more on CA is not recertifying Diebold voting machines

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Joseph Lorenzo Hall <joehall () gmail com>
Date: January 24, 2006 1:31:28 PM EST
To: dave () farber net
Cc: Elaine Newton <enewton () cmu edu>
Subject: Re: [IP] CA is not recertifying Diebold voting machines
Reply-To: joehall () pobox com

On 1/24/06, David  Farber <dave () farber net> wrote:
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Elaine Newton [mailto:enewton () cmu edu]
> Sent: Tuesday, January 24, 2006 10:25 AM
> To: dave () farber net
> Subject: CA is not recertifying Diebold voting machines
>
> For IP if you wish,
>
> Calif. refuses to recertify Diebold voting machines
> The secretary of state has put the company's application on hold
> until Diebold submits its source code for additional testing.
> http://newsletters.101com.com/c.asp?id=598627&l=14&c=080c6bfbc9186f5a
This is actually a bit old in terms of news... the latest is outlined
here in Ian Hoffman's article

# Diebold fate hangs on whether its voting software can be fixed #
<http://www.insidebayarea.com/sanmateocountytimes/localnews/ci_3427025>

---

For more than two years, Diebold Election Systems Inc. has hit one
political or technical snag after another trying to reap more than $40
million in voting-machine sales in California.

Now only a collection of tiny software files on Diebold's latest
voting machines stand in the way of those revenues and more. Last
summer, a Finnish computer expert using an agricultural device found
he could rig the votes stored on Diebold's memory cards and rewrite
one of those files to cover his tracks.

The revelation posed a double problem for Diebold: Not only could its
optical-scanning voting machines be hacked, but state and federal
rules for more than a year have forbidden those files in voting
machines.

This week, scientists at the University of California, Berkeley,
UC-Davis and a private, testing lab in Huntsville, Ala., are studying
those files under strict promises of confidentiality. What they find
could bear directly on what kind of voting systems almost a third of
California counties will use in the 2006 elections and indirectly on
Diebold's viability as a voting company.

At issue is a kind of software called interpreted code — bits of
programming akin to Java and HTML that are loaded and translated into
computer instructions on, or immediately, before Election Day. Johns
Hopkins University computer scientist Avi Rubin said interpreted code
can alter a voting system on the fly from its original, tested and
approved operation.

"If there is some way to slip in interpreted code," said Carnegie
Mellon University computer scientist and voter-systems certifier
Michael Shamos, "then we have no way to control what the machine is
executing."

But with thousands of Diebold voting machines carrying those files
already deployed nationwide and a huge share of the market — the firm
supplies 17 counties from San Diego to Los Angeles to Alameda to
Humboldt — elections officials and computer experts who advise them
are looking closely at Diebold's interpreted code and seeing whether
it might be used safely after all.

Diebold programmers created their own language, AccuBasic, for the
interpreted code used in all of the voting machines supplied for
polling places. But they have told election officials in several
states that AccuBasic is a very limited language, able only to read
vote counts and not modify them, then print out vote reports in the
various ways that counties may ask. Tailoring those reports for
individual jurisdictions is the main reason for using the interpreted
code.

According to several elections officials and voting system experts,
Diebold managers persuaded Ciber Inc., a private, software lab in
Huntsville, Ala., which tests voting systems for national approval,
that the files were inconsequential and not worth a look. Ciber
engineers cleared the system, and the National Association of State
Elections Directors gave it a national stamp of approval last year
under 2002 federal voting system rules that with few exceptions bar
the use of interpreted code.

Last summer, Finnish computer expert Harri Hursti took a twin of
Diebold's memory cards and preloaded it with votes, a negative number
on one side of an issue and an equal, positive number on the other
side. Then he retooled Diebold's AccuBasic files so the computer never
looked at the preloaded votes before an election. A printout of the
vote counters before any ballots were cast would show zero votes
although the election already was rigged.

Voting-system experts say the vote fraud fails if the hacker can't
gain access to the memory cards or can't change the vote reports
without detection. The vulnerability is not as great with Diebold's
touchscreen voting machines, which also use interpreted code stored on
PC cards. But those programs are encrypted, making it more difficult
to alter their contents, Shamos said, and unlike the older optical
scanners, the touchscreens automatically clear their memory for
storing votes when started up for an election.

He and several other computer experts said that if Diebold's files are
as limited in function as the company claims, then a way of checking
the authenticity of the files before the election and tighter
restrictions on the handling of the memory cards might add enough
security for voters to use the system. Elections officials might track
the serial numbers of all the memory cards and lock the cards into the
voting machines with multiple tamper-proof, numbered seals.

Those answers could clear a technical snag for Diebold, but the firm's
critics are suggesting the political bar will be higher.

Activists last week in Sacramento called for disallowing the use of
any Diebold voting machine with interpreted code, which is to say
virtually all of them. Sen. Debra Bowen, chairwoman of the elections
committee and a Democratic contender for secretary of state, said talk
of a procedural fix or other workaround gave her "extreme cause for
concern."

"The fact that we have a statewide election in less than five months
shouldn't be used to cut corners on the certification process, yet
that sounds exactly like what this 'work-around' proposal will do,"
she said Friday.

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