Diebold Accuvote not so Accurate

CONSPIRACY THEORISTS, GET YOUR TIN-FOIL HATS READY, for researchers at Princeton have demonstrated a simple, quick and undetectable way to hack the ever-popular Diebold Accuvote electronic voting terminals, which runs on the ancient version 3.0 of Windows CE, to skew the results of an election.

A full technical description has been made available, and shows a method by which malicious software could be introduced to the machine in a matter of minutes. Not only will the votes be mysteriously redirected to the other candidate, but also the record trail of logs and counters will be modified, covering up any trace of its presence.

It can also work out when an accuracy test is being conducted, and in this case will work correctly so that nothing untowards is spotted. Furthermore, the software self-destructs at the end of the election, deleting itself and making the machine appear identical to a non-hacked one.

You can watch a video on the Princeton site that shows the hack in progress, with George Washington mysteriously losing the election to Benedict Arnold, despite receiving more votes.

Scary stuff. So it's a good job that politicians are eminently trustable then, isn't it? µ

L'INQ
Princeton voting machine hack analysis