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Voting Fraud
This was taken from a blogger by the name of Brad who has put together some very important information concerning voting machines and how easily they can be manipulated without a trace.
Date: 2/25/2006 6:35:09 AM ( 18 y ) ... viewed 1974 times Why do Diebold's Touch-Screen Voting Machines Have Built-In Wireless Infrared Data Transfer Ports?
IrDA Protocol Can 'Totally Compromise System' Without Detection, Warns Federal Voting Standards Website
So far, no state or federal authority -- to our knowledge -- has dealt with this alarming security threat
We hate to pile on... (Or do we?)
But, really, with all the recent discussion
of California Sec. of State Bruce McPherson's mind-blowing about-face
re-certification of Diebold -- against state law, we hasten to add --
this may be a good time to point out one small item that we've been
meaning to mention for a while.
As Jody Holder's recent comment
points out, McPherson's silly "conditions" for re-certification of
Diebold in California require a few much-less-than-adequate knee-jerk
"safe guards" towards protection of the handling of the hackable memory
cards in Diebold's voting machines. (Here's McP's full "Certificate of Conditional Certification").
Never
mind, as Holder mentions, that the protective seals to be required are
easily peeled away without tearing. Or that such voting machines have
been stored in poll workers houses for weeks leading up to an election.
More to the point, for the moment, there are ways to manipulate the
information on those memory cards even without removing them or
breaking the seals. This is more of a concern than ever, since it was
recently proven, by the now-infamous Harri Hursti hack
in Leon County, FL, that changing the information on the memory cards
can force election results to be flipped...without a trace being left
behind.
On that note, here's the little item we've been meaning
to point out. It's a photograph from the side of a Diebold AccuVote TSx
touch-screen voting machine:
Now we have no idea what that "IrDA" port is meant
to be used for with a touch-screen voting machine, but we do know that
the IrDA (Infrared Data Association) is an Infrared port used for
wireless connection between two devices. We used to have one on the
back of our notebook and desktop computers which we used to keep the
two systems synched up via wireless data transfers over that Infrared
port.
A few election watchdog groups, including some members of
the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) who works
with the federal authorities on these matters, have issued warnings
about the IrDA port and protocols on voting machines. However, little
-- if anything -- seems to have been done to mitigate the rather
obvious security threat posed, as far as we can tell.
Here's how a page at Microsoft.com,
last updated December 4, 2001, explains cable-free Infrafred data
transfer on the Microsoft Windows CE operating system (the operating
system which happens to be used in Diebold's AccuVote touch-screen
voting machines -- like the one pictured above)...
There ya go.
 The
issue of the IrDA port on touch-screen voting machines hasn't been much
discussed as far as we can tell. VotersUnite.org issued an alert mentioning it, with a photograph (seen at right), back on October 26, 2004. The alert warned:
3) A dangerous port on the Diebold touch screen!!
This
from TrueVoteMD: Diebold AccuVote TS electronic voting machines have an
infrared (IrDA) port installed. This is a remote communication port
through which another remote device could communicate with the touch
screen and change either its data or its software or both.
If
your county uses Diebold touch screens, let your county officials and
election judges know that it is crucial to cover the IR port with
opaque tape.
The National Institute for Standards and
Technology (NIST) -- who works with the federal Election Assistance
Commission (EAC) to develop and recommend guidelines for electronic
voting machines -- issued a similar warning [PDF]
about the Infrared ports on voting machines in a report which warned
"The use of short range optical wireless," like infrared, "particularly
on Election Day should not be allowed."
As mentioned, since
touch-screen machines have been stored at poll workers' houses and
other unsecured locations prior to Election Day, and since data can be
transferred to the machines and their memory cards via Infrared -- even
without removing the cards or breaking their protective seals -- the
IrDA ports would seem to be a tremendous concern.
The NIST report discusses such concerns and some of the troubling security issues with IrDA protocols:
How Secure is IrDA
IrDA does not provide encryption at the Physical Layer, and depends on the end systems to implement security if any.
...
With
optical, it is possible for a session to be ‘hijacked’ unless strong
authentication measures are implemented between communicating systems.
When a session is hijacked, a foreign device masquerades as a trusted
system that is authorized to exchange data. Because the system has no
way to distinguish the masquerader from the authorized system, it will
accept anything from it as if [sic] was authorized.
The
undated report -- from the EAC's own standards body, NIST -- then goes
on to describe how simple and readily available IrDA software drivers
are to obtain for use with UNIX and most Windows Operating Systems,
including Windows CE. As well, it points out that such software could
add executable code to the machines on, or prior to, Election Day and
could then delete itself after ithe code has completed its main purpose
[emphasis ours]:
IrDA Software
IrDA software drivers are available form [sic]
a number of sources for use with UNIX, Windows and other Operating
Systems (OS). Most versions of MS Windows come with support for IrDA
already included. This is true of the MS Windows CE operating system as
well as Windows XP. Microsoft also provides a free IrDA driver which
can be downloaded from it web site. Other suppliers of IrDA systems
(e.g., Ericsson) offer their own drivers including source code (Texas
Inurnments [sic]).
With the source code available, an
interrupt handler (executable code) could easily be added. For example,
when the voting terminal receives a special bit configuration (caused
by holding down multiple keys concurrently) that is outside the usually
accepted range, a special interrupt could be generated invoking a
handler that could be programmed to perform any desired function. This
would require a small amount of code and could easily be hidden; such
code would be difficult to discover.
If such code was installed
in the driver, which is considered to be Commercial-Off-The-Shelf
(COTS) [even if compiled and installed by the voting system
manufacturer] it would not be examined by the ITAs [the federal Independent Testing Authorities].
Code in such a handler could be designed to place the voting terminal in a mode where it downloads and install [sic]
an executable module, thus allowing unapproved logic to be added to the
voting machine while in use on Election Day. Obviously this executable
could perform any function the programmer desired including deleting
itself when finished. The only recourse is to disallow communications
with the voting terminal during use. It might be augured [sic] that such code could be added the day before Election Day.
Obviously, that last paragraph is very troubling. But also note the section about COTS.
The
source code for that "Commercial-Off-The-Shelf" software is what
Diebold recently argued that they couldn't provide to North Carolina
after they changed their law to require all voting machine vendors to
submit such code in order to receive state certification. Diebold went to state court arguing they shouldn't be forced to supply the source code for COTS software. Eventually, they lost that battle, and notified
North Carolina they preferred to pull out of the state entirely (if the
state wouldn't change the law for them) rather than complying with the
state law requiring the submission of all such source code.
And another comment posted to NIST's voting website [PDF]
by James C. Johnson on October 5, 2005, also discusses the concern,
revealing that the use of the IrDA protocols could be used at any time,
even after final "Logic and Accuracy" tests have been performed, and
thus "totally compromising the system":
In
Diebold System's AccuVote TS systems these [IrDA] ports are supported
using Microsoft's Windows CE with Winsock. This makes the application
interface easy to program to, and all required drivers are already
installed in the OS.
It is interesting that the VVSG [Voluntary
Voting System Guidelines] currently under development, while mentioning
this technology does nothing to restrict or prevent its use, not even
on Election Day.
It is understandable that communications
technology be used for pre election preparation, but is totally
irresponsible and inexcusable to allow it to be used during an
election. The presence of this technology makes it possible to upload
to the voting system anything that is desired after the final "Logic
and Accuracy" test have been performed, thus totally compromising the
system.
Perhaps some of you have additional thoughts on
this matter. Like why such a port would be needed, or even present, on
a touch-screen voting machine at all. And why the existence of
such a port -- to our knowledge -- has hardly been discussed at all in
conjuction with these machines. Especially in light of the now-infamous
Leon County, FL "hack test"
proving that executable code can be added to Diebold's memory cards
resulting in a completely flipped election...as we've said...without a
trace being left behind.
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