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posted by janrinok on Tuesday August 14 2018, @02:47PM   Printer-friendly
from the starting-to-get-attention-now dept.

Another item from Def Con 26, which ended the other day, an 11-year-old was easily able to change tallies on real electronic voting equipment within minutes. These machines are designed not to leave any evidence when tampering happens so it was useful that there were many witnesses present for her demo.

Election hackers [sic] have spent years trying to bring attention to flaws in election equipment. But with the world finally watching at DEFCON, the world's largest hacker conference, they have a new struggle: pointing out flaws without causing the public to doubt that their vote will count.

This weekend saw the 26th annual DEFCON gathering. It was the second time the convention had featured a Voting Village, where organizers set up decommissioned election equipment and watch hackers [sic] find creative and alarming ways to break in. Last year, conference attendees found new vulnerabilities for all five voting machines and a single e-poll book of registered voters over the course of the weekend, catching the attention of both senators introducing legislation and the general public. This year's Voting Village was bigger in every way, with equipment ranging from voting machines to tabulators to smart card readers, all currently in use in the US.

In a room set aside for kid hackers [sic], an 11-year-old girl hacked a replica of the Florida secretary of state's website within 10 minutes — and changed the results.

Earlier on SN:
Georgia Defends Voting System Despite 243-Percent Turnout in One Precinct
South Carolina's 13k Electronic Voting Machines Vulnerable, Unreliable
Top Voting Machine Vendor Admits It Installed Remote-Access Software on Systems Sold to States


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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 14 2018, @03:54PM (4 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 14 2018, @03:54PM (#721406)

    Remember that Fox News hacked the 2000 election by just claiming the result for Bush (and all the other copycats just followed on the wrong info). Al Gore won that election by any measure (delegates / popular votes).
    I wouldn't be surprised if that happened again.

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  • (Score: 4, Funny) by requerdanos on Tuesday August 14 2018, @04:44PM (2 children)

    by requerdanos (5997) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday August 14 2018, @04:44PM (#721417) Journal

    Fox News hacked the 2000 election

    You spelled SCOTUS wrong.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 14 2018, @07:55PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 14 2018, @07:55PM (#721506)

      No, that *is* the new spelling.

      • (Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Tuesday August 14 2018, @10:12PM

        by LoRdTAW (3755) on Tuesday August 14 2018, @10:12PM (#721562) Journal

        I changed it to SCROTUM but who's keeping track?

  • (Score: 4, Informative) by AthanasiusKircher on Tuesday August 14 2018, @10:20PM

    by AthanasiusKircher (5291) on Tuesday August 14 2018, @10:20PM (#721568) Journal

    Remember that Fox News hacked the 2000 election by just claiming the result for Bush

    Actually, I *don't* remember that, because it's NOT TRUE. Even before the polls closed in Florida, AP and then CNN claimed Gore won Florida (based on exit polls). All major networks followed. A couple hours later, Bush makes an announcement that he hasn't given up on Florida yet, because his campaign has conflicting numbers. ALL major networks place Florida in the "too close to call" category within minutes. Discussion then follows on all the networks about Florida demographics and the reliability of data. Several hours later (a little after 2am Eastern), after Bush had been showing a lead in counted votes for a while, ALL major networks called Florida for Bush. Soon after, Gore conceded. (You can find the timeline various places online, but this page [historyonthenet.com] has most of the relevant details.)

    Al Gore won that election by any measure (delegates / popular votes).

    I'm no Bush fan, and I never was. But this is just BS. First off, while there's a lot of nonsense about "winning the popular vote," that's IRRELEVANT in aggregate to national Presidential elections in the United States. It's not the way the rules are set up, and it's not how the candidates "play the game." The candidates know that they win mostly state-by-state, and that's how they divert resources in their campaigns. If they were trying to win a national popular vote, they'd undoubtedly campaign very differently.

    Saying anyone "won the popular vote" as if that's meaningful is like a group of people running an obstacle course, and someone skipped half of the obstacles and just ran through faster than everyone and declared himself the winner. If the rules are set up to require you to achieve one goal, but you achieve a different one, that doesn't mean you won.

    And yes, we can argue about whether the state-by-state model is a good way of electing a President. Personally, I think the current system has a lot of flaws. But both Gore and Bush were campaigning to try to win the Electoral College, NOT the popular vote.

    Second, the real takeaway is that the winner of Florida is indeterminate by any reasonable standard, because it was below the margin of error for the way the election and recounts were conducted. Various studies have shown both candidates could have potentially won under some scenarios. (A detailed historical review can be found here [cnn.com] for example.)

    However, Bush would have won under any standards that (1) any actual recounts that went on met, (2) any recount standards that were ordered by the Florida Supreme Court, (3) any standards for incomplete recounts ordered by the Florida Supreme Court (some of which weren't completed due to SCOTUS intervention, but had they been completed under the standards in place, Bush still would have won), and (4) any standards the Gore campaign actually argued for in recounts. So, under any real-world scenario involving actual recounts that took place or were argued for, Bush won.

    IF recounts of votes had been conducted that hadn't been requested by either side (particularly not by Gore's side) NOR had been requested by ANY court or legal team, depending on the standards adopted, Gore could have won. (Again, depending on standards adopted.) But that's not a real-world scenario.

    So, the question is why anyone is still whining about this crap 18 years later? Because of Democratic propaganda that refused to actually do anything productive and instead wished to undermine the legitimacy of Bush.

    As I said, I was never a Bush fan. But I moved on once I realized this was all Democratic whining. You want to change the way elections are run? Sure, go ahead. Lobby to do that. You want to change standards for future elections? Sure, go ahead. Lobby for that. It's desperately needed.

    I'm just disturbed at the number of people who just mod up BS based on party propaganda that's decades old.