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"What's inside the AVC Edge? It has a 486 SLE processor and 32 MB of RAM—similar specs to a 20-year-old PC. The election software is stored on an internal Comp

by limist 16y ago

"What's inside the AVC Edge? It has a 486 SLE processor and 32 MB of RAM—similar specs to a 20-year-old PC. The election software is stored on an internal CompactFlash memory card. Modifying it is as simple as removing the card and inserting it into a PC." Seems to be a history of dubious competence for this machine and company: http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:vVOdcOpBZ_EJ:w2.eff.org/Activism/E-voting/20040818_sequoia_avc_edge_v0.8.pdf+sequoia+avc+edge&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESjhaOTNsoZUzCrBrCwzpVGX2LU5gtwvjm1wWeCnLdAgglQ8UhhRlyTAQHBGuvk39zoOQzDx1oShg6biPbFhYSSg5Q-O9kyEdIrvsrNw7yKORyq1eez_0rINvKuvvJHsIPK3wmYY&sig=AHIEtbSRJi1WRVDG0rlwkgZx2BFX_DfRFA http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:vVOdcOpBZ_EJ:w... http://sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Sequoia_AVC_Edge http://sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Sequoia_AVC_Edge

varjag 16y ago
Mind you, this could be because they were - spending years on certification and legal compliance of hardware to many jurisdictions - already had an old and tried platform that is powerful enough to do the job Before anyone cries "obsolete", be aware that e.g. your Canon digital cameras run a DOS clone (ROM-DOS) on similar CPUs. You don't really have to have quad core everywhere just because you can. But of course it doesn't address the whole seals fiasco.
jacquesm 16y ago
I'm not too shocked by the use of the processor, that may very well have something to do with reliability. You'd be surprised how demanding industry is in this respect, and it's not rare at all to find what you'd class as 'ancient' hardware when it comes to doing jobs where you have to make the results reliable. Not saying that was the case here, but it could be, also I'm imagining these boards might be run from a battery backed-up power supply so they may want to have them consume as little power as possible (that's a guess though, but I can imagine that if your election is in an area where there is a power failure you don't want to lose the results). Compare for instance with avionics and stuff on space flights. If crashing is not an option the rules about hardware change dramatically. It's a pity the article does not say whether the ram was ECC ram or not, that would be a hint that this is not just a way to be 'cheap'.

by limist 16y ago

varjag 16y ago

Mind you, this could be because they were - spending years on certification and legal compliance of hardware to many jurisdictions - already had an old and tried platform that is powerful enough to do the job Before anyone cries "obsolete", be aware that e.g. your Canon digital cameras run a DOS clone (ROM-DOS) on similar CPUs. You don't really have to have quad core everywhere just because you can. But of course it doesn't address the whole seals fiasco.

jacquesm 16y ago

I'm not too shocked by the use of the processor, that may very well have something to do with reliability. You'd be surprised how demanding industry is in this respect, and it's not rare at all to find what you'd class as 'ancient' hardware when it comes to doing jobs where you have to make the results reliable. Not saying that was the case here, but it could be, also I'm imagining these boards might be run from a battery backed-up power supply so they may want to have them consume as little power as possible (that's a guess though, but I can imagine that if your election is in an area where there is a power failure you don't want to lose the results). Compare for instance with avionics and stuff on space flights. If crashing is not an option the rules about hardware change dramatically. It's a pity the article does not say whether the ram was ECC ram or not, that would be a hint that this is not just a way to be 'cheap'.