Wednesday, July 05, 2006
Keno, voting, and untrustworthy software
Casino owner Manitoba Lotteries Corp. is refusing to pay up to a CN$209,000 winner because they say the win was a "software malfunction".
Of course they shouldn't have had the machine on the floor if they didn't trust the software enough to stand behind it. And of course they trusted the software as long as it reported customers losing.
The implications are fascinating. Don't know about Canada, but in Nevada gambling machines are tested and certified to standards stricter than those used for voting machines (think about that for a while).
If someone can get away with canceling a transaction and blaming it on software because they don't like the result, can the same thing happen with voting machines? Especially since the software in voting machines has been through less inspection?
Nobody in the US seems to care, but in at least two cases a candidate's campaign manager has been allowed to supervise an election. Suppose such a person is running elections in a state with electronic voting machines. Suppose the vote is really close, like Ohio in 2004 or Florida in 2000. Suppose the vote went against that person's candidate. Anyone slimy enough to referee an election while campaigning for one candidate is slimy enough to follow the casino's example and say "The apparent election result was due to a software error, so we'll just record it the opposite way".
Without real machine certification, auditing, and the ability to recount there will be no bulletproof way to stop such a person.
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Of course they shouldn't have had the machine on the floor if they didn't trust the software enough to stand behind it. And of course they trusted the software as long as it reported customers losing.
The implications are fascinating. Don't know about Canada, but in Nevada gambling machines are tested and certified to standards stricter than those used for voting machines (think about that for a while).
If someone can get away with canceling a transaction and blaming it on software because they don't like the result, can the same thing happen with voting machines? Especially since the software in voting machines has been through less inspection?
Nobody in the US seems to care, but in at least two cases a candidate's campaign manager has been allowed to supervise an election. Suppose such a person is running elections in a state with electronic voting machines. Suppose the vote is really close, like Ohio in 2004 or Florida in 2000. Suppose the vote went against that person's candidate. Anyone slimy enough to referee an election while campaigning for one candidate is slimy enough to follow the casino's example and say "The apparent election result was due to a software error, so we'll just record it the opposite way".
Without real machine certification, auditing, and the ability to recount there will be no bulletproof way to stop such a person.
# posted by Frederick @ 9:43 PM Email to a friend:
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