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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, @05:54AM
I'm in agreement that your worries about anonymity are valid in the specific case of targeted coercion, and I think my last post makes that clear. I represented it as a minor issue, not a solved problem. It's not like the current system doesn't allow for make-shift evidence of ballots cast -- ballot selfies aren't even illegal in every state, and they're producable everywhere. You just don't have any gaurantees that the ballot in the selfie is actually counted.
The imperfect solution of supplying a false key is worth bringing up because it makes everything more difficult for the would-be ballot buyer; they can't ever really verify how somebody voted, only that a given key matched a given vote, so they incur more cost per vote actually bought. If they wanted greater assurance they'd need to go through the same hassle as today. The secrecy is more comparable to our current system than it is to voting in a place and time where votes were public knowledge.