I've been reading the Forum on Risks to the Public in Computers and Related Systems - a.k.a., Comp.Risks or The Risks Digest for several decades now. Since I'm in the computer industry, I like to know what risks computers pose to each of us. The two biggest areas that keep coming up over and over are computer controls in airplanes and electronic voting machines.
There is a very good tutorial at http://indiaevm.org/ explaining in simple language how the electronic voting machines in India could easily be compromised and the votes changed, with no record at all that they've been tampered with. It's worth six and a half minutes to watch the video if you are at all concerned about this. Some of the same things could be done with some voting machines used in the United States.
I've used electronic voting machines off and on where I vote, but the current ones produce a paper with the voting information, that I can visually verify, which is then put into a ballot box so that election officials can later verify that the electronic totals are correct. This has the advantage that they get a vote count right away, but also makes it very difficult to tamper with the votes.
There is a very good tutorial at http://indiaevm.org/ explaining in simple language how the electronic voting machines in India could easily be compromised and the votes changed, with no record at all that they've been tampered with. It's worth six and a half minutes to watch the video if you are at all concerned about this. Some of the same things could be done with some voting machines used in the United States.
I've used electronic voting machines off and on where I vote, but the current ones produce a paper with the voting information, that I can visually verify, which is then put into a ballot box so that election officials can later verify that the electronic totals are correct. This has the advantage that they get a vote count right away, but also makes it very difficult to tamper with the votes.
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