THE GOOD NEWS
As Dr. Jones points out, there's one advantage to this pack design. Honest
election officials can separate the scanner body from the pack and send the
large bulky scanner out to the field (precinct) days or weeks ahead of the
election.
Tampering with scanners that are missing the pack isn't really possible (other
than
to simply vandalize it) because the "brains" aren't present to tamper with. It's
the
"memory pack" that needs to be held in strict security. The memory pack can
later
be hand-carried to the precinct by a group of poll workers and plugged into the
scanner on election morning.
THE BAD NEWS
One reason the Hursti hack in Leon County resulted in a failure is that
Diebold's
memory device holding the votes and critical programs is both read-write
(tamperable)
and reader/writer devices like the Crop Scanner are available commercially to
alter the cards.
The ES&S/Sequoia memory pack has a funky connector. It should be even more
secure, right?
Not exactly.
JIM'S RIG-A-VOTE RECIPE
1. Unscrew the top of the pack.
The most critical chip holding the ballot/candidate/precinct layouts is sitting
right there
in an easy-access socket.
2. Find a chip burner. Once the chip is out with a screwdriver, you can find
alteration
devices (chip burner) for that chip even more easily that you can find the Crop
Scanner.
Tip for finding a read/write device: The chips is called an "EPROM" -
Electrically
Programmable Read Only Memory .
Here are some examples:
http://www.stag.co.uk/products/eeprom_programmer.htm
http://www.action2k.com/topmax.htm
http://www.elettronicaceleste.com/celeste/programmatore_eeprom/sp280_uk.htm
3. Put the chip in the chip burner device connected to a PC and read the
contents.
Edit at will using your PC.
4. Peel the sticker off the back of the EPROM, exposing a glass window. This
makes the actual silicon surface visible through the glass. It's a neat looking
critter,
shiny and with lots of tiny circuits that geeks will love.
5. Put the chip in a tiny mouse-sized tanning booth. No, we're not kidding -
exposure
to UV light for 25 minutes erases EPROMs. (Warning: We do not recommend putting
in an actual mouse unless you can find very small sunglasses for him.)
As Dr. Jones points out, there's one advantage to this pack design. Honest
election officials can separate the scanner body from the pack and send the
large bulky scanner out to the field (precinct) days or weeks ahead of the
election.
Tampering with scanners that are missing the pack isn't really possible (other
than
to simply vandalize it) because the "brains" aren't present to tamper with. It's
the
"memory pack" that needs to be held in strict security. The memory pack can
later
be hand-carried to the precinct by a group of poll workers and plugged into the
scanner on election morning.
THE BAD NEWS
One reason the Hursti hack in Leon County resulted in a failure is that
Diebold's
memory device holding the votes and critical programs is both read-write
(tamperable)
and reader/writer devices like the Crop Scanner are available commercially to
alter the cards.
secure, right?
Not exactly.
JIM'S RIG-A-VOTE RECIPE
1. Unscrew the top of the pack.
The most critical chip holding the ballot/candidate/precinct layouts is sitting
right there
in an easy-access socket.
2. Find a chip burner. Once the chip is out with a screwdriver, you can find
alteration
devices (chip burner) for that chip even more easily that you can find the Crop
Scanner.
Tip for finding a read/write device: The chips is called an "EPROM" -
Electrically
Programmable Read Only Memory .
Here are some examples:
http://www.stag.co.uk/products/eeprom_programmer.htm
http://www.action2k.com/topmax.htm
http://www.elettronicaceleste.com/celeste/programmatore_eeprom/sp280_uk.htm
3. Put the chip in the chip burner device connected to a PC and read the
contents.
Edit at will using your PC.
4. Peel the sticker off the back of the EPROM, exposing a glass window. This
makes the actual silicon surface visible through the glass. It's a neat looking
critter,
shiny and with lots of tiny circuits that geeks will love.
5. Put the chip in a tiny mouse-sized tanning booth. No, we're not kidding -
exposure
to UV light for 25 minutes erases EPROMs. (Warning: We do not recommend putting
in an actual mouse unless you can find very small sunglasses for him.)
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