Schneier on Security

Thanks for the reminder: I was only able to vote twice before work, but I'll try to get in a few more on the way home.

The living impaired voting block has my vote cancelled even before Diebold gets a shot at it.

And, of course, he's right: "Most people don't care about this stuff" is a good answer for 'can you think of anything scarier'...

"If you don't, there's no chance your vote will be counted correctly."

Hmm. If I were a US citizen, and if I didn't give a fuck about the election, not voting would ensure that my vote would be counted correctly: not at all.

Or: "Remember to vote, if you don't there's no chance that your vote will be counted incorrectly."

That works nearly as well!

"Hmm. If I were a US citizen, and if I didn't give a fuck about the election, not voting would ensure that my vote would be counted correctly: not at all."

Not necessarily. Not voting might mean you vote could be counted once. Voting might mean your vote might be counted twice, which might raise a flag somewhere. Or not, depending.

The curious question is that most of the companies building these machines also build ATMs. Guess what the ybanking industry would do if they tried to foist this crap on them.

The banks would probably just accept the risk and move on...

Surprisingly few problems thus far. Did *nobody* hack even a single box so that it displays something funny? This could just mean that all the action is at a higher level, though.

oregon has vote-by-mail, mailed mine in about two weeks ago. just read an article in the san francisco chronicle, a voter in allentown, pennsylvania suddenly picked up a paperweight and smashed the machine, and "it was not immediately clear if votes recorded on the machine could be retrieved." ok, there's my attack vector, i need a couple hundred goons with big rocks.

Good Point.

Maybe someone on the 'Hack a day' (http://www.hackaday.com/) hardware blog can do 'Atari Tennis on a Diebold AccuVote-TS' ?

I'd buy one.

check out the diesel sweeties from this morning too: clango.org

@P

I'm assuming that while it's spelled "accept the risk and move on", it's pronounced "offload the risk to their customers and move on".

Am I the only person who's come to the conclusion that all of the harping on fraud, vote theft, hacking and voter suppression is, in fact, adding up to a remarkably effective form of voter suppression?

Just asking...

'The curious question is that most of the companies building these machines also build ATMs. Guess what the banking industry would do if they tried to foist this crap on them.'

The banks would get the FED to further accelerate credit (i.e. tax the poor) to cover the administrative costs of doing business with the machine company that gets cost-plus (monopsony) profits by exactly the same method. Extract the wealth of the masses and give them bread and circuses. Works every time.

'Am I the only person who's come to the conclusion that all of the harping on fraud, vote theft, hacking and voter suppression is, in fact, adding up to a remarkably effective form of voter suppression?'

Voter suppression is a good thing, especially if it's 100%.

Sinfest on voting: http://www.sinfest.net/archive_page.php?comicID=2254

Every election is a sort of advance auction sale of stolen goods.

The low turnout is, well, encouraging.

Voter early, Vote often!

Take a look at Over the Hedge:
http://www.comics.com/comics/hedge/archive/hedge-20061106.html
http://www.comics.com/comics/hedge/archive/hedge-20061107.html
http://www.comics.com/comics/hedge/archive/hedge-20061108.html

:-)

"If you don't, there's no chance your vote will be counted correctly."

Actually, if you dont vote, they can't use your "vote-slot" to change into a vote for someone else. If you do vote and it is hacked, then you are providing an additional "vote-unit" to be morphed into a fraudulent vote.

@bob: Wrong, unless you think all those "living-impaired" people voted....

Good point; Chicago (which is the place I have always heard "vote early vote often" associated with) is not merely in a different time zone, but apparently a different time continuum as well.

But it seems like an order of magnitude easier to detect fraud where the number of votes exceeds the number of people who showed up to vote, than it is to detect where 65% of people voted for "X" but "X" only received 45% of the vote.

@buntklicker.de:

>Hmm. If I were a US citizen, and if I
>didn't give a fuck about the election,
>not voting would ensure that my vote
>would be counted correctly: not at all.

Things to do in Chicago when you're dead: vote

I'm sure postmortem voting is a situation unique to the US, and doesn't happen anywhere else.

And never forget that your vote has an exceptionally tiny impact on anything. So the fewer that vote, the greater my vote will be "worth."

"Remember to vote, everyone (in the US)."

Absolutely! How else will each elected politician be able to justify their horrid decisions?

"Well, the voters gave me a mandate (__% of eligible voters voted), so that must mean they want me to be in charge! I'm legitimate, really!"

@Ben K:
> The curious question is that most of the companies building these machines also build ATMs. Guess what the ybanking industry would do if they tried to foist this crap on them.

While commonly stated, this is not true. The division of Diebold which builds ATMs is a completely separate company to Diebold Election Systems, although both are owned by the same holding company. In fact Diebold Election Systems (formely Global Electional Systems) was only purchased a a few years ago, and is by far the smallest corporation under the Diebold "umbrella".

> I'm sure postmortem voting is a situation unique to the US, and doesn't happen anywhere else.

Guess again. There have been several cases where people have been caught trying to vote multiple times using other people's credentials in Israel; this is typically attributed mainly to ultra-religious Jews trying to vote as someone who is abroad (there is no absentee balloting in Israel), but I vaguely remember a case where the "voter" was newly deceased.

OTOH, given the propensity of the ultra-religious to vote in an almost totally unanimous block, one would assume that in most cases the vote being cast is actually the same vote which the person being impersonated would have cast. This still skews the results, of course, just not as much (assuming that other sectors of Israeli society are practicing this form of voting fraud less).

Sinfest has a good one as well:

http://www.sinfest.net/archive_page.php?comicID=2254