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posted by janrinok on Sunday February 16 2020, @02:32AM   Printer-friendly
from the when-will-we-learn? dept.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Flaws in the blockchain app some states plan to use in the 2020 election allow bad actors to alter or cancel someone’s vote or expose their private info.

Security researchers have found key flaws in a mobile voting app that some states plan to use in the 2020 election that can allow hackers to launch both client- and server-side attacks that can easily manipulate or even delete someone’s vote, as well as prevent a reliable audit from taking place after the fact, they said.

A team of researchers at MIT released a security audit of Voatz—a blockchain app that already was used in a limited way for absentee-ballot voting in the 2018 mid-term elections—that they said bolsters the case for why internet voting is a bad idea and voting transparency is the only way to ensure legitimacy.

West Virginia was the first state to use Voatz, developed by a Boston-based company of the same name, in the mid-term election, marking the inaugural use of internet voting in a high-stakes federal election. The app primarily collected votes from absentee ballots of military service personnel stationed overseas. Other counties in Utah and Colorado also used the app last year in a limited way for municipal elections.

However, despite the company’s claim that the app has a number of security features that make it safe for such an auspicious use—including immutability via its use of a permissioned blockchain, end-to-end voting encryption, voter anonymity, device compromise detection, and a voter-verified audit trail–the MIT team found that any attacker that controls the user’s device through some very rudimentary flaws can brush aside these protections.

“We find that an attacker with root privileges on the device can disable all of Voatz’s host-based protections, and therefore stealthily control the user’s vote, expose her private ballot, and exfiltrate the user’s PIN and other data used to authenticate the server,” MIT researchers Michael A. Specter, James Koppe and Daniel Weitzner wrote in their paper (PDF), “The Ballot is Busted Before the Blockchain: A Security Analysis of Voatz, the First Internet Voting Application Used in U.S.Federal Elections.”

[...] One voting district in Washington state—Mason County–already has pulled its plans to use Voatz in November, according to the New York Times, while West Virginia is moving ahead with its plans to expand Voatz used to disabled voters, the paper reported.


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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by fustakrakich on Sunday February 16 2020, @04:08AM (25 children)

    by fustakrakich (6150) on Sunday February 16 2020, @04:08AM (#958688) Journal

    Where's the demand?? I guess nobody cares. Oh well...

    --
    La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by hemocyanin on Sunday February 16 2020, @05:11AM

    by hemocyanin (186) on Sunday February 16 2020, @05:11AM (#958697) Journal

    I agree. Paper can be used by computers (I'm just old enough to remember my parents showing me a punch card the bank gave them -- "do not fold spindle or mutilate") to tabulate votes for speed's sake, and if there is any question about the validity of the digital results, the paper allows humans to confirm. Couple a paper ballot with in person voting, ID required, and you have the basis on which to build a system that's secure, fair, and accurate.

  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by edIII on Sunday February 16 2020, @05:36AM (23 children)

    by edIII (791) on Sunday February 16 2020, @05:36AM (#958705)

    It's no longer relevant though. Voting has always been pointless. We voted in the Senate that ushered in the destruction of America. The Constitution means nothing, checks and balances mean nothing, federal agencies are now a farce and do nothing to help the consumer. We became wholly corrupt from the very top on down, with the dictator of America demanding his accomplices now be freed from consequences with interference at the highest levels.

    This is all just mental masturbation while the bloated corpse of America is looted by parasites and carrion animals. Our votes have already been taken from us, and it's Russia controlling what our leaders do now.

    There is no point in discussing voting in a failed banana republic. Just as we've always derided them for their apparent lack of democracy, the world can now deride us and call us delusional hypocrites when we complain about the lack of democracy and human rights elsewhere. We deserve invasion and destruction of our republic for the concentration camps for children that we're running. All of the children ripped from their parents permanently doomed to cold concrete floors, fencing, and hate filled SS officers BP agents laughing at their pain. We're no better now than Hitler's fascist political party, and it deserves the same fate. Unlike Germans who could claim some level of ignorance, some of our Senators still fighting for our democracy showed the whole world in pictures what is happening. Now we're filled with hate filled fear mongering fascists obtaining power, while we all lay morally impotent to stop it.

    Too bad all the real Americans with guns won't raise up to kill the Nazi's, revolt, and reclaim our country.

    You can't have voting and a country when over half the country now no longer believes it still exists. So Voatz is going to be used to steal our votes? Like hell-bound Republicans and their gerrymandering? Gee, I wonder if the party of corruption isn't already primed to use this to silence the rest of dissent and resistance, ushering in a dark age for Americans.

    --
    Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
    • (Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Sunday February 16 2020, @06:06AM

      by fustakrakich (6150) on Sunday February 16 2020, @06:06AM (#958716) Journal

      The republicans have done little more than reveal their world to the muggles. It's hard to say if voting works when 95% of the people vote for the ruling party. They have to at least make a feeble effort to test the system. If they they can't be bothered to throw out the incumbents, then whaddya gonna do?

      --
      La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 16 2020, @07:36AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 16 2020, @07:36AM (#958727)

      Dems are already living en a dark age.

    • (Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 16 2020, @08:25AM (19 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 16 2020, @08:25AM (#958734)

      edIII is what TDS looks like, folks. A reasonably good country remains a good place to live in after three years of the Orange Man. But muh open borders, muh Nahtzee's, muh Russian's! Keep beating that drum and see what doesn't happen.

      • (Score: 5, Insightful) by edIII on Sunday February 16 2020, @10:21AM (18 children)

        by edIII (791) on Sunday February 16 2020, @10:21AM (#958750)

        Wrong you stupid fuck. YOU suffer from TDS. It's the only explanation for how far your head is up your ass. Regardless of politics, there is a fucking criminal child in the white house that acts like a king.

        A dictator who admitted what he did wrong, and everyone who doesn't suffer TDS knows that its wrong (most of the world), watched America fail. Trump has accomplished nothing, except the destruction of our democracy enabled by your hate and ignornace.

        Nobody is fooled, except you. Enjoy your piece of shit dictatorship that exists over the corpse of America. I have no doubt it will get better for you, more hate, more concentration camps for the "other", more white supremacy, .etc. I'm sure you will love it when you see pictures of the people in the concentration camps.

        Oh yeah, MAGA all the fucking way to hell huh?

        --
        Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
        • (Score: 4, Touché) by fustakrakich on Sunday February 16 2020, @06:58PM (17 children)

          by fustakrakich (6150) on Sunday February 16 2020, @06:58PM (#958870) Journal

          Nobody is fooled...

          Yeah, nobody except ~130 million people or so that made it so easy for him to win. You can stop with the dramatics. Everybody knew exactly what he was and what to expect. There have been no surprises so far. He is revealing what life is like in D.C. The extremely simple message he is sending, whether he knows it or not, and whether you like it or not, is that if you want to empty the swamp, you gotta do it your own damn selves on election day!

          --
          La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
          • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 16 2020, @09:25PM (2 children)

            by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 16 2020, @09:25PM (#958892)

            So systems lime this sre shown to be vulnerable and you repeat your "voters chose him" nonsense that ignores the narrow win despite the barrage of disinformation and the hacking of these voting machines to get those last few thousand needed votes.

            Mmhmmm. Fuck off shill. US democracy is dead until uou take the rightwing coup seriously. That is why they blested on about a Democrat coup, cause it is what they've been doing! Accusing your opponents of your own motives is a great propaganda tactics.

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 16 2020, @10:00PM (1 child)

              by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 16 2020, @10:00PM (#958904)

              Yes, you are very funny, but you shouldn't be such a poor bitter loser.

              Now go use some quiet time to ponder what you are doing to yourself.

              • (Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 17 2020, @06:55PM

                by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 17 2020, @06:55PM (#959244)

                You bigots stole your time in the spotlight,

                Thankfully the country is awake and you're just angry the nazi trend is culturally back to "despised." Don't worry, yet again you managed to bring low another population. Poor tiki torches used to have so much fun at parties.

          • (Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Sunday February 16 2020, @09:32PM (1 child)

            by PartTimeZombie (4827) on Sunday February 16 2020, @09:32PM (#958895)

            ...if you want to empty the swamp, you gotta do it your own damn selves on election day!

            That ship sailed a long time ago. The swamp is a permanent feature.

          • (Score: 2) by sjames on Sunday February 16 2020, @09:35PM (6 children)

            by sjames (2882) on Sunday February 16 2020, @09:35PM (#958896) Journal

            Actually, Hillary won the popular vote by a slim margin, but due to the vagueries of the way votes are counted, Trump won more electoral votes. Is that what you call an easy win? Note, no point in arguing those facts, it's a matter of public record.

            Also note, I'm not claiming Hillary to be some sort of shining beacon of hope or anything of the sort. Just that Trump's win is a far cry from a mandate. At best he has been damned by faint praise.

            • (Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Sunday February 16 2020, @09:44PM (5 children)

              by fustakrakich (6150) on Sunday February 16 2020, @09:44PM (#958898) Journal

              Let's stop pretending please. Trump/Clinton was the 94.3% mandate... It doesn't get much bigger and swampier than that.

              --
              La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
              • (Score: 4, Insightful) by sjames on Sunday February 16 2020, @09:59PM (4 children)

                by sjames (2882) on Sunday February 16 2020, @09:59PM (#958903) Journal

                Personally, I voted for Stein. Not that I expected her to win.

                Actually the election here went exactly as I expected. The district came up blue and the state came up red, so the electoral votes all went to Trump. The news coverage pretended nobody voted 3rd party at all.

                • (Score: 2, Informative) by fustakrakich on Sunday February 16 2020, @10:21PM (2 children)

                  by fustakrakich (6150) on Sunday February 16 2020, @10:21PM (#958913) Journal

                  Actually the election here went exactly as I expected.

                  I'm sure most people feel the same way, and yet they refuse to acknowledge why it happened. Instead they invent fairy tales of alien invaders and little green men. Sadly, it's working. But, there's always hope [youtu.be].

                  --
                  La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
                  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 17 2020, @06:59PM (1 child)

                    by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 17 2020, @06:59PM (#959245)

                    You're so dumb repeating the same shit with zero attention paid to the propaganda campaigns and likely voting machine hacks.

                    There were a lot of idiot protest votes, a lot of simple idiot votes, and a good handful of racist votes. Sure. Keep telling yourself it is the other side that is out of touch. You have no responsibility to your country you selfish douche, nope, none at all. Blame everyone else, and stick your hesd in the sand about the very real problems.

                    • (Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Monday February 17 2020, @09:27PM

                      by fustakrakich (6150) on Monday February 17 2020, @09:27PM (#959294) Journal

                      *sigh* Some day you will understand the written word..

                      zero attention paid to the propaganda campaigns

                      Exactly what you people are supposed to do since you are so easily influenced by them.

                      The solution to the machine hacks is too obvious to mention again if you didn't hear it the first million times.

                      I find your highly emotional pearl clutching most amusing, in a tragic sort of way. Lashing out is healthier than keeping it all bundled up inside of you, so, by all means... And do vote, for whatever you think is best

                      --
                      La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
                • (Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Monday February 17 2020, @01:42AM

                  by hemocyanin (186) on Monday February 17 2020, @01:42AM (#958969) Journal

                  I also voted for Stein, but in those few important states, 3rd party voters got plenty of media hate which only made me feel pride in my 3rd party voting siblings.

          • (Score: 2) by edIII on Monday February 17 2020, @01:54AM (4 children)

            by edIII (791) on Monday February 17 2020, @01:54AM (#958976)

            I'm sorry, but you are mentally gone if you think voting means anything. The fundamentals of the system failed. How does voting fix that? Seriously, how does voting fix that?

            It's not dramatics, but an objective analysis of our current situation. Nobody that is going to be considered reasonable, is going to be able to argue that the system hasn't experienced abject and critical failure. Regardless of the votes of 130 million people as you claim, the fundamentals of our government should have removed Trump within a year. On the grounds of the 25th amendment alone. Or are we going to transplant Kansas City back into Kansas from Missouri so the emperor can be made right? There are so many examples of his complete ineptitude and the danger he represents towards our country and principles. He and his family flaunt the Emoluments clause and have probably made over a billion personally through US funds being used in their businesses and properties. He openly admitted to violating the Constitution and attempting to extort a foreign country into attacking his political rival and resistance movement against him. He's openly admitted that he thinks bribery should be completely legal, which means that he sees no corruption, but just good business.

            The only way we do it "our own damn selves" is open revolution. Not just civil war, but open fucking revolution. We need Declaration of Independence II where the people stand up, throw away the current government, and then implement another one. That's about the ONLY way I can see doing this through voting, and it's absolutely now possible (assuming that level of organization is possible in light of Republican corruption and oppression), to get us to an Article 5 Convention. It's at this point, we can reasonably and peacefully, vote in a new Constitution, and then vote in a new government. One with more branches and levels of checks and balances. It's become clear what the checks and balances are needed for Congress, but also clear that it's not possible for corrections within the process. It's too corrupt, and has abjectly failed.

            I will openly state it - REVOLUTION!!

            We can begin now, and start voting on that. THAT might actually change something, and you're sorely fucking deluded if you think there is any hope whatsoever within the process. Get the fuck on board dude. You're very reasonable and a good example of an American dedicated to the process and rule of law. It failed, and utterly at that. Instead of telling me to have faith in a wholly corrupt and broken process, let's talk about new processes. Let's design new government, organize, refine the design, obtain more "stakeholder" viewpoints, and implement a new government together.

            Anytime you talk about the delusion of working within the process, I'll objectively remind you, and everyone else, that it completely and totally fucking failed. If this was a FOSS project, this is the fucking point where we talking about a fundamental rewrite and possible move to a new platform. No different than switching distributions of Linux because if meets the new project requirements.

            You call it dramatics. I honestly wonder if they weren't German analogues to you, talking about fighting the rise of the Nazi party as "overly dramatic Germans". I hope you're right, and that in 20 years I can't say I told you so, while America suffers the stains of greatly expanded concentration camps for undesirables and political opponents. If you think that is crazy, listen to the Orange Anus talk. He openly speaks of revenge. Openly.

            Only votes I'm interested in now, are the ones about the new government we will be forming. It's clear that will never happen, so I assure you, America is going to start experiencing a long decline over the next 20 years with people and their wealth leaving, similar to fall of the Shah in Iran, 1979.

            --
            Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
            • (Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Monday February 17 2020, @02:38AM (3 children)

              by fustakrakich (6150) on Monday February 17 2020, @02:38AM (#958990) Journal

              The fundamentals of the system failed.

              Absolutely incorrect! Well, yeah, ok, the voters are the very fundamental base, and they have failed. Has majority rule finally hit the brick wall?

              The revolution bullshit has been done a thousand times. It just restarts the cycle.

              --
              La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
              • (Score: 2) by edIII on Monday February 17 2020, @04:30AM (2 children)

                by edIII (791) on Monday February 17 2020, @04:30AM (#959023)

                No, absolutely correct. Stop blaming the voters for a system that was insufficiently designed to provide the checks and balances against exactly what happened. Were the system not a failure, checks and balances against Republican Senators refusing to do their clear duty would've been corrected. Would we ever accept judges that would announce the verdict before the trials? That's fucking Kardassian man. Literally, their system of jurisprudence had nothing to do with the search for truth, but the sentencing phase. Guilt is predetermined, and innocence is simply the virtue of not being in court. Then these Senators refused to call all witnesses, there was witness tampering from the White House and Orange Anus, and I'm supposed to seriously fucking believe these Senators can come to an objective nonpartisan conclusion in accordance with their Constitutional duties? Fuck no, no, no. That's so ludicrous it's gone plaid.

                So the first thing we should discuss are what checks and balances would've been effective against the outright, premeditated, unmitigated gall of those treasonous Senators. One of that is treason. We could have a citizen oversight branch that can deliberate, and in cooperation with the judicial branch, initiate impeachment proceedings against sitting and non-sitting US Senators and Congressmen. In this case, it would be treason. Refusing to faithfully and impartially do their duties in such a flagrant manner requires at the very least their removal, and at the most punishment. We don't actually have to shoot or hang them, just give them prison sentences.

                Now that preceding paragraph is infinitely more fucking productive than voting in the current system, thank you very much.

                This revolution I call for doesn't not need to repeat the cycle. Even if it does, so the fuck what? It's at least an evolution. This time we have a deeply considered document correcting the oversights that couldn't possibly be understood in 1776. If a revolution happens in the future, it will be because of our collective failures as the new "founding members of our new republic", and our systems of checks and balances will have failed, and we wouldn't have adequately addressed our civil rights or defined them.

                In other words, just because we made a fucked up putrid cake that took a couple hundred years to go bad enough to throw out, doesn't mean the next cake we bake will turn out bad. We can get better each time it is done, and this revolution, unlike others, could be completely bloodless.

                We have the technology to organize and do all of this, it just needs to be combined with the will and moral courage, and I dare I say, a heaping helping of the courage, patriotism, and dedication to the principles of freedom that our founding fathers had.

                We can call it an Evolution Revolution if you want, but that's a fuck ton better than actual civil war where we need to split the country into three pieces while shooting each other. Only other solution is the status quo, and that isn't a viable solution whatsoever. All of that is so intense, that it will just be easier for the rich to leave with their wealth instead. Did the rich, powerful, and sophisticated in Iran stay for their civil war? NOPE. Why the fuck would I, or anybody that has the means to leave, choose that? That's why I say people will start leaving the country.

                Or do you still refuse to see the dead canary?

                --
                Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
                • (Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Monday February 17 2020, @05:14AM (1 child)

                  by fustakrakich (6150) on Monday February 17 2020, @05:14AM (#959036) Journal

                  Only the voters can correct those problems. And only they can be blamed for allowing them to happen in the first place. You are merely hand waving in denial of their complicity. Your rage, though amusing, carries a serious bias which is very unbecoming and only helps the people that antagonize you.

                  --
                  La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
                  • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 17 2020, @07:02PM

                    by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 17 2020, @07:02PM (#959246)

                    You're boring and a troll. I think we're gonna have to start marking you spam.

                    Know what would really fix things up? A series of contracts!! Wolololololololol

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 16 2020, @08:37PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 16 2020, @08:37PM (#958881)

      Great troll! Also great sockpuppeting!