Classic: e-voting firm offers an ISP take down notice

[Son Goku]

A former report has been published concerning security flaws which could allow for election fraud using the Diebold e-voting terminal.

http://www.eff.org/Activism/E-voting/20030723_eff_pr.php

San Francisco - In response to today's release of research about critical security flaws in e-voting systems, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) urged immediate passage of e-voting legislation to prevent election fraud.

Security researchers at Johns Hopkins University and Rice University announced today that they have discovered numerous serious security flaws in what they believe is one of the leading e-voting systems in the country -- the Diebold Electron Systems' e-voting terminal.

Among the security flaws discovered were several ways in which individual voters could vote multiple times in a given election. The researchers also uncovered methods permitting voters to "trick" the e-voting machines into allowing them system administrator privileges or even terminating an election before tallying all legitimate votes.

The companies responce? Calls of indirect copyright infringement, and a notice delivered to the ISP. Never mind that knowledge about the security of this software is of upmost importance to the nation as a whole, when it comes to determining the legitimacy of an election itself (and also I read somewhere, but don't remember where, that a paper trail isn't left and the logs aren't available to pollsters to check for an election recount).

http://www.eff.org/Legal/ISP_liability/cease_desist_letter.php

Something on this issue can be referenced here:

http://www.eff.org/Legal/ISP_liability/20031016_eff_pr.php

Diebold, I seriously challenge you to find a court that won't weigh your claim of copyright infringement against the national interest, and specifically the assurance of the legitimacy of national elections. Given the perceived importance of the political process and assuring the elections of free from tampering, courts and especially the High Court might in fact start asking some of the same questions you might not want people asking.