Re: OT| U.S. democracy in peril

From: Paul Blay (ranma_at_saotome.demon.co.uk)
Date: 11/12/04 

Date: Fri, 12 Nov 2004 09:36:18 -0000

"Greg D. Moore (Strider)" wrote ...
> "Andrew Nowicki" <andrew@nospam.com> wrote ...
>> "Dr. Avi Rubin is currently Professor of Computer Science at John
>> Hopkins University. He accidentally got his hands on a copy of the
>> Diebold software program -- Diebold's source code -- which runs
>> their e-voting machines.
>>
>> Dr. Rubin's students pored over 48,609 lines of code that make up
>> this software. One line in particular stood out over all the rest:
>>
>> #define DESKEY ((des_key*) "F2654hd4")
>
> Ok, that above doesn't prove a thing. For one thing w/o looking at the code
> myself, I have no idea if this use of DESKEY is actually for DES or
> something else.

True, but Dr. Avi Rubin (allegedly) got to look at the code and presumably
he has the skills so it's only a matter of whether he's reporting accurately
or not on his findings.

One point many made before the election was that the voting SW source
code should have been made available to the public in order that
everybody have a chance to point out security flaws and other problems.
 
> Secondly, DES itself haven't been used in years, but Triple DES is still
> commonly used and considered secure enough for many appliaction.
>
> And you're right. Off-topic. Let's take it elsewhere.

When has that ever stopped sci.space.policy posts?