Tuesday, July 21, 2009

belligerent EC says: prove EVMs are flawed

jul 20th, 2009

well, qureishi, we will do exactly that as soon as you provide a few actual EVMs. at the moment, you are shadow-boxing. you say nobody has demonstrated EVM fraud on the actual EVMs. hard to do if you won't give us a few units or tell us the details. when we demonstrate proof of concept on other hardware you say, "it is not the same".

typical sleazeball behavior.

talk of red herrings and belligerent brazenness!

EVMs rigged? Poll panel challenges doubters

Prarthna Gahilote / CNN-IBN

TimePublished on Sun, Jul 19, 2009 at 21:39 in India section 

 

Watch video: EC – EVMs can't be rigged; Hacking EVMs not easy

 

http://ibnlive.in.com/pix/sitepix/07_2009/evm-rig313.jpg Doubting Thomas? Come and prove. We will videograph the whole process, says Election Commissioner SY Quraishi.

 

New Delhi: The controversy over electronic voting machines (EVMs) has a new twist. The Election Commission has challenged a software developer to prove his claim that EVMs can be programmed to guarantee victories for particular candidates or parties.

Ripujit Nomthondam claims the software he has developed can be put into any EVM by activating an already existing secret loop to ensure that by default every fifth vote will go in favour of a chosen candidate.

"The software can give two different results: one is a correct count and the other manipulated. I have put one invalid key that can activate the secret loop in the programme code (of EVMs)," claims Nomthondam.

But the Election Commission points out that Nomthondam's software has been developed on a laptop and without access to EVMs. The Saigal brothers, Krishan and Omesh, who first talked about the software, reject the safety claims of the Election Commission's experts.

"We don't have an EVM so we have asked the Election Commission to give us a machine and give us 10 days. We will show it can be done (EVMs can be tampered with)," says Krishan Saigal. "It is amazing that for Rs 500 a young programmer in seven days can produce a programme which can rig elections."

Meanwhile, head of Election Commission's experts, Professor PV Indiresan, laughs off Saigal's complaints about the EVMs. "This is like asking Sita to prove her chastity by giving agni pariksha. That is all I can say," says Indiresan.

And along with Indiresan the Election Commission believes they have foolproof logic on their side and says Nomthondam is painting a rather simplistic picture.

It requires six bits of information to access one candidate on every machine and would require the complicity of a large number of officials if even a small section of the 12 lakh EVMs are to be manipulated. Besides, one has to know the source code of the EVMs to programme it to rig.

"The EVMs software programme is frozen and cannot be entered and it cannot be rigged," says Indiresan.

The Election Commission has challenged the Saigals and Nomthondam to prove their case. Sources tell CNN-IBN that the Election Commission is bringing in a powerful panel comprising experts and the two manufacturers of EVMs, Bharat Electronics Ltd. and Electronics Corporation of India Ltd, to prove the EVMs' safety.

It has also challenged doubters to prove their suspicions about the machines.

"Come and prove. We will videograph the whole process—we throw a challenge. We are 100 per cent confident about the machines," said Election Commissioner SY Quraishi.

 

http://ibnlive.in.com/videos/97488/evms-rigged-poll-panel-challenges-doubters.html

http://ibnlive.in.com/printpage.php?id=97488&section_id=3

http://sites.google.com/site/hindunew/electronic-voting-machines


3 comments:

kalyan97 said...

Ridiculous is the comment of Prof. Indiresan who compares self-proclaimed tamper-proof EVMs to Sita's chastity. Shame on Indiresan who has not studied Ramayana. EVMs are no Sita, Indiresan; they are electronic gadgets which can be broken into by any any ATM/Credit card hacker NRI from USA. kalyan

psudo said...

Why election comission is not providing the detail report of the tests that were conducted to check machine. Basically the problem is that people in india have lost faith in our govt organizations as most of them are headed by contravercial people and not people with clean image. These guys wont liten to any argument.

M. Patil said...

Since when did ECIL create fault resistant program? Not even Google and Microsoft make those claims.

The fact that they are protesting too much is itself a red herring. And why are they hiding their 'fault tolerant' EVMs?

This lack of transperancy itself is against the priniciple of democracy. Why is the EC and Congress against transperancy?