After analysing thousands of lines of code, the three researchers from the ISI, assisted by a computer scientist from Rice University in Houston, expressed serious misgivings about the system.
They said they came across vulnerabilities in the system that created a window of opportunity for those who wanted to tamper with election results. The researchers pointed to the smartcard that each voter receives containing a microchip. The card is inserted into the e-voting machine and is designed to allow a citizen to vote only once.
However, the researchers believe that an individual could use a counterfeit card specially programmed to sanction the casting of multiple votes. Though the researchers point out that there is no evidence that this type of tampering took place during any US elections, they say it is certain to occur if the system's shortcomings are not addressed.
While carrying out their research, the participants only looked at files that were publicly accessible, they did not test the vulnerabilities of other files that were protected by passwords. "Many attacks are simple," said Yoshi Kohno, PhD student in computers at the ISI, who worked on researching the system. "It is unfortunate to find such flaws in a system potentially as important as this one," Kohno added. Adam Stubblefield, another ISI computer science PhD student involved of the research, said that when people are voting, they have to believe the election is fair.
In recent years, pundits have claimed that the Irish electorate is already plagued with apathy and cynicism towards the government, with proof of this in the low voter turnout in recent elections and referenda. What's more, e-voting, which was introduced to Ireland last year, is due to be used on a more wide-scale basis in subsequent elections and if rumours of fraud or insecure systems begin to circulate, voter apathy could grow.
However, Roy Loudon of Powervote Nedap UK responded to the ISI research in an e-mail to ElectricNews.Net, in which he said Irish e-voting machines are not vulnerable to similar failures. Powervote Nedap manufactures the machines are used for Ireland's e-voting system.
"Powervote system does not use any smartcard for activation of the voting machine. We view smartcards as a potential failure mechanism," Loudon wrote. "Reliability and security is key to the success of any voting machine."
With the Powervote system Irish voters register as they usually do at the polling station and if there are no problems at the registration stage, they are given a voter ticket. They will give the ticket to a member of the polling station staff who activates the e-voting machine via a control panel. When the voter is finished and they have pressed the 'Cast Vote' button, the machine is automatically deactivated until the next voter enters the booth.
The ISI research has come the same week the US state of Maryland submitted an order to Diebold for electronic voting equipment order valued at up to USD55.6 million.
Quelle: electricnews.net
