{"id":945,"date":"2004-11-13T12:43:10","date_gmt":"2004-11-13T16:43:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.test.bradblog.com\/?p=945"},"modified":"2004-11-13T12:43:10","modified_gmt":"2004-11-13T16:43:10","slug":"wash-timesupi-major-security-holes-found-in-diebold-software","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/?p=945","title":{"rendered":"WASH TIMES\/UPI: Major Security Holes Found in Diebold Software!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/BradBlog.com\/Images\/siren.gif\" hspace=\"6\" vspace=\"3\" border=\"0\" align=\"right\">This story has been percolating in the blogosphere for some time, but I&#8217;ve yet to report it here as I&#8217;ve been trying to look into it to make sure that it held up first.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s big. And now that <b><i>The Washington Times(!)<\/i><\/b> &#8212; the Bush Administration&#8217;s #1 mouthpiece in the print media, in other words, the Fox News of newspapers &#8212; has admitted and reported the problem via <a href=\"http:\/\/washingtontimes.com\/upi-breaking\/20041112-112037-7263r.htm\" target=\"_blank\">this breaking UPI report<\/a>, I&#8217;m happy to take that as confirmation of the <i>huge and hackable security hole<\/i> smack dab in the middle of Diebold&#8217;s proprietary vote-counting software source code that those &#8220;reckless conspiracy-theorists (American citizens) in the blogosphere&#8221; have been reporting for some time!<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/BradBlog.com\/Images\/Diebold_OhioCompany_Med.jpg\" hspace=\"6\" vspace=\"0\" border=\"0\" align=\"left\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"media\">Washington, DC, Nov. 12 (UPI) &#8211; The voting machine controversy likely will linger after a look at the systems source code software from Ohio-based Diebold yielded reports of numerous bugs.<br \/>\n&#8230;<br \/>\nComputer Science Professor Avi Rubin of John Hopkins University analyzed Diebold&#8217;s 47,609 lines of code and found it uses an encryption key that was hacked in 1997 and no longer is used in secure programs.<br \/>\n&#8230;<br \/>\nThe Digital Encryption Standard 56-bit encryption key used can be unlocked by a key embedded in all the source code, meaning all Diebold machines would respond to the same key.<\/p>\n<p>Rubin, his graduate students and a colleague from Rice University found other bugs, that the administrator&#8217;s PIN code was &#8220;1111&#8221; and that one programmer had inserted, &#8220;This is just a hack for now.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p>The implication is that by hacking one machine you could have access to all Diebold machines.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>The story also notes that &#8220;Diebold has said it repaired the security flaws in subsequent programs, but that the company has not produced the code for analysis.&#8221; In other words, they claim that they&#8217;ve fixed the software they said was secure in the first place, but wouldn&#8217;t allow anyone to verify it. The security hole was only discovered in the first place when BlackBoxVoting.org discovered thousands of Diebold&#8217;s &#8220;secret&#8221; source-code files sitting out in the open on a publically-accessable internet file-transfer site. Somehow or another, they are legally allowed to keep their source-code secret and unverified by any oversight committees!<\/p>\n<p>I should also note that while the fact that their vote-counting software <i>could<\/i> be hacked, it doesn&#8217;t necessarily mean that it <i>has<\/i> been hacked. However, the disturbing admission now in the <i>Mainstream Media<\/i> &#8212; confirming what so many have been &#8220;running around with their hair on fire&#8221; warning people about for so long &#8212; that the private, Ohio-based corporation and huge Republican supporter Diebold, Inc. has created hackable software to manage the bulk of our country&#8217;s electoral system, and all without governmental and\/or nonpartisan oversight is a startling milestone in this matter.<\/p>\n<p>For data-heads interested in more of the actually geeky background details on this gaping, hackable, security hole in Diebold&#8217;s software, please <a href=\"http:\/\/www.dailykos.com\/story\/2004\/11\/10\/1172\/9052\" target=\"_blank\">see this discussion over at DailyKos<\/a> where they&#8217;ve been reporting, discussing and examining it for some time.<\/p>\n<p>This is now &#8212; officially &#8212; <i>very<\/i> major and <i>very<\/i> notable news!<\/p>\n<p><i>(Thanks Desi for the tip on the UPI\/<\/i>Washington Times<i> breaking news report on this!)<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This story has been percolating in the blogosphere for some time, but I&#8217;ve yet to report it here as I&#8217;ve been trying to look into it to make sure that it held up first. It&#8217;s big. And now that The Washington Times(!) &#8212; the Bush Administration&#8217;s #1 mouthpiece in the print media, in other words, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-945","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","bb-type-bradblog"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/945","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=945"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/945\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=945"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcoauthors&post=945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}