Technology

8th Grade Education and $10 Part: All You Need to Hack These Voting Booths

Voting stations will need to take extra precautions with the election of 2012 as a national laboratory has shown just how easy it can be to hack into an electronic voting booth.

Touchscreen Voting Systems Confirmed Susceptible to Hacking

In fact, Salon reports that all it really takes is about $10.50 and an 8th grade science education. The Vulnerability Assessment Team at Argonne National Laboratory, a lab run through the Department of Energy, was able to demonstrate three simple “man in the middle attacks” on touchscreen Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) voting systems, like Diebold voting machines and Sequoia Voting Systems.

Watch the hacking demonstration:

In this hack, the voter still casts their vote and approves it as correct, but the information is intercepted by the hacker through the device they installed, which Salon notes didn’t require any special soldering. In terms of getting inside the machine to place the device, it’s as easy as “picking the rudimentary lock,” according to Salon.

As the researchers say, voting officials should shift their focus from just cyber attacks to those that are a bit more straightforward. Salon continues:

Voting machine companies and election officials have long sought to protect source code and the memory cards that store ballot programming and election results for each machine as a way to guard against potential outside manipulation of election results. But critics like California Secretary of State Debra Bowen have pointed out that attempts at “security by obscurity” largely ignore the most immediate threat, which comes from election insiders who have regular access to the e-voting systems, as well as those who may gain physical access to machines that were not designed with security safeguards in mind.

“This is a fundamentally very powerful attack and we believe that voting officials should become aware of this and stop focusing strictly on cyber [attacks],” says Vulnerability Assessment Team member John Warner. “There’s a very large physical protection component of the voting machine that needs to be addressed.”

CNET reports on the potential for safeguarding these machines:

While it would be relatively easy to make this type of attack more difficult to do by making modifications to the voting machine, stopping the attack cold would require more effort and a “careful examination of the security protocols used,” he said.

Johnston and his team did the research on their own time, as “a kind of Saturday afternoon project,” he said. “There’s not a lot of funding out there to study voting machine problems.”

Salon reports that Sean Flaherty, a policy analyst for VerifiedVoting.org as saying that about a third of voters will use a machine similar to the ones Argonne tested.

ZDNet notes controversy over the potential hackability for these types of voting machines a few years ago and the conflict of interest that arose during the George W. Bush administration since Diebold had been one of Bush’s top fundraisers. ZDNet continues with the fact that Diebold changed its name to Premier Election Solutions, which is now owned by Election Systems & Software. In 2008, CNET reported some states reverting back to paper voting systems due to hacking concerns.

[H/T Capitol Fax]

Comments (102)

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  • pinchanze
    Posted on September 30, 2011 at 8:43am

    DOH!!!!! Everyone who knew this was going to happen, raise your hand! LOL!!!

    Report Post » pinchanze  
    • Welcome Black Carter
      Posted on September 30, 2011 at 8:57am

      Now I understand how dingy harry was re-elected…

      Report Post » Welcome Black Carter  
    • sondoggie
      Posted on September 30, 2011 at 9:01am

      That would be me, and millions of other conservatives.

      Report Post »  
    • old white guy
      Posted on September 30, 2011 at 9:28am

      all ballots should be paper with only one choice per ballot ie. pres candidates only, pick one. all voters should be required to show that they are registered and have id to prove they live where they say they live.

      Report Post »  
    • vennoye
      Posted on September 30, 2011 at 9:57am

      Welcome Black Carter
      You are so right! The first thing I remembered when I started watching was the number of people in NV who said their vote had been changed in the machine.

      Report Post » vennoye  
    • ACLUHater
      Posted on September 30, 2011 at 10:51am

      8th grade education pretty much points to the Democratic party…

      Report Post »  
    • mils
      Posted on September 30, 2011 at 5:57pm

      yes, we’ve been talking about this type thing for a while now.

      It’s the only way obama could stay in office, of hillary win.

      Report Post »  
    • piper60
      Posted on September 30, 2011 at 9:27pm

      This will be the one way Obama-san could get re-elected.

      Report Post » piper60  
    • Uriel
      Posted on September 30, 2011 at 11:03pm

      Unfortunately, I got my 8th grade education long before these were invented.

      Stupid lucky kids.

      Report Post »  
    • Mil Mom
      Posted on October 1, 2011 at 2:14am

      @ACLUHater
      Posted on September 30, 2011 at 10:51am
      8th grade education pretty much points to the Democratic party…
      ****
      Is that after the system is Dumbed Down?

      Report Post » Mil Mom  
  • normbal
    Posted on September 30, 2011 at 8:26am

    So there‘s a possibility The Obama wasn’t fairly elected and SEIU and ACORN perpetrated massive voter fraud (remember all those precincts reporting 100 to 110% voter turnout? The busloads of voters ACORN harvested and took from poll to poll? You know, all the fraud the justice department investigated right after the election? Ahem.). Tell me something I don’t know.

    Report Post » normbal  
  • HKS
    Posted on September 30, 2011 at 8:15am

    Between this possibility, the SEIU thugging the voters and the poll workers stashing votes in the trunk of their cars and judges letting them count them as legit, I’m thinking we would be better off borrowing the system used by American Idol. Probably more accurate, at least you can cheat both ways.

    Report Post » HKS  
    • MKFlyboy
      Posted on October 1, 2011 at 10:50pm

      Ditto. I‘ve been starting to think we’d be better off with the Iraqi method: one purple finger=one vote!

      Report Post » MKFlyboy  
  • designbyinspiration
    Posted on September 30, 2011 at 8:05am

    8th grade education, $10 part? That has SEIU ‘operators’ written all over it.

    Report Post »  
  • Taxpayer550
    Posted on September 30, 2011 at 8:02am

    Voter fraud is the ONLY way that Obama can win re-election!

    Report Post » Taxpayer550  
  • Will4Freedom
    Posted on September 30, 2011 at 7:54am

    As a mental exercise I wrote specs for a computer based system that would guarantee proper results.
    Easy to use interface. Voter signs screen or draws a doodle. Voter gets a paper receipt with a number on it.

    End of day, the worker pulls the paper receipt and enters the total votes cast and a “checksum” value (printed on the receipt). If the numbers match, fine. If they don’t match, someone tried to hack the system.

    Voter goes to website any time and can look at any vote by number, location, hour, etc.

    Citizens checking up on the system. All done with technology we already have.

    Report Post »  
    • dnewton
      Posted on September 30, 2011 at 11:06pm

      The problem with your system is that in my state, even if you allege fraud and then you prove fraud, you have to then prove that it made a difference in the outcome of the election. A statistical proof of fraud is not allowed even if everyone voted for the same candidate including you at one precinct. Failure to do so can cause you to be fined for making the legislature go though the trouble of looking at the evidence. We have check-sum system that can be tracked hourly but that only means that the number of approved voters equals the number of votes on the machine. If the machine can tricked so that it adds one vote to one candidate at the expense of the other, it can not be detected. Our system is so messed up that poll workers were allowed to take voting machines home the night before the election. The Tennessee election system is a disgrace. Even if you prove dead people were allowed to vote, nothing will be done about it unless you can prove who the dead people voted for and that the election was lost because of the deception. The candidate must investigate and litigate the whole case with his own money. We assume that half of the dead people voted for one candidate and half voted for the other unless you prove beyond a shadow of doubt anything to the contrary. Our legislature refused to even look inside of machines that were alleged to have been tampered with for the purpose of proving that vote fraud did not or could not have happened.

      Report Post »  
  • kralcorn2
    Posted on September 30, 2011 at 7:40am

    Does anyone remember this about Harry Reid’s election back in 2010? Nothing to see here, These are not the voting machine you are looking for…..

    Did you know that the SEIU represents the voting machine technicians in Clark County (Las Vegas), Nevada? Is it any surprise, as we noted earlier today, that there was a voting glitch in Clark County, Nevada? The glitch caused Harry Reid’s name to be automatically checked on the ballot before voters had indicated who were they were supporting.
    Read the rest of the article:
    http://netrightdaily.com/2010/10/the-seiu-harry-reid-and-voting-problems/

    Report Post »  
  • JACKTHETOAD
    Posted on September 30, 2011 at 7:31am

    Notice how ‘Salon’, a way-lefty magazine, got the how-to news out? Couldn’t be… nah, nothing to see here. Move along.

    Report Post » JACKTHETOAD  
  • Dune
    Posted on September 30, 2011 at 6:52am

    how about sticking with paper ballots and enacting Voter ID laws so the hackers and the hacking don’t happen in the first place

    Report Post » Dune  
    • mikem1969
      Posted on September 30, 2011 at 7:12am

      The problem with paper ballots is those that COUNT THE VOTE MAKE THE VOTE. And who generally has more state government jobs in most of this country? Libs and progressives. We are screwed either way. They can tamper proof the voting systems by putting in a kill switch if the case is opened or foreign device detected by frying the brain of the voting box so it counts no more votes and stops working the moment any tampering is detected.

      Report Post »  
    • Wolfpack Conservative
      Posted on September 30, 2011 at 7:21am

      Agreed. They work great here. Less expensive, too

      Report Post »  
    • Servant Of YHVH
      Posted on September 30, 2011 at 8:02am

      @mikem
      With the manual method at least, if we make sure that there are enough people to monitor the counts. There should be monitors from both sides and there could be gotten enough people to pretty well cover all counts. Of course they would figure out ways to cheat that we might miss but it would be a lot less than what normally is cheated on. Another thing that needs to be done is with a lot of people that needs assistance in voting, there should be a person from each side that assists that voter since I know of some cases where the voter needed help and the person helping them, really helped by causing that voter to vote straight democrat even though the voters did not want to do that.

      Report Post » Servant Of YHVH  
  • bmw5gs
    Posted on September 30, 2011 at 6:49am

    I still can’t believe noboma won in 08, If this Jerk Off wins again the voting booths have to be riged.

    Report Post »  
  • Mike
    Posted on September 30, 2011 at 6:48am

    i dont normally post but i remember a story several years ago about a man who was a designer of these machines for diebold (i think it was) who was let go after he pointed out several vulnerabillities with the machines. I hate to say it, but i feel like their ‘hackability’ is by design. take care.

    Report Post »  
  • checkit
    Posted on September 30, 2011 at 6:31am

    Totally insane to vote with electronic machines, no excuse, they can be altered.

    The Pen (marker) and paper ballots should be used nation wide.

    And I agree with the other posters Reid most likely stole that last election, as the SEIU fixed and ran the machines.

    Any state that uses a electronic voting must have some corrupt scam going, or allowing…

    Why did they move away from pen and paper? And have the machines count that.

    And if there is any issue you go back to the paper and look.

    Report Post » checkit  
    • smithclar3nc3
      Posted on September 30, 2011 at 8:11am

      How about we stick with papre ballots and then also allow exit polling by each party’s members. SEE IF THE NUMBERS MATCH UP.

      Report Post »  
  • momsense
    Posted on September 30, 2011 at 6:30am

    I‘m certain that SEIU and Obozo’s thug criminal friends will be there with both.

    Report Post »  
    • terryinlasvegas
      Posted on September 30, 2011 at 6:44am

      This is EXACTLY what happened in the 2010 elections in Nevada. SEIU members were in charge of voting machine “maintenance.” This is why Harry Reid (who is roundly despised in this State) was “re-elected.“ There were several instances where voters cast their ballots and their choice ”magically” changed before their eyes. Of course, the election officials (who were mostly Democrats), found “nothing wrong.”

      Report Post »  
    • jollylama
      Posted on September 30, 2011 at 8:10am

      Don’t worry.. the ‘union workers’ will make sure all of the machines are ‘fixed’ before the voting begins

      Report Post »  
  • LovinUSA
    Posted on September 30, 2011 at 5:58am

    Thumb prints, or iris eye detection might be an idea as well or both.

    Report Post » LovinUSA  
    • ComeAndTakeThis
      Posted on September 30, 2011 at 6:26am

      Paper ballots printed from the machine to one to the voter and one to the ballot box each marked to insure that two do not end up in the ballot box. Without a paper trail there is no way to insure the machines are not rigged.

      Report Post » ComeAndTakeThis  
    • loriann12
      Posted on September 30, 2011 at 7:11am

      In today’s society, you can’t be sure a paper ballot would be counted either.

      Report Post »  
  • teebubba
    Posted on September 30, 2011 at 5:07am

    I read a report several years ago that the majority of these machines through origin and acquisition are made by Mr. Chavez‘s minions and that in fact they are that country’s only technical specialty.

    Report Post » teebubba  
    • positive1
      Posted on September 30, 2011 at 5:33am

      Soros will be spending his money on one corrupt county official at a time. Its easier this way.

      Report Post »  
  • One Man Progressive Wrecking Crew
    Posted on September 30, 2011 at 4:51am

    As others have noted, what’s worked over and over are paper ballots with receipts and ID required of the voter. Simple process. But what big government does best is take the simple and turn it into the impossible clusterfluck. Not to mention, then irresponsible media outlets, this one included sometimes, broadcast the information needed to pique interest of the criminal and basically give them the rudimentary process by which the crime can be accomplished.

    There’s a time where freedom of speech becomes suicidal when put in the hands of people in the media today who believe disclosing war secrets is free speech but yet disclosing anything about a Kenyan born presidential candidate is not. A simple scan of one’s license with a credit card scanner placed onto the actual ballot of each voter minus the complete license number solves this overnight.

    Report Post » One Man Progressive Wrecking Crew  
  • nontaceo
    Posted on September 30, 2011 at 3:16am

    With this hackable/not hackable discussion, you are missing the point. It doesn’t really matter whether the voting machines can be hacked from outside or from the inside (voting officials). What matters is the pricniple of verifiability of the vote by the voter.

    Most voters don’t understand the machine well enough to make sure that their votes was correctly cast and NONE will be allowed to check the software that runs on the particular voting machine he would be using during the election.

    This is different from the security measures we have in our online banking systems, for instance. In the bank system, the client gets a receipt that states all the details of his transaction, including account numbers and amounts transferred. In an election, the voter should NOT have hold any prove of whom he voted too. He would have to have a receipt, but the receipt shouldn’t have any details on his vote. In other words, it’s impossible to apply to the voting system the same security measures we now apply for the online banking system.

    Up to this date, there is no system that can replace the paper ballots. Only the paper ballots are verifiable by the voter in the booth when he is voting.

    Report Post »  
    • M 4 Colt
      Posted on September 30, 2011 at 4:20am

      Now If i remember right Show Time or HBO did a special about this very same voting machine made by Diebolt a few years back. The guy that was the elections official who oversaw the election results for one county in the state of Nevada ended up losing his job over this very problem because of the ease of changing YOUR VOTE from say a Republican vote to a Democrat vote.

      The reason he lost his job was because the powers to be did not like him making waves with the state elections officials due to the fact that there was some kick back money from Diebolt going into the pockets of some powerful people in Nevada, kind of makes you wounder about men like Harry Reed doesn’t it.

      One other case was of a men who worked for the company Diebolt, he was so worried about the out come of the election in the state of Florida that he went to the state election officials with his concerns about the safety of the vote but they did nothing about it just like they did in Nevada.

      The guy in Florida became so outraged by the lack of the state of Florida’s, Secretary of state doing anything about these machine that he ran against that person in the next election so if he won he would have the power to FIX THIS PROBLEM.

      Report Post »  
  • ThankBabyJesus
    Posted on September 30, 2011 at 3:08am

    Needs ID

    Report Post » ThankBabyJesus  
  • abbygirl1994
    Posted on September 30, 2011 at 2:56am

    Just great.. just freaking great!! God help us! Another 4 years of Obama and I am heading for the hills.. well the mountains for a peaceful quirt mountain retreat for the duration.. As it is I have about lost it with the three he has hasn’t already served.. if you get my drift?? Obama is dividing the country, dividing the races.. and running the economy into the ground. I don’t think our fore fathers would have sat idly by but short of a civil war what do we do?? Pray mightly people.. we need all the prayers we can get!

    Report Post » abbygirl1994  
  • SavingtheRepublic.com
    Posted on September 30, 2011 at 2:52am

    ~^~v~~^~~v~^~
    Need to take a page from the Iraqi elections and other nations at this point. Since hacking is so easy a child can do it (which is about the same intelligence as those trusted to run and monitor the machines) we need to go to paper ballots and get thumb prints where a voters thumbs is stained. More importantly it remains stained for a day or two. In other words cannot be an ink or dye that can be easily removed with soap, paint thinner etc. This is the only way to avoid voter fraud.

    Too much technology replacing people and common sense. Common sense of the most important election in US history is coming and it cannot be left to a machine or entrusted to an individual to maintain that machine. 100 purple thumbs means 100 purple votes. Of course there is the issue of ballots disappearing but you end up in a paradox of using surveillance systems but then that is a machine who will maintain the machine, thus the paradox begins….. We are in trouble folks! Now you can see why Emperor Obama doesnt seem worried! http://SavingtheRepublic.com

    Report Post » SavingtheRepublic.com  
    • CatB
      Posted on September 30, 2011 at 3:19am

      I agree ..we need to go back to paper ballots … at least then you can “watch” the count. They have “observers” at the polls now but with this .. it would appear all is well and it may not be. Paper ballots you can really watch and always recount if necessary.

      TEA!

      Report Post »  
  • Dustyluv
    Posted on September 30, 2011 at 2:40am

    This is why Harry Worthless Reid is still in power. He is a uselful idiot and senile, but votes the Union way so I am sure until he dies he will be their man.

    Report Post »  
    • Ruler4You
      Posted on September 30, 2011 at 2:52am

      You can‘t possibly believe that we went to ’electronic’ voting because “it’s more reliable”? Any software driven equipment can be, and usually is, biased. Recently it was discovered that chinese technology coming into our nation and around the world had embedded instruction sets hard codded directly into the microchip(s). What could possibly be better than a pen and a piece of paper?

      Report Post » Ruler4You  
    • reform
      Posted on September 30, 2011 at 5:10am

      In Nevada ole Harry got the nod because of this very thing. It started in Boulder City here and when they found out who came to fix the machines why it was the SEIU nothing to see here move good people. We must push all of them to require it be a paper vote period. I can’t stand to sit and watch the returns when they already know the outcome there should be zero votes announced, until all votes are in and if that takes 2-3 days so be it. This is for the future of OUR Country people wake up and shout some noise!!!!!

      Report Post »  
  • commonsenseguy
    Posted on September 30, 2011 at 2:22am

    well,there goes one of the communist secrets, the only true form of hack proof voting is id’s,and paper ballots in lock boxes, but that will never happen again,not with these commie fraud loving morons, hell, they even counted died peoples vote and let people vote multiple times, and then they have george soros and his judges to throw out legitimate votes and keep the fake ones, so this does not surprise me, what does is it was discovered,and you can bet that it will not get fixed before 2012,

    Report Post »  
    • MARCH4HIM
      Posted on September 30, 2011 at 5:59am

      As long as there is computers there is alway going to be someone to be able to hack in.Just look at our currency,the counterfeits come out with a forgery on the same week.
      I fear for 2012″ .
      .So many People united together to destroy this once great country……We have about 13 month plus 2month…For new Pres. takes oath…… thats a lifetime away it seams.
      I hope we can stop this downward spiral in time…

      Report Post » MARCH4HIM  
  • Kaoscontrol
    Posted on September 30, 2011 at 2:22am

    No wonder the Fraudster in Chief isn’t worried about his plummeting approval ratings.

    Report Post » Kaoscontrol  
  • SoonerBorn68
    Posted on September 30, 2011 at 2:20am

    One ID = One vote.

    Report Post » SoonerBorn68  
    • RepubliCorp
      Posted on September 30, 2011 at 4:00am

      No problem, Obama will hire SEIU & ACORN workers to secure these machines.

      Report Post » RepubliCorp  
    • reform
      Posted on September 30, 2011 at 6:26am

      Corp who do think fixes these machines? SEIU!!!!

      Report Post »  
  • teapartyconservatism
    Posted on September 30, 2011 at 2:07am

    Reject the untrustworthy and the unverifiable. Demand paper ballots.

    Report Post » teapartyconservatism  
    • Chuck Stein
      Posted on September 30, 2011 at 2:15am

      We won’t know the results as quickly, but we will know the real vote!

      Report Post »  
    • LisaC49
      Posted on September 30, 2011 at 2:23am

      This is nothing more than a pathetic attempt of desperation. Does this touch on what Gov. Bev Perdue of North Carolina suggested, to suspend elections in 2012?

      “I think we ought to suspend, perhaps, elections for Congress for two years and just tell them we won’t hold it against them, whatever decisions they make, to just let them help this country recover,” Perdue said at a rotary club event in Cary, N.C., according to the Raleigh News & Observer. “I really hope that someone can agree with me on that.”

      Oh, really? And that is your decision, Ms. Perdue, rather than that of the people of NC?

      Report Post »  
    • neverending
      Posted on September 30, 2011 at 2:34am

      That is absolutely what we have to get back to.

      Report Post »  
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