SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Submitted via IRC for Bytram
Microsoft: Free Windows 7 security updates for 2020 election
Microsoft said Friday it will offer free security updates through the 2020 election in the United States—and in other interested democratic countries with national elections next year—for federally certified voting systems running on soon-to-be-outdated Windows 7 software.
An Associated Press analysis previously found that the vast majority of 10,000 election jurisdictions in the U.S. use Windows 7 or an older operating system to create ballots, program voting machines, tally votes and report counts.
Windows 7 reaches its "end of life" on Jan. 14, meaning Microsoft stops providing free technical support and producing "patches" to fix software vulnerabilities, which hackers can exploit. Cash-strapped election officials are scrambling to address this issue and what's essentially a one-year extension on additional costs.
The promise of free updates does not address the cost of putting them in place or the time and cost of certifying such changes to a voting system. Fixing a new vulnerability requires that the companies resubmit the voting system for recertification, which can take weeks or even months.
At a U.S. Election Assistance Commission forum last month, Microsoft's Ginny Badanes, who heads its Defending Democracy Program, said that election administrators should not be forced to make the difficult choice of "using election systems with known vulnerabilities or applying security patches and, in so doing, taking their systems out of certification."
(Score: 5, Insightful) by RS3 on Saturday September 21 2019, @06:50PM (2 children)
The sad thing is these relative amateurs believe they're implementing the safest systems possible- the latest and greatest MS has at the time. Not only is it full of holes and burning up the 'net downloading updates, but in a few years it's deprecated. Then condescending admins sneer and scoff at the "idiots running horribly insecure systems". Maybe someone needs to look into a secure OS that will never be deprecated?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 21 2019, @10:50PM
And not just one. Two. Count 'em, two!
https://xkcd.com/463/ [xkcd.com]
https://xkcd.com/2030/ [xkcd.com]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by stretch611 on Sunday September 22 2019, @04:53AM
The sad thing is that this is not the case.
The truth is that only the masses want safe election systems. The people in power do not want secure things so that they can stay in power.
Here in GA, after more election irregularities [duckduckgo.com] than I care to even list... (really have been quite a few the last 5+ years) they are finally implementing paper ballots. (we have had electronic machines for quite some time now... not a single paper ballot machine in the entire state up to now.)
Sounds safe and secure, right?!? WRONG!!!
The paper ballots will (by law) be required to use barcodes [wabe.org].
What is wrong with this... Because people will verify their votes on paper with their choices printed out. There will not be any verification that what is printed is encoded in the actual barcodes... and no plans at all to audit the barcodes. Also note that after you verify the your printed choices, you are required to leave the paper receipt at the polling place. You do not get a copy. It is also illegal in GA to use any type of camera in a polling location. This means there is no way for you to verify it later or for someone to verify the barcode contains the same choices.
Sure sounds to me like the people currently in power, want a way to keep that power, even through hacking, instead of letting the people's votes make the choice.
Now with 5 covid vaccine shots/boosters altering my DNA :P