Hacking Democracy

Infobox Film


name = Hacking Democracy
caption = The controversial electronic voting documentary
director = Simon Ardizzone
Russell Michaels
producer = Simon Ardizzone
Russell Michaels
Robert Carrillo Cohen
starring = Bev Harris, Kathleen Wynne, Andy Stephenson, Harri Hursti, Herbert Hugh Thompson Ion Sancho
released = November 2, 2006
DVD released March 27, 2007
runtime = 82 minutes
language = English
imdb_id = 0808532
website=http://www.hackingdemocracy.com/

"Hacking Democracy" is a 2006 documentary film by Russell Michaels, Simon Ardizzone, and Robert Carrillo Cohen, shown on HBO. Filmed over three years it documents American citizens investigating anomalies and irregularities with 'e-voting' (electronic voting) systems that occurred during America's 2000 and 2004 elections, especially in Volusia County, Florida. The film investigates the flawed integrity of electronic voting machines, particularly those made by Diebold Election Systems, and the film culminates dramatically in the on-camera hacking of the in-use / working Diebold election system in Leon County, Florida.

In 2007 "Hacking Democracy" was officially nominated for an Emmy award for Outstanding Investigative Journalism. [cite web |url= http://www.emmyonline.org/mediacenter/news_28th_nominees_data_list.html|title= The 28th Annual Emmy Awards for News & Documentary: The Nominations|accessdate=2007-11-17 |publisher= EmmyOnline.org]

Demonstrated flaws

The documentary follows Bev Harris and Kathleen Wynne, director and associate director for nonprofit election watchdog group Black Box Voting, as they attempt to discover whether Diebold Election Systems (now Premier Election Solutions) voting machines could be tampered with. Andy Stephenson, an employee of Black Box Voting from July-December 2004, assisted with comparisons of audit documents in Volusia County and obtained a secret videotape of Harris interviewing a voting machine testing lab. Kathleen Wynne captured live video of Harris finding voting machine records in a Volusia County trash bag, and captured video of Cuyahoga County elections workers admitting that the initial 3% recount ballots had not been randomly selected during the 2004 presidential election. Harris and Wynne then embarked on a series of five voting machine hack tests with Dr. Herbert Thompson and Harri Hursti in 2005 and 2006. During the course of the documentary, multiple methods of tampering with the votes are shown.

The first is through editing the database file that contains the voting totals. This file is a standard Microsoft Access database, and can be opened by normal means outside of the encompassing voting program without a password. Some jurisdictions have disabled Microsoft Access, making it more difficult to alter the database, but this protection was shown to be bypassed by Dr. Herbert Hugh Thompson through a Visual Basic program which searched for a string of text and edited the file through external means. However, alterations of the results in either of these fashions would be caught if a vigilant elections official compared the results with voting machine tapes. [ [http://www.tvguide.com/News-Views/Interviews-Features/Article/default.aspx?posting={2ACA466C-E81E-4888-B8D3-F23CC3F35200} Interviews & Features | TVGuide.com ] ]

Another hacking technique was demonstrated through hacking the actual computer code used in the Diebold Accu-Vote memory cards. This method was discovered by Finnish computer security expert Harri Hursti and is known as "the Hursti Hack". In this hack, Harri Hursti rigged the Diebold optical scan voting system to make the wrong candidate win by adding negative (minus) votes to one race. This resulted in that race having votes literally subtracted from its vote total. These methods were tested by the Florida Supervisor of Elections, Ion Sancho, on the actual Diebold optical scan voting system used by Tallahassee, Florida in all their prior elections. This method demonstrated, contrary to a previous Diebold statement, that a person attempting to rig the votes of a precinct would need access to only the memory card, not the optical scan voting system or tabulation software. This method, when cross-checked between the optical scan voting system and tabulation software, appears legitimate, and further produces a false zero-vote print-out to verify that the memory card has no votes inside it before voting begins. Following this historic hack Ion Sancho stated: "If I had not known what was behind this I would have certified this election as a true count of a vote." [ [http://www.tvguide.com/News-Views/Interviews-Features/Article/default.aspx?posting={2ACA466C-E81E-4888-B8D3-F23CC3F35200} Interviews & Features | TVGuide.com ] ]

Reaction

Even though no one from Diebold Election Systems admitted to having seen the film, [cite news|url=http://smallscreen.monstersandcritics.com/article_1218135.php/HBO_defends_%60Hacking%60_from_criticism |publisher=Monsters & Critics |title=HBO defends "Hacking" from criticism] Diebold President David Byrd suggested that "Hacking Democracy" was "replete with material examples of inaccurate reporting", and demanded that it not be aired.cite news | last = Janofsky| first = Michael| title = Diebold demands that HBO cancel documentary on voting machines| publisher = Bloomberg News| date = 2006-10-31| url = http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aU3y7HM5km2I| accessdate = 2006-11-03 ] [cite news|publisher=Forbes |date=2006-11-01 |url=http://www.forbes.com/security/2006/10/31/security-voting-hbo-tech-security-cx_ll_1031diebold.html |title=Diebold Gives HBO A Thumbs Down |author=Lerer, Lisa] His criticism was based on an earlier film made by the same three filmmakers. However, HBO refused to remove it from their schedules. In addition Diebold wrote a letter to HBO referring to the famous vote changing 'Hursti Hack' featured in the film, stating that - "Harri Hursti is shown attacking a Diebold machine in Florida. But his attack proved later to be a complete sham."

California's Secretary of State commissioned a [http://www.ss.ca.gov/elections/voting_systems/security_analysis_of_the_diebold_accubasic_interpreter.pdf special report] by scientists at UC Berkeley to investigate the Hursti Hack. Page 2 of their report states -

"Harri Hursti's attack does work: Mr. Hursti's attack on the AV-OS is definitely real. He was 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."

One of Diebold's objections to the film was that it failed to mention that Avi Rubin, a Johns Hopkins computer science professor and vocal Diebold critic, may have a conflict of interest. Rubin at one point owned stock options in VoteHere, which sells auditing software and systems for voting machines. However, Rubin disposed of his stock options and withdrew from the VoteHere advisory board in August 2003, and says he had not had any meaningful contact since joining over two years before, except occasionally receiving press clippings. [cite web |url= http://www.jhu.edu/news_info/news/home03/aug03/votehere.html|title= Statement of Avi Rubin on Relationshipwith VoteHere Inc.|accessdate= 2007-11-17 |date= 2003-08-17|publisher= John Hopkins University]

DVD release

The film was released on DVD on March 20, 2007. It includes deleted scenes, a trailer and director biographies.

References

ee also

*2004 United States election voting controversies
*2004 U.S. presidential election controversy and irregularities
*
*Black Box Voting

External links

* [http://www.hackingdemocracy.com The Official Website & DVD www.HackingDemocracy.com]
* [http://www.hbo.com/docs/programs/hackingdemocracy/ Program info at HBO]
* [http://www.blackboxvoting.org/ Black Box Voting]
*
* [http://arstechnica.com/articles/culture/evoting.ars Ars's How to Steal an Election by Hacking]
* [http://itpolicy.princeton.edu/voting/ Princeton Center for Information Technology Policy]
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZws98jw67g&mode=related&search= Princeton Center for Information Technology Policy: Diebold Hacking video]
* [http://www.ss.ca.gov/elections/voting_systems/security_analysis_of_the_diebold_accubasic_interpreter.pdf The UC Berkeley Report verifying Harri Hursti's hack of the Diebold Optical Scan system]
* [http://vote.caltech.edu/Reports/VotingMachines3.pdf Caltech reports on voting machines]
* [http://www.votehere.com/ VoteHere]
* [http://www.dailycal.org/sharticle.php?id=14688 County Seeks to Mend Electronic Voting Problems] - Daily Californian
* [http://daily.stanford.org/article/2004/5/7/profHelpsGetVotingMachinesInStateDecertified Prof Helps Get Voting Machines In State Decertified] - Stanford Daily

Reviews

* [http://movies2.nytimes.com/2006/11/02/arts/television/02hack.html In the Land of 'Every Vote Counts,' Uncertainty on Whether It's Counted Correctly] - New York Times
* [http://www.salon.com/ent/tv/review/2006/11/02/hacking/index_np.html "Hacking Democracy" Review of the HBO documentary] - Salon.com
* [http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9004584 Hacks, Lies & Videotape, Brad Friedman's review of HBO's 'Hacking Democracy'] - Computerworld
* [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?&xml=/arts/2007/04/20/bfreign20.xml&page=2 Daily Telegraph review (UK)]
* [http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/11/02/diebold_hacking_democracy/ Diebold slams HBO Hacking Democracy documentary] - The Register (UK)
* [http://www.empireonline.com/reviews/reviewcomplete.asp?FID=134992 Empire Magazine's review ****]
* [http://www.jasonkitcat.com/h/f/JDOM/blog//1//?be_id=313 Electronic voting expert, Jason Kitcat's review]
* [http://www.bigbrassblog.com/index.php?itemid=222 Big Brass Blog's review of the Washington Post's review]
* [http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/11/03/opinion/main2150975.shtml Bring Democracy Home] - CBS NEWS
* [http://news.com.com/2061-11199_3-6133205.html It's election day. Do you know where your e-vote is?] - CNET News
* [http://www.sciencefriday.com/blog/index.php?/archives/171-Electronic-Voting-Fraud.html Electronic Voting Fraud] - Science Friday (National Public Radio)
* [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/01/AR2006110103220.html 'Hacking' Doesn't Crack the Code] - Washington Post
* [http://www.boston.com/ae/tv/articles/2006/11/02/hacking_casts_doubt_on_security_of_ballots_1162434647 'Hacking' casts doubt on security of ballots] - Boston Globe
* [http://www.tvguide.com/News-Views/Interviews-Features/Article/default.aspx?posting=%7B2ACA466C-E81E-4888-B8D3-F23CC3F35200%7D Inside the Shocking HBO Film That Rocks the Voting Process] - TV Guide
* [http://online.wsj.com/article/SB116252128356612167.html?mod=googlenews_wsj Voter-Turnout Efforts Go Into High Gear] - Wall Street Journal