What database is used to tabulate totals for Diebold ATM transactions?

[scottxyz]

Just wondering.

Bet it isn't Microsoft Access - which Diebold uses in its Windows-based vote-tabulating software called GEMS.

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1106-30.htm

Hardly any industrial-strength databases (for banking, airline reservations) use a "desktop" database such as MS-Access - because MS-Access lacks important security and integrity features such as transaction logging.

When you do stuff with your bank account using a Diebold ATM, the desktop database MS-Access is never used to tabulate the results in the bank's back office. Instead, an expensive, secure "client-server" RDBMS (relational database management system) such as Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle or DB/2 is always used. With a client-server RDBMS, you can perform additional security checks, like logging transactions. You can also write "triggers" and "stored procedures" - which can prevent illegal operations from being performed, or alert the administrator if something unusual happens. MS-Access costs a few hundred dollars, and you get what you pay for. Client-server RDBMSes startat tens of thousands of dollars.

Why does Diebold use the "desktop" database MS-Access for tabulating US Presidential election results? Isn't the Presidential election important enough to invest in a "client-server" RDBMS with built-in security and data-integrity features?

[HysteryDiagnosis]

1. Tell you what.... I purchased a software CD that had Visual Basic

projects on it when I was playing around with the learning edition of VB 6.0 and there was a small (very small) program on the disc that would get ANY PASSWORD stored in an access database and it gave you the option for Access 97 or Access 2000. All you have to do is launch the little program, select which version of Access you were seeking to break... browse to the file and blam... there was the password. Kewl.

Granted, the author stated that it was only to be used "properly" but anyone who would entrust our national vote to an Access database is severely deranged, "or" it is by design and they like the "accessability" that the Access database structure affords them.

Either way it is wrong wrong wrong... and you can only do wrong for so long and then the force will take care of the rest.... pretty much as it is right now.... :)

[thecrow]

2. Your question?

Why does Diebold use the "desktop" database MS-Access for tabulating US Presidential election results? Isn't the Presidential election important enough to invest in a "client-server" RDBMS with built-in security and data-integrity features?

Answer: That way it is easier for local yokel computer illiterates to get in there to "rearrage" the vote tabulation.

[molly]

3. ATMs used to be Tandem - uploading to an IMS database