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In the run-up to the USA's upcoming national election event:
The FBI has uncovered evidence that foreign hackers penetrated two state election databases in recent weeks, prompting the bureau to warn election officials across the country to take new steps to enhance the security of their computer systems, according to federal and state law enforcement officials.
[...] [three days later] the FBI Cyber Division issued a potentially more disturbing warning, entitled "Targeting Activity Against State Board of Election Systems." The alert, labeled as restricted for "NEED TO KNOW recipients," disclosed that the bureau was investigating cyberintrusions against two state election websites this summer, including one that resulted in the "exfiltration," or theft, of voter registration data. "It was an eye opener," one senior law enforcement official said of the bureau's discovery of the intrusions. "We believe it's kind of serious, and we're investigating."
[...] six states and parts of four others (including large swaths of Pennsylvania, a crucial swing state in this year's race) are more vulnerable because they rely on paperless touchscreen voting, known as DREs or Direct-Recording Electronic voting machines, for which there are no paper ballot backups.
[...] the FBI warning seems likely to ramp up pressure on the Department of Homeland Security to formally designate state election systems as part of the nation's "critical infrastructure" requiring federal protection — a key step, advocates say, in forestalling the possibility of foreign government meddling in the election.
The reason designating election systems "critical infrastructure" requiring federal protection is important is that designation means the Feds devote resources to protecting it and threaten a heightened response to entities messing with "critical infrastructure."
[Continues...]
Related / more info:
- Cyber Storm V: Testing the Nation's Ability to Respond to Significant Cyber Incidents
- White House releases a cyber deterrence policy outlining how the United States will respond to cyber attacks from malicious actors.
- Text of the Cyber Deterrence Policy (PDF)
Have you considered the impact on the US if the election for president is disrupted, with the winner unknown because the results are dependent upon the votes in one or more of the states with electronic-only voting systems? Some people might find it beneficial if the US election is disrupted or contested.
(Score: 2) by JNCF on Tuesday August 30 2016, @02:05AM
The people that do have that power in our society have neither the knowledge nor the motivation to make, nay *let* this work the way it should.
As I stated originally, I'm not really interested in the problem of large-scale democracy. I wholeheartedly agree that the system is fucked, but that isn't an argument for the blockchain being a more tamper-prone way to record votes than a box full of paper ballots. If I were trying to argue for reforming this mess, I'd argue that voting should be done on a blockchain. I took your original post to be partly concerned with the difficulties of implementing the system securely, and I don't think those concerns are valid. I agree that the system which currently exists wouldn't put devlux in charge of implementation, but that's a problem of politics not a technical issue.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Tuesday August 30 2016, @03:35AM
The powerful have no particular interest in fair elections and little fear of seeing them rigged, as they'll generally be the ones doing the rigging not the other way around.
Combine that with the general technical incompetence and it's simply impossible, in reality this is exactly what you should expect from it:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/05/16/clinton-does-best-where-voting-machines-flunk-hacking-tests-hillary-clinton-vs-bernie-sanders-election-fraud-allegations/
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?