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latkinson6
03-18-2008, 01:52 PM
EXCLUSIVE: Sequoia Voting Systems Threatens Princeton Computer Scientists with Legal Action if they Carry Out NJ Commissioned Analysis of the Company's Touch-Screen Voting Machines (http://www.bradblog.com/?p=5814)

latest blog on hackable vote machines.

lastnymleft
03-19-2008, 09:25 PM
Sequoia won. The independent analysis of the voting machine and its software has been shut down. Another nail in the coffin of the Republic.

http://www.bradblog.com/?p=5820

IPSecure
03-19-2008, 10:01 PM
Ohio seizes voting machines in criminal investigation.

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080318-ohio-seizes-voting-machines-in-criminal-investigation.html

Banana
03-19-2008, 10:20 PM
Sequoia won. The independent analysis of the voting machine and its software has been shut down. Another nail in the coffin of the Republic.

http://www.bradblog.com/?p=5820

What I do not understand is this: Exactly what trade secrets are they claiming for protection?

The purpose of this device is to record a voter's vote. Therefore the minimum function is to be able to create a entry in a database indicating ballot identity (maybe by using SSN, ballot number, or whatever), positions and selections. It must then be able to tally up all the votes.

Basically, I can program the whole thing, heck, I could even use 386s with QuickBASIC to do this!

So exactly what is in the machine that requires the protection of a trade secret? Friendly user-interface? That's a copyright issue. Source code itself? Not strictly necessary to do an independent test. Custom hardware? Not strictly necessary to do an independent test.

I'm sorry, but just... *what* trade secret?

This is bullshit. Longhorn style.