the election! Need some help?"
Paper please! (Score:2, Insightful)
Let's do it like the ancient Greeks ... (Score:3, Insightful)
Alternatively, just use a whole brick.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Rich
How much more does it take? (Score:5, Insightful)
How much more does it take to see that it is a BAD idea?
Yes, paper voting is costy. But we're not talking something where cost is the deciding factor. Democracy is about two things: People participating in the government of their country, and people trusting the government of their country. In a democracy, people have (ok, should have) a say in their country's behaviour. And this in turn should give them a feeling of belonging, they should feel their country takes them serious and as more than just peons who can be ordered around, because they chose their government themselves. This usually means more trust and faith in their rulers, because they themselves chose them (not some divine right to rule or military force, they installed their government).
Especially the latter part is at risk. If you cannot easily debunk any claims of voting fraud, because the means to vote offer themselves for easy manipulation, you open your country for claims of illegal manipulations that cannot be disproved. You destroy the faith people have in their country and the support. Not that it was really necessary these days, people already started losing faith in the democratic process and democracy altogether. But this has the potential to be the last straw.
Cost is not an argument when it comes to voting. If you want people to support the government as wanted by the majority, you have to make sure that it will be seen as the will of the majority. If fraud is easy, dissenting people will always claim foul play and you will not have any chance to call them bad losers. You can't prove them wrong, quite the opposite, we have seen now time and again that they have every reason to be suspicious.
Re: (Score:2)
The problem is, a lot of people don't trust the human counters.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
See? Easy to shoot down any claims of voting fraud. You can count, you can read, you can verify the voting count.
Now please tell me how I, common man, aged past 30 and let's assume I'm not an IT expert, should verify some "count" done by a voting machine.
REALLY open the voting... (Score:4, Interesting)
Then independent organizations can tally the votes themselves and verify that the election was on the up and up. They can also allow people to check their votes in the database to verify individually that the database itself is correct. Assuming the database has been distributed in whole to all of the various organizations, mis-votes should be easy enough to discover.
Then it only remains that you need to protect people's anonymity. A ticket that can be used to verify an individual vote on behalf of a person can also be used to verify that vote to the satisfaction of a vote-buying machine (or worse.)
A solution is to obscure the information by giving each voter not one, but a list of ID numbers and told which one is theirs privately. That way, nefarious organizations wouldn't be able reliably say they've been given the correct number, which should kill their scheme. It's not a perfect solution, though, and I can already see flaws in it, but that just means it needs a bit more work before it's ready for prime time.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
This begs the question (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
And then what? (Score:2)
Whats the point of e-voting (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Whats the point of e-voting (Score:5, Interesting)
That's currently the big if right now. It's just not transparent enough, and it's like all the companies building machines forgot completely about security; substituting a little theater instead. In addition, I don't like how a single machine or media failure can take out all of a machine's votes for the election. Two or three of those can throw elections today.
In addition, most of the advocates of paper voting have been talking about optical scan ballots. This opens up recounts to multiple solutions - Company X's scanner, Company Y's scanner, verified by hand if deemed necessary.
I am not one of those who believe that hand counting is automatically the most accurate - but optical scanning is old tech at this point, very accurate, and most importantly - auditable.
Secure and accurate Voting is always going to be complicated and tough - especially when you figure that you normally have at least two parties with people willing to cheat, who may be in the system.
Parent
Don't kid yourself... (Score:4, Interesting)
I, for one, like seeing my vote on hardcopy.
Parent
Re:Whats the point of e-voting (Score:5, Insightful)
With normal pen-and-paper voting, all skill you need is being able to count and discriminate between various candidates being chosing on the paper. You don't believe my count? You think I'm trying to fix elections? Here's the ballot, count for yourself.
With e-voting, you face a problem. You need very special skills to actually conduct a recount (if it is possible at all). Don't believe me that I'm not trying to fix elections in my favor? Sucks to be you if you don't happen to have the skills.
Parent
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Not to be pedantic, but the system in question does use paper (just not easily human readable). People mark machine readable paper ballots, and the PBC can be used to check the ballot before they turn it in to ensure that it is not over- or under-voted, etc. From the description of how they are using the PBCs, it sounds like they are trying to avoid some of the kinds of problems reported in Florida 2000, by letting a voter s
Sounds good! (Score:2)
The paper seals were easily bypassed, and the lock could be picked with a "common office implement". After cracking the physical security of the device, the testers found it simple to reconfigure the BIOS to boot off external media. After booting a version of Linux, they found that critical system files were stored in plain text. They also found that the election management system that initializes the voting machines used unencrypted protocols to transmit the initialization data to the voting machines, all
common office implement (Score:2, Funny)
Translation... (Score:2, Funny)
Paper Seals = DoS? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
That's true, but anything accessible to the public could be potentially vandalized. At least the jurisdiction in question is using the PBCs to let the voters check their ballots, and not necessarily for counting the precinct results. If the machine were vandaliz
Criminal organizations (Score:4, Informative)
Why isn't this organization, which has clearly committed a criminal act, in jail?
What's next? (Score:2)
Ban all paper clips (Score:2)
Moving into the electronic age... (Score:3, Interesting)
I opt to kill a few trees to retain the paper method for now. I was forced to use an electronic voting machine (Diebold) in my district during the last local election in my state. I will not be using one regardless come the next election. Anyone can manipulate the machine behind the privacy fence surrounding the machine, without anyone knowing about it. Who is to say it cannot be tampered with even before the people are given access to the machine to cast their vote. I do not feel comfortable using an electronic voting device at this time.
I am almost 100% convinced that major elections do not matter anymore in this country in this day and age. The rich, and the corrupt have a strangle hold on our government and the media. Just look at the biased mass media coverage that is happening today. It is as if the media has already made the decisions for us about the elections, and those who own the media have very powerful ties to the government. There are no real debates between candidates, but they are still called debates. There are no tough questions, and there are no truthful straight forward consistent answers but from a couple of candidates, which are silenced and kept from the publics knowledge by powerful people whom are in control. I do have some hope, but it is fading fast.
I honestly feel that there will be another civil war in this country if things continue the way they are. It will not be the Whites against the Blacks, against the Hispanics, etc... It will be the poor against the rich. You know where the corporations and the corrupt politicians will stand when this happens. Change takes ballots or bullets. Sooner or later people will be tired of trying to make change peacefully with ballots.
It may not happen in my lifetime, but I think it will happen sooner than anyone thinks if the current path is followed. All it will take is someone high up in the military to finally get fed up with the corruption to take the action of cleaning house. We have already seen first hand the dissent in the military ranks all the way to the top. Several generals have peacefully resigned/retired and spoken in protest to the insane, illogical decisions made by the current administration and the path it has taken us down. Sooner or later someone with a bigger set of balls will do something about it if this continues.
It would not be a good thing to have this happen, but if things continue the way they are I would sadly be in support of it. It would be a rough road, but change is needed in a bad way. We are currently on a path of assured economic destruction, which will have effects far and wide around the world. We should learn from the past history of other, once large and powerful Republics. It seems to me that we are doomed to repeat history unless there is change.
I hold the hope though, that this vast information highway called the internet will tip the field in the favor of the people in due time. The option to see and read more news from many sources, rather than the few sources force fed to the masses controlled by the powerful and corrupt few. The internet has broadened my view of things. This too may not happen in my lifetime, but I hold hope that it will foster a peaceful change in time.
I hope for a peaceful change, but I am very afraid of what could and might happen.
If you bypass physical security, it's all over (Score:3)
You can stop reading the article here. Once physical security has been breached it's all over. With the machine open, you now have complete control over it, even to the point of changing out the hardware. This also applies to any machine that handles money, including ATM's.
All the software security measures in the world won't protect you if physical security is breached. So, if the physical security of a voting machine cannot be maintained at least as well as an ATM, or better yet a slot machine in a casino (constant surveillance), then using the voting machine in the first place is NOT secure.