Military Ballots’ Privacy Risks

American troops could be putting their most per­sonal infor­ma­tion at risk — just by vot­ing in next week’s elec­tions.
Members of the armed forces, sta­tioned over­seas, can cast their vote with a Federal Write In Absentee Ballot, or FWAB, if they can’t get one from their local elec­tion boards. But that fed­eral bal­lot, “Standard Form 186 (Oct 95),” comes with a major pri­vacy risk, at least in some edi­tions. The bal­lot has to be mailed in a spe­cial return enve­lope, in order to be prop­erly processed. On mil­i­tary bases in the Pacific, Special Form 186 requires a ser­vice mem­ber to include his address, social secu­rity num­ber, date of birth, and sig­na­ture on the out­side of that enve­lope.

In other words, every­thing needed to steal a sol­dier or sailor’s iden­tity is on pub­lic dis­play, for any­one to see (full pics: back, front). .
“You’d think the peo­ple run­ning this pro­gram would’ve noticed. It’s a joke they didn’t, and it’s obvi­ous no one was pay­ing atten­tion,” a Navy avi­a­tion elec­tri­cian, attached to the 7th Fleet, tells Defense Tech.
Online edi­tions of the FWAB seem to be more security-​​conscious, warn­ing ser­vice­mem­bers “NOT [to] WRITE ANY PERSONAL IDENTIFYING INFORMATION ON THE ENVELOPE” — an enve­lope that’s largely blank.
But the paper bal­lots aren’t the only source of pri­vacy con­cerns in the mil­i­tary vot­ing sys­tem. An e-​​mail bal­lot­ing pro­gram has been called into ques­tion, for using unen­crypted data. “E-​​mail traf­fic can flow through equip­ment owned and oper­ated by var­i­ous gov­ern­ments, com­pa­nies and indi­vid­u­als in many coun­tries,” the Washington Post quotes an August report pre­pared for the Pentagon as say­ing. “It is eas­ily mon­i­tored, blocked and sub­ject to tam­per­ing.“
But even eas­ier to mon­i­tor is a paper bal­lot, with per­sonal data scrawled right on the out­side of the enve­lope. Which is why the Navy avi­a­tion elec­tri­cian refused to use the form.
“I wasn’t the only per­son who didn’t send the bal­lot in. It wasn’t worth the risk,” he notes. “I gave some money to the can­di­dates instead.“
UPDATE 7:02 AM: What are the absen­tee bal­lots like where you’re sta­tioned? Tell us here or write in.

November 1st, 2006 | Data Diving, You can run... | 22073 Comments »http://defensetech.org/2006/11/01/military-ballots-privacy-risks/Military+Ballots%27+Privacy+Risks2006-11-01+11%3A41%3A00jason You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.