Re: Voting machine security
On Mon, Aug 18, 2008 at 10:16:02AM -0700, Paul Hoffman wrote: [...] Essentially no one would argue that is is quite expensive. I suspect that nearly everyone in the country would be happy to pay an additional $1/election for more reliable results. Without seeing all of the expense (and likely inability) of securing and ensuring the proper count from the machine, people look at the problem and go computers are good at counting things fast and people aren't, so it must therefore be massively cheaper to have a computer do the count. If you're just talking about summing a few lists, that's true. But of course, no one who doesn't work for a voting machine company is just talking about summing a few lists. The idea that after you factor in everything, it might actually be cheaper to have people do it after all, is a very difficult one for many people to even conceptualize. Progress demands that computers do all menial tasks. -- - Adam ** Expert Technical Project and Business Management System Performance Analysis and Architecture ** [ http://www.adamfields.com ] [ http://www.morningside-analytics.com ] .. Latest Venture [ http://www.confabb.com ] Founder [ http://www.aquick.org/blog ] Blog [ http://www.adamfields.com/resume.html ].. Experience [ http://www.flickr.com/photos/fields ] ... Photos [ http://www.aquicki.com/wiki ].Wiki - The Cryptography Mailing List Unsubscribe by sending unsubscribe cryptography to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Voting machine security
On Fri, Aug 15, 2008 at 11:57 AM, John Ioannidis [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: This just about sums it up: http://xkcd.com/463/ Only slightly better then suggested by the comic. McAfee anti-virus software was on the servers, not the DRE voting machines themselves. From http://www.middletownjournal.com/n/content/oh/story/news/local/2008/08/06/ddn080608votingweb.html Premier spokesman Chris Riggall had not seen the counterclaim [breach-of-contract lawsuit counterclaim filed by the Ohio Secretary of State] and declined comment on it. But he blamed the vote tabulation problems on McAfee anti-virus software on computer servers. -Michael Heyman - The Cryptography Mailing List Unsubscribe by sending unsubscribe cryptography to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Voting machine security
At 9:24 AM -0700 8/18/08, Eric Rescorla wrote: (and because of the complexity of US elections, hand counting is quite expensive) This is quite disputable. Further, hand vs. machine counting is core to the way we think about the security of the voting system. On a complex ballot, there are maybe 20 races or propositions, some of which may allow multiple votes per race. The pre-electronic method for hand-counting these was to start with race #1, have one person reading each vote out load from a large stack of ballots, and another person tabulating. In most districts, this is done twice with different people doing the counting and, often, those people coming from the opposite party in our wonderful two-party system. The numbers I saw in the late 1970's said that each vote took 2.5 seconds per ballot per race when done slowly; so that's 5 seconds when run twice. Per complex ballot, that's about 100 seconds, or roughly 2 minutes, or roughly 1/30 of an hour. At current labor rates of $12/hour for this type of work (that's high, but we want qualified people to count), that means it costs about US$0.40 per ballot for a complex ballot. Essentially no one would argue that is is quite expensive. I suspect that nearly everyone in the country would be happy to pay an additional $1/election for more reliable results. --Paul Hoffman, Director --VPN Consortium - The Cryptography Mailing List Unsubscribe by sending unsubscribe cryptography to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Voting machine security
Paul Hoffman writes: -+-- | At 9:24 AM -0700 8/18/08, Eric Rescorla wrote: | (and because of the complexity of US elections, | hand counting is quite expensive) | | This is quite disputable. Further, hand vs. machine counting is core | to the way we think about the security of the voting system. | The keynote talk for the USENIX Security Symposium was Dr. Strangevote or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Paper Ballot Debra Bowen, California Secretary of State and her talk had one slide only. I do not have the slide, but I can reproduce it. It was a photo of the tail end of her car and on it a bumper sticker. That bumper sticker read PREVENT UNWANTED PRESIDENCIES MAKE VOTE COUNTING A HAND JOB In no other state could a Constitutional Officer get away with such a bumper sticker, but... --dan - The Cryptography Mailing List Unsubscribe by sending unsubscribe cryptography to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
