10-22-2010, 08:12 PM
[url="http://www.hindustantimes.com/Jailed-by-India-EVM-researcher-honoured-in-US/H1-Article1-616236.aspx"]Jailed by India, EVM researcher honoured in US[/url]
Quote:Hari Prasad Vemuru, a jailed Indian e-voting researcher, is one of the four winners of the 2010 Pioneer Awards of San Francisco headquartered Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a leading civil liberties group. The three other winners are transparency activist Steven Aftergood; public domain scholar James Boyle; and legal blogger Pamela Jones and the website Groklaw.
Vemuru, who was recently released on bail after being imprisoned for his security work in India, is a security researcher who recently revealed security flaws in India's paperless electronic voting machines.
"He has endured jail time, repeated interrogations, and ongoing political harassment to protect an anonymous source that enabled him to conduct the first independent security review of India's electronic voting system," EFF said.
"Prasad spent a year trying to convince election officials to complete such a review, but they insisted that the government-made machines were 'perfect' and 'tamperproof.'"
"Instead of blindly accepting the government's claims, Prasad's international team discovered serious flaws that could alter national election results. Months of hot debate have produced a growing consensus that India's electronic voting machines should be scrapped, and [color="#FF0000"]Prasad hopes to help his country build a transparent and verifiable voting system[/color]," EFF said.