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E-Voting Report Claims Security Flaws
Posted by Rebecca Bolin on Thursday, January 22 @ 19:30:36 EST Computer Crime
Some members of the Security Peer Review Group (SPRG), a group of private computer security experts selected by the DoD’s Federal Voting Assistance program (FVAP), have issued a report on the security of the DoD’s Internet-based voting system, the Secure Electronic Resgistration and Voting Experiment (SERVE). The DoD implemented the program to address the high costs and difficulties in timely overseas voting faced by the armed services and other citizens.

The report calls for the DoD to abandon SERVE, mirroring other security audits of similar Internet voting schemes. The authors note that the security flaws are not the result of errors by the DoD subcontractors, but that the flaws are “fundamental in the architecture of the Internet and of the PC hardware and software that is ubiquitous today.” The list of security threats includes the expected Trojan horse attacks, denial of service attacks, and insider attacks. The report also suggests that Internet-based voting might allow illegal electioneering, such as pop-up political ads, and automated vote selling or buying. All of these attacks, the authors suggest, could be executed without detection.

The DoD claims that it is aware of problems and is taking steps to increase the security of the system. The New York Times reports that, despite the experts' analysis, the DoD is planning to use SERVE for around 100,000 voters overseas in 2004.

The DoD's request for an outside audit increases transparency in novel voting technology and shows a commitment to secure voting. Even though the DoD will not follow the report’s recommendations, the audit should be recognized as a voluntary step to outside accountability. States are also starting to conduct outside audits, such as Maryland’s recent audit of its new Diebold voting machines.

 
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