EAC - Voluntary Voting System Guidelines

Name : | H. Stephen Berger
Organization : | N/A
Post Date : | 9/30/2005
Section Comments
Section : | 6.7.6
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Comment : | Taking the concerns for denial of service, confidentiality and tampering in reverse order, we begin by examining the safeguards provided for denial of service. Section 6.7.6 is specifically provided to mitigate the effects of a denial of service attack. The first three requirements of Section 6.7.6 are: 6.7.6.1 The voting system shall be able to function properly throughout a DoS attack, since the DoS attack may continue throughout the voting process. 6.7.6.2 The voting system shall function properly as if the wireless capability were never available for use. 6.7.6.3 Alternative procedures or capabilities shall exist to accomplish the same functions that the wireless communications capability would have done. These requirements would appear to be sufficient that a wireless communications link will not be essential to the voting process. It would appear that a denial of service attack is not a realistic possibility if these requirements are met. An issue then arises, “How confident are we that these requirements will be met?” This question goes first to the adequacy of the testing or evaluation used to judge system compliance with the VVSG and later to the quality of the entire Voting System Conformity Assessment System. That is, the system that will voting systems are properly tested to the requirements of the VVSG and that delivered systems are within manufacturing tolerances to the system tested. On this and the VVSG in general the need to specific and thorough test methods the various requirements is observed. It is in the details of the testing and evaluation that many requirements will be fully realized or perhaps undone. So we may conclude that if the testing and evaluation is done well a denial of service attack is not a realistic possibility. [Statements submitted at EAC public hearing, July 28, 2005, Pasadena]