Whats taking so long in that voting booth?
Edward Felten over at Freedom to Tinker has two amazing posts (one, two) about bugs in popular electronic voting machines that, if true, make it possible for just about anyone with a $50 smart card kit to vote multiple times and otherwise seriously tamper with the election. Actually “bugs” is not the right word. The problems stem from a design so stupid that it’s hard to spot the specific error. Like someone once said, “This so far off it’s not even wrong.” Google thinks that someone was Wolfgang Pauli. I’ve put together the following technical illustration to explain the problem: Here’s a slight variation on the “conversation” from Edward’s first post. It won’t make sense until you’ve read the original. terminal to card: “My password is 1234” card to terminal: “la la la la la la la la la la” terminal to card: “Are you a valid card?” card to terminal: “No. I mean yes!” terminal to card: “Please deactivate yourself.” card to terminal: “Whatever you say, spaceman.” For the record, I cann
