Examination of The DES TSx Touch-screens in Utah
In 2006, Black Box Voting was invited by Emery County Utah County Clerk Bruce Funk to examine the DES TSx touch-screen. Black Box Voting arranged for the services of Hursti and Black Box board member Jim March, who traveled to Utah March 1 and 2, 2006. Hursti discovered numerous security flaws, the most egregious being the ability to reload the entire operating system and the ability to replace the boot loader simply by inserting a member card with a specific program name. Hursti discovered that the system would accept macros in a manner that posed a risk to election security. Jim March opened the case of the TSx and photographed its interior, discovering a hidden SD wireless slot and piggyback connectors under the standard modem, both enabling the machine to be equipped for wireless communications without the knowledge of election directors.
After seeing how serious the problems were, Black Box Voting engaged the services of Herbert Thompson, then head of the security company Security Innovation, to provide an independent opinion. Both Hursti and Thompson conducted a second series of tests on March 16 and 17, 2006 to confirm findings, which prompted emergency warnings and last minute corrective actions in Pennsylvania, California, and other states.
Read more about this topic: Hursti Hack
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