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posted by martyb on Friday June 16 2017, @05:22AM   Printer-friendly
from the he-said-penetrated dept.

Russia's cyberattack on the U.S. electoral system before Donald Trump's election was far more widespread than has been publicly revealed, including incursions into voter databases and software systems in almost twice as many states as previously reported.

In Illinois, investigators found evidence that cyber intruders tried to delete or alter voter data. The hackers accessed software designed to be used by poll workers on Election Day, and in at least one state accessed a campaign finance database. Details of the wave of attacks, in the summer and fall of 2016, were provided by three people with direct knowledge of the U.S. investigation into the matter. In all, the Russian hackers hit systems in a total of 39 states, one of them said.

[...] The new details, buttressed by a classified National Security Agency document recently disclosed by The Intercept, show the scope of alleged hacking that federal investigators are scrutinizing as they look into whether Trump campaign officials may have colluded in the efforts. But they also paint a worrisome picture for future elections: The newest portrayal of potentially deep vulnerabilities in the U.S.'s patchwork of voting technologies comes less than a week after former FBI Director James Comey warned Congress that Moscow isn't done meddling.

https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2017-06-13/russian-breach-of-39-states-threatens-future-u-s-elections


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  • (Score: 2) by tonyPick on Saturday June 17 2017, @07:15AM (1 child)

    by tonyPick (1237) on Saturday June 17 2017, @07:15AM (#526857) Homepage Journal

    another round of paranoid Americans feeding off of their own phychosis isn't all that implausible.

    You see, I might find that an interesting argument; I don't think I'd agree with it given the sheer scope and range of corroboration of the above stuff (and the fact not all of it is from America: Germany, Estonia, Poland, Australia, Canada and New Zealand and maybe the Dutch and the French for a start), but it's certainly a possible explanation and while it might be unique in it's scope there have been smaller scale examples of that before [bbc.co.uk]. You could probably try and make that case and not sound like a lunatic.

    However the OP (and others) are not arguing that this stuff is wrong, or that they don't agree with it, but are saying that it doesn't exist, which is just... I don't know - it seems to me the American politics in general, and the recently the American right in particular, appears to take Reality as a thing you can just opt out of, based on whether it agrees with "our side(tm)" or not. This doesn't do anything other than undermine any valid arguments that might be made (even if it's clearly a vote winner).

    Minor point:

    No one has found a single verified instance of voting manipulation.

    To quote TFA: "In many states, the extent of the Russian infiltration remains unclear. The federal government had no direct authority over state election systems, and some states offered limited cooperation. When then-DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson said last August that the department wanted to declare the systems as national critical infrastructure -- a designation that gives the federal government broader powers to intervene -- Republicans balked."

    And I can point at at least one politician who thinks voter fraud was thing that happened [independent.co.uk] in the last election. Hey, don't you trust him anymore? :D

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  • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday June 17 2017, @02:38PM

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Saturday June 17 2017, @02:38PM (#526985) Journal

    Your choice of words is excellent. "I might find that" and "I don't think I'd agree".

    You seem to undertand perfectly that I was just throwing that out there for consideration.

    The one thing that almost makes the idea plausible, is the fact that MSM and the DNC seem to be obsessed with the idea of Russian manipulation of the election. I may be exaggerating a little, but it seems like every day, even when there is no news to report, someone writes another article with a newly tweaked spin.

    It can be awfully difficult to find a proper balance in this kind of ongoing - uhhh - investigation or witch hunt. It's easy to lose interest, because it gets boring after awhile. It's also easy to get obsessed, if you take the issue personally. My "safe space" on this story, is sitting in the shade of the skepticism tree in my back yard. ;^) I figure that about the time Trump is three and a half years into his term (first, or only?) they should have figured things out.