RE: Tempest Security; Voting-Machine Makers To Fight Security Criticism

["Paul Tiger" <tigerp@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Ralph [et al],

You can spend your time worrying about such nonsense. I think it is
nonsense. A big waste of effort to find out how individuals vote. Who cares?
My god you are a paranoid. Quick, let's hide under this rock, I think I can
hear the black helicopters coming ...

Data destruction is what I would be concerned with, not snooping.

If the DRE data is destroyed there is no recourse. We can't get it back, we
can't reconstruct it. we are screwed.

For less than a $100 I can build a HERF gun that I can use to thrash all the
data in a computer system from far enough away that I won't be seen or known
about. I could drive by in my car and to this. Tempest be damned, because
when I was at NBI in the early 80s my tech group proved that directed RF
waves could destroy the data on desktop computers that WERE TEMPEST
COMPLIANT. We even thrashed a test system that was in a copper cage from the
outside. This was done with modified ham radio equipment, and the prize was
booze and engineering buying our tech staff a big lunch.

My vote is public. I will tell anyone who wants to know. I don't care about
secret ballots. But I do care that my vote counts.

Paul Tiger

[|>] snip
Ladies and Gentlemen, I submit to you that it would not be hard to equip a
few vans with relatively unsophisticated equipment and learn who voted which
way.  A few appropriately placed thugs who tell people "We know how you
voted.  You voted for X and you voted for Y and Z.  You better tell your
friends not to vote that way or there may be a few unfortunate accidents."

Is such a thing farfetched?  I don't think so but you be the judge.

There is a reason we have a secret ballot.  I am simply raising the
previously unmentioned possibility that DREs may not provide the kind of
anonymity that people expect.