http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9215940/India_plans_paper_trail_for_electronic_voting_machines

“…
By providing a verifiable paper trail, the requirement of transparency in the EVMs will have been met, said Hari Prasad, a security researcher, on Tuesday.
…
The Election Commission is however consulting informally with Prasad and other researchers as it tries to offer a verifiable paper trail for its EVMs, Prasad said.
…”

Has anyone ever tried thinking about counting 400 million votes?

People are not attacking the EVMs and the Government handling of the situation to make India or Indians look bad. They are attacking them because they want to protect the rights of Indians and voters everywhere!

As has already been said the same problems have occurred in the US. Security researchers and “nerds” (using Scotts term) have attacked those issues with even more vehemence as far as I can tell.

What it comes down to is:

1) The integrity of the voting process is extremely important

2) Electronic voting machines are not trustworthy

3) Electronic voting machines are not necessary to implement an election

==> Do not use electronic voting machines! QED

A few points:

(1) Each Indian EVM is worth ~$230 (indeed, the low cost is one of their big advantages). The idea that Hari would receive the treatment he did over a missing $230 item from a government warehouse—a dozen police officers converging on his house, daily questioning, etc.—strains credulity. (And indeed, it does appear that the arrest order came from high up in the government.)

(2) As I mentioned, the EVM was returned in perfect working order anyway.

(3) If this has nothing to do with speech, then why were Alex and Rop prevented from giving talks at a conference?

I agree that India has an extremely free press (indeed, with a lot less self-censorship than the US press). That’s why the Indian public has been able to follow this story and express outrage over it.

I get that this was a case of civil disobedience by Hari Prasad.

I was just disappointed that your post seemed to suggest that he was somehow unlawfully detained, threatened, did not receive due process etc and this implied that in India, if you say what the government doesn’t like, bad things could happen to you.

Specifically, you say: “As a result of this work, Hari was arrested in his home and jailed by the Indian authorities, who threatened not to release him until he revealed the source of the voting machine that he, Alex, and Rop had analyzed.”

In fact, he was only arrested after the video demonstrating the EVM vulnerabilities which showed the EVM was out. An EVM was found missing by the government and the video provided probable cause for theft/possession of stolen property to arrest him. He is getting due process under law. He is out on bail and has even been allowed to travel out of the country.

In particular, he wasn’t arrested because of speech the government did not like.

I don’t see how things would work differently in any other liberal democracy and I hope you will acknowledge this.

(1) While I can’t speak for the EFF, I can tell you that “spitting at India” was the furthest thing from my mind. I had a wonderful time when I visited (and can’t wait to go back), a large fraction of my friends are Indian (not surprising for a theoretical computer scientist), and Indian food has been a staple of my diet since grad school. I support those in India who want a transparent election system for their country, just as I support this cause in the US and everywhere else (BTW, many US states have voting machine security problems that are as bad as or worse than India’s).

(2) It’s simply not true that the attacks developed by Alex, Rop, and Hari only work if you have a mole high up in the Election Commission. They’ve demonstrated how to compromise a machine given only extremely brief physical access to it. See their FAQ for more.

(3) Yes, you’re right that pretty much any electronic gadget can be compromised given physical access to it! It’s precisely for that reason that today, voting-security experts are essentially unanimous in recommending that EVMs either provide a voter-verifiable paper trail, or else be replaced by paper ballots entirely.

(4) I hold this truth to be self-evident, that no voting system can or should be trusted unless independent experts are free to examine its workings (the counting procedure, the hardware, software source code if necessary, etc). This political/moral principle is not yet universally accepted—but I predict that in a few decades, it will be as obvious to everyone as it is to a small nerd community today. So in my opinion, the Indian election commission completely discredited itself when it invited Hari Prasad to examine the voting machines, but then halted the examination as soon as it became clear that he really could tamper with them, and refused thereafter to give him (or any other independent expert) access to a machine.

(5) No, Prasad didn’t steal an EVM; he received one from an anonymous source who very likely had legitimate access to it. This isn’t “stealing” in any conventional sense: it’s obvious that Prasad would have paid for a machine if he could, but the Election Commission refused to make one available to him or anyone else, in violation of citizens’ fundamental right to know how their votes are being counted. (Note also that, after studying the machine, Alex, Hari, and Rop then returned it to the anonymous source in perfect working order, which was one of the source’s conditions. Had they been able to take the circuit boards apart, they no doubt could’ve found even more vulnerabilities than they did.) Since I’m not a lawyer (much less an Indian lawyer), I have no idea whether receiving the EVM put Hari or his anonymous source in violation of Indian law—but if it did, then this seems like an extremely clear-cut case of justified civil disobedience.

Firstly, I agree that governments are getting insane, Indian govt included. But consider these:

1. How did he prove that EVMs are susceptible to fraud? By changing few chips inside EVM circuit.

For god’s sake any electronic gadget (computers included) can be broken into, data stolen and used for fraud if the thief is given physical access and he changes whatever chips he wants to. Being an academician dealing with computers, you of all people should have known this.

2. This brings us to second question. Did or did he(Hari) not steal the EVM? Can he file an affidavit stating how he got those machines? What’s wrong in arresting him?

3. The only way for the chips in tens of thousands of EVMs to be changed and fraud committed is by having a mole very high up in Election Commission of India.(Not even booth officials can open the EVM. They have tamper proof seals.) In that case even a paper system can be subverted by that mole in ECI. And I assure you that ECI is manned by very good officers.

Most importantly Americans delight at giving awards to any lunatic, who spits at India; whether he makes valid point are not.