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Source Code Access Denied in Disputed Race
Posted by
Zonk
on Sat Dec 30, 2006 06:26 AM
from the why-not-clear-things-up dept.
from the why-not-clear-things-up dept.
MrMetlHed writes "A judge ruled Friday that congressional aspirant Christine Jennings has no right to examine the source code that runs the electronic voting machines at the center of a disputed Southwest Florida congressional race. From the article: 'The ruling Friday from Judge Gary prevents for now the Jennings camp from being able to use the programming code to try to show voting machines used in Sarasota County malfunctioned. Jennings claims that an unusually large number of undervotes (ballots that didn't show a vote) recorded in the race implies the machines lost the votes.'"
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Outrageous (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Outrageous (Score:5, Insightful)
There are at least two reasons why there is little uproar about these machines using closed-source software.
Parent
Re:Outrageous (Score:5, Insightful)
Judges are not expected to be expert at every subject. They should, however, be able to find expert advice for the subject at hand. Both parts should have presented properly accredited expert witnesses and the court might have retained independent experts as well (IANAL).
If the fact that the judge is not knowledgeable enough to rule accordingly in an issue indicates that the judicial system (in addition to the election system) might be broken.
Or maybe the complainant dropped the ball somewhere in the process.
Parent
Re:Outrageous (Score:5, Insightful)
For something as sensitive as a voting machine the government should have the contract, and all the rights to the source code - the state should be able to request the source from the government.
If that isn't the case then someone should be fired. By a firing squad.
Parent
Re:Outrageous (Score:4, Informative)
The question is irrelevant. Voting machine vendors already have to submit machines and source to certification agencies for Logic and Acciracy testing and certification. For any machine in use on election day, the source code (and/or mechanical parts) have already been disected, examined, and certified.
This is the reason why Diebold machines were decertified in California -- not, as is often claimed, because they are insecure, but because Diebold updated certified firmware with code that had not gone through certification [cnn.com].
The state already has the right to examine source code, and has already done so. What the judge decided (wrongly, IMHO) is that this right does not extend to parties involved in a disputed election where the primary claim hinges on whether or not the machines and code functioned as they were supposed to.
NIST has recently recommended requiring the effective open-sourcing of voting machine code, but these recommendations (Voluntary Voting Systems Guidelines) won't go into effect until 2009. Previously, and in the current VVSG, NIST recommends keeping certified source code in escrow so it is available for examination in case of dispute.
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Re:Outrageous (Score:5, Interesting)
If the public/government doesn't require similar validation and reliability for electronic voting machines, it's because your votes aren't considered important or valuable. I don't see any way to escape that conclusion, given the way things are.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Most 'Windows' exploits are exploits in bundled userland software. If you compar
Re:Outrageous (Score:4, Interesting)
The other thing to consider is the number of holes that might be discovered if everyone had access to the Windows source code
Parent
Re:Outrageous (Score:4, Interesting)
A) They`re usefulness in gaining inappropriate access.
B) How many holes are left.
Now with A), Windows with its single user administration accounts and open privileges to system by all users, makes any userland bug into an root-level access nightmare. Yes, you can have a separate admin-account. No, XP doesn`t support this fully on the file-level (I`ve done it many times, and it`s a PITA because of bugs in XP regarding running programs or installing software as administrator)
A) will hopefully be fully solved in VISTA. How many years after UNIX solved this?
With B), you cannot really know. Open access to the source code and the whole world watching, makes it pretty obvious you`re going to have more fixes for Linux and BSD. With closed source, you never really know how many holes are left except when someone stumbles on one in the dark, you never really know what the software does or if it contains any backdoors.
It is not so far-fetched to state that the more fixes you have to a system, the more secure it is. But it`s really hard to say. Are NT programmers more proficient than Linux-programmers concerning security? Experience shows that security has never been Microsoft`s priority, marketshare has.
So IMHO Linux and BSD are very much more secure than Windows / NT / XP, maybe even BECAUSE of more fixes for the systems.. But also for the multi-user models used in UNIX which adds a layer of security with the root user, unless the user runs as root all day long of course.
So ANY system will be insecure if the user do stupid things.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Well yeah, but it is misleading that you suggest Windows is less secure just because it is closed source. To disqualify that statement you just need to consider that if Linux became closed source tomorrow it would be no less secure than it is today.
No, the problem with Windows is that M$ made some bad design choices in the early days (90's) and opted to endlessly patch pro
Re:Outrageous (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Outrageous (Score:5, Insightful)
Assuming a situation where there's reasonable oversight of most votes most of the time, and opportunities to be alone with ballots for more than a minute don't generally exist:
- Electronic voting machines? An attacker can change thousands of votes in a second.
- Punched cards? An attacker can shove a ten cent piece of steel through the hole for the preferred candidate and invalidate a hundred ballots for the opponent in a few seconds.
- Paper? Well, an attacker can start spoiling every ballot for the opponent, but that's going to take time. Quite a bit of time. And the attacker will be leaving some forensic evidence.
Canada -- a country geographically even larger than the US with probably even more serious geographic distribution problems -- has generally used paper ballots for a great many years. Elections are typically counted and results are in by somewhere between 10pm for local/provincial elections and maybe 2am (eastern) for Federal elections.
Most of all, a paper ballot system is comprehensible and reasonably transparent to the ordinary voter. Not so with even open-source software (which may be transparent and comprehensible to some, but is neither to the average voter).
If you really want something that's counted fast, use paper ballots scanned into optical scanners (and deposited in locked ballot boxes for later inspection/recounts) in front of the voter.
Paper and pencils: A technology who's time has come.
Holmwood.
Parent
Re:Outrageous (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Outrageous (Score:5, Insightful)
Open source is only open source up to a point. There is no way to verify that what is running on a machine is the same as the code released. Anyone working on the machines can tamper with it: "./configure --all-votes-are-$(myparty) && make && make install". Maybe you could use digital signing on the official builds and restrict the machines to them, but keep in mind that violates the GPLv3, and there are no assurances it won't be hacked. On the other hand, it is very unlikely someone is going to reverse engineer closed source software while they are supposed to be setting up the machines and no one will notice.
Parent
Re:Outrageous (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
unfuckingbelivable (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:unfuckingbelivable (Score:5, Insightful)
Not knowing the source code for a voting machine is the equivalent to saying "a miracle happens here" at a critical part in a mathematical proof. Completely utterly unnaceptable.
Parent
Re:unfuckingbelivable (Score:5, Insightful)
Just because, in this case, the judge won't understand it, or the company thinks they stand to lose money from letting it be seen, doesn't mean we shouldn't be able to see it... my latest GPS device (a TomTom) has an Open Source system on it, runs on Linux. Thankfully, I don't understand it, and I don't want to, its not my field. BUT WHEN IT COMES DOWN TO IT, if for a second I didn't trust the machine, I could take a look and know exactly what it was doing.
With a voting machine this should be an integral part of the trust process... we know how the box where we slip our voting slips works... why should we not know how the machine we punch our answers into work the same way?
Parent
Re:unfuckingbelivable (Score:5, Interesting)
Why should Joe Public have to rely on someone like me saying 'trust me, it's secure?' Would you be willing to have a ballot paper written in Kanji and an expert tell you which set of symbols corresponded to your candidate? I certainly wouldn't, so why should the rest of the population have to place the same faith in experts?
Parent
Re:unfuckingbelivable (Score:4, Insightful)
I disagree.
Having an electronic machine that prints a human readable, machine tabulatable paper ballot could be a good thing,if the user interface was designed reasonably. For one thing it would assist blind voters, and provide assistance for voters in the language they're most comfortable in.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Anyone can check the proof just by checking that the proper axioms and lemmas are used at each step.
Anyone? I think you live in an interesting world where even 50% of the population even knows what an axiom or lemma is, let alone how to check a mathematical proof. In a democratic state, everyone gets to vote, therefore, everyone should be able to validate the electoral procedure, not just the mathematicians and computer scientists. Here's an example I provided in another post:
By having an electronic voting system, you are asking the majority of the population to trust that it is carried out correctly
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
are you aware of the fact that when it comes to belief in evolution, the USA is 2nd to the last, worldwide, in our ability to think logically and rationally and believe in science and not the boogeyman?
(if you can trust penn/teller's numbers, we're the worst only second to turkey, I believe, in evolution disbelief!)
so you say 'a mir
At least it's just "for now"... (Score:5, Insightful)
But I am able to call bull shit when I see it. And refusing them, or at least a mutually agreed on qualified party, to review the code in question is asinine.
And proof positive that these things, if allowed at all, MUST be open source.
Incomplete article (Score:5, Insightful)
OTOH, should voting results have a presumption of validity? The problem is that voting bureaucracies are not designed for validation by authenticating ballots or statistical checks, but only on prompt decisiveness and the appearance of not having irregularities in the balloting or counting.
Wouldn't all this be solved by encrypted online voting, where you could check your own votes by a profile tied to an anonymous registration key issued by the DMV? Then make the data public for verification by the media?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Incomplete article (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem with most "verified" voting mechanisms is that they allow voters to prove a vote for a certain party, which in turn makes buying votes feasible. You have to create a pretty elaborate system to prevent this kind of abuse and most of the proposed systems which look like they could solve this still don't prevent ballot stuffing.
Classic paper ballot voting solves these problems by using an observable and public process. The only secret act is the casting of the vote and there is practically nothing a voter can do in that secret phase to change the outcome beyond his normal participation in the poll. All other steps in an election are, at least theoretically, public: You can watch the sealing of the empty ballot boxes, you can watch the admission of the voters and you can observe the counting. Nobody has to trust someone else. If people take an interest in the process, they can see for themselves that it is done right.
Electronic voting always has the problem that you can't observe the code execution. Sure, you can verify that the code in the PROM is correct, but you can't verify that the code is what actually gets executed on election day. You can't verify the contents of the memory modules beyond what another unverifiable machine tells you. IMHO, the problems with electronic voting are unsolvable without giving up at least one of the democratic principles of a secret ballot. The central problem is that there is secret information involved which cannot be verifiable to the point that you can verify the whole process.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
This is essentially what reasonable (non-Florida) balloting looked like before "e-voting". Except that the voter was part of the "voting machine" and filled in little circles. Those are machine-readable, and there's no need to compare the machine readable ballot to the human-readable ballot, because they are the same ballot.
As I've said before, e-voting is a bad solution to a problem that didn't really exist.
Whaddya mean "there is no conflict"? (Score:5, Insightful)
On the other hand, the RIAA gets not only to view the contents of a woman's hard drive to go on a fishing expedition to see whether she was sharing music files, but they get to make their own copy of it, including all that stuff they don't hold the copyright on (Windows, the woman's e-mails, etc.).
It seems to me that what's good for the turkeys oughta be good for us chickens. Or something.
logic and reason (Score:5, Insightful)
How long must we sing this song? A democracy without transparent practices for the transfer of power is not a democracy. All the way down to the ones and zeroes. Every question with regard to voting should be able to be answered.
It seems so primitive that it baffles me how someone could arrive at any other conclusion than "the process of voting is sacred and should, in fact *must*, bear great scrutiny".
Re:logic and reason (Score:5, Insightful)
Having actually reviewed the software (Yes the source code) for 7 major voting machine systems....,. I might have something to say on the topic. First!!!!! a verified voting machine software package means exactly nothing! The verification is if there are enough comments in the code and if all case statements have a default exit and things like that. It has nothing what so ever to do with if the system correctly handles an election. I got paid for this people so I know the facts here!
Out of the 7 major packages I reviewed I found only one I felt was secure enough to consider it worthy of use. I did look at the software. Major flaws included the ES&S systems have flash drives! They could have their data and their "brains" completely changed at will during an election and they never would tell! Other flaws included Internet hookups to the machines where data files could be addressed remotely... .... ....
I am not telling the name of the supplier I felt was good but let it assure you that their system had paper read and their system had several other safeguards of the voting tally.
Why do public officials want such systems. Simple. They can steal elections and they can prevent absolutely any record of the event. Why should voters get mad and demand open source software on such systems. The reasons are many They include prevention of defalcation on the election. They include being hardware independent so that users are not locked into a system for buying their supplies. They include KNOWING what is going on. They include voter oversight. Take your pick folks.
Parent
Judge's credentials? (Score:3, Interesting)
IIRC there were cases in the early 80s where judges made bad rulings because they simply had little or no understanding of computers/technology.
A little Stalin seems fitting... (Score:5, Insightful)
Please don't be confused... I don't think Joseph Stalin was a great man. I consider him a despicable and cold blooded tyrant. At the same time, I also happen to think he was a pretty sharp thinker, and a successful tyrant because he understood how political systems function. A democratic system cannot work unless there is absolute transparency in the voting process.
I'm an open source supporter but not a zealot. I don't have any problem with the existence of closed-source commercial software and I believe it has a right to exist. That being said, there's simply no place for closed-source software in our voting process. Voting is the foundation of our political system, and we can't settle for any ambiguity in its implementation. It's not as if vote counting is a technically demanding job, and there's no argument for keeping secret the process by which it's done.
This strikes me as a clear judicial mistake (not that I've read the article... too drunk and tired, frankly). In general, our judges don't seem to understand information technology well enough to make informed decisions. They don't understand that changing the results of an election is elementary for any programmer. Isn't that concept terrifying?
Our society is enamored with the labor saving possibilities made possible by the past century's technological advances, but thus far, the understanding of these technologies in government has not matched their application. This trend must not continue if we value our republic. In the strictest sense, our system is no longer a democracy if it has no educated oversight.
Our government needs an elected body of IT experts -- some kind of technically proficient oversight body that can rule on information technology as it applies to our system of government. Without any such educated oversight, our freedom and sovereignty is bit by bit diminished, and can be turned against our people. The possibility alone demands action.
Our founding fathers certainly didn't foresee the coming of mechanical information processing, but I firmly believe they would have wanted it to be open to review by the common man. What we need now are are IT patriots willing and motivated to take up the cause.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
This is true, and yet it seems impossible to develop vote-counting software to do it accurately. I'm not referring to the 18,000 undervotes here, I'm referring to election reports in times past where it was reported that machines were counting several thousand more votes than voters in the particular precincts; while not voting in a particular race COULD result in the afo
15% undervote (Score:3, Informative)
Fix the vote, make it verifiable, even now when you think the last vote was fair, you don't know it was, nobody can show it was, and there's so much money and power at stake, the vote must be totally trusted.
Florida has a Democrat voter majority, yet elects Republicans and it is more than gerrymandering.
Score "Zip" Democracy "One" Business (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Score "Zip" Democracy "One" Business (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
finally, a black box democracy machine (Score:3, Funny)
Democracy! (Score:3, Insightful)
Proof: Try finding answers to the following on internet. (Rest of the media is a PR tool of the dictators)
1. Why no independent wins any seats.
2. Why is it always a very close battle. (e.g. 250-251)
3. What is the percentage of members that get re-elected in a communist country(say former russia) and what is the percentage in USA.
Internet is the only remaining free media but not for long. No matter what we do, it is just a matter of time before the internet is also governed by the corporate. Ways to control are already in the works.
About half of the world knows who is responsible for the 11 towers, but only a handful in usa.
The answer is on the internet. Do your own research.
Even if you could "verify" source code ... (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm not saying it's a bad idea to know the source code. I'm just saying that wouldn't eliminate most of the problem.
- Who can look at source code and certify that it cannot be hacked?
- Even if (1) were possible, who can certify that the exact source code was (the only code) resident on every machine at the time of the voting?
Furthermore, because ballots are anonymous, what do we have to tie people to votes on a one-to-one basis? Granted, the tie-in is imperfect in the paper world, but the potential for abuse seems higher in the electronic world. As I think about how a "vote hacker" might operate, it seems pretty likely to me that such a person would be motivated to cover tracks. For instance s/he would replace the source code with the evil code before the voting but would also switch it back to the source code after the voting. That's a pretty simplistic scenario. I envision that "good" e-voting security would require polling stations to begin looking like secure server rooms. That would give civil libertarians (and maybe even the rest of us) the creeps, even if it were feasible to issue every voter a security badge, etc.I'm no security expert, but is it not generally accepted that simple systems are easier to secure, all other things being equal? Pencil and paper are pretty simple, right?
Trade secrets in a voting machine?? (Score:3, Funny)
time to sort out the mess now (Score:4, Funny)
I'm really glad I live in a country that still uses pencil-and-paper votes counted by hand.
Re:Nothing tests code like the real world (Score:5, Informative)
You're misreading the article.
"Some 18,000 Sarasota County electronic ballots did not register a vote in the race, a much higher undervote rate _ nearly 15 percent _ than in others such as those for governor or U.S. Senate. Jennings contends the machines lost the votes. Buchanan backers and the company say that if there was an unusually large undervote it was likely because of bad ballot design."
There were 18,000 people who did not vote for either Jennings or Buchanan (or another option, if any). People routinely vote for "none of the above" when they dislike each of the candidates, when they have little information about the candidates, etc. You cannot refuse to accept the voter's selections once the voter has showed up at the polls and voted in even one race, because that may very well be the voter's intent. Arguably, you cannot refuse to accept a submission that contains no selections, because that too may be the voter's intent.
You are at best arguing about the sufficiency of the selection review prior to a submission. There is not enough information in the article to discuss this information, and it does not support the candidate's allegations of fraud, so that it is essentially irrelevant to the legal case taking place after the election. You're free to argue against the ballot presentation selected/entered by the various Boards of Election, but you can hardly argue based solely on the undervote that this was a programming "feature" or design defect.
Parent
Judge Gary and the butterfly ballot .. (Score:3, Interesting)
"Without the source code [heraldtribune.com], it would be very difficult or impossible for me to determine how the software behaved," Dan Wallach, Rice University
was Re:Nothing tests code like the real world
Re:Nothing tests code like the real world (Score:4, Interesting)
I have this continual argument with a friend who believes that voting should be compulsory and the spoiling the paper should be a crime - forcing you to vote for *someone*.
I argue the other way - that actually the way the voting turnout is dropping is actually healthy. People should vote for what they believe in... ideally policies, but 'he has a nice suit', although not something I'd encourage as a voting decision, is at least a positive vote.
People stay home for 4 reasons:
1. They don't believe in the system
2. They believe in the system, but are not in a marginal so believe it doesn't work for them (similar to (1)).
3. They don't like any candidate
4. They don't give a flying fuck.
I don't *want* people in 3. and 4. to vote. They'll vote randomly, introducing noise into the results. If the purpose of democracy is to elect good government (debatable in itself, probably) then making them vote is against that purpose. 1. and 2. can be sorted out by things like politicians getting off their butts and actually canvasing (thus involving the people.. I haven't seen a politician around here ever), some education, and maybe reform (smaller voting regions perhaps, making them more representative to counter 2.).
Me, I'm a 3. so a 'none of the above' answer would be great. If a politician actually bothered to even ask for my vote, or *gasp* try to tell me why I should vote for them (and party policies don't count - I don't vote for parties I vote for people) then I probably would vote positively.
Parent
Re:Nothing tests code like the real world (Score:5, Informative)
The loser says this happened because the software went all wonky. The winner says it probably happened because of poor layout -- voters didn't even find the race, or they found and misunderstood the race, or they fat-fingered the ballot.
The loser, of course, can't challenge on the misunderstood-ballot theory, because it implies that her support base is statistically more likely do do something stupid than her opponent's.
That said, I find this ruling intolerable. When the government is formed by the counting of ballots, the method of the counting must be open and available. I think it was Boss Tweed who said it best: "As long as I get to count the votes, what are you going to do about it?"
Parent
Re: Malicious inserted code (Score:3, Funny)
Don't dodge the issue (Score:3, Insightful)
Besides, that's dodging the issue. Bringing up old history doesn't help anyone. What we want to know is when our votes will start counting again. Bush has now won the Presidency twice, bot
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
This is incorrect. Ms. Jennings believes that there were abnormally high undervotes in some counties, but not others, which changed the outcome of the race. This position was supported by ES&S, the vendor of the machines, in court testimony. This didn't require all of the undervotes to be case for her, just for the undervotes to be cast consistently with the votes counted in the same counties.
To quote the local pa
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)