Shlok Vaidya

Voter Data Leaks

With voting in Pennsylvania’s presidential primary just a month away, the state was forced to pull the plug on a voter registration Web site Tuesday after it was found to be exposing sensitive data about voters in the state.

The problem lay in an online voter registration application form that was designed to simplify the task of registering to vote. State residents used it to enter their information on the Web site, which then generated a printable form that could be mailed to state election officials. Pennsylvania’s Department of State disabled the registration form late Tuesday after being informed of the vulnerability by IDG News Service.

I built one of these for Arkansas. The topic of security didn’t come up during the meetings with the Secretary of State, his staff,  or the county clerks unless I brought it up.

The problem: These sites are treated as on the periphery rather than core functions. Without understanding or thinking about the potential of platforms, states want to spend little to nothing. Often times this means shoving cumbersome complicated contractor “solutions” into place. One result is lackadaisical security, another is limited functionality behind an unfriendly user interface.

-Shlok
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21. March 2008 by Shlok Vaidya
Categories: Thinking | Tags: platform thinking | Leave a comment