Hackers Break into Diebold Voting Machines

The Washington Post has a story About how easy it is to hack Diebold's electronic voting machines. Are we looking at another "narrow win" for the Republicans next election? Unfortunately, without a paper record as proof of how you voted, there can be no recount.

Zachary Goldfarb of The Washington Post writes:

Four times over the past year Sancho told computer specialists to break in to his voting system. And on all four occasions they did, changing results with what the specialists described as relatively unsophisticated hacking techniques. To Sancho, the results showed the vulnerability of voting equipment manufactured by Ohio-based Diebold Election Systems, which is used by Leon County and many other jurisdictions around the country.

Sancho's most recent demonstration was last month. Harri Hursti, a computer security expert from Finland, manipulated the "memory card" that records the votes of ballots run through an optical scanning machine.

Then, in a warehouse a few blocks from his office in downtown Tallahassee, Sancho and seven other people held a referendum. The question on the ballot:

"Can the votes of this Diebold system be hacked using the memory card?"

Two people marked yes on their ballots, and six no. The optical scan machine read the ballots, and the data were transmitted to a final tabulator. The result? Seven yes, one no.

Have a nice day and thank you for voting DeLay.

The entire article can be found here:
Hackers Break into Diebold Voting Machines

Technorati tags: Election, Vote, Diebold, Hacker