Voting Machine Attacks Proven To Be Practical 225
An anonymous reader writes "Every time a bunch of academics show vulnerabilities in electronic voting machines, critics complain that the attacks aren't realistic, that attackers won't have access to source code, or design documents, or be able to manipulate the hardware, etc. So this time a bunch of computer scientists from UCSD, Michigan, and Princeton offered a rebuttal. They completely own the AVC Advantage using no access to source code or design documents (PDF), and deliver a complete working attack in a plug-in cartridge that could be used by anyone with a few private minutes with the machine. Moreover, they came up with some cool tricks to do this on a machine protected against traditional code injection attacks (the AVC processor will only execute instructions from ROM). The research was presented at this week's USENIX EVT."
If they own it, whats the problem? (Score:5, Funny)
They completely own the AVC Advantage using no access to source code or design documents
What do Source Code and Design Documents have to do with purchasing something?
Still not fair. (Score:5, Funny)
What these "intellectuals" and "researchers" have to keep in mind, is that in reality, no one would ever dream of committing election fraud.
We all live in a utopia, where everyone has equal say, no one would ever coerce others and there's a kitten on every lap. That's why there are no such things as secret ballots. In every voting booth there will be three heavily armed guards who will watch you vote to ensure that you won't be doing anything you shouldn't do.
Have a cotton candy, drink your beer and turn on the TV. The shiny shiny is on again, you like that. You have always liked that.
</sarcasm>
If we were meant to vote, we'd get candidates (Score:4, Funny)
Americans today committed egregious acts of democracy [today.com] to elect the next failed administration and the next failed Congress.
In a fabulous upset, almost no-one could bring themselves to vote directly for either of the official candidates, instead opting for a write-in vote. Popular write-ins included "the black guy", "the old guy", "McCain from 2000" and "Tina Fey." The seventeen votes for "The Invisible Man" were tallied for Joe Biden. Several tons of Liquid Paper needed to be scraped off voting machines.
The winning candidate turned out to be Noneof Theabove, 46, of Dogshit, Nebraska. Apart from the Presidency, Mr Theabove won 72% of Congressional seats and all Senate seats up for election this year.
Mr Theabove's policies include drinking, shouting abuse at the television and inchoate existential despair. "He completely embodies the national mood," said Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight.com, just before applying for a new job flipping burgers.
A majority of US soldiers in Afghanistan stated the place was "just fine, really" and they were learning to speak Pashto rather than returning. Canada looked south and snickered, though not very much as they still had Stephen Harper to cope with. The Kingdom of Mexico stated its "regret" today that it has had to close its borders to American refugees.
Not a Bug (Score:4, Funny)
deliver a complete working attack in a plug-in cartridge that could be used by anyone with a few private minutes with the machine.
It's not a bug! It's a feature!
Re:If they own it, whats the problem? (Score:4, Funny)
Jeez, talk about going right over your head.
Re:If they own it, whats the problem? (Score:5, Funny)
That seems to have gone right over your head.
The irony here is palpable.
Re:If they own it, whats the problem? (Score:2, Funny)
I think -- and I could be wrong -- that "Owning" is like "Pwning," and it means "to dominate," if you're fourteen.
Prediction: (Score:2, Funny)
Re:If they own it, whats the problem? (Score:1, Funny)
Re:Still not fair. (Score:4, Funny)
There's a kitten on every lap?
That damned kitten clawed my balls, you insensitive clod!
Re:Why doesn't Public Key crypto figure in to this (Score:1, Funny)
> Banks do this kind of stuff all the time - what's so hard about it?
Banks have money at stake... that's too important to be left unguarded... if, however, you have a shiny suit and some friends at the bank you can rob the place blind with dodgy loans (see recent wikipedia material related to iceland)... no hard hack required.
Elections are too important to allow the people to decide, enough holes have to be left so that it appears as if democracy is in action when in reality no such thing is happening... how does it go? "I will deliver Ohio to GWB" or some such.
Bama's recent victory is no doubt due to the fact that a 'steal' on that one would have been too blatant... the most effective vote tampering is when the race is close.