
Hackers targeting election networks across country prior to midterms - tareqak
https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2018/11/04/hackers-targeting-election-networks-across-country-lead-midterms/d0EzG4Cmh2jeMqllhXo4WP/story.html
======
zyxzevn
[Computerphile - Why electric voting is a bad
idea]([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3_0x6oaDmI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3_0x6oaDmI)).
No hacker can hack paper.

Don't be triggered, but I still haven't seen any real evidence of "Russian
Hacking" of the Election. Until now it has only been a political game to
discredit Wikileaks. You can find some reasonable neutral info on
[https://original.antiwar.com/](https://original.antiwar.com/)

But there were some actual hacking reports like plugging USB-sticks in voting
machines. The most recent one I found is an [alleged failed hack in
Georgia]([http://archive.is/d9d4a](http://archive.is/d9d4a)). These are all
cases that I want to be looked at, but I do not see that in the news.

There are plans by Homelands security to take over the election
infrastructure. If you trust them it is ok. If they start to plant their own
votes, we may never know. That makes some people afraid that it is the patriot
act for elections.

The simple and cheap solution is to have no computer voting without a clear
paper backlog and registration. Let's make recounts standard (and put those
pensioners to work). No computers, no hackers, no cheaters, no problem.

A more direct problem is corruption due to too much power and money in
politics. Organisations like [http://represent.us](http://represent.us) may
stop that.

Anyway be friendly to humans that think differently than you, and vote for
what you think is best.

~~~
cwkoss
<tinfoil hat> I think domestic criminal "Political Interest Groups" may be
attempting to hack US elections and are fanning flames on Russia Hacking
stories because it makes for useful cover </tinfoil>

~~~
ImprovedSilence
It's neither of the above. The goal is not to actually hack a system and
change votes(and thus leave a trace) but to cast doubt onto the integrity of
the vote as a whole. Thus cuing <tinfoil> any reason to throw out results of
an election. I'm not going to speculate on the actors or their motives behind
this though, and it could be many layers deep... But I promise you, that's the
long play currently underway.

~~~
cwkoss
We may both be correct. I think there is likely a diverse set of nefarious
actors constantly taking often-conflicting self-serving actions.

------
TYPE_FASTER
I think the lesson from 2016 is that it’s easier and cheaper to use social
media advertising and posting to manipulate than actually penetrating digital
voting infrastructure.

~~~
zaroth
Not meta enough. The lesson from 2016 is a bullshit social media campaign in
Russia is enough to whip US media into spending billions of dollars of air
time sowing doubt and confusion about an election result.

Not only were no votes changed by anything Russia did, it is highly dubious
that any _opinions_ were changed by what Russia did.

Trolls on the Internet are not, in fact, the most persuasive advertising force
by orders of magnitude that the world has ever seen.

~~~
akiselev
I'm sorry to break it to you, but you've been living under a rock:
[https://www.justice.gov/file/1080281/download](https://www.justice.gov/file/1080281/download)

Russian operations stretched far beyond a social media campaign.

~~~
shard972
So some russians conspired to go on a phishing expedition and ended up finding
that hillary clinton broke the law and tried to cover it up?

Where does it show the votes that were changed?

~~~
hannasanarion
Where is the comment in this thread that said votes were changed?

If you want to punch straw men, go find yourself a farm.

------
kevin_thibedeau
Some of us have the benefit of using 80's era Sequoia AVC Advantages to vote
on. No touchscreen and no network.

~~~
ry_ry
Van eck radiation though.

I use wax tablets for all sensitive communication, and ensure any wax
scrapings are incinerated to prevent the wax displacement hash being brute
forced.

------
attaboyjon
Ok so we have a state actor with unlimited resources attempting to manipulate
our elections. Our defense consists of programmers and sysadmins working for
the local county making sub-40s per year in salary (no offense). The election
software is written on Windows 95 running with an Access database backend. I
am not kidding.

Of course we've already been hacked. I personally think the 2016 had to be
hacked given that no one, even Trump, thought he would get close to winning. I
know it sounds like conspiracy theory bullshit, but come on, they already got
Hillary's emails from the DNC. How hard could it be to target a certain number
of counties in key states?

Certainly there are other techies out there who agree with me?

~~~
singingboyo
I'm somewhat of the opinion that something that overt was unnecessary, and so
while it definitely could have been, I'm not sure it was.

"<Nation X> directly manipulated votes" is one thing, and very blatantly
illegal. "<Nation X> convinced a bunch of people to vote against their
interests and divide the US" is another, and while unethical, dishonest, and
certainly not good, it's not clear to me that it's actually illegal. Besides,
if you convince them once, they'll probably stick with the flawed information
and voting pattern, which is a better return on investment.

I'm not from the US though, so... maybe I'm not clear on how easy it would be
for people to collaborate and cover something like that up.

~~~
akiselev
Maybe read the indictments?

[https://www.justice.gov/file/1080281/download](https://www.justice.gov/file/1080281/download)

~~~
singingboyo
Well, nothing in there suggests direct manipulation of voting machines, which
was the core point.

I think that somewhat proves my point - it's not clear to me that 'posting
comments online' or 'paying news outlets to write specific stories' are or
should actually be crimes. More directly stealing documents from election
networks is - and was caught.

