Hacking Democracy
- Bev Harris
- Kathleen Wynne
- Andy Stephenson
- Harri Hursti
- Herbert Hugh Thompson
- Ion Sancho
Hacking Democracy is a documentary by Russell Michaels, Simon Ardizzone, Robert Carrillo Cohen and producer Sarah Teale of Teale -Edwards Productions, which aired in America from the premium channel HBO. The production lasted three years, during which many security gaps and errors in the American voting machines were shown. The film was nominated for an Emmy.
Displayed error
The documentary follows Bev Harris and Kathleen Wynne, the director and deputy director of the nonprofit election watchdog group Black Box Voting, as they try to figure out if the manufacturer Diebold Election Systems voting machines, the (now Premier Election Solutions ) are safe or not. Andy Stephenson, an employee at Black Box voting, helped with documents and took with a hidden camera conversation between Bev Harris and a voting machine tester on. Next, Bev Harris and members of Black Box Voting went to Florida, where Al Gore ' got the 2000 presidential election, more than 16,000 official negative votes. Bev Harris wanted to compare the figures sent with the election results certified originals. The election officer for Volusia County, Deania Lowe, assured that the election process had gone extremely well. The certified originals are in the warehouse of Electoral Supervisory. Bev Harris went immediately after her office visit to the warehouse and Kathleen Wynne filmed as employees of the Electoral Supervisory, obviously surprised by their visit, including original documents and certified election results just presented in garbage bags abhohlfertig before the Warehouse ( according to U.S. law is prohibited official results before the end of a 22 month period after the election to remove ). From 2005 to 2006 Bev Harris tested in collaboration with Dr. Herbert Thompson and Harri Hursti five times the security of the voting machines. This significant defects have been found.
The first test was whether it is possible to change the election results on the memory card. The team found that the results were unencrypted and not password protected in a Microsoft Access database on the memory card. Diebold Election Systems improved after by making it impossible to access by access to the databases. Then Dr. Herbert Hugh Thompson wrote a Microsoft Visual Basic program that searches the database for a series of letters or numbers ( string ) and replacing it with another. However, this kind of hack could have been easily discovered by an election observer, since the expression of the election results would have differed from the results on the map.
The second test was whether the results can be manipulated by changing the memory cards. According to U.S. law, it is forbidden to have executable code ( ie programs, as well as scripts and the like. ) On the memory card of the voting machines. Nevertheless, Black Box Voting was on the cards such code. On demand by Bev Harris denied the spokesman of Diebold, that there was this code, but he was present. In the test, the Finnish computer expert Harri Hursti changed the election result by giving a candidate from the outset negative votes and the other positive. Its balance sheet was again zero, and the voting machines did not notice anything of the fraud attempt. This technique, they demonstrated in a small election, which was hosted specially for this purpose. An official election observers later said he would have this result recognized as legitimate, as there was no sign of a scam attempt.
Reactions
Even if no one has ever seen the film at Diebold Election Systems, they immediately denied that the voting machines are insecure, and demanded that the film should not be broadcast. However, HBO refused to take the film out of the program. Diebold wrote in a letter to HBO: Harri Hursti is shown attacking a Diebold machine in Florida. But his attack later Proved to be a complete sham. The State of Florida issued a study commissioned by the should be clarified whether the voting machines are safe. The report was on page 2: " Harri Hursti 's attack does work: Mr. Hursti 's attack on the AV - OS is definitely real. Hey what indeed able to change the election results by doing nothing more than modifying the contents of a memory card. He needed no passwords, no cryptographic keys, and no access to any other part of the voting system, including the GEMS election management server. "
The DVD
The film was released in America on DVD. He contained the normal film also deleted scenes, a trailer and a biography of the producer.