Diebold Drama

A Study lead by Professor Edward Felten demonstrated the possibility of tempering with Diebold voting machines. He went on network TV news shows to demostrate the flaws in Diebold's voting machines by inserting virus to them. By infecting machines before the polls open, attackers will be able to control the outcome of an election no matter what the voters do when they cast their votes. Better yet, there is no paper trail for audit.

Professor Felten's Research with abstract:
http://itpolicy.princeton.edu/voting/

A high-Quality video can be found here at Princeton U's official site:
http://itpolicy.princeton.edu/voting/videos.html

Princeton U's release video - http://www.youtube.com/v/aZws98jw67g


Fox News interview with Professor Felten - http://www.youtube.com/v/8JESZiLpBLE


I originally seen a clip recorded of CNN but it's now gone. The CNN clip also had Professor Felten doing the presentation. He show in the video that it's possible to plant a computer virus to alter election results. Infection of more machines is possible when poll workers swipe cards from one machine to another.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14825465/

After Professor Felten showed his demo, the reporter read Diebold's reply saying, there are like 20+ screws before you can remove the case, and other procedures before you can reach the storage card where the attacker can temper with the card.
the CNN video clip is shown with a screen snapshot at utah-vote.org - http://www.utah-vote.org/

Diebold, the maker of the voting machines responded said it's not so easy to open the machine to temper with them, but a blog post suggest it's possible to open the machine with a common hotel "minibar" key.
http://www.freedom-to-tinker.com/?p=1064

A search on Princeton's website will bring you to this link featuring Prof Felten's research claiming e-voting machines are at risk of temper.
http://engineering.princeton.edu/news/felten06


Post on Engadget even suggests that a monkey can mess with the diebold voting machine.
http://www.engadget.com/2004/09/27/floridians-beware-monkey-can-actually-hack-diebold-voting/


http://youtube.com/watch?v=5WMG34cv0zM

http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/1954/14296.html


If you or anyone you know works at the voting places, come see me and get a smart card. I'm running for the governator of California by the way. Sidenote, some reported in 2004 California official calls for banning the use of Diebold machines at the polls; some news claimed it was only a rumor.


Credit goes to Professor Felten and his team at Princeton U.