Insider Attack Against Diebold Voting Machines

This is both news and not news:

Indeed, the Argonne team’s attack required no modification, reprogramming, or even knowledge, of the voting machine’s proprietary source code. It was carried out by inserting a piece of inexpensive “alien electronics” into the machine.

It’s not news because we already know that if you have access to the internals of a voting machine, you can make it do whatever you want.

It is news because it’s so easy. The entire hack took two hours, start to finish. The attacker doesn’t have to know how the machine works, he just needs physical access. (And we know that voting machines are routinely left unguarded, and have locks that are easily bypassed.)

I find this all so frustrating because there are a gazillion ways to hack electronic voting machines. Specific attacks get the headlines, and the voting machine companies counter with reasons why those attacks are not “valid.” And in the noise and counter-noise, no one hears the general truth: these systems are insecure, and should not be used in elections.

Posted on October 5, 2011 at 6:58 AM • 49 Comments