[Fsf-friends] Electronic Voting Machines and Free Software (Was Re: Sign an Open Letter to the CJI in Support of Prashant Bhushan)

[Harish Singh]

Meanwhile, Germany's Federal Constitutional Court has banned
electronic Voting Machines and for good reason. The picture of the
EVM's carried on the elephant says it all.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/wnorrix/308039508/in/photostream/

http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/03/03/1325233

- Harish Singh



On Wed, Sep 29, 2010 at 3:15 PM, Praveen A <pravi.a at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> 2010/9/28 Satish Babu <sb at inapp.com>:
> > This is not about the petition, but I'm wondering if there is a link
> > between Free Software and EVMs.
> >
> > If I remember right, the original debate was if EVMs could be
> > demonstrated to be tamper-proof.
> >
> > EVMs are some kind of computers, and consist of hardware and software
> > (in this case, firmware). The question of establishing if an EVM is
> > tamper-proof *can* be resolved if the community has access to the
> > source code of the firmware. After all, if the community has
> > sufficient skills to contribute to the Linux kernel, we surely have
> > the competencies to audit/inspect the source code of the EVM.
> >
> > As a community, shouldn't we be therefore calling for public scrutiny
> > of the source code of the EVM?
>
> How do you make sure every EVM actually has the binary compiled from
> the source code you inspected?
>
> How do you know if the storage card is not replaced? There are much
> more issues than just source code. The biggest concern, is there is no
> back up, and you cannot verify it independently unlike a paper ballet.
>
> --
> പ്രവീണ്‍ അരിമ്പ്രത്തൊടിയില്‍
> You have to keep reminding your government that you don't get your
> rights from them; you give them permission to rule, only so long as
> they follow the rules: laws and constitution.
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