Via Freedom to Tinker Blog -
About four months ago, Ed Felten blogged about a research paper in which Hari Prasad, Rop Gonggrijp, and I detailed serious security flaws in India's electronic voting machines. Indian election authorities have repeatedly claimed that the machines are "tamperproof," but we demonstrated important vulnerabilities by studying a machine provided by an anonymous source.
The story took a disturbing turn a little over 24 hours ago, when my coauthor Hari Prasad was arrested by Indian authorities demanding to know the identity of that source.
At 5:30 Saturday morning, about ten police officers arrived at Hari's home in Hyderabad. They questioned him about where he got the machine we studied, and at around 8 a.m. they placed him under arrest and proceeded to drive him to Mumbai, a 14 hour journey.
The police did not state a specific charge at the time of the arrest, but it appears to be a politically motivated attempt to uncover our anonymous source. The arresting officers told Hari that they were under "pressure [from] the top," and that he would be left alone if he would reveal the source's identity.
[...]
Our work has produced a hot debate in India. Many commentators have called for the machines to be scrapped, and 16 political parties representing almost half of the Indian parliament have expressed serious concerns about the use of electronic voting.
Earlier this month at EVT/WOTE, the leading international workshop for electronic voting research, two representatives from the Election Commission of India joined in a panel discussion with Narasimha Rao, a prominent Indian electronic voting critic, and me. (I will blog more about the panel in coming days.) After listening to the two sides argue over the security of India's voting machines, 28 leading experts in attendance signed a letter to the Election Commission stating that "India’s [electronic voting machines] do not today provide security, verifiability, or transparency adequate for confidence in election results."
Nevertheless, the Election Commission continues to deny that there is a security problem. Just a few days ago, Chief Election Commissioner S.Y. Quraishi told reporters that the machines "are practically totally tamper proof."
[...]
Hari is spending Saturday night in a jail cell, and he told me he expects to be interrogated by the authorities in the morning. Hari has retained a lawyer, who will be flying to Mumbai in the next few hours and who hopes to be able to obtain bail within days. Hari seemed composed when I spoke to him, but he expressed great concern for his wife and children, as well as for the effect his arrest might have on other researchers who might consider studying electronic voting in India.
If any good has come from this, it's that there has been an outpouring of support for Hari. He has received positive messages from people all over India.
Unfortunately, the entire issue distracts from the primary problem: India's electronic voting machines have fundamental security flaws, and do not provide the transparency necessary for voters to have confidence in elections. To fix these problems, the Election Commission will need help from India's technical community. Arresting and interrogating a key member of that community is enormously counterproductive.
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India's EVMs are Vulnerable to Fraud
http://indiaevm.org/paper.html
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