Voting Vulnerability: Could Open Source Computer Code Thwart Threat from Hackers?
Summary
While President Barack Obama and the FBI have both warned that this year’s election could be compromised by hackers, some Silicon Valley tech thinkers say a solution to hacking vulnerability lies in taking secret computer codes public for open inspection, meaning anyone can view the computer code that runs the systems. Turner says by allowing the public to see and test open source computer code, it actually makes the systems safer and more secure. “It’s well known that the types of voting machines that we have today are pretty vulnerable,” says John Sebes, co-founder and Chief Technology Officer at the Silicon Valley based OSET Institute. “Nobody said, ‘oh by the way, it would be a bad idea to run this super-important software on a regular old PC that can be hacked the same as your grandma’s.” Sebes said the OSET Institute was founded in order to develop secure, transparent modern-day voting systems embarked. Jerdonek said San Francisco is embracing open source because its more transparent and potentially more secure than the current proprietary systems on the market being sold by vendors.
