E-voting firm opens up source code

Source: www.msnbc.msn.com...

Abstract:
VoteHere's software relies on cryptographic algorithms to detect ballot tampering.VoteHere hopes scrutiny will boost confidence.

"Now it's up to the world to take a look and dig in and give us their opinion," the company's founder, Jim Adler, told MSNBC.com.

One of the country's foremost skeptics about paperless e-voting, Stanford Professor David Dill, said releasing the source code for e-voting software was a "very unusual" and "very healthy" development.

Adler said the source-code release was aimed at showing security experts that his company's system would offer adequate safeguards as well as improvements over the hanging chads, confusing designs and the other shortcomings of paper ballot schemes.

"There are some quarters that would like to turn a blind eye to any sort of innovation," Adler said, "but I think that would be a big mistake."

My Thoughts:
I think this is a brilliant move. There have been critics of closed source code for electronic voting systems. Open sourcing the code, SO TO SPEAK, can go a long way towards silencing those critics. I think that complete electronic voting is inevitable, and as a technologist, I support this effort. However we must have systems in place with safeguards, and we must have vendors that provide those systems that are willing to stand up to scrutiny and not just shut down websites cricital of them.

I agree with you that, as a fellow fan of technology, electronic voting will replace the older, more conventional forms of voting.

And yes, this is GReAT news for critics of the voting system such as myself... as for silencing us, well... I don't think so. This is just one company amongst a pool of voting managers, but it is a step in the right direction. I'm hoping for a domino-rally effect here, in that other companies will follow as an example.

I was hoping to see a voting conglomerate called ACS here, as they were purchased by Lockheed Martin last summer. No such luck. No surprise, either.

It definately takes balls to put the source out there if before it was closed. While its a good move in that now everyone can see whats up with the code, there is always that remote change that the wrong set of eyes will spot a major flaw and just sit on it as a 0-day exploit and use it to illegal ends later. Unfortunately that is always the risk with open source, but the more eyes looking the greater the chances of finding that problem before someone takes advantage of it.

By Alternateheaven
It definately takes balls to put the source out there if before it was closed. While its a good move in that now everyone can see whats up with the code, there is always that remote change that the wrong set of eyes will spot a major flaw and just sit on it as a 0-day exploit and use it to illegal ends later. Unfortunately that is always the risk with open source, but the more eyes looking the greater the chances of finding that problem before someone takes advantage of it.

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Alternateheaven: I agree with your concern but I think there are plenty of people out there who publish exploits for the notoriety of being the first to find them. A fair share of the posters on the exploit mailing lists are doing it in hopes of landing a job. That motivation would certainly help ensure we don't have any holdouts waiting for 0-day.