463: Voting Machines

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Voting Machines

Title text: And that's *another* crypto conference I've been kicked out of. C'mon, it's a great analogy!

Explanation

This explanation may be incomplete or incorrect: Reword and reformat If you can address this issue, please edit the page! Thanks.

In the 2008 Ohio primary elections, there were numerous problems with electronic voting machines, which eventually required many districts to revert to pen and paper. Premier Election Solutions, the company that handled the machines, blamed these problems on McAfee anti-virus software.

It is not uncommon to see computer software contract stipulating that the vendor will warrant that software and systems delivered will not contain any virus or mallisius code -- a knee-jerk reaction to this on novice management is to include virus scanning software for system with otherwise are closed. From a computer programming standpoint, having anti-virus software on an electronic voting machine doesn't make sense because the machine shouldn't be accessing the Internet in a way that would leave it open to virus attacks. While there are a lot of ways that viruses can propagate, ultimately the computer still has to download an executable file and run it, which is something that no election machine should do in normal operation. Rather than use anti-virus software, it makes more sense to simply disable the downloading of files, which is very doable. (Or, if the machine might need to receive hotfixes during operation, require that all executable files be signed by the manufacturer with something like ECDSA.)

Hence the question is whether the voting macing manufacture have taken the proper precaution preventing any external access. The comic makes an analogy to a teacher who reassures you that he always wears a condom when teaching. Common sense should dictate that teachers should not end up in a situation where wearing a condom would be useful. rather the school-board and hiring authority should make sure that teachers are screen prior to being employed, and not allowed to continue to teach if any impropriety is even suggested.

Theoretically it's always good to have protection, but a situation where a condom would be useful should hopefully not arise during class. The comment is more likely to make people worried about why the condom is there and what purpose it's serving.

The title text refers to 153: Cryptography.

Transcript

Premier Election Solutions (formerly Diebold) has blamed Ohio voting machine errors on problems with the machines' McAfee antivirus software.

[Cueball is sitting at a computer, facepalming.]

Cueball: Wait. "Antivirus software"? On voting machines? You're doing it wrong.

[Cueball's friend enters the frame and speaks to Cueball.]

Friend: Why? Security is good, right?

Cueball: Of course. But, well—

Cueball: Imagine you're at a parent-teacher conference, and the teacher reassures you that he always wears a condom while teaching.

Friend: Ah. Strictly speaking, it's better than the alternative—

Cueball: —Yet someone is clearly doing their job horribly wrong.

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Discussion

What's incomplete? 199.27.130.180 04:13, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

It seems fine to me. Removing the incomplete tag. LogicalOxymoron (talk) 23:19, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

What's "the alternative"? 108.162.208.98 20:55, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

I believe when the alternate Cueball references "the alternative" he has already realized what the first Cueball meant. Cueball 2 I'll call him, is thus referencing the alternative is no protection or security. I don't believe Cueball 2 is directly referencing the 'teacher wearing a condom analogy'. Official.xian (talk) 19:59, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

I think the alternative is the teacher being raped at school. That's right, Jacky720 just signed this (talk | contribs) 22:05, 12 May 2017 (UTC)

Other way around dude, other way around. Anonymous 00:05, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

It's not necessarily that the teacher is raping the students, but it does indicate the teacher might be having sex at school (for instance, with another colleague). --172.68.57.209 13:37, 22 May 2021 (UTC)

Ideally, there should be no voting machines. Here in Germany, we make a cross on a paper and put that paper in an urn. Counting is done manually under supervision. Voting machines are illegal for a reason. :) --141.101.104.4 15:05, 27 September 2015 (UTC)