eVoting - 1994 South African election hacked !

Capt'n Midnight

Yes it was hacked
but they fell back to a paper system so the result was unchanged

If the allegations are true then it should prove the final nail in our eVoting debacle.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-11630092

A new book in South Africa says a computer cacker tried to sabotage the historic election in 1994.

This was the vote which ended apartheid and brought Nelson Mandela to power.

The book by Peter Harris, who was the head of the official election monitoring division, says the hacker got into what was thought to be an impregnable system.

...

"The electronic count was compromised by a cacker who went in and multiplied the vote," said Mr Harris. "The electronic count was then closed down. It stopped. That's when the results stopped going to South Africa and the rest of the world."

The secret manual system saved the day. But it required suspending the announcement of the results for two days.

The author says because the manual count was running two days behind, it had to catch up.

OK imagine we did keep eVoting and you broke into the system , you can only alter a few results without getting caught - who you elect or prevent getting elected ?


Personally I'd have to adjust Dublin South West so the final seat goes to Dustin.

PanchoVilla

The first video is a bit long but very interesting. The second deals with the suspicious deaths of the men investigating the claims made in the first. Pretty disturbing stuff really.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEzY2tnwExs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUU4FCsp_Xw

Edit: An actual news story on the subject.

Edit 2: The election of Senator Chuck Hagel back in '96 is also an interesting read.

Although he was pressured by some to run for Governor of Virginia, where he had lived for 20 years, in 1992 Hagel moved back to Nebraska to become president of the McCarthy Group, an investment banking firm. He also served as a Chairman and was CEO of American Information Systems Inc. (AIS), a voting machine manufacturer.

In 1992, as President of investment group McCarthy & Co., Hagel assumed ownership and became Chairman of American Information Services (AIS), later known as Election Systems & Software (ES&S), a manufacturer of computerized voting machines. On March 15, 1995, Hagel resigned from the board of AIS as he intended to run for office.

Although many people believed Hagel had no chance of winning, he won a "stunning upset" in the election, receiving 56% of the vote, winning virtually all demographic groups including many black precincts that had always voted Democratic in previous elections, and becoming the first Republican in twenty-four years to win a Senate seat in Nebraska.

Six years later in 2002, Hagel overwhelmingly won re-election with over 83% of the vote, the largest margin of victory in any statewide race in Nebraska history.

Sticky_Fingers

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

OK imagine we did keep eVoting and you broke into the system , you can only alter a few results without getting caught - who you elect or prevent getting elected ?

Gee it's just like Sophie's Choice except in Irish politics the only correct decision would be to give both Enda and Biffo a bar of soap and wave them cheerfully off to the showers