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HBO's 'Kill Chain' doc highlights the flaws in US election machines:
While COVID-19 might be putting just about everything else on hold, we're still marching towards a presidential election later this year. After the high-profile interference of 2016, election security and foreign meddling are still critical issues, but many states still aren't doing enough to ensure the integrity of the process. A documentary premiering tonight on HBO proves a sobering reminder of the fragility of America's voting infrastructure.
While the matter is of grave concern across the country, Kill Chain: The Cyber War on America's Elections delves into problems with some specific machines and issues in certain states. For instance, back in 2005, security researcher Harri Hursti (a key figure in the film) demonstrated a memory card exploit that could alter votes on an optical scan voting machine. Those Diebold machines are still in operation in 20 states and are slated for use in November, the filmmakers note.
Elsewhere, a judge banned Georgia from continuing to use the vulnerable systems it had in place for well over a decade. In the wake of the contentious 2018 gubernatorial election, officials had new machines in place for this month's presidential primary. While the replacements can print paper ballots, which are important for proper vote auditing, they're still very much vulnerable as they run on Windows 7 -- for which Microsoft recently ended support.
We also hear from an Indian hacker who says he was able to gain full access to Alaska's system, including live voting data, during the 2016 presidential election. He claims he'd have been able to remove a candidate from the ballot or change any vote, but decided not to for fear of triggering some kind of alarm.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by bussdriver on Sunday March 29 2020, @06:46PM (4 children)
Open source does NOTHING for election integrity! If you think it does then you're a fool looking for a buzzword solution like the ignorant public that has doomed itself into it's continued decent into despotism.
I feel compelled to explain out of hope maybe 1 reader is capable of conscious thought and hasn't considered the issue previously.
I'll go for a less covered aspect:
99% can't audit the source and it really doesn't matter open or closed because only a tiny group of experts are relied upon to audit it. It's splitting hairs to argue about a few more people and who's allowed to audit. If Fox News claims a global conspiracy of ALL computer scientists are against God's voting machines you'll have 40% hating the auditors and disbelieving them. Sounds nuts but this ALREADY has been done for decades on global warming. Propaganda is too powerful and a minority group is an indefensible target even if they are elite scientists with reality on their side.
Everybody can COUNT paper. Even run off voting is retard friendly. As long as counting is open to the majority and anybody with the time could observe and grasp what is going on.
Voting MUST be based on the precept: "stolen until proven otherwise" like "guilty until innocent" which is just as illogical a position as "innocent until guilty"; the proposed starting bias (preconception) is there to skew error for the better.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday March 30 2020, @04:05PM
He who controls the spice^W encryption keys, controls the universe!
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 30 2020, @07:50PM (2 children)
bullshit. election machine voting code should be fairly simple.
Sounds like you're just trying to run interference so you don't have to deal with the fact that you are complicit in building a dystopian future for your progeny.
(Score: 2) by bussdriver on Tuesday March 31 2020, @02:51PM (1 child)
Dear Stalin's Ghost, some of us remember that misquote from when you were alive and said: "I consider it completely unimportant who in the party will vote, or how; but what is extraordinarily important is this — who will count the votes, and how."
You do not understand computers, yet you do understand just how great they are for CHEATING; as they give false security to the rubes who believe the machines are completely impartial when they are easier to bias than corrupt an official.... plus they can perfectly "forget" what they did afterwards. Sure an outside may have less access... but it's the insiders that are the most motivated biggest threat the people worry about.
Mr. Stalin's Ghost, please don't haunt any CS experts to disclose that it's who builds the "open source code" who has all the power to patch whatever they want or the compiler maintainer who has even more control. Or the indirect powers of the OS vendor, IT support, driver vendors, possibly even network IT staff... forget about those who exploit security holes in the hardware, software, or network of the black-box voting machine [blackboxvoting.org].
Also don't ask me about Debold, who's code I audited and could have been more "simple" than if they were intentionally trying to be tampered with. No, computer counting is not easy or simple when high security is a requirement. It's a rube goldberg solution to what an electronics major could wire up to push buttons to flip mechanical counters.... more complex than an old slot machine; and those were often rigged...
(Score: 2) by bussdriver on Tuesday March 31 2020, @02:58PM
Debold voting software could NOT have been more tamper friendly! A company that made secure money systems did so badly; one would reasonably assume it was intentional, because it's so bad every ATM they did would have been bled dry years before. It was so incompetent that I couldn't see a CS intern do so badly with it. It's like somebody's teen ... no, a teen computer nerd wouldn't be so stupid. it's like a total newb made it.