Re: [ISN] Firm invites experts to punch holes in ballot software

From: InfoSec News (isn@private)
Date: Thu Apr 08 2004 - 07:06:13 PDT

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    Forwarded from: Kurt Seifried <listuser@private> 
    
    How do we know that this is the software that they compile and ship?
    We don't. Source disclosure is useless in this situation unless the
    build process is somehow audited, or they ship source and whatever
    else I need to build identical binaries to theirs, which I can then
    compare and go "yes, these binaries are identical, ergo it's probable
    that the sources we used are identical, ergo the source I audited and
    found to be correct is probably what was used to build the production
    binaries".
    
    I'm sorry but I see no reason to trust these companies implicitly, I
    think they should be held to an extremely high standard of "guilty
    until proven innocent". They have the ability to change the laws and
    governments we live within. Any other object with this capability
    (judges, politicians/etc) is generally made to go through a rigourous
    process and/or when they make/change laws there are multiple checks
    and balances (appeal courts, congress, the preseidents veto, the
    queen's veto, etc.). With voting machines there appear to be no checks
    and balances.
    
    Kurt Seifried, kurt@private
    A15B BEE5 B391 B9AD B0EF
    AEB0 AD63 0B4E AD56 E574
    http://seifried.org/security/
    
    
    
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