Voting Machines Vs. Slot Machines 299
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."
No new technology is required (Score:5, Funny)
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)
Re:No new technology is required (Score:2)
Except?
Either way, I always lose. Where are you playing?
Re:No new technology is required (Score:4, Funny)
voting machines much like slot machines (Score:5, Funny)
Re:No new technology is required (Score:2, Funny)
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)
Re:I've actually programmed slot machines (Score:4, Funny)
Heh... (Score:5, Interesting)
Good luck putting cameras in every voting booth. People won't mind, right??
Re:Heh... (Score:2)
Re:Heh... (Score:3, Informative)
Here's a quick bio [slots-king.com]. From that link:
he devised a device that would shine a light down into the slot machine, tripping a switch that would empty the buckets that held the coins
That's Carmichael's "Light Wand" trick.
Ack! I just figured out why you couldn't find it. Its a "Light Wand" not "Magic Wand" (my bad). Google has lotsa results (ie usa today article on Carmichael [usatoday.com].)
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)
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)
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.
Re:Heh... (Score:3, Insightful)
Now substitue the above with Republican and Democrat...
=Shreak
Re:Heh... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Heh... (Score:2, Insightful)
The 'coin whip' is just what it sounds like. The old fashioned piece of metal just as heavy as a quarter which you could place into a machine, but had a piece of wire or string built into the metal that would allow you to yank it out after the machine counted it.
Re:Heh... (Score:2, Interesting)
I was mistaken on the term. Its 'light wand'. I should have mentioned Tommy Carmichael in my first post. He's the guy that developed almost all the slot cheats there were.
A "DUH!" moment (Score:5, Insightful)
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)
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%.
Re:A "DUH!" moment (Score:3, Insightful)
Funny eh? And still the US picks crappy systems from Diebold.
Despite all the brilliant crypto and security people with decent proposals, the US picks voting machines that can actually produce results of negative votes or far more than the number of total voters. Which is far worse than paper ballots. Or even just a show of hands (or just saying Aye/Nay).
Pity that unlike 3rd world countries, getting UN observers to observe the US elections won't
Re:A "DUH!" moment (Score:3, Interesting)
Counting the votes is not the biggest fix in the system, choosing who gets a vote is. Back in the 1950s the southern seggregationist states had 'litteracy tests' which in practice were tests of skin color. A white guy no matter how illiterate always passed, A black guy could be a school teacher and would still be failled.
In Florida the fix was in long
Re:A "DUH!" moment (Score:2)
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:3, Interesting)
Re:Audit trail (Score:5, Interesting)
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)
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.
Re:Audit trail (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Audit trail (Score:2, Interesting)
Not in the casino I worked in... Re:Audit trail (Score:3, Informative)
I worked in a casino management company in South Dakota, so this experience applies there:
It would be very hard to cheat like that for very long. The programs for the slot machines are on a single PROM, and that PROM is registered with the Gaming Commission after exhaustive testing.
The PROM is installed in the gaming device, a
no matter how valuable your point (Score:5, Funny)
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
offtopic (Score:2, Funny)
Unable to resolve life.liberty.pursuit-of-happiness
No wonder with Larry, Moe, and Currly running for office next year...
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)
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)
Re:Sigh, Poor Programmer - Rich Casino (Score:3, Insightful)
He stole the cash by abusing his government job. Everyone knows you only get away with that if you're at the top.
Re:Sigh, Poor Programmer - Rich Casino (Score:2)
that was oh, FIVE years ago. Going on six. Poor guy my ass, he had a good job with benefits and threw it away because he was a moron.
Re:Sigh, Poor Programmer - Rich Casino (Score:2)
Whatever, troll (Score:3, Insightful)
So lesse, abusing gov't position, and 1/10 the total jail time (2 years out of 20). Sounds about right.
Re:Sigh, Poor Programmer - Rich Casino (Score:2)
What was the court thinking?
Hmm... (Score:4, Funny)
They have a lot in common.
Re:Hmm... (Score:2)
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.
Re:Engineers Exploiting Machines (Score:2, Funny)
How about bribes? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Engineers Exploiting Machines (Score:2)
Slip 10% of the votes to X party or X candidate and I'll ensure that you get a multi-million dollar contract to do whatever the hell you want to.
How's that for greed incentive?
Now, it takes someone with even less ethics to take advantage of that than to beat a slot machine. It's pretty damn obvious that people are going to be affected by screwing with the voting system, while with a slot machine you can rationalize it to only affect some big gambling conglomera
Never mind slot machines (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Never mind slot machines (Score:2)
Re:Never mind slot machines (Score:3, Interesting)
Gambling Addicts (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Gambling Addicts (Score:3, Insightful)
Barney Frank is the only elected official I've found who talks reasonably about the future of gambling. (Namely, let people do what the hell they want with thier own money) (Funny, you'd think that should be a Republican stance... but it isn't.)
Re:Gambling Addicts (Score:2)
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)
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?
Re:It's Broke, Buy It Anyway (Score:3, Insightful)
You do understand there's a reason why they knowingly buy defective voting machines, don't you?
Yea, they're gubment officials and, therefore, totally incapable of making an intelligent purchase decision, no matter how obvious the decision is.
I guess it's easier to just throw away the taxpayers' money and claim another completed project and this snazzy new upgrade. Most of the voters will say "hey - a computer! Yay!" and think (because they're, technologically speaking, complete slobbering morons) that
Casinos should run all elections. (Score:3, Funny)
Nevada hookers have better slot security (Score:5, Insightful)
You've got it wrong.. (Score:2)
Votes are money. They cost lots of money to get, and they generate lots of money for the winner; therefore, they are just as important of the slot machine.
The real difference is, people put more hope in getting something from a slot machine than they do a vote.
conspiracy in the making (Score:2)
Well I too will exploit this with the introduction of the Ronald Reagan Super Simon [perfidious.org] now taking orders at the price of... I forgot.
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)
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:3, Insightful)
The comparing disturbs me less than the fact that gambling comes out looking better.
-- this is not a
Re:Gaming Control Board: Corrupt? (Score:4, Interesting)
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)
Re:Don't trust Diebold? Use absentee ballots. (Score:2)
See http://www.post-gazette.com/election/20031115elec t ion1115p1.asp [post-gazette.com] for an example. While there may have been a legal basis for throwing out these votes, I've seen it happen for less savory reasons.
Not a good solution... (Score:2, Insightful)
Either way, once part of the system is electronic, the whole process can be questioned.
Voting vs. Gambling (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Voting vs. Gambling (Score:2)
Have a proper election? You know, with votes, and people counting them...
Re: putting off an election (Score:3, Interesting)
This is to me the scary side of the recent voting shennanigans.
First, implement flawed voting scheme, but do it slowly so as to keep it under the radar. Once enough people accept it, use it for the next BIG election. A short while later (ie: while still in office), notify the public that the vote didn't work, and the system is broke
Sign the petition! (Score:4, Informative)
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.
Re:Sign the petition! (Score:3, Interesting)
paper should be easy (Score:3, Insightful)
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)
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
Re:Money IS more important than votes (Score:3, Insightful)
[Freakin' Preview]
Only if they all voted the same way. If 40% of the people who voted, voted for one candidate, then chances are, 40% of the people who didn't vote also would have voted for that candidate. What I'm trying to say is, if you could get all those non-voters to vote, their votes would likely be split almost identically to the proportions of those who already vote. The end result w
Re:Money IS more important than votes (Score:3, Insightful)
You have no proof that what you claim is true. How do you know that the non-voters today would be split 50/50 on all issues? That depends on many factors, not the least of which is the economic and financial conditions of most non-voters.
I would guess (and this is a guess so it's not worth much more than your blind conjecture) that many non-voters are low income to poor. Thus they might be more inclined to vote for democrats. If this were the case, not that many votes wo
Re:Money IS more important than votes (Score:2)
I don't want their single votes to made a difference. And nobody wants runoff or "curved" elections.
I've voted in a number of local elections where 10 votes made a huge difference.
Re:Money IS more important than votes (Score:3, Insightful)
Consider second: the most powerful political position in the world was decided by a margin [geocities.com] that is substantially smaller than the number of /. lurkers currently nodding and saying "Yeah, Voting SUXX0RS".
A single vote isn't much, but a handful of moderately motivated people rounding up their non-voting friends could have changed history.
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)
New voting machines... (Score:3, Funny)
BTW, I recently voted in Virginia.... (Score:5, Interesting)
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)
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.
Of course Nevada has good security... (Score:3, Funny)
It's called "The Soprano Security Management Program", and can be summed up in the following simple decision-diagram:
1) Build a system
2) Make money
3) In case of a situation arises in step 2 which is proving to be detrimental to the main objective of Making Money, two things can be done :
*) Fix bug in system. This is by experience detrimental to the Making Money objective since there will always be bugs, and so this is the wrong decision to make.
*) Find offending individual(s). Apply excessive and lethal violence. Loop to 2.
And the winner is... (Score:2)
Ehh, well sounds about like what we have now... I wonder if the democrats would get any negative votes with this one.... and at least this is probably more accurate than the Diebold machines.
Two years, four years.... what's the big whoop? (Score:2, Funny)
OTOH, every four years a president gets elected for exploiting voting machines.
Why vote at all? (Score:2)
Votes or money : which is more important (Score:2)
It doesn't end here (Score:2, Interesting)
Think about electronic breathalizers, for example.
At least for the State of North Carolina, all the elements of an exploit are present:
That's not sad, its disgusting (Score:4, Interesting)
Keno, as a refresher (and correct me if I'm wrong) is similar to the lottery, except that you have to choose eleven numbers, and in order to be a big winner, your numbers must match the ordering of the pulled numbers.
In fact, it is so unlikely that anyone would match all 11 numbers in order that no one has done it in the history of the game. (Except this guy, who rigged the game).
*ANY* other person who has the same amount of greed and exploits his position to gain his means deserves the same punishment.
Re:That's not sad, its disgusting (Score:3, Insightful)
That isn't greed at all. It's just stupid.
Not much difference... (Score:3, Funny)
...they're pretty much both designed so that you lose no matter what.
Re:The question is... (Score:2)
Well, it would pay for the cameras and security guards...