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posted by chromas on Thursday November 15 2018, @12:00PM   Printer-friendly
from the ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ dept.

I Bought Used Voting Machines on eBay for $100 Apiece. What I Found Was Alarming

In 2016, I bought two voting machines online for less than $100 apiece. I didn't even have to search the dark web. I found them on eBay.

Surely, I thought, these machines would have strict guidelines for lifecycle control like other sensitive equipment, like medical devices. I was wrong. I was able to purchase a pair of direct-recording electronic voting machines and have them delivered to my home in just a few days. I did this again just a few months ago. Alarmingly, they are still available to buy online.

If getting voting machines delivered to my door was shockingly easy, getting inside them proved to be simpler still. The tamper-proof screws didn't work, all the computing equipment was still intact, and the hard drives had not been wiped. The information I found on the drives, including candidates, precincts, and the number of votes cast on the machine, were not encrypted. Worse, the "Property Of" government labels were still attached, meaning someone had sold government property filled with voter information and location data online, at a low cost, with no consequences. It would be the equivalent of buying a surplus police car with the logos still on it.

[...] I reverse-engineered the machines to understand how they could be manipulated. After removing the internal hard drive, I was able to access the file structure and operating system. Since the machines were not wiped after they were used in the 2012 presidential election, I got a great deal of insight into how the machines store the votes that were cast on them. Within hours, I was able to change the candidates' names to be that of anyone I wanted. When the machine printed out the official record for the votes that were cast, it showed that the candidate's name I invented had received the most votes on that particular machine.

This year, I bought two more machines to see if security had improved. To my dismay, I discovered that the newer model machines—those that were used in the 2016 election—are running Windows CE and have USB ports, along with other components, that make them even easier to exploit than the older ones. Our voting machines, billed as "next generation," and still in use today, are worse than they were before—dispersed, disorganized, and susceptible to manipulation.


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  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 15 2018, @12:53PM (10 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 15 2018, @12:53PM (#762137)

    How do you know that they didn't already do it this election?

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  • (Score: 2) by Lester on Thursday November 15 2018, @12:58PM

    by Lester (6231) on Thursday November 15 2018, @12:58PM (#762140) Journal

    You are answering to A). Ok if there is no data voter, just aggregate sums.

    What about B)?

  • (Score: 2) by VLM on Thursday November 15 2018, @01:06PM (7 children)

    by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Thursday November 15 2018, @01:06PM (#762142)

    Recently poll results have started to be used as propaganda in themselves unlike just a few years ago, leading to ridiculous "Hillary has a 99% chance of winning" headlines and all that.

    To some extent, candidates purchasing fake poll results is being interpreted as outside meddling.

    There are somewhat scientific polls (as opposed to the modern PR polls) that seem to reflect actual results.

    Also the election results don't seem really all that unusual. Its possible that some force would be amused at using random influence to destabilize the whole system, but unlikely, most groups want something for their money and nobody seems to be getting that.

    Also there's no monopoly on corruption. If elections were hackable, the people hacking them would not be vague and nebulous forces on the other side of the planet, it would be stuff like the local zoning commission banning all legacy retail and only allowing the building of Amazon warehouses, for example, given that Amazon is a lot closer and has a lot more money and a lot more to gain or lose.

    • (Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday November 15 2018, @02:10PM

      by Phoenix666 (552) on Thursday November 15 2018, @02:10PM (#762157) Journal

      It seems polls are being used for voter suppression. There's also the added complication that how they used to conduct polls is how they still do, but people have stopped using those channels.

      As for actual voting, Oregon uses paper ballots and you can vote by mail. It's retro, but seems less prone to the tampering TFA talks about.

      --
      Washington DC delenda est.
    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by ikanreed on Thursday November 15 2018, @04:32PM (2 children)

      by ikanreed (3164) Subscriber Badge on Thursday November 15 2018, @04:32PM (#762220) Journal

      More honest poll analysis had her at a 65% chance of winning.

      and 35% chances happen a lot.

    • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 15 2018, @07:11PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 15 2018, @07:11PM (#762300)

      Pre-electoral / campaign silence laws are ancient and were introduced for a reason. The pro/con are mostly about limiting the power of the media and the money the controls it in manipulating public opinion on emotional grounds using smear tactics when the opposition can't react in time with facts.

      That being said, it doesn't matter in the US since Americans vote on tribal identity rather than between opinions and disregard news as fake unless it supports their opinions already.

      Also there's no monopoly on corruption...

      That's a huge mistake. It takes coordinated effort and money to pull off a grand elections hack. By accepting the existence of hack-able voting machines you're hurting the ability of small parties from competing against big parties. It's the same reason you need regulations to keep the market free. Without it someone will just cartel and gobble up everyone else until a monopoly is formed.
      Besides, don't forget the nature of the American elections is one of private corporations and individuals buying (and typically hedging) their candidates into office. Introducing another money-based "game mechanics" into the elections would further deteriorate things.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 15 2018, @08:09PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 15 2018, @08:09PM (#762326)

        Ah yes, the voice of reason shouting into a tornado of stupid. I do hope some of your points sink in.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 16 2018, @03:12AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 16 2018, @03:12AM (#762499)

      She did win. By three million votes. We just don't live in a democracy.

      (note, I did not vote for her, nor for Cheeto)

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 15 2018, @06:44PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 15 2018, @06:44PM (#762287)

    Have you done some probablity calculations on your question?

    Here is a quote from Probability for Dummies:

    The subjective approach to probability is the most vague and the least scientific. It's based mostly on opinions, feelings, or hopes, meaning that you typically don't use this type of probability approach in real scientific endeavors. You basically say, "Here's what I think the probability is." For example, although the actual, true probability the the Ohio State football team will win the national championship is out there somewhere, no one knows what it is, even though every fan and analyst will have ideas about what that chance is, based on everything from dreams they had last night, to how much they love or hate Ohio State, to all the statistics from Ohio State football over the last 100 years. Other people will take a slightly more scientific approach - evaluating players' stats, looking at the strength of the competition, and so on. But in the end, the probability of an event like this is mostly subjective, and although this approach isn't scientific, it sure makes for some great sports talk amongst fans!