Great BBV article in November's POPULAR MECHANICS

[No2W2004]

A group of NSA computer experts met for a week in Maryland with 6 of the state's Diebold DRE (Direct Recording Electric) machines and a server. They found that the smart cards used to provide supervisors with access to the machines could easily be hacked; the removable media containing voting infromation was protected by flimsy locks that the team picked in under a minute using bent paper clips. The paper clips weren't even neccssary, since all 32,000 keys supplied by Diebold for the machines are identical, allowing any key to open all the state's DREs.

On the software side, the server was running Windows 2000 without the recomended Microsoft security patches which left the servers suseptable to viruses and worms enabling a remote attacker to tamper with the election systems by phone.

The Security team recomended to the state of Maryland 9 essencial security fixes and considerable rewriting of the system's source code. In early September, the team leader said "I'm saddened that few if any of our recomendations have been implemented."

(SNIP)

What can you do on Nov. 2 if you think a DRE hasn't registered your vote? Local voting proceedures may vary, but generally you should inform polling officials and poll watchers of both partys of your concern. You may be offered a paper ballot or asked to file a written account of the situation.

[ParanoidPat]

1. Kick

:kick:

[No2W2004]

2. kik

:dem: