Voting machine source-code leak shows election-rigging subroutines?

[Eugen Leitl]

(caveat the source, but utterly unsurprising, if true)

http://www.boingboing.net/2009/10/20/voting-machine-sourc.html

Voting machine source-code leak shows election-rigging subroutines?

Sequouia, a company that makes many of the electronic voting machines used in
the US and elsewhere, has inadvertently leaked much of the secret source-code
that powers its systems. The first cut at analysis shows what looks like
illegal election-rigging code ("code that appears to control or at least
influence the logical flow of the election") in the source.

    Sequoia blew it on a public records response. We (basically EDA) have
election databases from Riverside County that Sequoia insisted on "redacting"
first, for which we paid cold cash. They appear instead to have just
vandalized the data as valid databases by stripping the MS-SQL header data
off, assuming that would stop us cold.

    They were wrong.

    The Linux "strings" command was able to peel it apart. Nedit was able to
digest 800meg text files. What was revealed was thousands of lines of MS-SQL
source code that appears to control or at least influence the logical flow of
the election, in violation of a bunch of clauses in the FEC voting system
rulebook banning interpreted code, machine modified code and mandating hash
checks of voting system code.

    I've got it all organized for commentary and download in wiki form.

    This is the first time we can legally study a voting system's innards
without NDAs or court-ordered secrecy. 

Sequoia Voting Systems hacks self in foot (via MeFi)