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Two pieces of malicious software detected Thursday have been removed from Pinellas County's voting tabulation system.
The two bugs, known as Flush.G and W32.SillyDC, work in tandem and go from computer to computer redirecting Internet browsers to sites the user hasn't selected, officials said. The worm is carried through removable media like USB drives, is easily detected and, officials say, rather harmless.
Pinellas Deputy Supervisor of Elections Rick Becker said the worm isn't the kind of Trojan horse that would be used to corrupt a computer voting system and was unsure just where it came from. Pinellas IT specialists are doing forensic work to determine the worm's origins, he said.
The system is now clean, Becker said, and none of the infected computers were used in Tuesday's St. Pete Beach referendums.
The secretary of state sent a memo today to elections supervisors across Florida, urging them to take steps, including the use of antivirus software, to protect their voting systems from corruption.
[Last modified: Jun 06, 2008 07:24 PM]
Comments on this article
by bent
Jun 6, 2008 7:24 PM
Someone will load Virtumonde.dll on one of the scanners and the whole thing will crash totally. We will have to count by hand....
by Rosemarie
Jun 6, 2008 1:53 PM
i wish I knew what type of system Pinellas county ws using and secondly how they discovered that they had this virus.
by brant
Jun 5, 2008 4:40 PM
This is harmless software? Maybe. What else might have been on them, that's already been wiped? Who knows?
by Chris
Jun 5, 2008 2:38 PM
Lucia, the sad reality is that there is no way to know whether the machines counted correctly unless the votes are counted by hand. No one but the last programmer knows what the computer is doing. Officials claiming purity are running on faith.
by Ann Catherine
Jun 4, 2008 9:25 PM
I'm so glad that I've moved from Pinellas County to a place where I know my vote will be counted. Never could have that certainty when a resident of St. Pete. Voter-verfied Paper Ballots and random audits are the solution, the only solution!
by Lauren
Jun 4, 2008 4:14 PM
Start posting all of the comments on this story; you are not doing that!
by It's about intention.
Jun 4, 2008 2:37 PM
Vote fraud aside, these computer problems are why we kicked out DREs... can't trust 'em w/o verifying. Screwy tabulators wouldn't be such a problem if people counted the paper ballots... do it at each precinct by hand and compare w machines at SOE.
by intentions...
Jun 4, 2008 2:30 PM
Buzz editor... I sees dozens of postings on the new stadium/Selig story, but only one on the voting machines. I don't believe response is limited to one "responsible" comment. Post em!!!
by Lucia
Jun 4, 2008 11:29 AM
So it's only their word that the system is clean and the St. Pete election wasn't affected. Yeah, right... Same old Florida voting shenagigans!
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