Wednesday, November 05, 2003

Diebold's "disconcerting" digital deception

I can't say I'm at all surprised to read today that Diebold has been accused of installing uncertified software on their voting machines, and this time by the California Assistant Secretary of State no less. Diebold officials "seemed surprised" - I don't blame them. After every warning about the dubious security of Diebold systems and their practices had been ignored across the country I guess they thought they were home free to do whatever they want with our voting system.

For an external view of what other countries think of some of Diebold's "features" you should read about how one Australian company approached developing an e-voting system. In their system public exposure of the source code is part of the software development process, and not just a flaw in the secrecy used to protect otherwise unknown software code. Most people are starting to inherently doubt any claim of security based on secrecy within a collection of people who's trustworthyness is largely based on financial reward. After all if your trustworthiness is based on money then it stands to reason when the price is right secrets always have a way of leaking into untrustworthy hands. As the saying goes "money talks".

For me, I'll continue to trust Diebold voting systems about as far as I could throw one. Which, by the looks of things isn't going to be very far.

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