Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by janrinok on Saturday October 15 2016, @01:14AM   Printer-friendly
from the easy-peasy dept.

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.


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 2) by butthurt on Sunday October 16 2016, @01:11AM

    by butthurt (6141) on Sunday October 16 2016, @01:11AM (#414732) Journal

    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.

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   2