And the computer scientists who did it by bypassed the security measures that are supposed to prevent these kinds of things:
The computer scientists were able to evade this safety mechanism using return-oriented programming. Rather than designing the malicious code from scratch, the technique reassembles programming expressions already found in the targeted software in a way that gives the researchers the ability to take complete control over the machine. It’s tantamount to kidnappers who write a ransom note using letters cut from the headline of a newspaper.
The research team – from Princeton University, the University of California at San Diego and the University of Michigan – pulled off the attack by obtaining a Sequoia AVC Advantage legally off the internet. Without access to any of the source code, they reverse engineered the hardware. They were then able to reverse engineer the software it ran by analyzing the machine’s ROM.
Sequoia and manufacturers of other brands of e-voting machines frequently discount vulnerability research into their products by pointing out that the underlying source code is closely guarded. Researchers in many studies, they argue, have unrealistic access to the devices’ inner workings.
(And this kind of maliciousness is even easier when you’re hired and paid to do it.)
So, did you understand most of that? Me neither. Because we’re not computer scientists or programmers. You know who else isn’t a computer scientist or programmer? The Tennessee State Election Coordinator, Mark Goins, who believes that we should trust these types of machines to run our elections.
Really? This is your argument? I am vary happy with the work Obama has done so far and would readily vote him in for a second term right now. Are there things I would like him to do that he hasn’t? Sure: ride congress for additional oversight of the financial industry and push harder for specific inclusions in a health care bill.
But how can he be ruining the country if he’s not doing anything? The only answer would be that he hadn’t changed anything from the previous administrations, so they were clearly the ones making the wrong decisions. Which do you chose? If it is that he hasn’t done anything, what would YOU like to see him do? If it is that he is ruining the country by increasing spending, which NEW policies do you see as responsible?
Oh, and what’s this about a nine trillion dollar deficit? We are having to pay China $800,000 a week just to keep up with our debt to them. To me, that’s some serious stuff. Obama is in way over his head. I guarentee you he has no idea what he’s doing. He’s a good talker, but not a good doer.
Well it doesn’t seem like it’s getting any better with him in office. What happened to the “hope and change” I was promised?
“Oh, why don’t we all just play the blame game?”
That’s sort of funny coming from you after you just blamed Barack Obama for the rise in unemployment and problems with the economy.
Oh, why don’t we all just play the blame game? You and I both know that it can take less than that to clean up a mess. Do you even know where our tax dollars are going? Obama has been spending and spending and spending, and what do we have to show for it? It took a couple of months for Reagan to boost up the economy. Why? Because he was all for tax cuts for EVERYONE. Instead Obama is only increasing our debt, and raising our taxes. Now, I don’t watch the news much. But my brother, who happens to work on Wall Street, says that nothing is really being done to “clean the mess up from the previous administration”. So, what do you really have to say for yourself?
Yes and yes. And “what is up” is that 8 years of the previous administration has left us in quite a pickle and it’ll take a wee bit longer than 8 months to clean up.
Mary, can I ask you something? Is Obama, our Lord and Saviour, living up to your expectations? Because to me he has been lying to the American people through his teeth. Unemployment has risen. We have seen no upturn in the economy. What is up with that?