Reply #161: Lack of tracibility is key. [View All]

[whopis01]

Having been in this field for many years, I can assure you that no self respecting hacker would consider anyone who does something like this a true hacker. It is just a matter of professional pride. While some people misuse the term 'Black Hat' to refer to the ones who would do something like that, that is not what it means within the community.

Getting back to the point, they key is that many of the flippings would go unnoticed. And beyond that, the user's vote technically has not been altered, but rather the user was tricked into casting the wrong vote. Nothing counts until they hit the 'vote' button, and prior to doing that, they can see exactly how their vote is going to be cast. This really works to build in a good layer of plausible deniability should the system ever be investigated. If a vote was displayed one way and recorded another way, there would be no other explanation for it - but with what is happening, there are all sorts of 'plausible' explanations.

If a user 'thinks' they hit one selection, but another lighted up, the explanations include:

1) The user actually hit the other choice
2) The user hit the area between the two choices and it registered the other one
3) The touch screen hardware is not properly calibrated and it is not registering the touches in the right position
4) The touch screen hardware is not working properly, possibly due to users being too rough with it
5) The software was designed to do that

If the machine displays one value and records another, the explanations include:

1) The software was designed to do that


One important aspect of software vs. hardware:

Software doesn't break. Software doesn't wear out. Software doesn't begin to malfunction in the field.
Hardware, however, does break, wear out, and being to malfunction in the field.