It’s almost Halloween (and election day) so it’s time for scary stories. I firmly believe that the scariest stories are the ones that also happen to be true. Being the nasty guy that I am, I bring you a tale which should terrify you to your democracy loving core: Ars Technica’s How to steal an election by hacking the vote.
You have probably read about or heard about the alleged security problems with the new electronic voting machines. It is very difficult to decide how serious the problems are because the stuff gets so technical so fast. Is the situation dire or are there just a few loudmouths getting way too much media attention.
We are in serious trouble, folks. The Ars Technica article is long (but an easy and worthwhile read) and I found this bit particularly telling:
In other words, you know how Apple just accidentally shipped a few thousand iPods with a Windows virus embedded in them? If you replace “Apple” with “Diebold” and “iPod” with “AccuVote,” then you’ve got a recipe for wholesale election theft.
Think about that for a moment, and let it sink in. To have confidence in the results of an election using [electronic voting machines], you no longer have to put your trust solely in the security practices at the Board of Elections. Now, you have to have confidence in the security of the [electronic voting machine] vendor’s corporate networks, and in their human resources departments, and in the security practices and personnel of anyone else who touches the software that goes into [an electronic voting machine.]
If you are not in the mood to read right now, here are two videos which are well worth your time.
- Princeton University’s Center for Information Technology Policy created some software which can steal elections run on Diebold AccuVote touch screen voting machines. This page contains an easy to understand video (at the bottom of the page) which shows how, in less than the time required to cast a vote, a nasty guy could open the access panel on the voting machine, insert a memory card containing vote-stealing software, silently reboot the voting machine, and then put everything back so that the hack was undetectable.
- If you like to laugh while you cry, check out this segment of Comedy Central’s The Daily Show. The state of Maryland hired a team of security consultants to run and test a mock election. One of the team members describes how, in under five minutes, they were able to dial into the vote tallying server, crack into it, and steal the election.
Scared yet? You should be. But just in case you are still blowing this off, take a look at these Documented Election Law and Security Violations in Shelby County, Tennessee this last August.
Think about this: If some bad folks use these techniques to steal a vote and get “the right people” into office, the bad folks can use the same techniques to keep us voters from fixing the problems and replacing “the right people.”
Yup, election day Halloween sure is a scary time of year.
