Diebold software files have company in double bind with state, feds

[Amaryllis]

Article Last Updated: 1/22/2006 02:42 AM
Diebold fate hangs on whether its voting software can be fixed By Ian Hoffman
By Ian Hoffmanm STAFF WRITER
Software files have company in double bind with state, feds
Inside Bay Area

For more than two years, Diebold Election Systems Inc. has hit one political or technical snag after another trying to reap more than $40 million in voting-machine sales in California.

Now only a collection of tiny software files on Diebold's latest voting machines stand in the way of those revenues and more. Last summer, a Finnish computer expert using an agricultural device found he could rig the votes stored on Diebold's memory cards and rewrite one of those files to cover his tracks.

The revelation posed a double problem for Diebold: Not only could its optical-scanning voting machines be hacked, but state and federal rules for more than a year have forbidden those files in voting machines.

This week, scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, UC-Davis and a private, testing lab in Huntsville, Ala., are studying those files under strict promises of confidentiality. What they find could bear directly on what kind of voting systems almost a third of California counties will use in the 2006 elections and indirectly on Diebold's viability as a voting company.

To read the rest:
http://www.insidebayarea.com/sanmateocountytimes/localnews/ci_3427025

[EFerrari]

1. Thank you, Finland. lol

:kick: and recommend

[EFerrari]

2. Another kick right here. This is HUGH1111!

[Wilms]

3. This is a very important development.

Watch this story, gang.