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Rumors, Conspiracies, etc.

by Mike Masnick

Thu, Dec 1st 2005 1:47am





The Diebold Hack Test Mystery

from the it-comes-and-goes dept

We've already said why we though that the State of California was making a mistake in hiring a single hacker to try to break into Diebold's e-voting machines. The main issue is that it puts the burden on the wrong party. Diebold should be required to show how secure their e-voting machines are -- something they appear afraid to do. Letting just a single hacker have at the system is a bad idea. Should that hacker not break in, then suddenly Diebold (and various politicians) may use that single data point to say that the machines are perfectly fine. However, the whole story is getting confusing. While the original hack was supposed to take place this week, on Monday there were reports that it wasn't yet scheduled. Technocrat.net is pointing to a forum posting on the Black Box Voting Site that outlines the confusing timeline of this story. It appears that the California Secretary of State Bruce McPherson invited Black Box Voting to hack into the Diebold machine on November 30th. He later asks them to confirm, even changing the time on the 30th when it will occur. They confirm... and never hear from him again. At the same time, both McPherson's office and Black Box Voting separately approached the same security expert to handle the hacking -- though it turns out he's busy. McPherson's office, without ever getting an official word from the hacker, announce to the press that he's the guy who will perform the hacking. Then, earlier this week, McPherson seems to deny that he ever set a date for the test. In other words, no one seems to know what's going on.

5 Comments | Leave a Comment

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    Tom, Dec 1st, 2005 @ 4:15am

    No Subject Given

    Just going with one hacker is quite stupid, what if he purposefully fails to make the system look good only to come back during an election and wreak some havok. My father was going to work for Diebold, but ADT offered him more money, so this hits slightly close to home.

     

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  •  
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    Mark, Dec 1st, 2005 @ 9:18am

    Too prepared

    This should be a sudden thing, no time to switch machines.

     

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  •  
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    g, Dec 2nd, 2005 @ 7:28am

    Should We Be Surprised

    This is almost pointless to argue. Not because it doesn't need to be done but because it is being done in a false political manner. There should be a call to hackers (all) to crack this machine and crack it in an uninvited way.

    http://www.illmethinks.com

    g

     

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    •  
      identicon
      Joe, Dec 2nd, 2005 @ 11:15am

      Re: Should We Be Surprised

      This just makes me want to watch "Hackers" with Angelina Jolie.... Of course a lot of others got a great start in this movie, but who cares... its Angelina Jolie. Anyway... on with my comment... There is nothing that will stop an experienced hacker. Determination, skill set, and an Internet connection is all ya need. I don't care who you are, if you get slapped with an experienced hacker, you're going down. If the person is in a good mood they'd set your run-level to 6 just to get a grin of watching your hardware address go live, and die a few times. You want a system that is Hacker proof? Don't install an OS and put it at the top of Mount Zion. Otherwise, read http://www.dummies.com/WileyCDA/DummiesTitle/productCd-076455784X.html">this book. I can't believe this book exists. What saddens me further is people are buying it. What makes me even more sad is at least 1 person that reads my post, owns that very book...... *shakes head* Often times we as people deserve what we get.

       

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