[EM] CORRECTING Black box voting repost re how HAVA imploded

[Dave Ketchum]

On Wed, 31 Jan 2007 21:35:31 -0800 Jonathan Lundell wrote:

> At 12:28 AM -0500 2/1/07, Dave Ketchum wrote:
> 
>>Step back, and think of the many places where we use computers BECAUSE, if
>>designed and built to provide a service, they are the best way to get it
>>done successfully:
>>
> 
> NIST is charged under HAVA (Help America Vote Act) with providing
> technical advice. In a draft report that they recently issued, they
> say:
> 
> 
>>Are there ways to improve DREs so that they can be made secure and
>>fully auditable? NIST and the STS do not know how to write testable
>>requirements to satisfy that the software in a DRE is correct. 


If they ain't that smart, nor even smart enough to hire needed smarts, 
this should have been admitted, to permit intelligent response.

>>     The
>>use of COTS software in DREs causes additional problems; having, for
>>example, a large opaque COTS operating system to evaluate in
>>addition to the voting system software is not feasible.
>>

Obvious response to this is simpler:  If some COTS is too complex to be 
testable at tolerable expense, forbid its use.

> 
> The draft is available here:
> http://vote.nist.gov/DraftWhitePaperOnSIinVVSG2007-20061120.pdf

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  Dave Ketchum   108 Halstead Ave, Owego, NY  13827-1708   607-687-5026
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