Most vote machines lose test to hackers

State-sanctioned teams of computer hackers were able to break through the security of virtually every model of California's voting machines and change results or take control of some of the systems' electronic functions, according to a University of California study released Friday.

The researchers "were able to bypass physical and software security in every machine they tested,'' said Secretary of State Debra Bowen, who authorized the "top to bottom review" of every voting system certified by the state.

Neither Bowen nor the investigators were willing to say exactly how vulnerable California elections are to computer hackers, especially because the team of computer experts from the UC system had top-of-the-line security information plus more time and better access to the voting machines than would-be vote thieves likely would have.

"All information available to the secretary of state was made available to the testers,'' including operating manuals, software and source codes usually kept secret by the voting machine companies, said Matt Bishop, UC Davis computer science professor who led the "red team" hacking effort, said in his summary of the results.

The review included voting equipment from every company approved for use in the state, including Sequoia, whose systems are used in Alameda, Napa and Santa Clara counties; Hart InterCivic, used in San Mateo and Sonoma Counties; and Diebold, used in Marin County.

granted, any election can be fixed, but cant we at least keep it a BIT difficult for criminals to pull it off? just a wee little bit perhaps?

wouldn't there be a way to create a parallel network that only the voting machines ran on?

like, something on its "own internet". I know next to nothing about networking, but if the networks are even possibly accessable from outside, e-voting is a retarted idea.

Originally posted by inimalist
wouldn't there be a way to create a parallel network that only the voting machines ran on?

like, something on its "own internet". I know next to nothing about networking, but if the networks are even possibly accessable from outside, e-voting is a retarted idea.

A closed limited network is possible. Just make no connections to the outside world, store the voting information on a local machine and keep the national database serperate as well. Then ship the local machines with the data to the national database where the votes would be tallyed.

It'd slow the process down a little, but it'd give an extra security measure against outside tampering.