US Election Assistance Commission - Voluntary Voting System Guidelines Vote
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Section CommentsGeneral CommentsGlossary Comments
 
Name :   Hugh Gallagher
Organization :   Election System & Management Services
Post Date :   9/30/2005

Section Comments
Section :  6.7
Page no. :  
Line no.:  
Comment :  So are current wireless voting systems secure? I believe the answer is
“yes.” No logical or plausible scenario has been presented to show how
an election can be compromised but more importantly altered using
wireless voting machines. At best, if a potential attacker cannot gain
access to the voting machines wireless network and “hack” the system,
they can pose a security threat by jamming or flooding the wireless
network with static noise that causes the wireless signals to collide and
produce CRC errors. This is know as a Denial of Service Attack, and
would be obvious to Election Administrators. While difficult to prevent if
someone is intent on initiating a DoS, Section 6.7.6 “Protecting the
Wireless Path” of the proposed standards, requires that a voting system
using wireless technology be able to function properly throughout a DoS
attack and function properly as if the wireless capability were never
available for use. In the case of the AVS platform, and as was
mentioned earlier, each machine should such an attack occur, can be
opened manually by the Precinct Captain using the location card and
closed manually. Each device has a removable USB memory cartridge
which can be, through controlled procedures, be collected after the polls
close and manually inserted into a machine and have its results
aggregated. At best, a DoS attack represents a nuisance relative to
standard procedures, but not a direct threat to the election.

[Statements submitted at EAC public hearing, July 28, 2005, Pasadena]