Students at Rice University in Houston are being taught how scarily simple it is to make changes to computerized voting machine software in such a way that could alter election results.Â
"What we've found is that it's very easy to insert subtle changes to the voting machine," said Rice University Associate Professor and Director of Rice's Computer Security Lab Dan Wallach in a statement. "If someone has access and wants to do damage, it's very straightforward to do it."
Students who took part in the Hack-a-Vote exercises and acted like auditors were often able to detect changes to the software. But Wallach says that such detection would most likely come too late in the real world.
He said he is hopeful that by making students aware of the flaws in the electronic voting machines that some of them will go on to help secure the systems.
Many are looking for solutions, including the California Secretary of State, who recently said open source software could play a key role in securing electronic voting systems.
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