dynagirl

I haven’t seen this story get much play outside the internet, so here ya go. A team of computer experts researched just how easy it is to rig/hack the Diebold electronic voting machines. (Oh, and does it suprise you that Diebold is a major money contributor to the GOP?)

On Jan. 19, a team of computer scientists working with RABA Technologies set up a red-team exercise — a one-day attempt to hack into Diebold machines configured as they would be on Election Day. They were successful. In a short time, the hackers managed to guess the passwords securing the voting system, allowing them to cast multiple ballots. They found that with a standard lock-pick set, they could inconspicuously open up each machine — sometimes in less than 10 seconds — and remove or attach various pieces of hardware, letting them erase or change electronic ballots.

“We could have done anything we wanted to,” Arbaugh said. “We could change the ballots (before the election) or change the votes during the election.”

More fun but equally informative is the This American Life piece featuring correspondents actually hacking into real election boxes in episode #250, The Annoying Gap Between Theory and Practice. (Link goes to Real Audio story.)