Hacking into the voting machines

[Sara S]

National Security Lab Hacks Diebold Touch-Screen Voting Machine by Remote Control With $26 in Computer Parts My New EXCLUSIVE at Salon
Hack team leader: 'Can do similar things on pretty much every e-voting machine'...

The Vulnerability Assessment Team (VAT) at the U.S. Dept. of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois has managed to hack a Diebold Accuvote touch-screen voting machine in what I describe at my exclusive today at Salon as perhaps "one of the most disturbing e-voting machine hacks to date."

As noted by the computer scientists and security experts at Argonne's VAT, largely all that's needed to accomplish this hack is about $26 and an 8th grade science education.

"This is a national security issue," VAT team leader Roger Johnston told me, echoing what I've been reporting other computer scientists and security experts telling me for years. "It should really be handled by the Department of Homeland Security."

Johnston should know. While the VAT folks have been dabbling in the security (or lack thereof) of e-voting systems in their spare time of late, most of the work they do is related to issues like nuclear safeguards and non-proliferation.

What makes this hack so troubling --- and different from those which have come before it --- is that it doesn't require any actual changes to, or even knowledge of, the voting system software or its memory card programming. It's not a cyberattack. It's a "Man-in-the-middle" attack where a tiny, $10.50 piece of electronics is inserted into the system between the voter and the main circuit board of the voting system allowing for complete control over the touch-screen system and the entire voting process along with it.

Add an optional $15 radio frequency remote control device, and votes can be changed, without the knowledge of the voter, from up to half a mile away…

MORE AT THE BRAD BLOG: https://www.bradblog.com/?p=8785
FULL EXCLUSIVE AT SALON: https://www.salon.com/news/politics/...ons/2011/09/27...

[ubaru]

"This is a national security issue," VAT team leader Roger Johnston told me, echoing what I've been reporting other computer scientists and security experts telling me for years. "It should really be handled by the Department of Homeland Security."

Johnston should know. While the VAT folks have been dabbling in the security (or lack thereof) of e-voting systems in their spare time of late, most of the work they do is related to issues like nuclear safeguards and non-proliferation.

Unfortunately, the Department of Homeland Security and those who created it are more interested in maintaining the illusion that we have a valid, accurate voting system, an election, whilst having the power to select whomever they want to put at the end of their Pinocchio strings.

We will be there with our exit polls.

:-(
Liz