Sadly, some electronic voting machine manufacturers in the USA have been getting some bad press regarding their machines’ alleged accuracy issues. Martin McKeay put up this post with a mock news video about electronic voting machine risks the other day (click HERE).

This could be just the tip of the iceberg. Maybe we could all someday have the illusion of:

  • playing slot machines we thought might eventually pay out, when in fact, the odds would be unfairly stacked against us;
  • flying on airlines that we thought could disable rampaging passengers in-flight with automatic tactical electric shocks.
  • using instant messaging software we thought would really wire bail money to our wayward children being held by authorities in foreign countries

Wouldn’t life be so much better if we could leverage the still-nascent power of these wonderful magic machines? Besides, verifiable paper-trails are over-rated, aren’t they?

I guess the moral of the story (from a security point of view) is that the first step in getting security right is getting the functionality right.