April 17 - Eletronic Vote

Fry-kun · Post by **Fry-kun** » Tue Apr 17, 2007 10:58 pm

The nice folks at blackboxvoting.org have conducted an experiment on Diebold vote-counting machines (this is just one of many experiments which succeeded in messing up fake elections):
First, they took a memory card that records the vote totals. Through some inexpensive hardware, they connected it to a computer and were able to input any number of votes they wanted to. Since the machine checks at the beginning that the total number of votes is 0, they entered 5 votes for candidate A and -5 votes (yes, negative five votes!) for candidate B. The machine didn't object to this change at all.
Then, they "voted" - 7 votes for candidate B and 3 for candidate A. A won 8 to 2.

Now, what was that about counting being so easy?

Jamie Bond · Post by **Jamie Bond** » Tue Apr 17, 2007 11:04 pm

Greg, that movie bugged me for the same reason.

It was mildly entertaining, but a really dumb premise throughout. A lot of shit they did and DIDN'T do in that movie just didn't add up with some basic common sense principles.

Deacon · Post by **Deacon** » Tue Apr 17, 2007 11:39 pm

[quote="Fry-kun";p="733332"]Now, what was that about counting being so easy?[/quote]
Are you asserting that it's not?

Fry-kun · Post by **Fry-kun** » Wed Apr 18, 2007 12:05 am

[quote="Deacon";p="733342"][quote="Fry-kun";p="733332"]Now, what was that about counting being so easy?[/quote]
Are you asserting that it's not?[/quote]

I'm saying it's not trivial. Diebold managed to majorly fuck up time and time again, which implies that it's not all that easy to do it.

That's actually true for most systems - there are so many little things that nothing is ever trivial. Good news for me, though - I won't be out of a job due to all problems having been solved

Post by **Mae Dean** » Wed Apr 18, 2007 12:46 am

No, it does not imply it's not easy, it implies THEY DON'T KNOW WHAT THEY'RE DOING. If that's the case, the person responsible for programming the machine should be shot. There's any NUMBER of checks that can be run to prevent such a thing from happening. It IS trivial - apparently those guys aren't very good at trivia.

geekoid · Post by **geekoid** » Wed Apr 18, 2007 1:02 am

hmm counting is easy.

What about...
double entry checks?
graphics interfacing
error checking
maintaining information from 1 page to another
real time no error database system
writing code that has to maintain many different rule sets for different counties.

on and on...
There are a lot of details behind that "just counting".

I am not defending diebold, just appalled at the lack of knowledge that statement implies.

oh, and it is always bad for the programmer to do the QA.

Which reminds me, the programmers job one is to do what his boss says within a given timelime. A timeline the programmer may not control.

A chefs number one job is to prepare food, but I bet they make mistakes from time to time. espcially if they were told to take 10% less time to perpare each dish.

I have no idea what movie you're talking about, so on that I have no opinion.

Post by **Mae Dean** » Wed Apr 18, 2007 1:21 am

No, a programmer's job one is to make code that works. If said code does NOT work, he fixes it.

That being said, I WAS a programmer for a period of time. I used to be fluent in BASIC, PASCAL, and was learning C++ when I fell out of it. Despite your implication that I have a lack of knowledge, I actually have quite a bit of knowledge. Enough to know that the things you listed above are extremely easy, BASIC things that would be fairly high on the list of any programmer working on such a project. It's not rocket science - the end result is that said machine adds one to an open variable. Yes, you have to put in safeguards that would protect the info in the case of a power failure, or some other such catastrophe, but I can think of at least a dozen ways off the top of my head to do that.

First off, apparently the diebold people didn't think to put a check for negative numbers. That's silly. ESPECIALLY if people are wary of "fixing" an election... you'd be doing anything in your power to make your shit tamper-proof. If a negative number is inserted, that would be a surefire sign of tampering, and you could have the machine lock out right then and there, or simply revert to the previous pre-tamper values... whatever your chosen safeguard would be. That's a designer's call, not a programmer.

Just because some big company fucked up doesn't mean it's hard. It just means they didn't put enough effort into programming the damn thing.

Posted Tue Apr 17, 2007 6:24 pm:

And Re: Your chef analogy... it's an incorrect analogy. Programmers work on code, it goes through rigorous testing, at which point it is released to the end users. A BETTER chef analogy would be someone working on a recipe - they spend time perfecting it, trying to get it right, and then it's published - only to find out that they left the eggs out of the cake recipe. Sure, the batter might LOOK right - but you ain't gonna get no cake.

Post by **Blaze** » Wed Apr 18, 2007 2:03 am

Greg is extrordinarily angry at the current voting systems in place.

In order to fix it, I suggest we make rablerouser Greg count them all by hand.

In triplicate.

Post by **Mae Dean** » Wed Apr 18, 2007 3:01 am

No, I'm angry at bad programmers. I do, however, wish I could use one of those damned electronic voting machines. Seems fun.

Arres · Post by **Arres** » Wed Apr 18, 2007 3:05 am

It's anti climactic. They want you to press the "buttons" with a pencil. They give you one with two erasers JUST for that purpose. Maybe it's just me. I DID go eat Hot Wings right before voting that year...

Post by **Blaze** » Wed Apr 18, 2007 3:24 am

[quote="Greg Dean";p="733383"]No, I'm angry at bad programmers. I do, however, wish I could use one of those damned electronic voting machines. Seems fun.

[/quote]

Nonsense. The old style where you flipped the little switches and pulled the giant lever... now THOSE were fun.

Deacon · Post by **Deacon** » Wed Apr 18, 2007 5:03 am

[quote="Fry-kun";p="733348"]I'm saying it's not trivial.[/quote]
It really is. What kind of retard decides to check whether the total of the values when added together is zero instead of just verifying that each value is set to 0, instead? Ridiculous.

Scowdich · Post by **Scowdich** » Wed Apr 18, 2007 5:12 am

The kind of retard who thinks it's important for his code to be as short and terse as possible. Seems there's a fine line here between "elegant" and "fucking retarded". I mean, seriously...every language I use (read: C) has at least one variable type that CANNOT be negative, ever. Use that! Idiots.

BtEO · Post by **BtEO** » Wed Apr 18, 2007 6:21 am

[quote="Kruador";p="733289"](Still using hand-counted paper ballots in the UK, not software written by weasels.)[/quote][quote="Bigity";p="733291"]Are you seriously trying to say hand counting is a better process than electronic machines?[/quote]
It works well enough for us. Except for cases of multiple recounts the results are all available by the following morning. The logistics involved with voting in the especially low population density areas of America do lead me to suspect that it wouldn't work so well for you.

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