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Five years ago, Vladimir Putin publicly fumed that the US was interfering with internal Russian politics. He felt that the US emboldened local protestors by claiming that the 2012 Russian elections (which he won with more than a 46 point margin) were rigged. It's been said he's seeking payback by discrediting American elections. Not necessarily to help one candidate over another (Putin has said "We don't back anyone – it's not our business"), but to throw the legitimacy of US elections into doubt the same way he believes the US delegitimatized his landslide victory of 2012.
We've been told that hacking the vote would be difficult due to the wide variety of locally implemented voting systems. But that doesn't necessarily apply to state-level voter registration databases. Introducing minor amounts of errors, even just 1% of the total records could cause chaos on election day. If 1 in every 100 voters is turned away from the polls, that would have enormous repercussions on the election, far greater than the hanging chads had in Florida. There have already been reports of the exfiltration of registration data in two states and attacks on registration systems in another 20 states.
Now a white hat hacker has demonstrated just how easy it is to modify registration data in Indiana using only publicly available data.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by butthurt on Saturday October 15 2016, @05:06AM
"irregularities" sure sounds ominous.
Provisional ballots are supposed to be given out when someone comes to vote but the people at the polling place can't confirm the person's eligibility to vote.
But it turns out not really. If you aren't registered as a democrat you get a provisional ballot which only lets you vote for the presidential candidate and none of the down-party races. Bernie brought in a ton of people who were not previously registered, so they got provisional ballots. Not quite so irregular after all.
No, you're confusing a cross-over ballot with a provisional ballot. From the story you linked:
Independent voters, known in California as having “no party preference,” were allowed to vote in the Democratic primary between Hillary Clinton and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. But they were banned from voting in the Republican presidential primary.
The Democratic Party required unaffiliated voters to use a special “crossover” ballot so they couldn’t vote for the party’s governing committee — but voters had to proactively ask elections officials for the special ballot.
In other words, the voters who received the "no party preference" ballot rather than the cross-over ballot were not allowed to vote for the Democratic Party's presidential candidates.
It's claimed that, in that election, voters who had registered were not listed on the voting rolls; that is an irregularity, hence they were given provisional ballots.
It's also claimed that, in that election, voters who came to their polling places were told that they had already voted by mail, when (according to those voters) they had not.
Here's a direct link to the video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5ugmNoanx8 [youtube.com]
On what evidence do you base your claim that Comey is only talking about background level scans?
Eh, I should have corrected myself. "They are usually automated" is the meaning I meant to convey. I could find evidence for that, but would you bother to read it? Anyway, my opinion is that the great majority of intrusion attempts are automated, hence the reasonable initial assumption to make on seeing such attempts is that they were automated. If there are indications that the assumption is wrong, then abandon it. I'm suggesting that the FBI may be incompetent at identifying a targetted attack, and I'm applying Hanlon's razor.
In the stories I've read there's no indication that the attacks were directed specifically at government-run sites, rather than at a variety of sites. I'm not asserting that these were general attacks on every site; rather I'm saying that they could be. Have you any knowledge that they specifically targetted election-related sites?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 15 2016, @12:36PM
> I'm suggesting that the FBI may be incompetent at identifying a targeted attack, and I'm applying Hanlon's razor.
In that case, why only 20? Since essentially all sites are subjected to a background level of scanning then why would the FBI say only 20 sites were affected?
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Saturday October 15 2016, @04:35PM
In that case, why only 20? Since essentially all sites are subjected to a background level of scanning then why would the FBI say only 20 sites were affected?
The body of the article uses the words "more than 20 states." I seem to recall from reading another report about that story that not all the states have Web sites containing the rolls of voters, and that of those that do, not all are working with the FBI.
I think I found the ABC News article [go.com] and it says
Hackers working on behalf of the Russian government are suspected in the onslaught against more than 20 state election systems, according to sources with knowledge of the matter.
If I may be somewhat inconsistent by assuming competence on the part of the Russian government: if they attempted such attacks, I should think they'd know how to disguise the Russian backing (origin?) of the attacks. I should also think that they'd want to disguise that. I think that they want to be perceived as a democratic government; interfering with elections in other countries doesn't fit with the image they want to put forth.
If they wanted the voter registration lists, those are available by request (for a fee) although at least one state asks that the information not be sent outside the U.S.A.
A database with information on all American voters [...] might go for about $270,000, according to one marketing firm consulted by researcher Chris Vickery.
[...]
On December 20, [2015] researcher Chris Vickery contacted DataBreaches.net to say he had found a database with 191,337,174 million Americans’ voter information exposed due to a misconfiguration of the database.
--https://web.archive.org/web/20151228191313/http://www.databreaches.net/191-million-voters-personal-info-exposed-by-misconfigured-database/ [archive.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 15 2016, @05:28PM
You've turned hanlon's razor into just another rationale for conspiracy theory.
Exceptions for what confirms your biases, strick adherence for anything that contradicts them.
Congrats!
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Sunday October 16 2016, @01:11AM
I acknowledged that I was being inconsistent. I do tend to think that the Russian government is more competent than the FBI in this area. And again, I'm not asserting that the Russian government is not behind these attacks. I'm just saying that isn't necessarily what's happened.
Conspiracies do exist, of course. However, I'm not the one positing a conspiracy theory here. It's the FBI who are doing so. What's the evidence that the Russian government is attacking? Oh, it's secret, so you'll forgive me for remaining unconvinced.
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Monday October 17 2016, @02:10PM
> [...] not all [states\ are working with the FBI.
From a story dated 21 September:
Less than 20 percent of states have asked the Homeland Security Department for help assessing the security of machines at the polls and for scans of online voter registration databases ahead of the presidential election, a DHS official says.
[...]
As of Wednesday, "we have received requests and are currently working with nine states on scans and assessment services," DHS spokesman Scott McConnell told Nextgov.
[...]
The on-site risk and vulnerability assessments can take up to three weeks, Johnson said.
-- http://www.nextgov.com/cybersecurity/2016/09/9-states-accept-dhss-election-security-support/131741/ [nextgov.com]
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Monday October 17 2016, @02:16PM
A story from 20 September says:
The DHS official — speaking on background because of the subject’s sensitive nature — explained that hackers of all stripes are constantly testing the digital defenses of every state’s public-facing election systems. But in 20-plus states, the agency determined that these intrusion attempts have become what DHS calls “probing of concern.”
-- http://www.politico.com/story/2016/09/states-major-election-hacking-228978 [politico.com]
That would seem to be at odds with the statement about the nine states.