Would you support a law requiring electronic voting machine software to be open source?

[AFB]

Would you support a law requiring electronic voting machine software to be open source?

Edit: Non editable obviously.

 

[tfinch2]

what's the point?

 

[notfred]

Yes, I think so. Of course, the population at a whole would have no idea what the law meant, and would likely vote against it.

 

[Deeko]

good lord no. that's the worst idea I've ever heard.

 

[AFB]

Originally posted by: Deeko
good lord no. that's the worst idea I've ever heard.

Why?

I see it as asking someone to vote for you. You want to know they do it exactly as you told them.

 

[Deeko]

Why? The biggest controversy involving electronic voting is the possibility of it being hacked. If the code to the software is readily available....do you think that will decrease the likelyhood of that occuring??

 

[AgaBoogaBoo]

Originally posted by: Deeko
Why? The biggest controversy involving electronic voting is the possibility of it being hacked. If the code to the software is readily available....do you think that will decrease the likelyhood of that occuring??

Exactly.

 

[AFB]

Originally posted by: Deeko
Why? The biggest controversy involving electronic voting is the possibility of it being hacked. If the code to the software is readily available....do you think that will decrease the likelyhood of that occuring??

LMAO, the good old security through obscurity. If it can be, it will be hacked. This just prevents people from knowing about it.

 

[VictorLazlo]

I would support a law requiring it to be closed source.

 

[tweakmm]

Originally posted by: Deeko
Why? The biggest controversy involving electronic voting is the possibility of it being hacked. If the code to the software is readily available....do you think that will decrease the likelyhood of that occuring??

And at a very close second(I think these problems are tied personally) there is the controversy of partisan money hungry corporations messing with election results.

Computerized elections are a tech that should never have their time.

 

[Babbles]

I say no.

For the typical voter, the code would be meaningless. The typical voter would not be able to make heads or tails of it. I consider myself a pretty sharp person, but I don't know a blasted thing about computer code.

I think by making it open source, it makes it just that much easier for some other entity to be able to screw around with that code and foul up elections. I think there are good reasons why software applications that involve keep data very secure are not open source. I consider the vote of a person precious data that should be treated likewise.

 

Originally posted by: amdfanboy

Originally posted by: Deeko
Why? The biggest controversy involving electronic voting is the possibility of it being hacked. If the code to the software is readily available....do you think that will decrease the likelyhood of that occuring??

LMAO, the good old security through obscurity. If it can be, it will be hacked. This just prevents people from knowing about it.

So is it better to let everyone have the entire source to the software that operates these machines?
Then anyone would have ample amounts of time to sift through the code and exploit it in so any more ways.

 

[NogginBoink]

No.

Competition is necessary to promote quality.

 

[Deeko]

Originally posted by: amdfanboy

Originally posted by: Deeko
Why? The biggest controversy involving electronic voting is the possibility of it being hacked. If the code to the software is readily available....do you think that will decrease the likelyhood of that occuring??

LMAO, the good old security through obscurity. If it can be, it will be hacked. This just prevents people from knowing about it.

Sure, but if the code is available to the public, the likelihood of it occuring increases 100 fold. If you can't see that, something is wrong with you.

 

[desteffy]

Anyone who really understands open source will say yes to this.

The unfortunate thing is that many people in america are very ignorant and confused about this topic and are therefore scared of it and dont see the benefit.

 

[SuperTool]

I want it to leave a paper trail. Whether it's open source or not is up to it.

 

[desteffy]

From a NYT article:

Election officials like to say that electronic voting is as secure as it can be, but that is false. Nevada regulators, for example, impose far more stringent checks on slot machines than any state does on electronic voting. Congress should impose much more rigorous safeguards, including a requirement that all computer code be made public. It should require that all electronic machines produce a voter-verified paper trail.

link

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: SampSon

Originally posted by: amdfanboy

Originally posted by: Deeko
Why? The biggest controversy involving electronic voting is the possibility of it being hacked. If the code to the software is readily available....do you think that will decrease the likelyhood of that occuring??

LMAO, the good old security through obscurity. If it can be, it will be hacked. This just prevents people from knowing about it.

So is it better to let everyone have the entire source to the software that operates these machines?
Then anyone would have ample amounts of time to sift through the code and exploit it in so any more ways.

Yes. Not all of the people going through code for security audits are evil hax0rz. F/OSS can be much more secure than closed source.

I don't like electronic voting, I think it should be outlawed.

 

[Toastedlightly]

I say no. It would make it easier to find holes and could destroy the security of it. It could also work both ways.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: Toastedlightly
I say no. It would make it easier to find holes and could destroy the security of it. It could also work both ways.

I say yes. It would make it easier to find the holes and increase the security of it.

 

[n0cmonkey]

It also adds accountability.

 

[George P Burdell]

Originally posted by: AgaBoogaBoo

Originally posted by: Deeko
Why? The biggest controversy involving electronic voting is the possibility of it being hacked. If the code to the software is readily available....do you think that will decrease the likelyhood of that occuring??

Exactly.

yup. i'll trust anything put to the public test. if you have time, watch this. if you don't. open the video anyway and skip to the midway point. after a min or two, the lady shows leaked diebold code.... they store all the counted vote in ACCESS files on a windows computer. she showed how you could change the result of an election in a county in less than 90 seconds.

propoganda? maybe. but if diebold is so sure their code works, why are they scared to let people check it? not checking the code is like you going to the poll to find a guy hidden behind a curtain, he asks you who you're voting for, you tell him, he writes it down on a ballot and puts it in the box. BUT, you didn't see what he wrote and you don't have any way to find out coz the ballot is inside the box. would you EVER do an election this way? well, if you e-voted, you just did.

 

[FoBoT]

i think running voting machines with MS Windows is stupid

a single purpose machine doesn't need a multipurpose OS under the software

 

[AFB]

Originally posted by: FoBoT
i think running voting machines with MS Windows is stupid

a single purpose machine doesn't need a multipurpose OS under the software

But it's soooo much work to write ir from scratch when you can just wip up some VB.NET and block Ctrl-Alt-Del.

 

[EyeMWing]

Originally posted by: amdfanboy

Originally posted by: Deeko
good lord no. that's the worst idea I've ever heard.

Why?

I see it as asking someone to vote for you. You want to know they do it exactly as you told them.

And have people know exactly how to exploit it? The voting machines would cost $8457834574374329348 due to the utterly-bulletproof-software that it would require.