US prof behind EVM study deported on arrival

[ajtr]

US prof behind EVM study deported on arrival​

An American computer scientist, J Alex Halderman, who had co-authored a study titled “India’s EVMs are vulnerable to fraud”, was not allowed to enter the country after landing at the Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport here on Sunday evening. Airport sources said he would be deported, but offered no reason for the action.

Speaking to The Indian Express from the airport, Halderman said: “I am about to be thrown out of this country and there is no reason anyone is giving me. There is just no explanation, they are not letting me enter.”

Halderman, an assistant professor of electrical engineering and computer sciences at the University of Michigan, was here to attend a technical conference in Gujarat.

In February this year, top researchers from India, US and Netherlands, had come up with a study which said that EVMs are prone to tampering. Halderman and his Indian co-author, Hari K Prasad, were part of the group.

Earlier, the Election Commission had challenged Prasad to demonstrate how EVMs could be tampered with. The EC, however, withheld access to the EVMs.

In his blog about the study, Halderman wrote: “Despite widespread reports of election irregularities and suspicions of electronic fraud, the Election Commission has never permitted security researchers to complete an independent evaluation. Hari and others in India repeatedly offered to collaborate with the Election Commission to better understand the security of the machines, but they were not permitted to complete a serious review.”

He added: “Indian election authorities have repeatedly claimed that the machines are ‘tamperproof,’ but we demonstrated important vulnerabilities by studying a machine provided by an anonymous source. The story took a disturbing turn when my co-author, Hari Prasad, was arrested by Indian authorities demanding to know the identity of that source.”

 

[StingRoy]

This is just ridiculous act by the govt (if indeed true). If they found some genuine issues in the security of the EVMs, then fix it for god's sake. Whats there to gain by punishing the messenger?

 

[Lala_Peace]

This is just ridiculous act by the govt (if indeed true). If they found some genuine issues in the security of the EVMs, then fix it for god's sake. Whats there to gain by punishing the messenger?

Why do u believe there is some issue? Only because this guy says!!!
If you can accept Nitish kumar's and Modi's win then where is the controversy? For an Indian, I don't see any reason to have more faith in a man than an institution like EC.

 

[StingRoy]

I think Halderman has given enough evidence... (follow this link India's EVM are Vulnerable to Fraud).

Whats the harm in having a look at the vulnerabilities and dispute the researcher's claims, if the EC has so much confidence on the machine. Every gadget has some vulnerabilities or the other... but whether hacking it is practically possible or not thats another line of argument and as a citizen, I think I am entitled to know this.

 

[justanobserver]

All those vulnerabilities relate to physically tampering with the EVM. I mean no device is safe if you physically tamper with it.

This is just a ploy by Diebold

 

[Stumper]

All those vulnerabilities relate to physically tampering with the EVM. I mean no device is safe if you physically tamper with it.

This is just a ploy by Diebold

Fair ... But then why punish the messengers here. This is not expected out of a democratic government!

Let the government come out clean on the issue. Why show the ostrich mentality?

 

[justanobserver]

Fair ... But then why punish the messengers here. This is not expected out of a democratic government!

Let the government come out clean on the issue. Why show the ostrich mentality?

The biggest maker of EVMs in the world Diebold was pissed that GoI chose to make their own. Plus the India version is more secure as it stores the information in the hardware, Diebold one stores it in an SQL database (now tell me which is more secure ) !!!

Don't be surprised if this "joint Indo-American" study of the EVM is funded by Diebold

 

[Stumper]

The biggest maker of EVMs in the world Diebold was pissed that GoI chose to make their own. Plus the India version is more secure as it stores the information in the hardware, Diebold one stores it in an SQL database (now tell me which is more secure ) !!!

Don't be surprised if this "joint Indo-American" study of the EVM is funded by Diebold

You ignore my point. Let the government come clean on the issue. Why attack the messenger? .. Let the government have a security audit done and prove this analyst wrong.

This is what i expect a democratic government to do.

 

[Lala_Peace]

You ignore my point. Let the government come clean on the issue. Why attack the messenger? .. Let the government have a security audit done and prove this analyst wrong.

This is what i expect a democratic government to do.

Govt. is clean. Who said it has to explain. Those who want to weaken the constitutional bodies of India are raising this. The agenda is to create doubt in the mind of common man so that it would be easy to run down the system we have painstakingly established for over the 60 yrs.