Voting machine source-code leak shows election-rigging subroutines?
Sequouia, a company that makes many of the electronic voting machines used in the US and elsewhere, has inadvertently leaked much of the secret source-code that powers its systems. The first cut at analysis shows what looks like illegal election-rigging code (“code that appears to control or at least influence the logical flow of the election”) in the source.
Sequoia blew it on a public records response. We (basically EDA) have election databases from Riverside County that Sequoia insisted on “redacting” first, for which we paid cold cash. They appear instead to have just vandalized the data as valid databases by stripping the MS-SQL header data off, assuming that would stop us cold.
They were wrong.
The Linux “strings” command was able to peel it apart. Nedit was able to digest 800meg text files. What was revealed was thousands of lines of MS-SQL source code that appears to control or at least influence the logical flow of the election, in violation of a bunch of clauses in the FEC voting system rulebook banning interpreted code, machine modified code and mandating hash checks of voting system code.
I've got it all organized for commentary and download in wiki form.
This is the first time we can legally study a voting system's innards without NDAs or court-ordered secrecy.
Sequoia Voting Systems hacks self in foot (via MeFi)
via Voting machine source-code leak shows election-rigging subroutines? Boing Boing.
To the chagrin of friends from IT to the Academe etc. I’ve always been optimistic in the computerization of elections in the Philippines. Articles like this gives me pause.