100% Failure
Guest commentary from software tester John Washburn:
The success rate to date of electronic equipment is currently 0% for security testing—-100% failure. Only two pieces of equipment have been subjected to public security testing (the Diebold GEMS central tabulator software and Diebold precinct optical scanners). Both have been shown to have serious,election-altering security weaknesses. This is a failure rate of two for two. But, it is still only two kinds of equipment from among the hundreds on the market.
What is needed is MORE security testing on other kinds of equipment such as a Diebold county-level central scanner (both the optical and high speed versions), such as ES&S M100 and ES&S Unity Server, the HART intercivic, AccuPoll, Sequoia.
These other machines are not more secure than the two pieces of Diebold machinery. These other machines are UNTESTED for security. Diebold’s two machines may have not passed the security tests. But at least they were TESTED. Therefore, these two machines are better from a security point of view. For security consideration, systems with KNOWN problems are always more trustworthy than systems which are UNTESTED.
Thank you, John. I suppose we should feel reassured in rural Iowa. We will mostly be operating the equipment known to be insecure, whereas the bigger counties will be stuck with the untested stuff. Hrrrmmmph!