[E-voting] Nedap voting machines successfully hacked

[Michael McMahon]

Fergal Daly wrote:
>  (XBox checks itself but is not asking me to
> trust it),
Exactly. The big difference between XBox and voting machines is that the 
encryption
technology in XBox is there to protect Microsoft and game vendors from 
the *users* of the system,
whereas with voting machines it should be the other way around.

Second, the amount of money *directly* at stake with XBox is so large, 
that it justifies a huge investment in
the technology. The vendors and purchasers of e-voting systems don't 
stand to personally lose money
if evoting technology screws up. Therefore, there never will be the same 
level of investment in security.

Third, it's reasonable to assume that Microsoft, and the game vendors 
fully understand the capabilities
and limitations of their technology and are in a position to make an 
informed choice on it.
It is completely unreasonable to expect ordinary voters to be able to 
understand the issues and make
an informed choice about such complex technology. We know that even the 
government purchasers of these
systems are just as uninformed (perhaps more so, since they have 
basically been conned by the vendors).

Michael.