Internetworkers: http://www.ibiblio.org/internetworkers/

[Rowland Smith <rowland AT nc.rr.com>]

Rowland Smith wrote:
> Paul Smith wrote:
>
> > On Mar 12, 2004, at 10:03 AM, H. Wade Minter wrote:
> >
> > > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> > > Hash: SHA1
> > >
> > > On Thu, 11 Mar 2004, Thomas Beckett wrote:
> > >
> > > > Rachel Cox wrote:
> > > >
> > > > > Yeah, I'm not very excited about electronic voting at this point
> > > > > myself. I'm eager for the time when I can be, but right now there are
> > > > > just too many questions for me to be comfortable with it.
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > Well in North Carolina at least, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.  The
> > > > paper ballot and optical reader system we now use (in Orange, Durham 
> > > > and
> > > > Wake at least) works great, and there's a physical ballot and audit
> > > > trail.  The ballot itself is simple and easy to understand.  I have 
> > > > even
> > > > witnessed a local election recount on behalf of the Democratic Party 
> > > > and
> > > > I think the system works well.  I would be extremely suspicious of any
> > > > effort to replace this system with anything else.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > The big problem as I see it is that the big voting companies like 
> > > Diebold
> > > are absolutely opposed to, and fighting tooth-and-nail to stop, any sort
> > > of audit trail for their computers.  They want zero paper trail for 
> > > their
> > > voting.
> > >
> > > Why on earth would anyone who wants fair elections be so opposed to 
> > > having
> > > a paper audit trail?  That's what gets my suspicions up about e-voting.
> > > They want to take an unproven system and remove any sort of 
> > > non-electronic
> > > accountability.
> > >
> > > Sketchy at best.
> > >
> > > - --Wade
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >     To further a very good point, I'll add that I believe that a 
> > voting system, electronic or otherwise, should not rely on anything 
> > that is secret or proprietary at all. I can certainly respect 
> > Diebold's need to protect their IP and internal processes from 
> > competitors, but the fact of the matter is that the need for 
> > transparency in the voting process far outweighs Diebold's business 
> > concerns. The internal workings, software code, accounting systems, 
> > equipment inventory and history, audits, reviews, records... all that 
> > stuff ought to be right out in the open and subject to public and 
> > official scrutiny.
> >     Maybe it's just me, but I wish our leaders were as vigilant about 
> > fair and transparent elections as they seem to be about juiced-up 
> > overpaid baseball players having an unfair advantage over 
> > non-juiced-up overpaid baseball players.
>
> I agree that any e-voting system should be both open-source and free, 
> and should be designed to run on off-the-shelf hardware/os.  E-Voting is 
> too important to be left up to commercial, proprietary, closed-source 
> systems.  I don't believe that the evolution of our voting system 
> shouldn't be left up to private companies with ties to political parties.
>
> Here are a few links of interest:
>
>    http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/000330.html
>
>    http://verifiedvoting.org/
>
>    http://open-vote.org/
>
>
> Rowland

I was having trouble sleeping tonite - my tin-foil-hat keeps making 
crinkly sounds when I roll over in bed, so I started thinking about 
e-voting, visions of e-voting sheep jumping a logic-gate swimming in my 
head...

Has anyone on the list discussing e-voting brought up the topic of 
TEMPEST?  I did some googling and found a few newsgroup posts that 
discuss the tempest problem in relation to e-voting, but I don't recall 
seeing this discussed in any of the articles on e-voting that have 
appeared in the past few months in the mainstream media.

What is TEMPEST you ask?

(http://www.electronicdefinitions.com/definition.php?defid=2076)

---
"Try to use a radio near a computer and the chances are you`ll hear 
strange buzzing humming and crackling noises. This is because every 
computer is also an unintentional radio transmitter and the funny noises 
are caused by the emissions known as "Tempest" radiation emawting from 
its cicuitry and in particular its screen.

Govermnent spooks have known since the Sixties that with the right 
equipment these faint signals can be picked up. If for example you have 
a sensitive document displayed on your computer spies lurking in the 
next roomcould intercept the radiation from the cathoderay tube in your 
monitor and reconstruct the onscreen image. They would then be able to 
read the document almost as easily as if they were looking over your 
shoulder.

As a result govemment agencies use specially shielded computers monitors 
and modems to block the emission of compromising radiation. In some 
cases whole rooms or even entire buildings are shielded. It`s an 
expensive business: shielded computers cost several times as much as 
unshielded ones and the US Department of Defence is thought to spend 
$1.5 bilhon a year on shielded equipment and testing. And technical 
information about Tempest originally the code name of a classified 
American research project has always been classified."
---

This poses a problem for e-voting.  It is possible for a third party to 
monitor the unshielded touch-screens in a voting place.  With the help 
of a second party inside the voting place, a correlation can be made 
between a particular vote that was cast on a particular voting machine, 
and the voter that cast the vote.  This (just like a human-readable 
printout that could be carried out of the voting place) allows a voter 
to prove to an entity that he/she voted for a particular candidate - 
allowing voters to sell their votes

Requiring TEMPEST hardened e-voting machines would probably stop 
e-voting dead in the water due to the high cost.

Rowland

> > --P
> >
> > --
> > Paul Smith
> > Foundry Zero
> > 919.834.5433
> > www.foundryzero.com
> >
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