[111963] in cryptography@c2.net mail archive
Re: 2008: The year of hack the vote?
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Bill Stewart)
Sun Dec 30 16:06:38 2007
Date: Fri, 28 Dec 2007 17:35:14 -0800
To: cryptography@metzdowd.com
From: Bill Stewart <bill.stewart@pobox.com>
In-Reply-To: <4772A785.6040905@rentec.com>
Dan wrote:
> Let's not do this or we'll have to talk about JF Kennedy
> who, at least, bought his votes with real money.
That's because Democrats had become more professional,
and the tradition of buying votes with whiskey
only works for the retail level, not wholesale.
Dan also wrote:
>May I point out that if voting systems have a level
>of flaw that says only an idiot would use them, then
>how can you explain electronic commerce, FaceBook,
>or gambling sites? More people use just those three
>than will *ever* vote.
The primary threats of electronic voting machines aren't
to the individual voter,
who can slightly increase the chances of getting
his/her vote counted accurately by insisting on paper ballots,
but to the aggregate vote count, which can be hacked
if the precinct has _any_ electronic machines.
The big problem in Ohio appears to have been Denial of Service -
not that there weren't lots of other problems,
but electronic voting systems have sufficient complexity that
an elections department can arrange to have enough
missing parts or supplies or passwords or powercords or whatever
in demographically appropriate precincts so that the
results get skewed even without Other Technical Means.
Some of the black inner-city precincts had two-hour lines
(on a rainy day), while white Republican-leaning precincts
had all the equipment they needed.
(Also, if you're saying "only an idiot would use it"
and ask how gambling sites exist, the answer is that
only idiots gamble... As Ed Gerck pointed out,
risk in e-commerce can be managed and amortized into the price,
but that doesn't work for voting.)
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