Diebold in the Wrong Business
Posted on May 14, 2006
Filed Under /dev/null/ | 68 views |
Yet again issues are being raised with the security of Diebold electronic voting machines. The company seems pathologically hell-bent on not making voting as secure as they possibly can (interestingly enough the same company makes extremely secure ATM machines - evidently a vote is not worth as much as a dollar).
The latest security flaw allows anyone with access to a machine to manipulate vote totals or install new software on the machines. Diebold doesn’t seem to think this will happen:
Computer scientists who have studied the vulnerability say the flaw might allow someone with brief access to a voting machine and with knowledge of computer code to tamper with the machine’s software, and even, potentially, to spread malicious code to other parts of the voting system.
…
David Bear, a spokesman for Diebold Election Systems, said the potential risk existed because the company’s technicians had intentionally built the machines in such a way that election officials would be able to update their systems in years ahead.“For there to be a problem here, you’re basically assuming a premise where you have some evil and nefarious election officials who would sneak in and introduce a piece of software,” he said. “I don’t believe these evil elections people exist.”
Of course he doesn’t. Who’d ever be corruptable? Besides, it’s nothing $100, 000 wouldn’t fix. The election I mean.
With nearly a decade of well-documented incompetence in this area, Diebold is truly a company in the wrong business.
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