Reply #20: Why not ask them about the IR Data Transfer Ports as reported [View All]

[mod mom]

y Brad on 2/22/2006 @ 12:06pm PT...
by Brad Friedman:


Why do Diebold's Touch-Screen Voting Machines Have Built-In Wireless Infrared Data Transfer Ports?
IrDA Protocol Can 'Totally Compromise System' Without Detection, Warns Federal Voting Standards Website
So far, no state or federal authority -- to our knowledge -- has dealt with this alarming security threat

We hate to pile on... (Or do we?)

But, really, with all the recent discussion of California Sec. of State Bruce McPherson's mind-blowing about-face re-certification of Diebold -- against state law, we hasten to add -- this may be a good time to point out one small item that we've been meaning to mention for a while.

As Jody Holder's recent comment points out, McPherson's silly "conditions" for re-certification of Diebold in California require a few much-less-than-adequate knee-jerk "safe guards" towards protection of the handling of the hackable memory cards in Diebold's voting machines. (Here's McP's full "Certificate of Conditional Certification").

Never mind, as Holder mentions, that the protective seals to be required are easily peeled away without tearing. Or that such voting machines have been stored in poll workers houses for weeks leading up to an election. More to the point, for the moment, there are ways to manipulate the information on those memory cards even without removing them or breaking the seals. This is more of a concern than ever, since it was recently proven, by the now-infamous Harri Hursti hack in Leon County, FL, that changing the information on the memory cards can force election results to be flipped...without a trace being left behind.