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<tr><td><font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><font color="#333333" size="2"><a href="http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/09/30/researchers-hack-voting-machine-for-26/?test=latestnews" target="_blank"><b>Researchers Hack Voting Machine for $26</b></a><br>
</font></font></td></tr><tr><td><font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><font color="#333333" size="2">MATT LIEBOWITZ - TechMediaNetwork</font></font></td></tr><tr><td><br></td></tr><tr><td><font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><font color="#333333" size="2"><i>Here is an extraordinary example of corrupt corporatism.
Diebold, then owned by conservative Republicans, was given the contract
to create a voting machine to monitor the nation's most sacred
democratic process. It was a gift from a conservative Republican
administration liberally bribed by campaign contributions to do so.
Diebold produced, at great profit to themselves, a shoddy product an
ambitious 12 year could ri!
g, and here is the proof. This reveals the contempt the Right wing
managers of this corporation felt for ordinary Americans.</i></font></font></td></tr><tr><td><br></td></tr>
<tr><td><font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><font color="#333333" size="2">Campaigning for the 2012 presidential race has
already begun, but what the candidates don't know is that come election
day, hackers could be the ones whose votes have the biggest impact.<br>
<br>
Researchers from the Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois have
developed a hack that, for about $26 and an 8th-grade science education,
can remotely manipulate the electronic voting machines used by millions
of voters all across the U.S.<br>
<br>
The researchers, Salon reported, performed their proof-of-concept hack
on a Diebold Accuvote TS electronic voting machine, a type of
touchscreen Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) voting system that is
widely used for government elections.<br>
<br>
(Diebold's voting-machine business is now owned by the Denver-based
Dominion Voting Systems, whose e-voting machines are used in about 22
states.)<br>
<br>
In a video, Roger Johnston and Jon Warner from Argonne National
Laboratory's Vulnerability Assessment Team demonstrate three different
ways an attacker could tamper with, and remotely take full control, of
the e-voting machine simply by attaching what they call a piece of
"alien electronics" into the machine's circuit board.<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
The electronic hacking tool consists of a $1.29 microprocessor and a
circuit board that costs about $8. Together with the $15 remote control,
which enabled the researchers to modify votes from up to a half-mile
away, the whole hack runs about $26.<br>
<br>
Two of the takeovers show the researchers controlling the buttons on the
keypad despite what the "real" voter enters. But in what Warner called
"probably the most relevant attack for vote tampering," the researchers
were able to blank the e-voting machine's screen for a split-second
after the "vote now" button was pressed. While the screen went dark,
they remotely entered their own numbers into the DRE's keypad.<br>
<br>
Johnston explained in the video: "When the voter hits the 'vote now'
button to register his votes, we can blank the screen and then go back
and vote differently and the voter will be unaware that this has
happened."<br>
<br>
Johnston and Warner say that the ease with which this type of remote
hack could be deployed highlights the need for e-voting machines to be
designed better, with not just cybersecurity, but physical security in
mind.<br>
<br>
"Spend an extra four bucks and get a better lock," Johnston said. "You
don't have to have state-of-the-art security, but you can do some things
were it takes at least a little bit of skill to get in."</font></font></td></tr></tbody></table><br clear="all"><br>-- <br>P2P Foundation: <a href="http://p2pfoundation.net" target="_blank">http://p2pfoundation.net</a>� - <a href="http://blog.p2pfoundation.net" target="_blank">http://blog.p2pfoundation.net</a> <br>
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