4 ms·

The concept of xyz "villages" at DefCon was always pretty silly. Very little, if anything, new is going to come out when people have no real time or access to t

by rhexs 8y ago

The concept of xyz "villages" at DefCon was always pretty silly. Very little, if anything, new is going to come out when people have no real time or access to these devices. Combine that with the technical skill of the average attendee and you get results like this. Anyone in security could threat model every single of these attacks on the back of a napkin in about six minutes. It is sad that you can replace hard drives in voting machines, but of course that's expected and rather obvious. It'd be neat if DefCon would use some of its money and sponsor a device roadshow. Ship these things around to different labs and makerspaces for month long stints. Sign up someone who has a vague idea of what he or she is doing that can guide and teach others on weekends. Let people do real work and not just marketing.

Klathmon 8y ago
I'm almost positive they would if they could, but the companies making these machines keep and iron grip on them. And sometimes they do so with the threat of very serious criminal charges. It's just another reason why voting machines (or vote counting machines) are so dangerous. Even if the public had the ability to audit and verify the machines are working correctly, they aren't allowed to.
NikolaeVarius 8y ago
They tried to. The companies manufacturing the devices refused.
- pbhjpbhj 8y ago
  Rule one (1) for voting machines should be something along the lines of making examples available for testing to all main political parties; and at cost price to all people who are electoral candidates. The parties then can have them analysed and choose whether to use them or not, perhaps something like all those with more than 10% of the vote previously could decide whether to use machines or human counting; full consensus required. Rule two (2) should be something along the lines of all votes requiring an agreed sampling to be counted via alternative methods. You could even have a sample of electoral wards not use the machines at all - that would suggest irregularities if there was tampering, as the hand [machine] counted wards would have different voting preferences to the others.

by rhexs 8y ago

Klathmon 8y ago

I'm almost positive they would if they could, but the companies making these machines keep and iron grip on them. And sometimes they do so with the threat of very serious criminal charges. It's just another reason why voting machines (or vote counting machines) are so dangerous. Even if the public had the ability to audit and verify the machines are working correctly, they aren't allowed to.

NikolaeVarius 8y ago

They tried to. The companies manufacturing the devices refused.

pbhjpbhj 8y ago
Rule one (1) for voting machines should be something along the lines of making examples available for testing to all main political parties; and at cost price to all people who are electoral candidates. The parties then can have them analysed and choose whether to use them or not, perhaps something like all those with more than 10% of the vote previously could decide whether to use machines or human counting; full consensus required. Rule two (2) should be something along the lines of all votes requiring an agreed sampling to be counted via alternative methods. You could even have a sample of electoral wards not use the machines at all - that would suggest irregularities if there was tampering, as the hand [machine] counted wards would have different voting preferences to the others.