Diebold Hack Hints at Wider Flaws

[kster]

By Kim Zetter | Also by this reporter

02:00 AM Dec. 21, 2005 PT

Election officials spooked by tampering in a test last week of Diebold optical-scan voting machines should be equally wary of optical-scan equipment produced by other manufacturers, according to a computer scientist who conducted the test.

Election officials in Florida's Leon County, where the test occurred, promptly announced plans to drop Diebold machines in favor of optical-scan machines made by Election Systems & Software, or ES&S. But Hugh Thompson, an adjunct computer science professor at the Florida Institute of Technology who helped devise last week's test, believes other systems could also be vulnerable.

"Looking at these systems doesn't send off signals that ... if we just get rid of Diebold and go to another vendor we'll be safe," Thompson said. "We know the Diebold machines are vulnerable. As for ES&S, we don't know that they're bad but we don't know that they're (good) either."

Thompson and Harri Hursti, a Finnish computer scientist, were able to change votes on the Diebold machine without leaving a trace. Hursti conducted the same test for the California secretary of state's office Tuesday. The office did not return several calls for comment.


http://www.wired.com/news/evote/0,2645,69893,00.html?tw=wn_1techhead

[kster]

1. Done by Wilms already

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=203&topic_id=406091&mesg_id=406145

[Stevepol]

2. Is it true that Hursti did the hack test for CA on Tuesday???

I thought MacPherson has been putting it off. If the test was done, why hasn't more been heard about it?

[Wilms]

3. I've lost track of all the stories I read today.

One said that Hursti did do a test on Tuesday 12/20.

Other's suggested not.

:shrug: