precedence: bulk Subject: Risks Digest 23.52 RISKS-LIST: Risks-Forum Digest Thurs 9 September 2004 Volume 23 : Issue 52 ACM FORUM ON RISKS TO THE PUBLIC IN COMPUTERS AND RELATED SYSTEMS (comp.risks) Peter G. Neumann, moderator, chmn ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy ***** See last item for further information, disclaimers, caveats, etc. ***** This issue is archived at as The current issue can be found at Contents: Shutting the train door before the commuter has bolted? (Michael Bacon) Illinois Secretary of State computer outage (J H Haynes) Overcomputerization enlightenment (Joseph A. Dellinger) More ID theft, via laptop (David Lesher) Missouri vote-by-fax (PGN) E-voting in Nevada (NewsScan) Diebold GEMS central tabulator contains a stunning security hole (Bev Harris via EEkid) Using a paper trail to verify electronic voting machine results (Diomidis Spinellis) Election verification in Venezuela (Peter B. Ladkin) ATMs offer too much information (Brendan Kehoe) Risk of using open forums for disaster recovery (Espen Andersen) Re: NASA Spirit nearly done in by DOS (Gene S. Berkowitz) REVIEW: "Security Assessment", Greg Miles et al. (Rob Slade) Abridged info on RISKS (comp.risks) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 5 Sep 2004 12:16:15 +0100 From: "Michael \(Streaky\) Bacon" Subject: Shutting the train door before the commuter has bolted? There are reports in today's UK press (echoing previous reports) that "Southern" (New Southern Railway Ltd - a railway operator around London, England) is having problems with the doors in its new, multi-million (Pounds Sterling), trains. In some cases these will not open even when the train is stopped at a platform. One train is reported to have trapped its passengers inside for 45 minutes. It appears that the new trains are equipped with a GPS-based system to determine whether the train is stopped at a platform or not and whether the platform is long enough to allow (all) the doors to be opened. If the system does not determine this, the doors will not open. There have been a number of accounts of the system failing to detect the GPS signal and reports too that the received signal has overloaded the system. The problem has been compounded by some drivers' inexperience of the new trains leading to their inability to determine promptly how to open the doors manually. Quoting a spokesperson for Southern, "[The trains] have a selective door opening system on board which takes a combination of GPS satellite signals to tell the train exactly which station it is located at and then ensure only the number of doors that are accommodated on the platform are opened. [ ... ] Sometimes we have had problems with the train not locating itself and thus not opening the doors at all." Apparently, in addition, the system sometimes does not recognise that the train has stopped at a longer platform (than originally scheduled) and the system has to be "reprogrammed" by the driver before the train can proceed. Well, I never! The train has a driver, but a complex technology-based system is installed to open the doors. The driver can override the system, but doesn't know how to - but has been instructed how to reprogram certain parameters into the computer. The RISKS are too obvious and too numerous to mention, but isn't this so typical of many designs today? Throw out the simple, well-tried and working system and introduce a complex, untried and liable-to-failure system. One can assume that someone thought this was a safety feature, but is this a "fail-safe" system? One would have assumed that the designers would have taken cognisance of the fiasco on the (London's) Docklands Light Railway when the inaugural train carrying Her Majesty the Queen failed to align properly (by a few inches, IIRC) at one station and the system locked her inside the carriage ... but that's clearly a naive assumption! ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 3 Sep 2004 12:13:58 -0500 (CDT) From: jhhaynes@earthlink.net Subject: Illinois Secretary of State computer outage A computer glitch shut down computers for more than an hour at all 136 secretary of state offices in Illinois beginning at 9:30am on 2 Sep 2004. This delayed people who were trying to obtain driver's licenses, renew registrations, or conduct other business -- although those with preprinted renewal forms were able to be helped. [Source: *Chicago Tribune*, 3 Sep 2004; PGN-ed] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 31 Aug 2004 22:56:47 -0500 From: "Joseph A. Dellinger" Subject: Overcomputerization enlightenment I just went to set up our conference room for a meeting tomorrow morning. I had to blunder around in the dark, at first. The light switches have been replaced by a computerized lighting control. Turning on the lights requires finding the control, selecting the appropriate menu, and then selecting the appropriate item to turn on the room lights. Once I'd done that, I was able to see that the computer that turns the room projectors on and off needed urgent virus updates run on it. Thankfully, nobody has thought to computerize the toilets yet. :-) [Nobody? See RISKS-21.35, 22.73, and 23.20, for example. It may be a slippery slope, but it's happening! PGN] ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 3 Sep 2004 11:41:43 -0400 (EDT) From: David Lesher Subject: More ID theft, via laptop Calif. Schools Warned of Identity Theft, Associated Press, 2 Sep 2004 http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A57539-2004Sep2?language=printer California university officials have warned nearly 600,000 students and faculty that they might be exposed to identity theft following incidents where computer hard drives loaded with their private information were lost or hacked into. Since January, at least 580,000 people who had personal information about them stored in university computers received warnings they might be at risk. The latest instance of missing equipment occurred in June at California State University, San Marcos. An auditor lost a small external hard drive for a laptop computer. Personal data, including names, addresses, Social Security numbers and other identifiers for 23,500 students, faculty and staff in the California State University system were contained on the missing hard drive. At the University of California, San Diego, and San Diego State University, hackers broke into computers and obtained access to files of personal data for more than 500,000 current or former students, applicants, staff, faculty and alumni. Officials from the Cal State system and UC San Diego said they have no evidence any personal data were stolen. At the University of California, Los Angeles, a stolen laptop in June led officials to notify as many as 145,000 blood donors that their data might be in the open. A California law requiring people be notified when they might be exposed to identity theft took effect in July 2003. Officials say that might explain the rash of notices. "There's no reason to assume that suddenly in July 2003 all these computer security breaches started occurring," said Joanne McNabb of the Office of Privacy Protection in the California Department of Consumer Affairs. "It's just that we know about them now, when we didn't hear before." .... = ================ And yet, most schools still try and require students to furnish SSN's to register. I've never once seen a good reason for it, and in fact, they regularly furnish "shadow numbers" for foreign students, and upon request, others. And why is this "auditor" carrying the data around at all? As for blood donations; the Red Cross is regularly crying for more donors. Wonder how many others, like me, refuse because they started demanding SSN's? ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 31 Aug 2004 11:10:33 PDT From: "Peter G. Neumann" Subject: Missouri vote-by-fax Missouri's Secretary of State Matt Blunt (who also happens to be a candidate for the Governor of Missouri in the November election) has announced plans to allow Missouri voters in the military to send in their ballots by unencrypted e-mail. A supposedly trusted third party (Omega Technologies) will handle the unencrypted ballots and redistribute them to the appropriate ballot counters. Apparently North Dakota is also contemplating a similar scheme. Those voters will have to sign a waiver acknowledging that their votes need not be kept secret. I suspect regular RISKS readers will be (1) astounded, (2) horrified, and (3) concerned that certain e-mail messages could be altered or "accidentally" lost, (4) concerned that the acknowledged loss of privacy might be used to coerce votes or prompt vote selling, (5) etc. There are reportedly at least six million eligible overseas voters who might wish to have the instant satisfaction in believing that their votes might be counted, but there are also at least six million votes that might thereby be subject to compromise. [This story may have even more legs than the many on electronic voting systems. For example, see *The New York Times* editorial, The Pentagon's Troubling Role, 31 Aug 2004.] ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 08 Sep 2004 07:36:55 -0700 From: "NewsScan" Subject: E-voting in Nevada Nevada voters have become the first in the nation to cast ballots in a statewide election using computers that produced printed paper records of electronic ballots. "Knock on wood, so far things have been working flawlessly," said Secretary of State Dean Heller. Nevada's $9.3 million voting system includes more than 2,600 computers and printers deployed in every county. The system, developed by California-based Sequoia Voting Systems, aims to address concerns that paperless touchscreen votes cannot be properly audited or recounted. "From what I've seen, voters seem to enjoy the experience," says DeForest B. Soaries Jr., chairman of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission. "There hasn't been frustration or confusion." [AP/*USA Today*, 8 Sep 2004; NewsScan Daily, 8 Sep 2004]