Re: Electronic Voting Machines and Free Software (Was Re: Sign an Open Letter to the CJI in Support of Prashant Bhushan)

Meanwhile, Germany's Federal Constitutional Court has banned
electronic Voting Machines and for good reason. The picture of the
EVM's carried on the elephant says it all.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/wnorrix/308039508/in/photostream/

http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/03/03/1325233

- Harish Singh



On Wed, Sep 29, 2010 at 3:15 PM, Praveen A <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> 2010/9/28 Satish Babu <[email protected]>:
> > This is not about the petition, but I'm wondering if there is a link
> > between Free Software and EVMs.
> >
> > If I remember right, the original debate was if EVMs could be
> > demonstrated to be tamper-proof.
> >
> > EVMs are some kind of computers, and consist of hardware and software
> > (in this case, firmware). The question of establishing if an EVM is
> > tamper-proof *can* be resolved if the community has access to the
> > source code of the firmware. After all, if the community has
> > sufficient skills to contribute to the Linux kernel, we surely have
> > the competencies to audit/inspect the source code of the EVM.
> >
> > As a community, shouldn't we be therefore calling for public scrutiny
> > of the source code of the EVM?
>
> How do you make sure every EVM actually has the binary compiled from
> the source code you inspected?
>
> How do you know if the storage card is not replaced? There are much
> more issues than just source code. The biggest concern, is there is no
> back up, and you cannot verify it independently unlike a paper ballet.
>
> --
> പ്രവീണ്‍ അരിമ്പ്രത്തൊടിയില്‍
> You have to keep reminding your government that you don't get your
> rights from them; you give them permission to rule, only so long as
> they follow the rules: laws and constitution.
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