Politics

D.C. Suspends Tests of Online Voting System | Slashdot

Posted on by Matt Woodward

One of the articles mentioned that some browsers submitted blank forms because they don’t support inline PDF forms. Who, exactly, thought that using PDF was a good idea? The whole point of the web is that it provides layout standards. Why even bother using a web browser if you’re just going to try to hack around it by using a completely different content format, PDF, shoved in using browser plug-ins. It might has well have been Flash. Use the web or do not. There is no halfway.

My jaw hit the floor when I read this. I’m not sure how you can get so incredibly far afield with what should be a pretty simple system. The group developing the system DC was testing needs some serious help if they’re sticking PDFs in a browser and calling it online voting. So incredibly unnecessary I can’t even begin to fathom how they wound up with this as a solution.

Guest Column: On TSA Laptop Searches | GamePolitics

Posted on by Matt Woodward

Domestic travelers have become familiar with intrusions and searches at Transportation Security Administration security checkpoints. But as the ACLU has recently discovered, international travelers are not only having their laptops seized and searched by Customs and Border Protection, but agents are making copies of files and giving them to third-party agencies. The ACLU filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the government, which turned over hundreds of pages of documents revealing startling information about how much access—and how little oversight—agents have to your gaming laptops when you travel.

I’m not quite sure why this is even remotely acceptable in a free society. Maybe I’m being naive, but from a legal standpoint why can’t people simply say “hell no” if some jackass from the TSA starts copying files from your hard drive to give to a third party? Have we really lost this much freedom?

Sequoia To Publish Source Code For Voting Machines

Posted on by Matt Woodward

“Voting machine maker Sequoia announced on Tuesday that they plan to release the source code for their new optical-scan voting machine. The source code will be released in November for public review. The company claims the announcement is unrelated to the recent release of the source code for a prototype voting machine by the Open Source Digital Voting Foundation. According to a VP quoted in the press release, ‘Security through obfuscation and secrecy is not security.'”

Not that I care about Diebold, er, Sequoia releasing their source code because if anything ever needed a ground-up grassroots effort it’s voting machine software, but has this been a great week for FLOSS FUD killing or what?

First we get the White House moving to Drupal, then we have the Department of Defense stating they prefer open source because it’s more flexible and secure, and now this. Very cool.

Personally I think this is a pre-emptive PR move on Diebold/Sequoia’s part because of the previous announcement by the Open Source Digital Voting Foundation, so it remains to be seen if they ever actually open source the code. All they say is they have “plans to” do so.

Sequoia Voting Systems Source Code Released

Posted on by Matt Woodward

What was revealed was thousands of lines of MS-SQL source code that appears to control or at least influence the logical flow of the election, in violation of a bunch of clauses in the FEC voting system rulebook banning interpreted code, machine modified code and mandating hash checks of voting system code.

My jaw hit the floor when I saw this. I’m very passionate about open source voting systems so I hope this is yet one more nail in the coffin for the company formerly known as Diebold. Elections cannot continue to work this way.

Note that you can download or study the code yourself and that this, according to the Election Defense Alliance, is “the first time the innards of a US voting system can be downloaded and discussed publicly with no NDAs or court-ordered secrecy.”

Let’s hope this turns into a big development in the move for reliable, open source voting machines nationwide.