Should we discontinue EVMs?

[vera_k]

The book posted up above has a possible explanation for the complaints made by Alok Jena in Orissa.

1. The Central EC has taken to requistioning EVMs from State ECs when required. The chain of control is thus broken.

2. The Orissa EC procured EVMs manufactured by a private company in Orissa through a government PSU.

3. The Central EC did not verify if these machines were trustworthy. The machines were assumed to be good and drafted for use in the 2009 LS elections by affixing a sticker with the logo of the Central EC over the logo of the State EC.

IMO, this process looks shockingly amateurish.

[vera_k]

In case the data stored in the EVMs cannot be read on counting day, the flaw is simply ignored. The votes recorded in the faulty EVMs are simply lost. No repoll or bypoll is ordered so that all votes cast can be counted.

This by itself provides legal grounds for suspending the use of EVMs.

[AjayKK]

Alok Jena's case is indeed curious, especially his allegation that the EVMs were replaced and the charge that EVM units were used having different identification numbers and machine numbers than what should have been. His charges are serious since we put so much emphasis on "process of storage and transportation of machines not being violated". Yet, there is no news on his case.

Meanwhile CEC continues to insist that EVMs are "safe" and "perfect"

MADURAI: Chief Election Commissioner Navin B Chawla said on Sunday that ... "Till today, no individual could prove that the EVMs used by the EC can be tampered with,".


Describing electronic voting machines (EVMs) being used for polls as "perfect", he said there was no need for any "technological improvement" to be made on them.

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/new ... 861270.cms

There goes the idea of getting a paper slip after pressing the button in the "safe" and "perfect" EVM.

[ShyamSP]

This is in Telugu. Here they demo'ed that EVM can easily be hacked.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXYXFV3livM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIH2GEUorpo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zq8indRO6nY

Added later: The person that demo'ed has web site in English on this. http://indiaevm.org/

[Muppalla]

This is in Telugu. Here they demo'ed that EVM can easily be hacked.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXYXFV3livM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIH2GEUorpo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zq8indRO6nY

Added later: The person that demo'ed has web site in English on this. http://indiaevm.org/

Is Hari K Prasad and vhkprasad (BR ID) same? If is the paper on the site is the same that vhkprasad promised to release? It will be interesting to see.

Added later: The videos and the content seems like released today. Just curious.

[Dileep]

It is a commendable work that VHKPrasad and team did. I was expecting to see the full paper online, but it is yet to be posted.

First of all, nice to see that the trojan on the display has much more than eight pins

The following questions comes to mind immediately:

1. Was a power supply line available to the LED board? Or did they modify the circuit to get a power supply across? How exactly was the circuit powered?
2. Was the LED board connected by socket? The photo of the original machine appears to be soldered. If it was originally soldered, then it had been dishonest to show them being snapped off to replace the LED board.

About the clip-on EEPROM programmer:

1. Was the board powered up when the clip-on device did its trick? If so, what technique was used to override the drive of the on-board controller? If not, how was the rest of the board blocked from drawing power from the clip-on device?

[AjayKK]

IndianEVM.com 2 page release:

India's Electronic Voting Machines Proven Insecure - Thursday, April 29, 2010

http://www.indianevm.com/pdf/INDIA%27S% ... 0STUDY.pdf

[Muppalla]

Dileep, I am counting on you

(1) Do you beleive it now that these things can be tampered after they are placed in the booths?
(2) Is it just a remote chance?

Even if it is (2), I will conclude 2009 election is completely rigged. When I say completely it is not that they rigged everywhere. It is just about 1500 booths across two states + few constituencies in another four states.

[AjayKK]

From Rop Gonggrijp

Hacking India's Voting Machines

http://rop.gonggri.jp/?p=126

It’s great how it really is beginning to dawn on people all over the globe that paperless voting systems have a transparency problem. This last February I was invited to India for 9 days. It was good to get some sunlight, but again I was too busy to see many sights. I first went to Delhi to speak at the launch of a new book that is critical on Electronic Voting Machines (people there all call them EVMs). After that I went to Chennai for another conference. Then I went to Hyderabad and did … absolutely nothing that I was publicly talking about until today.

We spent a number of days hacking and filming an EVM (in various states of undress) that had fallen into precisely the right hands. In what qualifies as some of the crazier days of my life Alex Halderman, Hari Prasad and yours truly were finding ways around armed roadblocks, relocating parts on circuit boards, debugging code with teams in different timezones, testing electronics, meeting with political figures surrounded by guys with machine guns and shooting parts of the video embedded below. All of this against the backdrop of the hurricane of plan-resistant chaos that is India.

Our research proved something which we really never doubted: with some preparation anyone with even momentary access to paperless voting machines can own the country. If it wasn’t fun to do it would be depressing that something that obvious needs proving over and over again. Maybe some day we’ll skip the film and just own the country instead. (Just kidding…) Some parts of India definitely looked worth owning, those rare moments I had time to look.

Anyway: never got to see the Taj Mahal. Then again: when I go to India next time, it will probably still be there. Which is much more than one can say of these EVMs. Have a look for yourself.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlCOj1dElDY

[vera_k]

There is a technical paper posted on the indiaevm.org site. Rahul Mehta who started this thread finds an acknowledgement in the conclusion.

http://indiaevm.org/evm_tr2010.pdf

[Sachin]

Interesting video I must say . Not a "techie" or a "geek" (other than learning electronics to pass the Amateur Radio Exam). What I feel is more sinister is Election Commission officials themselves being close to certain political parties. In such cases, we just cannot rely on the electronics/technology part itself.

[vhkprasad]

Hello all Rop's blog is already posted here and itself explains everything, And even the link of our paper appears in the earlier post, Left nothing to show new now, I would like to thank everybody in the forum who directly or indirectly thru their arguments educated me with different thoughts and logics and i admit it helped me a lot to complete the mission without dropping it in the middle especially Mr.Dileep with provocative and challenging questions and followup on paper .

Dileep please check the video/images in indiaevm.org it is done on original machine replacing original display.. and it is connected to a 16pin dip socket on both ends.

[Muppalla]

vhprasad garu,

Why is this news in such a low profile? Why not sensational?
Why it is not as breaking news across India and only on TV9 (only Telugu).

What are the next steps.

[Dileep]

I did a cursory read of the paper.

The 'dishonest display' is indeed a new vector, that we hadn't thought about originally. It definitely has a lower threshold of resistance than the other schemes, especially since ECIL has stupidly decided to use sockets for the cable.

However, this too depend upon beating the checks and balances established by the EC. Someone needs to access the systems, open them and replace the LED Boards. There is the issue of channeling the modified machines to the right constituency, and activating the process at the counting station.

Still, it is a considerable vulnerability that must be addressed. On the brighter side, it shows that most of the common vectors are eliminated to be unviable.

Thankfully, it is not at all difficult to mitigate. All you need to do is to stop driving the LED board when the display is blank. This will eliminate the availability of power to the circuit. Also, I consider it to be stupid to use a socket for the LED cable, which should be changed.

The clip-on modifier is less of a threat. It should be applied after the poll, when the security is very tight. This is logically equivalent to 'ballot-stuffing'.

Nevertheless, it can be mitigated by simply covering the EEPROM chip with a potting compound.

This report shows that the huge majority of the vectors that got raised are unviable. One simple change could eliminate all these vectors. that would be to seal the plastic enclosure at manufacturing.

[Muppalla]

The 'dishonest display' is indeed a new vector, that we hadn't thought about originally. It definitely has a lower threshold of resistance than the other schemes, especially since ECIL has stupidly decided to use sockets for the cable.

However, this too depend upon beating the checks and balances established by the EC. Someone needs to access the systems, open them and replace the LED Boards. There is the issue of channeling the modified machines to the right constituency, and activating the process at the counting station.

What is the probability that this can be done by a smart voter ( could be a person with fake photoID) going to vote after 100th vote or 1000th vote and do the harakiri. When a person is inside the curtained area no one really bothers to see what's going on. I guess the chances are high. Why to even beat the process?

[Dileep]

Mupalla, the activation by bluetooth can be managed. Replacing the LED board will be the difficult part.

In any case, this vector is the 'least resistance' kind we have seen till now. It needs addressing. IMO, just having the cable soldered, and the board heat-staked to the enclosure would be good enough deterrence against it. A circuit change, where the drive is cut off when the display is blank would improve things further. Removing the ground, and replacing it with the +ve plane can also be done, completely eliminating the possibility of the attack.

Let us see how the EC is going to counter it. Looking at the history, they are likely to make asses of themselves.

[Raja Bose]

vhkprasad,

Thanks for putting up a very well written paper - it was a very good read.

However, unfortunately the point remains that it has has stopped at only answering the technical aspect namely, "Is it possible to hack the EVM given access to it". The answer is and will always be (for any electronic device) "Yes". But what your paper has stopped short of answering (and so have other papers dealing with voting machine hacking) is answering the question of feasibility of pulling this off in practice, in large enough numbers without detection. That part (i.e. the process aspect) is the most important part which needs answering in a conclusive manner. Because even the best laid plans fall apart due to Murphy's Law. Hence, anybody who wants to carry out the fraud has to make ensure it never gets detected or everything will fall apart.

1) The clip-based EEPROM one can be discarded given that it is quite labour-intensive and requires disassembly, access and a lot of manual intervention. Also as Dileep mentioned, encasing the EEPROM in potting compound will solve the issue.

2) The Bluetooth one, while feasible, is also in the danger of being detected easily since the BT address and name is visible to all (and not just the attacker). Moreover, it can be disabled quite easily if a faraday cage is included in the design since the EVM does not use RF for normal functioning.

3) The display board replacement is the most feasible and it is mainly utilizing a design flaw (detachable cable) but as Dileep already pointed out, it can also be remedied quite easily.

The analogy to EVM hacking is ballot box replacement since an EVM is essentially an electronic ballot box hence, I dont see how the paper ballot is as secure or more secure than the EVM - it is just that the fraud has to take place at different levels.

[Dileep]

RB, I appreciate the efforts of VHK and team because,

1. They offered a technical and scientific study (despite of course the earlier claims of '8 pin IC' that had dropped the credibility of Prof. Halderman in my eyes.). This is in sharp contrast to the rhetoric that was taking rounds earlier. The work was well done, and the paper is well presented.

2. They pointed out an entirely new vector, the 'dishonest display' which was not thought about earlier.

3. Indirectly, it discounts all the previous rhetoric, and brings the focus to these vulnerabilities, which are real albeit benign.

VHK had mentioned earlier that his aim is to make the EVMs more secure, and not to bring back paper ballot. But the tone I get from the paper is that the idea got a bit derailed by the activists enthusiasm. IMHO, we should take care of those vectors and move forward. This is no way reason enough to declare that the EVMs are unsecure and go back to paper.

[Raja Bose]

VHK had mentioned earlier that his aim is to make the EVMs more secure, and not to bring back paper ballot. But the tone I get from the paper is that the idea got a bit derailed by the activists enthusiasm. IMHO, we should take care of those vectors and move forward. This is no way reason enough to declare that the EVMs are unsecure and go back to paper.

At least based on the current proposed hacks, I hope that is what he is aiming for. Becoz the hacks expose design flaws which can be rectified quite easily. Unfortunately, till now I have always seen the hactivist-driven papers on this subject, end up with the conclusion that somehow EVMs are totally useless while paper-based voting has suddenly miraculously become the savior (conveniently forgetting why EVMs came about in the first place). I hope that is not the case here.

BTW I wonder why is the display PCB separate from the main board in the design? Integrating the segmented display and MCU into a single board should make it cheaper (manufacturer, assembly etc.) and much more easier to prevent tampering including soldering the segments flush to the PCB and applying a layer of hot glue to seal the board on both sides. To prevent onsite tampering, one just has to make it inconvenient enough - same funda as preventing a car theft.

[Dileep]

Maybe because of the angle, and also saving PCB material.

Firstly, it was stupid to use sockets. The crimp connector is designed to be soldered on board. It 'looked' like soldered from the photo, but I believe VHK when he says it was on sockets only. If it was soldered on, it would take 5 minutes to de-solder the connector and solder the new board on. Also, you can heat-stake the plastic instead of making it snap-on. That itself would take the operation out of the viability region.

One suggestion I had from beginning is to have the enclosure welded shut, with a hot stamped serial number on top of the weld. This is 100% tamper evident. The only way to replace something inside would be to replace the enclosure itself, which is beyond the viability.

The article trashes the stickers and wax seals, conveniently forgetting that the ballots are protected by exactly the same techniques. So, what difference does it make?

[Raja Bose]

The article trashes the stickers and wax seals, conveniently forgetting that the ballots are protected by exactly the same techniques. So, what difference does it make?

Exactly.

[AjayKK]

When the thread was started almost 10 months back, the response on suggestions to EVM tampering seemed to be:

1. It cannot be done.
2. It cannot be done.
3. It cannot be done.
4. The EVM is secure.
5. Only losers are complaining
6.Prof. P.V. Indiresan said so
7. There is no process by which real time or post election tampering can be done without detection.
8.The process of protecting EVMs after elections is very secure and intrusions cannot be possible.
9. It cannot be done.
10. It cannot be done.

Glad to see the we are now saying that the debate is restricted to the authorities preventing unauthorised access post the elections. Kudos to GVLN Rao, Hari Prasad, his team and of course to the other side as well.

As Dileep says,

Mupalla, the activation by bluetooth can be managed. Replacing the LED board will be the difficult part.

In any case, this vector is the 'least resistance' kind we have seen till now.

Let us see how the EC is going to counter it. Looking at the history, they are likely to make asses of themselves.

I agree with the last sentence. However, i do not agree that access to EVMs cannot be obtained. The Indian Netas' speciality is that s/he has a process patent in breaking any patented process for his/her own benefit.

And i have the same thought as Muppalla when he says : What are the next steps? Petition the same EC? Wonder what Rahul Mehta would have to say?

[Raja Bose]

AjayKK,

If you read carefully what all was claimed in the last umpteen pages of this thread esp. during debate with Rahul Mehta (I can atleast speak for Dileep, ArmenT and myself):
It was agreed that all electronic devices can be hacked but to hack the EVM without getting detected and in large enough numbers to have an impact, had not been proven.

...and after those umpteen pages and the new paper/videos etc., it still remains to be proven (see my comment above).

[ArmenT]

One of the problems with having the EVMs print a backup paper receipt for every vote cast is, which one due you trust in case of controversy? Let's say they modify the EVMs to also print a paper receipt for every vote cast and the voter verifies that it is the correct vote and deposits the paper into a separate ballot box. Now, ballot box manipulation tactics are more accessible and well known to more netas, so a candidate who has lost the election can claim fraud and ask to check the paper ballot, which he has manipulated to favor himself. So now, do you trust the EVM or do you trust the box containing the paper ballots?

[Dileep]

Do not read too much into the "EC making asses of themselves' statement.

EC approached the problem in the typical babu way, from the beginning. I expect them to react the same way again, and that is all I meant.

I see no reason to change my belief that the EVMs are MORE SECURE than paper ballots.

[AjayKK]

One of the problems with having the EVMs print a backup paper receipt for every vote cast is, which one due you trust in case of controversy?

He he, that would Equal Opportunity EVM-BallotBox Election Tampering Process ©. Imagine the shock and horror on the face of the rigging agents of one party on discovering that the other rigging agents have already rigged the ballot box of the election where the EVM was already rigged

[Muppalla]

First of all Kudos to prasad, GVLNR and others as they attacked the problem logically and technically.

We should not blame activists as far as EVMs are concerned. What is their agenda in bringing back paper ballot? In case of environmental activists like Medha patkars etc., we know their agendas. In case of elections none of these activists has anything gaining if paper ballots comes back. Is there anything like that I am missing? The activists have very simple fundamentals. They saw certain patterns that are visible in the results. For them going back to ballots is like "let us get back to basics".

It is very simple, most of these activists are half-knowledged. The knowledge behind hacking or tampering with low level chips etc. is not easy for activists to even understand and it is beyond their capabilities. The techies that are involved with these activists are with pre-concieved notions. They are like entire west banned these and hence the third-world-stupid India in not capable kind of mindset. On a longshot these may have vested interests as EVMs are getting global markets. A lot of expensive EVMs failed what Indian EVMs have achieved.

Regarding tampering EVMs Vs tampering ballot boxes, it is proven beyond doubt that the tampering of ballot boxes is very visible as opposed to tampering of EVMs because you need just two techies to tamper a booth in case of EVMs. Any number of cameras etc are all useless. The entire EC process is useless too as this can be done so late in the process.


RB,
You scale theory does not work as I said it is just about 4000 polling stations (by the way this is most exagarated number that I can get to) that the folks need to take care off to steal the election. We are having several helping factors to ensure that this can be done very quitely. We are having a month to two month long elections in several phases. The tampering hit-men also does not need to be in large number as same folks can be used multiple times.

2009 Loksabha elections:
Regarding 2009 Loksabha elections, my take is firmly shifted after these revelations. I would say that the elections are stolen. Period. I am not trying to say just because my political ideology is different from the winner. I am watching the chronology of elections from starting from 1989 very closely. The most famous story I can write is Rajiv Gandhi's Amethi election in 1989 under then EC Peri Sastry. Sanity in elections came after T.N.Seshan took over as EC. Even there I will not give any great credibilty to T.N.Seshan. The reason for his success is Gandhis (the Rajas and Rajmatas of Indian democracy) briefly receded into background. That is the sole reason for T.N.Seshan's survival and success.

Not just anecdotal evidences, I have a personal experience with the INC machinery, their capabilities in booth capturing and tampering. Hence using few hardware techies to tamper 4000 booths across India is extremely easy for INC. If there is way then they will do it (no more they may have done it).

Having a hole in EVM so that it can be tampered is more dangerous than ballot box tampering. In the later case it needs just one journo taking a photo and publishing in a regional newspaper. In EVM case we have to go thru some acrimonious 45 page BR thread and several top-notch electronic hardware folks trying it hardway with a research paper.

It is not difficult using probability theories and demographics of constituencies, to get roughly which constituencies are tampered. I again gaurantee everyone that the election is stolen one.

Here is how tampering achieved results for INC and from my older post :

The way the election results look like is a perfect orchestration of "removal of all troubles and ills of INC" in one shot from the past. Though INC did win only 206 and not win 543 they blanked out their enemies 543-0.

It seems like that in their calculations, BJP was never in the contention for them and hence no worries there. Here is how it looks like and it is amazing to achieve all in one shot. Even though it is election but it looks like a programmed thing for me to get me out of all troubles. For telugu folks it is like ayurveda medicine "sakala roga nivarini" aushadha working.

1) Salami slice BJP in its area of influence so that it does not rise it head. Guj, MP, Uttarakhand
2) Let us not do anything with Karnataka as we think we will look suspicious. But Dev Gowda - the damn guy should be put in is place and how dare he cheats us.
3) AP - We got to win here but I don't think YSR whould have a large majority. Chiru should not grow. Ok fine- let us give huge LS majority and but 10 seater to YSR. Damn guy let him live there. CBN can sulk in the opposition for a while. Again this damn TRS how dare he crossed my line. Let us finish him.
4) Left - These jokers tried to convert Nuke deal as Muslim Vs. Non-Muslim. These folks needs rape and murder and hence let us order the robots to do exactly the same
5) Laloo, Paswan - Let us flush them like a lavatory-tissues
6) Naveen and Nitish - let us leave them in good humor and may be useful in future.
7) AGP - Let BJP win here but not AGP. AUDF - the two bit party that sole depends on BDs is good thing for future. Ok done deal so let us add them
8 ) ADMK -PMK - MDMK - big nuisance and how dare they talk of Elam etc. Let us see if we can do such a way so that we don't have to work with toooo many *MKs but just with one who is anyway. Jaya is looking like BJP-B anyway. Let us do only salami slicing here so that we don't look suspicious.
9) Delhi and Rajasthan - forget about voting percentages etc. - let us just sweep because we won the assembly recently.
10) JMM is a huge pain and hence lets dump it.
11) By the way for all these parties, let us give one seat each so that we do not look like we did something
12) SP - BSP: Damn black mailers - Let us make them as irrelevant and dependent on us from tommorow but be cautious. We should not go from zero to 80.
13) Over all we don't win 300 seats on our own but we have 300 with about 100 of them has no option but us.
14) pawar- bloody fellow wants PM ship. Show him his place while we win.

Make Singh the King!!! It is infinite number of master strokes and a beautifullest victory that anyone can dream/cherish

[AjayKK]

It is not difficult using probability theories and demographics of constituencies, to get roughly which constituencies are tampered. I again gaurantee everyone that the election is stolen one.

Read your earlier post on 543-000. Perfectly fits the scenario. Our Election thread did not factor in EVMs! To me the defining moment of the post election phase was that CNN IBN revising its tally for the UPA by 20-25 seats leaving NDA way behind by 45 seats, a gap it would never recover from

Meanwhile, no desi media carried the press release of the tech paper.

From PC World.com

India's Electronic Voting Machines Are Insecure, Study Finds

John Ribeiro, IDG News Service

Indian electronic voting machines (EVMs) are vulnerable to fraud, researchers said this week, and advocated that a paper trail should be maintained to verify the results of balloting.

The researchers have also released a video where they have demonstrated attacks on an EVM after tinkering with its internal electronics.

They got access to a working EVM, that was already used in an election, through an anonymous source, Hari Prasad, one of the researchers said on Friday. Prasad is managing director of Netindia, a Hyderabad-based technology firm

One attack involved replacing the display board of the machine with a look-alike component that can be instructed to steal a percentage of the votes in favor of a chosen candidate.

The new display board adds a microcontroller that replaces the election results with fraudulent ones as they are displayed, and a Bluetooth radio module that allows the attacker to wirelessly signal through his mobile phone which candidate should receive the stolen votes, the researchers said.

Though the use of mobile phones is prohibited within 100 meters of polling stations, this rule is infrequently enforced, the researchers added.

In another attack on the test EVM, the researchers used a pocket-sized device, attached to the memory chips, to change the votes stored in the EVM between the election and the public vote counting, which in India can be weeks later.

Storage rooms where EVMs are kept between elections are insecure, and criminals can bribe an official and get access to the machines, Prasad said.

Officials at the Election Commission of India were not immediately available for comment. Prasad said the researchers have offered to demonstrate the attacks to the Election Commission.

India uses EVMs of the Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) variety, which record votes only to internal memory and do not provide paper records for later inspection or recount.

The researchers have also raised concerns that criminals and people intending to rig elections can tamper with components. The EVMs are designed so that the firmware is stored in masked read-only memory in the microcontroller, and there is no provision for reading it out or verifying its integrity.

If the software was modified before it was burned into the CPUs, the changes will be very difficult to detect, the researchers said.

The chips are made in the U.S. and Japan, and nobody in India knows for sure what software is in the machines, or whether they count votes accurately, they added.

The researchers have recommended a voter-verified paper audit trail (VVPAT), which combines an electronic record, stored in a DRE machine, with a paper vote record that can be audited by hand. Existing EVMs do not have upgradeable software, but a VVPAT can be added on the cable between the control unit and the ballot unit, they said.

The researchers recommend precinct-count optical scan (PCOS) voting as an alternative. In this model, voters fill out paper ballots that are scanned by a voting machine at the polling station before being placed in a ballot box. Attacking either of these systems would require tampering with both the paper records and the electronic records, according to the researchers.


http://www.pcworld.com/article/195328/i ... finds.html

From above article i came to know "the use of mobile phones is prohibited within 100 meters of polling stations"

[muraliravi]

http://ibnlive.in.com/news/evms-vulnera ... 37-64.html

CNN-IBN is carrying the news, They just put it yesterday, lets see how far the media carries this news.

[Pranav]

VHK had mentioned earlier that his aim is to make the EVMs more secure, and not to bring back paper ballot. But the tone I get from the paper is that the idea got a bit derailed by the activists enthusiasm. IMHO, we should take care of those vectors and move forward. This is no way reason enough to declare that the EVMs are unsecure and go back to paper.

VHK ji, can you confirm whether you prefer continuation of EVMs - also, how can you prevent insertion of trojans by programmers within PSUs or the microcontroller manufacturers?

[vhkprasad]

VHK had mentioned earlier that his aim is to make the EVMs more secure, and not to bring back paper ballot. But the tone I get from the paper is that the idea got a bit derailed by the activists enthusiasm. IMHO, we should take care of those vectors and move forward. This is no way reason enough to declare that the EVMs are unsecure and go back to paper.

VHK ji, can you confirm whether you prefer continuation of EVMs - also, how can you prevent insertion of trojans by programmers within PSUs or the microcontroller manufacturers?

I support secure EVMs with verifiability, Present EVMs doesn't meet the requirements and they need to be improved, Paper ballot is cumbersome but voting needs verifiability not trust. I love to see the day where electronic voting is accepted and understood by a common citizen.

[Raja Bose]

I support secure EVMs with verifiability, Present EVMs doesn't meet the requirements and they need to be improved, Paper ballot is cumbersome but voting needs verifiability not trust. I love to see the day where electronic voting is accepted and understood by a common citizen.

That is a refreshing attitude quite different from the other "anti-EVM" activists. More power to you, sir!

[Muppalla]

I did a cursory read of the paper.

The 'dishonest display' is indeed a new vector, that we hadn't thought about originally. It definitely has a lower threshold of resistance than the other schemes, especially since ECIL has stupidly decided to use sockets for the cable.

However, this too depend upon beating the checks and balances established by the EC. Someone needs to access the systems, open them and replace the LED Boards. There is the issue of channeling the modified machines to the right constituency, and activating the process at the counting station.

Still, it is a considerable vulnerability that must be addressed. On the brighter side, it shows that most of the common vectors are eliminated to be unviable.

Thankfully, it is not at all difficult to mitigate. All you need to do is to stop driving the LED board when the display is blank. This will eliminate the availability of power to the circuit. Also, I consider it to be stupid to use a socket for the LED cable, which should be changed.

The clip-on modifier is less of a threat. It should be applied after the poll, when the security is very tight. This is logically equivalent to 'ballot-stuffing'.

Nevertheless, it can be mitigated by simply covering the EEPROM chip with a potting compound.

This report shows that the huge majority of the vectors that got raised are unviable. One simple change could eliminate all these vectors. that would be to seal the plastic enclosure at manufacturing.

I sincerely hope that the tamperability is rectified and I concur with vhkprasad that EVM should be transparent so that common voter does not have fear or suspicion.

I have a suspicion that when vhkprasad et al goes for next round of "simple tampering" demonstration with EC, they may get EVMs that have these things corrected as they came out with a white paper. May be it is bad idea to release this paper before attending EC meeting.

[Dileep]

On the contrary, the EC and Prof Indiresan are likely to defend themselves.

If they give a hint of admission that the vectors are remotely viable, then the anti-EVM crowd are going to immediately demand the scrapping of all the EVMs, which is an overkill.

The action that I would propose would be to recall the machines to ECIL in batches, examine them, and then seal the enclosure with a hot welded seal bearing a serial number. Any further production should also have this seal. It would eliminate all forms of tampering in the field.

[Pranav]

I support secure EVMs with verifiability, Present EVMs doesn't meet the requirements and they need to be improved, Paper ballot is cumbersome but voting needs verifiability not trust. I love to see the day where electronic voting is accepted and understood by a common citizen.

So are you suggesting that it is possible to have verifiability without a paper trail?

[Dileep]

My take is, the verifiability of the integrity of the EVM, not the recorded votes itself. The assumption is that if you verify the integrity of the EVM, the integrity of the votes within is deemed verified.

[RamaY]

VHKPrasad garu,

Kudos to your team.

What are your recommendations in making the EVMs more secure? What procedure do you suggest in developing a paper trial?

[AjayKK]

EC caught lying ? Are Detachable Memory Modules used or not ?

Pune Mirror: Why your vote may not count

How difficult is it to tamper votes stored in Electronic Voting Machines (EVM) in Maharashtra? Not very, it seems according to the response of an application filed under the Right to Information Act (RTI) by city-based social activist Rekha Gore.

In fact, if you were to tamper with votes, one of your best options would be Maharashtra. A scandalous fact that was brought to the fore by Gore’s RTI is that Maharashtra is one of the few states in the country which uses Electronic Voting Machines with detachable memory modules (DMM) for municipal elections.

She has now sent a legal notice to the central election commisioner, state election commisioner, chief minister and leader of opposition regarding the issue.

Explaining why Maharastra’s EVMs are so vulnerable, Gore said, “The DMM is a small part of the EVM which contains election results. But it is detachable from the machine.

So, it is risky as the election result can be destroyed, tampered with or even replaced. So, the results can be very easily manipulated by replacing the DMM.

After the elections, EVMs are stored under high security, even candidates are not allowed onto the premises
to check if transparency is being maintained, which actually should be their right. Japan and many other European countries across the world have discontinued the use of EVMs.

In America, EVMs have been heavily criticised and now, states give states the option of using ballot boxes or EVMs.”

“I have a copy of the EVM manual through RTI, from the state election commision. I also met the election commisioner Navin Chawla and apprised him about the issue. He told me he would speak to the Chief Minister as it was a state issue,” Gore added.

BJP national secretary Kirit Somaiya, who has taken up this issue with the election commision, said, “When almost all the states in India are using EVMs with inbuilt memory for municipal elections, why does the Maharastra election commision use EVMs with DMM. By doing this, they are not being transparent and creating a scope for manipulation.

The Election Commision is ready to provide EVMs with inbuilt memory to Maharashtra, why then are we shying from accepting them. I have taken up this issue with the election commision.”

Somaiya said that the EVM techonlogy used in India has been discarded in many countries around the world as it was criticised by politicial parties all over.

Then why in India, is the election commision is using age-old techonlogy when 21st century technology like EVM’s with paper back ups are available.

Gore filed an application with the state election commision which revealed that the commision bought 31,800 EVM’s from Electronic’s Corporation of India Limited for Rs 10,900 each. The machines were bought between October 2004 and February 2007.

These EVMs are used in municipal corporation, municipal council, zilla parishad, panchayat samiti and gram panchayat elections.

Please recall that EC in its reply to Shri VV Rao has said this:

http://eci.gov.in/eci_main/recent/reply__sh.VVRao.pdf

Questions – On Expert Committee Report


Q13 : Did Prof Indiresan committee evaluate the EVMs with detachable memory module (DMM)? If not why EVM-DMM models are not considered for evaluation? Are they used in any elections?

A:ECI-EVMs do not have DMM. Therefore, the question does not arise.

If "ECI-EVMs do not have DMM", then how is "Maharashtra one of the few states in the country which uses Electronic Voting Machines with detachable memory modules (DMM)" ?

[ramana]

The politics party guy is also doubting the EVMs and he is a die hard INC supporter bleating to Soniaji all the time.

http://www.politicsparty.com/electronic ... chines.php

So there is background misgivings about lack of verification trail and the continuing surprises in the election results :2004 and 2009 for even the leadership.

So EC is playing hand of God.

[Raja Bose]

The DMM is a very bad option in its current form. One thing that the Indian EVMs have going for them is not having any such detachable modules which can be replaced easily or whose port can be used for introducing malicious code/content (like the Diebald machines in US).