Lately electronic voting machines have been getting pretty bad publicity. What with the overall cost, and the occasional possibility of loosing votes over time. Though that can be fixed with an additional backup feature (more money). Now a Harvard researcher by the name of Rebecca Mercuri has issued a "Hack the Vote" challenge. With this the Harvard researcher expects to illustrate how unreliable and vulnerable electronic voting systems are. Even if electronic voting is found to be as insecure as Rebecca believes it is. This won"t stop the states who have already invested a significant amount of money into this technology.
Electronic voting systems have drawn fire from courts, lawmakers, and citizens groups--and now they"re under attack by hackers. It"s an organized assault, too. E-voting technology expert Rebecca Mercuri, a Harvard research fellow who has been outspoken in her opposition to such systems, has issued a "Hack the Vote" challenge, trying to illustrate what she calls their unreliability and vulnerability. She unveiled the so-called Mercuri Challenge at the recent Black Hat Briefings and Defcon 12 security conferences.
Preelection Action Urged
Mercuri suggests electronic voting machines be hacked during their preelection testing, so officials will abandon them before an actual election. "People in the election community say this technology is bulletproof," Mercuri says. "It"s not." She especially opposes use of electronic voting technology in its current state, which does not allow for a verifiable backup. "I"m not asking anyone to break any laws, we just want the opportunity to hack e-voting systems to prove that it can or cannot be done," she says.