Hursti Hack
On Feb. 14 and again on May 2, Thompson successfully hacked the Diebold GEMS central tabulator and bypassed all passwords by using a Visual Basic script.
This, however, would be detected in a vigilant environment if the supervisor of elections checks the poll tapes (voting machine results) against the central tabulator report.
The third Hursti test was conducted for Black Box Voting in collaboration with Bruce Funk, then-County Clerk of Emery County, Utah, on a Diebold TSx touch-screen.
Tests on Feb. 14, 2005 and May 2, 2005 were conducted on the Diebold GEMS central tabulator by Herbert Hugh Thompson, who proved that results reports could be altered without a password by using a Visual Basic script.
During Hursti's first memory card hack on May 26, 2005, he altered the program that creates the "poll tapes", or voting machine results reports.
However, this hack would be detected if the supervisor of elections compared the poll tape results with the GEMS central tally report.
The GEMS tally report can be hacked to match, as demonstrated during two earlier Black Box Voting projects in Leon County with Herbert Thompson.
[6] During a videotaped meeting in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, DES Research and Development chief Pat Green stated that checks and balances would detect the tampering and that it would not be possible to alter the votes themselves on the memory card.
His memory card manipulations falsified both the voting machine results tapes and the GEMS central tabulator report.
The Hursti memory card hack performed in Leon County on Dec. 13, 2005 is a variation on stuffing the ballot box prior to any votes being cast.
In response to the test election, California's Secretary of State commissioned a special report by scientists at UC Berkeley to investigate the 'Hursti Hack'.
He needed no passwords, no cryptographic keys, and no access to any other part of the voting system, including the GEMS election management server.
"[10] The test election was filmed and shown in the conclusion of the Emmy nominated HBO documentary, Hacking Democracy, which premiered November 2, 2006.
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.
