Customer Reviews

Brave New Ballot: The Battle to Safeguard Democracy in the Age of Electronic Voting

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Buy this book if you care about the future of voting.

Once every blue moon a technologist who can both do world class science and also communicate effectively with normal people about deeply technical issues is born. Avi Rubin is just that sort of person. His work crosses the chasm from "important to computer security types" to "important to every voter in a modern democracy".

Avi has been at the forefront in telling the truth about computer security for years. His work ranges widely from Internet privacy and anonymity all the way to breaking RFID security. One essential thread runs through his work---a deep, humanitarian understanding of how security issues impact every day life.

Even if you could not care less about computer security you will enjoy this story. Telling the truth about technology can be hazardous---especially when it comes to something as widespread as voting machines. Avi has made his share of enemies in the electronic voting world. They would rather focus on politics and earning money than on safeguarding democracy. If you wonder what it might be like to be in the line of fire of large corporations and powerful politicians, buy this book and learn first hand what Avi has faced so far.

The most interesting thing about this book is that it relates a complete story but represents only the very beginning of what promises to be a long debate over electronic voting and democracy. Educate yourself today on this important issue, and then spread the word.

Gary McGraw, Ph.D.
CTO, Cigital
Author of "Software Security" and "Exploiting Software"
Host of <a href="http://www.cigital.com/silverbullet">The Silver Bullet Security Podcast</a> (featuring an interview with Avi Rubin in episode one)

This is a supremely readable, very important book. Rubin's unaffected, engaging "gee whiz" attitude is the perfect antidote to the false pride of America's typical election officials and the obscurantism of the E-voting industry.

Rubin's cautionary history of the alarming deficiencies of current voting technology and the frank dishonesty (and less obvious manipulation of facts) of the E-voting industry is chilling.

America's leading computer scientists sound an alarm, but Rubin reports that know-it-all election officials refuse to listen. Why does this strange thinking persist and grow? Who benefits by the sloppy misapplication of amateurish technology to American voting?

I am the Clerk/Recorder of Yolo County, California, home of UC Davis and just over the river from the state capitol in Sacramento. I have had careers as a scientist & academic and as a lobbyist in Sacramento. I think I know how politics work. I appreciate the contribution of science to progress. I am not a Luddite. I knew two programming languages before I started grad school.

And I certainly do NOT know enough about computer design, architecture, security or user-interface to evaluate or warranty those qualities in any of the "certified" voting systems approved by the federal government or the incumbent California Secretary of State. After reading Rubin's book, I don't trust that anyone outside of academia is qualified or disinterested enough to address this problem.

Who profits when these voting systems are approved? Who stands to profit over time? Why are public officials complicit in this mess? Rubin does not address these questions, and it's probably just as well...

In an important new book Brave New Ballot: The Battle to Safeguard Democracy in the Age of Electronic Voting, Avi Rubin writes `too often in American life, when it comes to divisive issues, the facts can be less important than the weight of public opinion'. That basically sums up Rubin's story in this fascinating story of his frustrations in dealing with government and corporate officials in his quest to show that e-voting was not as secure as it was originally made out to be.

Brave New Ballot (BNB) is Rubin's story of how in 2003, he and his graduate students at Johns Hopkins University demonstrated that the Diebold Election Systems electronic voting technology in wide use was full of security problems. It was just in 2002 that Sherron Watkins of Enron was named Time magazine person of the year for her work in uncovering fraud at Enron. It would have been thought that Rubin's work would have immediately won him some sort of patriot of the year award for his work.

While the accolades were indeed many, his team's research was maligned as being that of a homework assignment, and the Administrator for Elections for the state of Maryland (where Rubin lives and works) publicly stated that `computer scientists (a direct reference to Rubin and his team) who question the security of electronic voting machines are undermining our democracy.' Such a scenario makes up much of the story that the book tells in Rubin's team's efforts to blow the whistle on unsecure e-voting machines.

As to the Administrator for Elections for the state of Maryland and her disdain for computer scientists, she would likely find constituents such as the zombie-like Stepford wives more to her liking. Unfortunately, she ended up with Professor Rubin.

It is not that secure electronic voting is inherently unattainable. Rather, nearly all of the commercial solutions that have shipped to date have not been adequate designed with security in mind. This is due to many factors, some of which are that the makers of these devices do not completely understand the security risks and countermeasures, in addition to public officials who are far too trusting of these commercial e-voting vendors.

The early chapters of the book detail how Rubin's team analyzed the security and cryptography used within extremely sloppy coding of the Diebold Accuvote-TS director recording electronic device. One particularly humorous incident is when the Diebold programmers reference Bruce Schneier's Applied Cryptography in their C++ code for their decision of which algorithm to use of a for pseudorandom number generation. The only problem is that Applied Cryptography states that the specific algorithm they used should specifically not be utilized for random number generation. Rubin comically states about that incident that Diebold should have consulted with Schneier, rather than have their staff misunderstand what they read in his book.

After his team presented their report in 2003, Rubin writes in detail how Diebold started a smear campaign against him. Not only was it Diebold, but also election officials in municipalities that had deployed the Accuvote-TS system that also maligned Rubin. This was done primarily by misinterpreting his objections, and also by refusing to pay attention to other independent reports on the insecurity of the devices.

Being a whistle-blower always takes a toll on a person and Rubin was no different. He work on e-voting consumed him and took a toll on his family, career and his students. The book chronicles how Rubin found himself caught in a crossfire between big business, partisan politics, and overworked election officials. Rubin also found himself between the crosshairs of the ITAA (Information Technology Association of America), powerful vendor-based lobbying group. The ITAA, of which Diebold was a client, attempted to discredit him on many occasions, but their evidence was always weak and reckless, and in the end only served to bolster Rubin's claims against the Diebold systems.

Part of the absurd claims of the ITAA was that the open-source movement is using the issue of e-voting security to wage a `religious war' that pits open-source software against proprietary software. Rubin could have filed chapters with similar ITAA absurdities, but wisely chose not to.

99% of the voting public does not know about backdoors, insecure code, Trojan Horses, insider threats, and scores of other security issues that the e-voting vendors have yet failed to fully address. The election process as we know it is rapidly being migrated to these electronic voting machines that are replacing the older, but more reliable mechanical systems.

BNB is a timely and important book as it details the very real defects on which these e-voting systems are built on (and Windows is only one of them). The ITAA made claims such that the only vulnerability within e-voting is that of a rogue programmer conspiring to steal public office. Such politicking only serves to confuse the issue for a public that is inherently trustful of these voting machines. Yet if these e-voting machines were built to the same stringencies and regulations that the aviation and pharmaceutical industry faces, they would never make it within a mile of a voting booth.

Brave New Ballot is to e-voting what Rachel Carson's Silent Spring is to the global environmental movement. It is a vitally important book that details the problem of e-voting and what can be done in the future to make certain that it can one day be carried out in a secure manner.

Of course, the image of an embedded crypto key or plaintext password in an e-voting system does not convey the same impact on the public as that of a thalidomide baby. Pictures of thalidomide babies caused heads to roll at the FDA, and one should hope the that the publication of Brave New Ballot will awaken the public from their slumber on the topic of electronic voting, and encourage the Election Assistance Commission to immediately ban electronic voting until it can be secured.

Deforest Soaries, the first Chairman of the United States Election Assistance Commission sums it up best when he states `If the integrity of our sacred right of voting is less important than partisan politics, corporate interests, or bureaucratic systems, then shame on us for presenting ourselves as the global standard bearers of democracy. As Brave New Ballot shows, there is a lot of shame going around.

Five EDUCATIONAL Stars!! In this in-depth examination of 21st Century electronic voting machines and procedures in the U.S.A, author and award-winning investigator Dr. Aviel Rubin of Johns Hopkins University, an expert in computer science and e-voting machine operations and security, states we have a "fundamental right to fair, safe, and secure elections". Then he makes a strong case that as a nation we are in the midst of using risky voting procedures and e-voting machines that may or may not be accurately recording your vote and may not have the capability of doing a valid re-count. With these machines, he feels that if vote fraud occurs it is virtually unverifiable. In addition, the book is a primer on general e-voting machine matters.

In the early chapters, it almost has elements of a mystery novel: with foreign websites offering up proprietary codes, shocking CNN and the New York Times reports, Red Team hackers, lawsuits, private investigations, state investigations, reports and counter-reports, numerous conferences, angry opponents, and one e-voting machine manufacturing company standing tough in the trenches. But it is not a novel and the mystery ends when his team breaks the Diebold source code and discovers a lot of problems that could adversely affect elections everywhere in the US and around the world.

What are the voting problems? Consider the fact that Sarpy County Nebraska (using electronic touch screen machines but not identified as Diebold machines) had "As many as 10,000 extra voters" in the 2004 general election. Extravagant to say the least, but certainly representative of 30,000 voting machines problems around the country experienced in 2004. Dr Rubin does not assign any blame to any particular political party. And while his examination is specific to Diebold direct recording electronic (DRE) e-voting machines, he doesn't specifically exclude other e-voting production companies from having similar problemS.

Here's a shocker: the source code for the Diebold TS and TSx Accuvote machines, used in more than half the states in 2002, was actually found on and copied from Diebold servers and posted on a mysterious foreign website for download by anyone. Dr Rubin was part of an expert team that examined the Diebold source code in detail, wrote a 2003 report and had it's results undergo a form of "peer review" before it's results were initially published by the New York Times and broadcast on CNN. This book primarily delineates the results of that report and it's aftermath. Also included is a consideration of the Maryland-sponsored SAIC study whose results were subjected to differing interpretations. The independent groundbreaking role of investigator and idealogue Bev Harris, who was first to find the Diebold source code problems, is acknowledged.

The report highlights e-voting machine vulnerabilities (at the time of this investigation) which included: vulnerabilities of voter smart cards; the use of the "broken" cryptographic algorithm DES instead of the strongest algorithm AES; unencrypted fixed lineup of the candidates and propositions (if you change the order but not the votes, you change the results of the election), and questionable crypto key management, among others.

As Dr Rubin describes his various working activities during the period from 2002 to 2004, he introduces us to many studies, reviews, technical terms, conferences, types of machines and procedures. We follow him from study groups to reports to conferences to media appearances and eventually to a 2004 polling place where he acts as an official poll judge in the 2004 election, and we learn the issues and problems as we go. His conclusions about the 2004 general election may surprise you. The author was also on investigation groups that looked at the insecurities of military and civilian overseas voting programs and revealed big problems there with the VOI/SERVE programs. Then he addresses the realization in Washington DC and among many states that a particular type of e-voting system is the way to go to help prevent fraud with e-voter machine systems. (I'll treat this as a spoiler). Dr Rubin does believe a truly secure e-voting machine is possible if it has four traits (another spoiler). And the book addresses his terse relationship with Maryland voting official Linda Lamone over Maryland's purchase of Dibold e-voting terminals (definitely not a spoiler!). He identifies a number of states that are moving in the right direction or are already there in terms of having the right e-voting machine platform. He also addresses handicapped voting and the required machines.

Diebold has issued a statement that based on the SAIC study their voting station "provides an unprecedented level of election security". I do wish the actual "Rubin" and "SAIC" reports had been included as an Annex but I don't know how voluminous this book would have become in that case. Be aware, however, that this book is only one side of this very important issue, so educate yourself on all viewpoints. I plan to! Highly recommended. Five Revealing Stars!!!

(This review is based on an unabridged EBook Digital Download in Abode 7 Reader; Save a Tree, download your books.)

Very readable, in fact, very gripping in the telling. It tells what happened since the introduction of voting through computers began with the Help America Vote Act six years ago.

Love the book and I admire this big brain very much for his belief in American ideals and how corruptible voting mechanisms can lose it all for us.

This is a book about science overcoming PR in one of the most important facets of our democracy: voting. In another sense, this book is a narrative of how a scientist's discoveries can lead to new revelations about an emerging technology, and the problems that arise when strong commercial and often political interests are at odds with that discovery. Avi takes you on the trip with him through the often overwhelming events of a major national debate that is even to this day playing out before us.

Prof. Rubin is a long time watchdog of security and privacy dangers in everyday technology. His insights into the practical use of technology by those outside the walls of the academy makes his writing an accessible and enjoyable experience.

An absolutely compelling read, and an eye-opening account of the current state of online voting in the United States. One not to be missed.

Brave New Ballot is something of an oddity; it's virtually a tech policy tell-all. It provides a personal, in-depth look at Rubin's crusade against paperless, unverifyable voting from July 2003, when he and his grad students started work on their famous report detailing the flaws in Diebold's source code, to November 2004, the first presidential election since the widespread adoption of e-voting. We get to meet his allies in the e-voting fight, his opponents in the computer security community and among state officials, and a variety of other figures who shaped the e-voting debate during 2003 and 2004.

The most depressing thing I learned from the book is that Diebold's response to the Felten paper was part of a pattern. When Rubin described security vulnerabilities in their products, Diebold could have taken the opportunity deployed smoke and mirrors to discredit the study, just as they did with Felten's study last month.

Even more disturbing was that many state election officials, especially those in Georgia and Maryland, reacted the same way. They could easily have taken the paper's criticisms back to Diebold and demanded immediate actions to address the flaws Rubin identified. Instead, at least as Rubin tells it, they were some of Rubin's most dogged critics.

Rubin's book is delightfully readable. I read it cover to cover over a weekend. It's structured as a personal narrative, but Rubin does a good job of weaving in the technical and theoretical arguments against paperless voting along the way.

In addition to being a good introduction to the e-voting issue, I think it's also worthwhile reading for aspiring geek activists in general: Rubin describes himself as relatively apolitical prior to his involvement in the e-voting issue, and he offers some insights on striking a balance between being an activist and being an independent, objective expert. He discusses the mini-scandal that erupted when it was revealed that he was on the advisory board of one of Diebold's "competitors." Rubin says (and I believe him) that the connection was tangential and the company wasn't really a Diebold competitor. But that didn't stop his critics from bringing the issue up any time they needed a convenient way to discredit him.

All in all, it's well worth the read. I encourage you to grab a copy.

I bought this book hoping for a clear, simple discussion of the problems with electronic voting that I could give to non-technical people. I was disappointed to discover that this book is intensely autobiographical, and mostly about how Rubin felt through his whole experience. There is fascinating information in here, but you have to slog through a lot of filler about what it was like to be interviewed hundreds of times. With a good editor, this book cold be half as long and 10 times more valuable.

I'm reluctant to give this book a bad review because the subject matter is so important. Maybe Rubin or somebody else will write a shorter book targetted about the risks of electronic voting targetted at a broader audience.

Please do check out Rubin's report and his website if you want to learn why electronic voting is so risky for democracy. But don't bother with the book.

This is a great book for three reasons:

1. It reads like a spy thriller novel that you'll have a hard time putting down.

2. It details how election equipment vendors and some of the politicians supervising elections will say and do anything to defend their turf. The cost is the integrity and transparency of our elections. Vendors will lie, claiming to have fixed identified voting machine problems when they have not. They will attack the person who documents problems, villify them, threaten their university employer, and start nuissance lawsuits.

3. It shows both the good and the bad side of our media reporting. Some reporters get stories right, others report both sides of a controversy without checking whether one side's claims are clearly false already discredited.

A must read for anybody interested in our democracy.

Brave New Ballot proved to be a huge disappointment. Rather than delve into the substance of a very important topic, Rubin spends most of the text taking pot-shots at critics with whom he holds a grudge, while rehashing his turf wars from the past. His writing style oozes self-importance, as he takes the time to mention every "important" talk show or radio program he was a guest for. While I agree with many of his technical conclusions, I cannot recommend this book to anyone interested in the subject of electronic voting. Aviel Rubin's personal biases just get in the way.