[Previous entry: "Doonesbury on Intelligent Design"] [Main Index] [Next entry: "new computer!"]

12/20/2005 Archived Entry: "Diebold machines hacked"

Like the "unsinkable" Titanic, we have the "unhackable" Diebold voting machines. Which have now been spectacularly hacked, for the benefit of Florida electioneers, by Finnish security expert Harri Hursti.

The Hursti Hack requires a moderate level of inside access. It is, however, accomplished without being given any password and with the same level of access given thousands of poll workers across the USA. It is a particularly dangerous exploit, because it changes votes in a one-step process that will not be detected in any normal canvassing procedure, it requires only a single a credit-card sized memory card, any single individual with access to the memory cards can do it, and it requires only a small piece of equipment which can be purchased off the Internet for a few hundred dollars.