BBV Exclusive: Utah testing of the Diebold touch-screen reveals new problems

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Sun, 19 Mar 2006 18:52:21 -0600

BBV Exclusive: Utah testing of the Diebold touch-screen

reveals new problems

 

 

 

Please forward to your lists and blogs, must include link to

http://www.blackboxvoting.org.

 

Now would be an excellent time to express your support

for Bruce Funk with a letter or email, to demonstrate to

county officials that he has the support of the nation.

Bruce C. Funk - Clerk/Auditor

Fax: (435) 381-5183

95 East Main

Castle Dale, Emery County

Utah 84513

funk

 

Emery County Clerk Bruce Funk has been running elections for 23 years.

He was quite content with his optical scan system. The state of Utah

thought

otherwise: On Dec. 27, Funk took delivery on 40 Diebold TSx touch-screen

machines, part of a statewide directive.

 

" I had concerns about Diebold, " says Funk, " but I thought, 'If the

state is going

to mandate it, then I guess they'll assume responsibility if anything

goes wrong.' "

 

Not so. He soon learned that he will be responsible but the state will

decide

what election system will count the votes.

 

 

" YOU'RE GOING TO HATE MY GUTS ON ELECTION DAY "

 

Funk's concerns escalated when he heard a particularly unusual statement

by Diebold sales rep Dana LaTour.

 

" Some of you are going to hate my guts on Election Day, " she said to the

assembly of elections officials. Later, another Diebold representative

named

Drew was asked what LaTour meant when she said " Some of you are going

to hate my guts... "

 

" We're going to have problems on Election Day, and we're just going to

have to

work through them, " he said.

 

FAILURES RIGHT OUT OF THE GATE

 

Shortly after Funk received his " brand new " TSx machines, Diebold

helped him

do acceptance testing. Two of the 40 machines promptly failed the

test. Diebold

arranged to take them away.

 

The remaining machines showed several defects -- crooked paper feeds

that jam,

memory card bay doors that wouldn't close, parts getting stuck, coming

loose, falling off.

 

TAKING A CLOSER LOOK

 

Funk thought it might be a good idea to take a closer inventory.

 

He booted each machine up to check the battery. Some of the machines were

marked with little yellow dots, and he got to wondering about that,

too. He studied

the screen messages, and noticed something very odd.

 

Most machines had about 25 MB of memory available, but some had only 7

MB of

free memory left. One had only 4 MB of available memory. For

perspective, the

backup election file generated by the Diebold TSx is about 7.9 MB. Now

why would

brand new voting machines have used-up memory?

 

TIME TO GET A MORE IN DEPTH EVALUATION

 

This prompted Funk to seek an evaluation. He asked Black Box Voting to

help

him analyze his voting system.

 

After several consultations, Black Box Voting determined that the

nature of the

problems in Emery County might be systemic and might be national in scope.

Therefore, we arranged for and underwrote the services of Harri Hursti and

also Security Innovation, Inc.

 

Neither Funk nor Black Box Voting were prepared for the depth and

breadth of the

problems discovered. Based on these discoveries we will begin with a

series of

articles followed by concise, but more formal reports.

 

PART I

 

Hursti quickly determined the three most likely causes of the low

memory problem:

 

1. There might be completely different software in the machines with

low memory.

 

2. Some machines might contain different external data

 

3. Or, some of the machines might have been delivered with natively

different

amounts of memory available.

 

Hursti approached issue #2 first. If the used memory was due to

external data or

archived election files stored on the system, he reasoned, removing

any such files

would clear the memory. He discovered that some of the machines did

contain test

election data, and he deleted the extra data. This produced only a

small improvement

in available memory, however.

 

As for issue #1, different programs on the machines -- or, the

existence of something

stored in memory which is hidden, such a find would obviously be

disturbing.

 

Issue #3, the possibility that some machines had different amounts of

memory left in

their life cycle, is particularly troubling. The technology choice

Diebold made -- memory

storage consisting of flash memory, which is known to degrade over

time -- carries

with it a possibility that used machines will be near the end of their

memory life cycle.

If such machines were delivered to Emery County as " new, " this would

be like buying

a " new " car with 100,000 miles already on it.

 

The only thing that was known about the cause of this problem was that

there were

different amounts of memory. The reason remained to be discovered. In

the course of

evaluating the reason for the low memory, we learned much more about

the TSx.

 

IS THERE AN INFRA-RED PORT FOR REMOTE COMMUNICATIONS?

 

Hursti also examined the remote communications capabilities of this

system. He found

no infra-red (IrDA) ports.

 

" The whole thing here is that it's network aware even when RAS is not

running. You're

not dialing out and it's network aware. And it's actually configured

to use an Ethernet board..

..It's all the time network aware...Perhaps all you need is this

Ethernet cord and a wireless

cord inserted and off you go. "

 

Of course, the software would need to be installed for this kind of

communications.

Unfortunately, we could find no way for elections officials to find

out whether inappropriate

software is in the touch-screen.

 

" I haven't asked any 'pins' (Personal ID Number). It hasn't been

hostile to me at all.

It's a very friendly guy, " Hursti reports.

 

Hursti made a number of observations about the touch-screen, and

connected it to

his laptop for further " conversation. "

 

In the interest of brevity, we will return to this issue in a later

article in this series.

 

A " SHOCKING " DISCOVERY

 

It's common for polling places to have too few outlets for a bank of

voting machines.

The normal cure is to set up hook the computers up in a daisy-chain

configuration, with

one plug to the wall, and the rest of the plugs linking voting

machines together.

 

Diebold's output plug falls out readily, exposing live 110 volt wall

outlet power on

bare wires.

 

This happened on every TSx we tested, and presents a significant

safety hazard for

poll workers, especially the elderly. According to Hursti, the

electrocution might only

result in a burned hand, and probably wouldn't be fatal.

 

This is a design flaw worthy of a general recall for standard consumer

and office electronics.

 

DIEBOLD: DOWN FOR THE COUNT?

 

While analyzing the memory storage problem, Hursti discovered a

critical security

hole in the foundation of the touch-screen. Then he found another in

the " lobby, "

and another on the " first floor. " Taken together, these present a

potentially catastrophic

security hole.

 

These are not programming errors, but architectural design decisions.

 

Black Box Voting is turning the " road map " of the most dangerous

security findings

over to the proper authorities. We won't let anybody sit on this for

very long because

elections are looming and elections officials need to know what to do now.

 

A concise and more formal report will be released in a few weeks, and

this will

discuss the procedures for preparing a recovery path for these

security holes.

 

TWO THINGS WE HAVE LEARNED ALREADY:

 

1. Source code reviews alone are NOT sufficient. Access to fully

functional

systems MUST accompany source code reviews.

 

2. Honest election officials and citizens again take the lead in

learning the truth

about voting machines. We ask for maximum public support for Bruce

Funk, who

showed courage and commitment to responsible elections. The important and

effective work of Utah voting integrity advocates Kathy Dopp

(http://www.uscountvotes.org) and Jocelyn Strait should be applauded

by fellow

activists. They have played an important role to inspire this study in

Utah, which may

in turn assist with efforts in many other states.

 

* * * * *

 

Black Box Voting is a nonpartisan, nonprofit 501c(3) organization

dedicated to

investigating issues of election accuracy and fairness.

 

Conducting testing like this carries a particularly staggering expense

load for

a small nonprofit. If you wish to support these efforts, and more like

them, you

can donate by:

 

clicking http://www.blackboxvoting.org/donate.html

 

or mail check to:

 

Black Box Voting

330 SW 43rd St. Suite K

PMB 547

Renton WA 98055

 

 

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