Russia's cyberattack on the U.S. electoral system before Donald Trump's election was far more widespread than has been publicly revealed, including incursions into voter databases and software systems in almost twice as many states as previously reported.
In Illinois, investigators found evidence that cyber intruders tried to delete or alter voter data. The hackers accessed software designed to be used by poll workers on Election Day, and in at least one state accessed a campaign finance database. Details of the wave of attacks, in the summer and fall of 2016, were provided by three people with direct knowledge of the U.S. investigation into the matter. In all, the Russian hackers hit systems in a total of 39 states, one of them said.
[...] The new details, buttressed by a classified National Security Agency document recently disclosed by The Intercept, show the scope of alleged hacking that federal investigators are scrutinizing as they look into whether Trump campaign officials may have colluded in the efforts. But they also paint a worrisome picture for future elections: The newest portrayal of potentially deep vulnerabilities in the U.S.'s patchwork of voting technologies comes less than a week after former FBI Director James Comey warned Congress that Moscow isn't done meddling.
Related Stories
The project Protect Democracy is suing the state of South Carolina because its insecure, unreliable voting systems are effectively denying people the right to vote. The project has filed a 45-page lawsuit pointing out the inherent lack of security and inauditability of these systems and concludes that "by failing to provide S.C. voters with a system that can record their votes reliably," South Carolinians have been deprived of their constitutional right to vote. Late last year, Def Con 25's Voting Village reported on the ongoing, egregious, and fraudulent state of electronic voting in the US, a situation which has been getting steadily worse since at least 2000. The elephant in the room is that these machines are built from the ground up on Microsoft products, which is protected with a cult-like vigor standing in the way of rolling back to the only known secure method, hand counted paper ballots.
Bruce Schneier is an advisor to Protect Democracy
Earlier on SN:
Top Voting Machine Vendor Admits It Installed Remote-Access Software on Systems Sold to States (2018)
Want to Hack a Voting Machine? Hack the Voting Machine Vendor First (2018)
Georgia Election Server Wiped after Lawsuit Filed (2017)
It Took DEF CON Hackers Minutes to Pwn These US Voting Machines (2017)
Russian Hackers [sic] Penetrated US Electoral Systems and Tried to Delete Voter Registration Data (2017)
5 Ways to Improve Voting Security in the U.S. (2016)
FBI Says Foreign Hackers Penetrated State Election Systems (2016)
and so on ...
(Score: 2, Insightful) by julian on Friday June 16 2017, @05:35AM (30 children)
You have a group of people doubting this because the foreign thumb happened to be pressing down on their side's scale. The investigation is closing in on these reprobates. I hope you cretins have at least gotten a first draft of your apology written.
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 16 2017, @06:15AM (1 child)
"I hope you cretins have at least gotten a first draft of your apology written."
.
.
.
Your mouth is going to get you in trouble some day, boy.
(Score: 4, Troll) by Lagg on Friday June 16 2017, @06:30AM
Heh, hilariously enough I actually am rural and actually know people that speak like that: All little bitches. Just like this country's political system and it's pandering and shit flinging manchildren of a lowest common denominator population.
http://lagg.me [lagg.me] 🗿
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Lagg on Friday June 16 2017, @06:23AM
It's funny that someone has a raging partisan hardon right below this post too.
Don't expect apologies. Or good outcomes for the future of the country. To be honest if there is an apology letter to be written it'll be from the collective citizens of the US to the world. There's going to be some serious bridge rebuilding required. You know, assuming these jackasses don't tear apart and cannibalize each other first.
http://lagg.me [lagg.me] 🗿
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 16 2017, @06:49AM (8 children)
Or doubting it because there's no actual evidence of vote tampering and the 8 states without a paper trail will have one next time around. Meanwhile another group of people doubt illegals voted despite their being actual evidence. Makes you think.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Lagg on Friday June 16 2017, @07:51AM (3 children)
God for a tech site that loves 1984 you guys really can be dumb bastards sometimes.
http://lagg.me [lagg.me] 🗿
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Wootery on Friday June 16 2017, @09:27AM (2 children)
Thing is, the dumb bullshit on this site is damn near always posted as AC. It's almost as if they know they're writing bullshit.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 16 2017, @12:07PM (1 child)
Let's see what TFA says:
Translation: "no vote tampering". Everyone knowledgable has been ragging on electronic voting since it was first introduced, yet for some reason there are still 8 states without a paper trail. If you want to protect the sanctity of the electoral system, you must prevent non-citizens from voting. [washingtontimes.com]
If "dumb bullshit is always posted as AC", you should login more often. The rest of us are fine.
(Score: 2) by Lagg on Friday June 16 2017, @06:55PM
Heh, sanctity of the electoral system? Where have you been for the last decade you silly goose. Also, AZ is one of these states [thinkprogress.org]. I can tell you right now they have no reason whatsoever as a republican state to do that. They're just corrupt and disorganized. Another truth murika doesn't like facing and is easier to blame muh illegals and muh aliums and muh murslims on.
By the way, related to my above post and speaking of little bitches: Trump made the ultimate bitch move of deflecting the burden of firing someone onto his employees. And people think he's a businessman? He a lil' bitch
P.S. I don't like border hopping either. Illegal entrants need to settle their due at some point. But I am not going to fucking be upset by 1.8K people voting out of millions. When those millions have no better knowledge or competency than the illegal entrant in question.
God, you guys suck at your own articles because you overreach whenever that fear shit starts running down your legs.
http://lagg.me [lagg.me] 🗿
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 16 2017, @03:37PM
Can't blame them for trying though. If the Russians had paid off Mexico to move from being a semi-fucked up US satellite, to being a semi-fucked up Russian satellite, the US would be hopping mad and take over Cabo San Lucas.
Or just regime change the Mexican presidency.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 16 2017, @04:07PM (2 children)
Citation needed. And neither stormfront nor breitbart will cut it, I'm afraid.
Yeah, I'm thinking a whole lot of things right now. Care to guess what some of those thoughts might be?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 16 2017, @11:15PM (1 child)
Yeah! You tell him, Liberal Champion of the Oppressed! That guy needs to provide evidence, but all websites are disqualified if you don't like them! That's how you win an argument! Automatic disregard of anyone you don't like, regardless of the evidence! Soros loves you!
(Score: 2) by J053 on Saturday June 17 2017, @01:07AM
Just what in the actual fuck is the cause of the hardon so many on the right have for George Soros? OK, he started MoveOn.org - so what? He's just some moderately-wealty dude who has decided to spend some of his money on political advocacy, but to hear the righties tell it, he's a Nazi Collaborator (he was 15 in 1945) who is striving for world domination. Kinda like a bunch of folks on the left feel about Sheldon Adelson and the Kochs.
I'm frankly more concerned about Robert Mercer and his influence via Steve Bannon and Kellyanne Conway (and others) on the upper reaches of the US Government, but what do I know?
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 16 2017, @08:20AM (2 children)
Sorry I voted for Jill.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 16 2017, @02:44PM (1 child)
Sure, sure you did...but do you know that your vote was counted as such?
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Saturday June 17 2017, @05:30AM
Absence of the comma transforms meaning.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Gaaark on Friday June 16 2017, @11:52AM (13 children)
You still don't get it: some of us supported trump because he's an idiot. You see, Hillary would have gotten away with the shit trump tries:she would have gotten away with fucking Americans ( just like she got away with fucking Bernie Sanders,,). Trump won't because he's stupid and we'd rather have a stupid person in charge and impeached instead of a (smart?) connected wily criminal in charge.
Hopefully after the impeachment they'll get Sanders as leader and HE will win.
And you heard it here first: sooner or later, George Clooney will run for Prez.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 16 2017, @02:40PM
Great, Clinton would have been better at getting away with some kind of nebulous corruption, unlike Trump. Meanwhile, the Republicans are gutting the EPA, removing regulations designed to prevent another economic melt-down, and throwing tens of millions of people off their health insurance. Great planning.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by Whoever on Friday June 16 2017, @02:48PM (1 child)
Oh, we get it all right. You supported Trump because you are a fucking idiot.
Yep, you just proved how ignorant you are.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Friday June 16 2017, @11:14PM
Not ignorant, just not a stupid American who wound up with the leadership you
didn'tget/got.I'm looking at your sour predicament from afar, my friend. Not far enough, but far.
Don't call me ignorant and an idiot-- YOU wound up with the leaders your parties picked... i can't help it if YOU wound up with choosing between an orange dust ball and a fucking criminal 'leader' who, when she lost to dustball, went off on long walks and drinking an ocean of wine leaving BERNIE SANDERS to pick up the real leadership of the party: doing the media interviews, going on tv, acting like a leader.
Everyone asked "where's Hillary": oh, yeah.... she's drunk and stumbling through the woods.
YOU aren't smart enough to see you got gipped: you SHOULD have had Bernie as a choice, and he probably would have won in my opinion. Instead, you got Trump and you got a leader who fucked Bernie over (fucked someone in her OWN PARTY) and would have fucked YOU over as well, just as easily.
I didn't vote for either of them, not being an American. Just because you are too stupid to see that you were fucked because Bernie was taken away from running (and hillary GOT AWAY WITH IT.... WTF AMERICA....WTF DID SHE GET AWAY WITH THAT???? FUCKING STUPID AMERICANS!!! (Not all Americans, though, just the stupid ones like you).
Hillary stole the leadership election from Bernie, then found out that American don't trust her and won't vote for her..... then she goes off crying and drinking and leaves THE GUY SHE FUCKED OVER to show true leadership and AMERICANS DID NOTHING! (And you wonder why anyone would vote for Trump over her?!?!?!)
Hope that Trump is impeached (probable) and that Bernie is apologized to and made leader of the DNC (possible? not american, so i don't know) and then he can win and reverse trumps dumps.
Don't call me ignorant and an idiot.... look in the mirror, American.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 16 2017, @04:12PM (1 child)
Trump: an idiot voted for by idiots. Hmmm...not quite the catchy campaign slogan for 2020.
Ummm...yeah. I think we can all see how that is working out for us. Thanks, dumbass!
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Friday June 16 2017, @11:17PM
duh, see answer above, dumbass.
God you people are stupid. I can't help it if Hillary was such a loser. Just glad i'm not american and as unfortunate as you.
Dumbass, I'm lol, dumbass.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday June 16 2017, @06:30PM (5 children)
> Hopefully after the impeachment they'll get Sanders as leader and HE will win.
You are fully aware that Sanders is too old and won't run again, and the impeachment will bring us president Pence instead?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 16 2017, @09:02PM (3 children)
Pence just hired a lawyer. [usatoday.com] The Speaker of the House is next in line after the Vice President.
(Score: 2) by J053 on Saturday June 17 2017, @01:15AM (2 children)
Only if they both go at the same time, which isn't going to happen. If Trump is impeached, Pence will become President and then appoint a VP (who will need Senate confirmation) - it might or might not be Ryan.
The best outcome we could have would be an echo of the Agnew-Nixon-Ford sequence - get rid of Pence first, force Trump to appoint someone ('cause he can't just leave the office vacant), then impeach Trump - but I doubt that will happen. More likely is Trump is impeached or resigns (probably for "health" reasons - I mean really, have you seen this guy?) and then Pence would get to appoint someone as VP who would be such a bad choice for the top job as to make him un-impeachable.
(Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Saturday June 17 2017, @02:02PM (1 child)
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday June 19 2017, @04:14PM
Too long. Too coherent.
The Twitter-format is perfect for the original, don't ramble on without losing the point and changing topics every half-sentence.
Never, ever, finish a thought...
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Friday June 16 2017, @11:18PM
Nope, didn't know that: i figured another election would get triggered at impeachment.
And Sanders should run... don't think you'd want Hillary as prez either.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 16 2017, @08:52PM (1 child)
> You still don't get it: some of us supported trump because he's an idiot.
Earlier: [soylentnews.org]
> I. AM. CANADIAN.
Seems it's not only Russia that's meddling in the U.S. elections.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Friday June 16 2017, @11:19PM
Ah, i see you've played knifey/spyey before!
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 16 2017, @03:33PM
> ...the foreign thumb happened to be pressing down on their side's scale
Reminds me of the first time I watched a NASCAR team put a car through the scales at tech inspection, mid-1980s. I was there as an engineering observer, these days you might say I was "embedded" with the team for the weekend. Experiments in practice with different amounts of ballast showed (not surprisingly) that the car was best when about 35 pounds under the minimum legal weight (about 1%).
I walked along with the crew when the car was pushed onto the old-style platform mechanical scale. Amazingly it came in a few pounds over the minimum. Only later was it explained to me: several crew members got the attention of the scale crew for a second, while another crew member stuck a penny under the scale balance mechanism with chewing gum. And then repeated to take the penny/gum off, no point in giving the weight advantage to the cars after us. I was right there, but never saw a thing...just like a good pickpocket that you only discover long after the deed is done.
It might have been interesting to take a look at the bottom of that scale mechanism to see how many chewing gum marks were under there!
(Score: 5, Informative) by bradley13 on Friday June 16 2017, @05:56AM (32 children)
This Russian stuff is just silly:
- If this were orchestrated by the Russian government, they wouldn't have gotten caught, or at least not left tracks. Proxies exist. Assuming the attacks actually did originate in Russia, most likely it was just some challenge in the local hacker community.
- There still seems to be no evidence that any of the hacks actually achieved anything.
- There seems to be no evidence as to what effect the hackers would have liked to achieve. The fact that they accessed DNC servers only shows where security sucked the most, or else where they left the biggest footprints. For all we know, they were funded by the Clinton Foundation, and were working to get Hillary! elected.
- The presumption that the Trump team was in any way involved in this? That's just a D fantasy, because they are still looking for some way to understand why Hillary! was rejected.
Last but not least:
- Cybersecurity on American voting systems sucks. We knew that already.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 16 2017, @06:02AM
Yeah and why should we believe the NSA?
They even think Wannacry is linked to North Korea...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 16 2017, @06:23AM (2 children)
Yeah, because the Reps servers don't exists; they (the Reps) are operating purely on deep Christian faith of some flavor or another.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday June 16 2017, @03:07PM (1 child)
You may be right. I don't think so, but you could be right.
Funny thing is, that "deep Christian faith" seems to be a helluva lot more secure than the DNC's servers.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday June 16 2017, @05:54PM
It does precisely dick, so that makes sense. The most secure computer is not, it turns out, the one disassembled and locked away in a rad vault under the ocean; it's the one that doesn't exist.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Arik on Friday June 16 2017, @08:17AM (2 children)
Don't agree at all. With the known surveillance capabilities of the US quite the opposite is true - it's probably not possible for anyone to have e.g. exfiltrated the DNC data across the internet without leaving real tracks. On the other hand, if someone carted it out on a flash drive the lack of evidence makes sense.
These latest accusations, from what I've seen so far, are of a bit of a different character though. It does seem there were 'probes' done, not an effort to sway this election but certainly an effort to see how 'hackable' the election was. The attribution to the Russians, in this case, is not so incredible, though it still seems to be based more on inference than evidence. When *any* intelligence agency pulls a job like that it's probably safe to assume they will leave a false trail.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 16 2017, @09:59AM
They may leave tracks and the tracks may go to Russian IPs but where's the proof that those tracks ultimately go to the Russian Gov?
Just because a hitman from Russia doesn't mean he is killing people on behalf of the Russian government.
Just because a hacker is in Russia doesn't mean he's doing it for the Russian government either.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 16 2017, @01:53PM
So you think it was Mossad?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Friday June 16 2017, @09:27AM (18 children)
Not at all silly. The opportunity was the 2016 election. The Russians most certainly have motives and means.
> most likely it was just some challenge in the local hacker community.
You really believe that? Local hackers giving it a try for the lulz? No way. This isn't the 1990s any more, when any 16 year old punk hacker could easily embarrass a large organization because they used feeble or no security at all on their computer systems. You know, stuff like logging in remotely with telnet, sending passwords in the clear across who knows how many network hops, no ssh, no vpn, nothing to protect it. No, the default amount of protection is a bit better these days, and hackers are much more businesslike now, trying to turn a profit on their knowledge. Exploiting a security flaw is certainly still the method of choice, no need to resort to much more expensive spy agency methods such as physically introducing a keylogger into the victim's keyboard or a spy cam over the victim's keyboard. But with major software producers on the hot seat to patch vulnerabilities ASAP, these professional crackers are much more circumspect with their knowledge. An exploit might be good for only a short time, before a patch is issued.
> There seems to be no evidence as to what effect the hackers would have liked to achieve.
Oh come on. No motive, really? Trump's refusal to reaffirm US support for NATO's article 5 "an attack on one is an attack on all" was pure gold to Russia. Russia has been wanting to roll NATO back for, oh, almost 70 years now, ever since its founding a few years after the end of WWII. The collapse of the Soviet Union did not change that. Hillary was very much a status quo candidate who would not have made waves on the possibility of dumping NATO.
> Cybersecurity on American voting systems sucks. We knew that already.
With this, I agree. Maybe we ought to do more research in this area, quit cutting funding for science? Voting is a tough problem. And, put more in the budget for replacing antiquated computer systems? It's not just Windows XP, that's actually very modern compared to some of the stuff they're still using. Pretty embarrassing that US government agencies might still be running COBOL programs on 1960s IBM mainframes. How about the Department of Defense still using floppy disks, and I don't mean 3.5" or even 5.25" floppies, try 8" floppies from the 1970s! So much for the US being the leader in tech, eh?
And, this mania to privatize and outsource everything, maybe, you know, for a function as critical as voting is to a democracy, it ought to be developed in house, and not by the likes of Diebold? At the very least, private vendors shouldn't be allowed to get away with bull about "trade secrets" being reason why no one can inspect or review their work, not for something like voting. They will cut corners and cheat, if they can get away with it. We know businesses will do that. Some of that about government supposedly being so inefficient and wasteful is private business propaganda. NASA did after all get us to the moon.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 16 2017, @10:04AM
It's the 2000s where stuff like this and similar happens fairly regularly:
http://variety.com/2014/digital/news/new-sony-films-pirated-in-wake-of-hack-attack-1201367036/ [variety.com]
Or perhaps you believe the Russians were behind this and other hacks too.
(Score: 4, Touché) by fustakrakich on Friday June 16 2017, @11:31AM (14 children)
See? This is the problem. A person says one thing, and you say another. Show us some evidence
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 16 2017, @11:37AM
Perhaps they are a string theorist.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 16 2017, @01:15PM (1 child)
can you please quote the whole sentence that was being addressed? or at least read it?
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Saturday June 17 2017, @04:01AM
I read the whole thing and stand by what I said. This kind of bullshit happens all the time. It is a means of deflection.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 4, Interesting) by tonyPick on Friday June 16 2017, @02:22PM (10 children)
Evidence of Russian involvement? Well, just following the story links...
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/06/06/mark-warner-more-state-election-systems-targeted-by-russians-nsa-senate-intelligence/102549928/ [usatoday.com]
Which has the leaked NSA report which concluded that....
(and presumable genuine, since they are prosecuting the leaker)
And referencing the report we have members of the Senate Intelligence Committee stating that:
And there are similar conclusions from the FBI, the CIA, the ODNI, the DHS, and even the UK's GCHQ. You think the Clintons are secretly running all of those agencies? (Seriously, you might. You sound a little jmorrisy over there.)
And if that's not enough the article has even more details on the attacks on the Illinois state system.
Plus there's the (multiple) analysis of the DNC attacks: Long Summary here... https://arstechnica.com/security/2016/12/the-public-evidence-behind-claims-russia-hacked-for-trump/ [arstechnica.com] (spoiler: The Evidence Indicates Russia)
Versus this you have proposed the interesting argument that
Oh yeah. They funded people to impersonate known active Russian groups to hack their own systems and then not reveal the details of those impersonators until after the election, in order to get win the election through.... some complex scheme that you can't quite describe, but which might be there?
And on:
"Russia, if you're listening, I hope you'll be able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing. " - Donald Trump, July 27; That's DT directly encouraging Russia to hack the DNC email server for a start. If people suspect his team was involved then he's got no-one else to blame, since he said that one out loud and in public.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday June 16 2017, @03:20PM (6 children)
Personally, I don't really know what to believe. But, I'll throw "mass hysteria" out there. You might take a look at McCarthyism again. Maybe McCarthy uncovered a bad guy or six, but he did his level best to destroy thousands of lives in the process. And, at that, there are differing definitions for "bad guy". It's entirely possible that McCarthy did this country no good at all, while destroying those thousands of lives. At the very best, the good that he did is negligible.
So, another round of paranoid Americans feeding off of their own phychosis isn't all that implausible.
Besides, let us accept at face value, all of the accusations against Russia. Let's just believe everything our intel communities and the DNC are telling us. In effect, we are admitting that we are incompetent, and the Russians are at least competent. And, we're whining that it's Russia's fault that we are incompetent? Phhht. Smoke and mirrors, and the smoke is being blown up our asses.
Then, there is the fact that no one can point to any result, and declare, "See there! THAT is what the Russians did! Roanoke, Virginia (or your choice of city or county, or even state) voted Democrat, unanimously, but the results were changed to give Trump a 53% share of the votes!" No one has found a single verified instance of voting manipulation.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by edIII on Friday June 16 2017, @06:57PM (3 children)
I'm not so concerned about the voting manipulation, and I'm willing to accept that the Electoral College fucked us up the ass again. The places that voted for Trump I was expecting, and the popular vote was wildly in HRC's favor. If the votes were that manipulated, then we really need to revamp the whole voting process. We should be investigating, regardless of partisan politics, all electronic voting machines. I think we should get rid of the fuckers, or at least move to a receipt with cryptographic signatures. That way a website can report your vote, preserve anonymity, and you are holding the only proof of how you cast your vote.
Russia showed us that we cannot have confidence in our voting processes without a full fucking review. Period.
What concerns me more than anything, is that Orange Anus won't release his fucking taxes. Egotistical prick can't handle the rest of us seeing that he isn't worth 10 billion, but in the mean time, we have absolutely no fucking clue how compromised he is, if at all. We can't have a president that flaunts conflicts of interest in the way that he and his family have. Our democracy doesn't work without trust, and that racist dipshit wipes his ass with the foreign emoluments clause. How do we *know* that he isn't compromised by Russia? That he doesn't have huge financial interests in appeasing Russian foreign interests?
He's president (not mine), and that's a fucking tragedy, but if we are to have any hope going forward, he needs to put the conflicts of interests to rest. That only happens with transparency, that only happens with the release of his taxes, and that only happens with him and his shitty abhorrent children-of-the-corn family divests themselves of their financial interests that are in conflict with serving the U.S in the capacity they wish to.
Until Donnie Tiny Hands nuts up and does what it takes to be president, he is nothing but an illegitimate president waiting for another civil war while the country craters into a 3rd world hell hole. The country will not move on till he addresses it. Unlike Obama and his birth certificate, this is really fucking serious. We have no ability or reason to trust that bombastic shithead.
All of this is separate from impeaching his corrupt ass for trying to lean on the fucking FBI director, of all people. Complete. Fucking. Moron.
You were in the military. Partisan bullshit aside, are you really that comfortable that Dear Leader isn't compromised by the Russians and/or financial interests? He's the Commander in Chief, and possibly, in Russia's pocket. That's the very fucking definition of untenable, but maybe that's just me.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 3, Funny) by realDonaldTrump on Friday June 16 2017, @10:38PM (1 child)
Most of my loans are from Deutsche Bank. I got a lot of loans from them, I mean, not a lot a lot. I mean, not a lot for me, it may be a lot for you. Less than a billion, but almost a billion, from Deutsche Bank. Which is German, not Russian. Around a billion dollars, it could be more but I think it was less. And if Russia guaranteed those loans, so what? They do what I say. I don't do what they say. I do what I want. What's best for America. And I always, always put America first. Let me tell you, Deutsche Bank did a close internal examination, that's what they called it, of my account. And they found no collusion. When Deutsche Bank themselves, and virtually everyone else with knowledge of the witch hunt, says there is no collusion, when does it end? Folks, it's a total hoax. #TrumpHotels [twitter.com] #MakeAmericaGreatAgain [twitter.com]
(Score: 2) by edIII on Saturday June 17 2017, @12:43AM
Fuck off and die in a fire
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2, Touché) by fustakrakich on Saturday June 17 2017, @04:05AM
There's no need for all the emotional baggage. Use paper ballots and the problem is solved.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by tonyPick on Saturday June 17 2017, @07:15AM (1 child)
You see, I might find that an interesting argument; I don't think I'd agree with it given the sheer scope and range of corroboration of the above stuff (and the fact not all of it is from America: Germany, Estonia, Poland, Australia, Canada and New Zealand and maybe the Dutch and the French for a start), but it's certainly a possible explanation and while it might be unique in it's scope there have been smaller scale examples of that before [bbc.co.uk]. You could probably try and make that case and not sound like a lunatic.
However the OP (and others) are not arguing that this stuff is wrong, or that they don't agree with it, but are saying that it doesn't exist, which is just... I don't know - it seems to me the American politics in general, and the recently the American right in particular, appears to take Reality as a thing you can just opt out of, based on whether it agrees with "our side(tm)" or not. This doesn't do anything other than undermine any valid arguments that might be made (even if it's clearly a vote winner).
Minor point:
To quote TFA: "In many states, the extent of the Russian infiltration remains unclear. The federal government had no direct authority over state election systems, and some states offered limited cooperation. When then-DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson said last August that the department wanted to declare the systems as national critical infrastructure -- a designation that gives the federal government broader powers to intervene -- Republicans balked."
And I can point at at least one politician who thinks voter fraud was thing that happened [independent.co.uk] in the last election. Hey, don't you trust him anymore? :D
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday June 17 2017, @02:38PM
Your choice of words is excellent. "I might find that" and "I don't think I'd agree".
You seem to undertand perfectly that I was just throwing that out there for consideration.
The one thing that almost makes the idea plausible, is the fact that MSM and the DNC seem to be obsessed with the idea of Russian manipulation of the election. I may be exaggerating a little, but it seems like every day, even when there is no news to report, someone writes another article with a newly tweaked spin.
It can be awfully difficult to find a proper balance in this kind of ongoing - uhhh - investigation or witch hunt. It's easy to lose interest, because it gets boring after awhile. It's also easy to get obsessed, if you take the issue personally. My "safe space" on this story, is sitting in the shade of the skepticism tree in my back yard. ;^) I figure that about the time Trump is three and a half years into his term (first, or only?) they should have figured things out.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by fustakrakich on Saturday June 17 2017, @03:56AM (2 children)
"Leaks"... please. How does anybody know they aren't planted also? Sorry, until this stuff is thoroughly and publicly cross examined, we are getting nothing but hearsay.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by tonyPick on Saturday June 17 2017, @08:23AM (1 child)
Some Leaks. Some official statements. Some summary reviews. Some investigation analysis. From multiple sources and nations. All producing a reasonably coherent picture of motive, tools and techniques indicating a targeted attack with a specific culprit.
I mean unless you think that everybody involved is just making stuff up, which would be absolutely fucking craz....
Oh. Right. You possibly do.
You could start with the Ars Technica analysis here:
https://arstechnica.com/security/2016/12/the-public-evidence-behind-claims-russia-hacked-for-trump/ [arstechnica.com]
https://arstechnica.com/security/2016/07/clinton-campaign-email-accounts-were-targeted-by-russians-too/ [arstechnica.com]
Or the crowdstrike analysis
https://www.crowdstrike.com/blog/bears-midst-intrusion-democratic-national-committee/ [crowdstrike.com]
Or if you don't trust them, how about SecureWorks
https://www.secureworks.com/research/threat-group-4127-targets-hillary-clinton-presidential-campaign [secureworks.com]
Or if you don't trust them there's Fidelis
https://www.fidelissecurity.com/tags/dnc-hack [fidelissecurity.com]
Or if you don't trust them there's also Mandiant and ThreatConnect a google search away.
You might not *like* it, or think you have reasons to mistrust it, but arguing "It doesn't exist. And if it does it's just hearsay. And if it isn't then it's fake" isn't the most compelling chain of argument.
How long until you want a time machine to go back and sit on the wire and get the packet captures as they come in to prove that the data in the analysis isn't fake? You don't seem to have got to the part of being Skeptical where you say "What if I'm wrong? What could convince me of that?".
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Saturday June 17 2017, @11:16AM
So far none of it is admissible in a court of law. All these 'analysts' are still speculating. Bring it before the judge, and then we can talk. So far, the only real evidence is within the DNC correspondence itself (if there isn't some fake stuff inserted there as well). And so far, all the plausible voting fraud is also within the DNC, in their primaries. Until it makes it into court, all this Russian stuff is just more birtherism, and the democrats are just crying over another loss after they couldn't prove anything from 2000 either. Introspection is not their strong suit.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by bradley13 on Friday June 16 2017, @11:32AM
You have some interesting points. However, I do disagree that security is better today that it used to be. Even disregarding all of the 0-day exploits that keep popping up, we have the largest security hole of all: stupid users who click on phishing links (Colin Powell and John Podesta), stupid providers who use security questions (Sarah Palin), and back to stupid users who think "password" is a password (John Podesta again).
It really doesn't take the powers of a a national government to hack email accounts and servers, when you have users practically begging to be hacked...
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 16 2017, @03:42PM
So the hackers, also hacked Trumps mind and knew beforehand that he would refuse to support article 5?
Think about how much more useful info they could have gained elsewhere.
(Score: 1, Troll) by Gaaark on Friday June 16 2017, @12:03PM (2 children)
When it looked like Trump could lose, he blamed a 'hack' and Hillary, et al said 'dont be stupid, there is no hack'.
Hillary loses and suddenly there is hackzzzzz!!!
RIGHT!
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 16 2017, @04:28PM (1 child)
The difference is that Trump had exactly zero evidence to back up his claim. Now it appears that there is some credible evidence of Russian meddling. Hence, the reason for the investigation. You do believe in investigating when there is actual evidence, right?
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Saturday June 17 2017, @12:23AM
Well, i believe in investigating when there is an acusation: you know, someone says "there was a hack" and you say "oh, really... i better investigate to see if there is evidence to follow this up with".
You go:
1. Find evidence: follow through with an investigation.
2. Find no evidence: don't follow through.
Trump was just told "Don't be stupid". There was no investigating for evidence (of which, it appears, there has been for years!).
SO: "You do believe in investigating when there is actual evidence, right?"
My answer is YES!
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by Whoever on Friday June 16 2017, @02:52PM (1 child)
If the objective is not to change the outcome of the election, but to make people skeptical of the election's legitimacy, then Russia actually benefits from letting the tracks go back to Russia.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 16 2017, @05:11PM
No don't you see, the Russians planted the evidence because they knew if we found no evidence it would prove it was them. This is standard conspiracy 101 level stuff on InfoWars.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Friday June 16 2017, @03:45PM
- If this were orchestrated by the Russian government, they wouldn't have gotten caught, or at least not left tracks. Proxies exist. Assuming the attacks actually did originate in Russia, most likely it was just some challenge in the local hacker community.
Edward Snowden, a guy with firsthand knowledge, believes the NSA can absolutely track ex-filtrated data and figure out who did it. I think I trust his opinion more than yours.
XKeyscore, which Snowed revealed in 2013, “makes following exfiltrated data easy. I did this personally against Chinese ops,” [politico.com]
Snowden argued that publicizing the consequences of insidious data hacking clear is the best national defense. “Without a credible threat that USG can and will use #NSA capabilities to publicly attribute responsibility, such hacks will become common,” he tweeted, adding, “This is the only case in which mass surveillance has actually proven effective. Though I oppose in principle, it is a mistake to ignore.”
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 16 2017, @06:53AM
Why halo thar Senator McCarthy! The highest echelons of the US government has been penetrated to hell and back since the coldwar, do you think the ideologues and spies would just quit and go home the moment the coldwas is over?
/me thinks Comey is just a puppet show, if he was even doing anything remotely close to nuking the corruption that allowed it in the first place, he'd be branded the devil just like McCarthy was.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by kaszz on Friday June 16 2017, @07:33AM (2 children)
Because.. they would never lie or manufacture evidence .. ;-)
Or "leak" to some news outlet that people trust to lean on their credibility.
As for security. There's a good reason electronic voting has been disqualified by qualified experts in security. If someone forgot, have a look at the DieBold 2004 election machine security compromise and reliability uncertainty of their machines. Just plain closed source binary blob trust us(tm) for starters and no complete trail that humans can verify. To top it of the CEO had a giant conflict of interest. And this has a long trail of similar events.
Remember that wrongdoing never done, won't leak!
(Score: 4, Touché) by DeathMonkey on Friday June 16 2017, @03:47PM (1 child)
This was a classified document that was leaked. So their plan is to lie to the public but make the lie classified so the public can't see it?
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Saturday June 17 2017, @12:36PM
Doctor a document, classify it, leak it. Mission accomplished.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 16 2017, @09:04AM (1 child)
When I went to vote it was all electronic (even the "paper" vote was just to fill out a scantron), this made me very uncomfortable and I did not think it likely to be safe. We can be almost certain that hacking attempts by multiple parties have been taking place. People have been warning about this for quite some time, so it is strange that this is the most that they are reporting.
(Score: 2) by Sulla on Friday June 16 2017, @04:33PM
Cant say the same for Hillary
Https://www.counterpunch.org/2016/05/16/clinton-does-best-where-voting-machines-flunk-hacking-tests-hillary-clinton-vs-bernie-sanders-election-fraud-allegations/
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 5, Touché) by shortscreen on Friday June 16 2017, @09:19AM (2 children)
So. Despite the countless warnings, year after year, from anyone who knew anything about computers, about the risks of using network-connected general purpose computers to count votes, no one could be bothered to actually do something about it. But now suddenly it's a big deal, because... we wuz haxxored!? And look, the NSA has conveniently documented this giant wave of hack attempts. That's right, they saw the whole thing! But (as always) didn't do a thing about it. They were caught off guard, you know? I mean, who could have forseen it? They sat back and watched, powerless, while the hackers ran wild. But they documented it, so that the American public would know the truth! Well, at least "the truth" as reported by a few "anonymous officials" and leaks, after the election was over and done with. So yeah, the horse is long gone, but the NSA wants you to know that it noticed the barn door was open. And documented it.
And further more, the NSA is totally sure that it was RUSSIA!!! and not just a bunch of random hackers hacking away. After all, look at how much Russia has gained from this outcome. Why, Mr. Putin got to talk to the Donald on the telephone! I'm sure it was worth unleashing an army of hackers just for that.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by takyon on Friday June 16 2017, @10:23AM
The summary talks about voter registration data, not vote tabulation.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Friday June 16 2017, @04:13PM
Well duh, they were too busy illegally spying on Americans to do their real job.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Lester on Friday June 16 2017, @12:09PM (6 children)
Manual counting is the best. Ballot box results are public and published, the only aggregated data is the sum of votes of each box. So everyone can sum boxes results, (and political parties do). It's more tamper-proof than any automatic counting system, and the cost (in money and time) is not that different.
The only black box in manual counting election is then counting of the ballot box. So you must tamper with ballot box counting. Once they have written the results of a box, wrong or right, true of false, little can be done. But tampering with ballot box counting is not easy, there is too much random people, too many witnesses, so loose ends. And even if you mange to cheat, you have very little a few votes, statically not important. You should tamper with big number of Ballot boxes, so with . More over even if you manage to change many boxes, you would have hundreds or thousands of witnesses and so loose ends.
Automatic counting has two black boxes: The voting machine and the communication with the counting center. So it has toe weak points: Manipulate the voting machine (once you know how, you can manipulate a thousand in minutes), and nobody will be aware. Interfere communication with ballot centers (individual voting machine results are not published). So you can secretly change the final result of elections with only a few witnesses and loose ends: The people you hired to hack the system.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 16 2017, @04:19PM (3 children)
I'm generally in support of manual counting. The problem is it does actually seem plausible that the median intelligence of the US people is so low that you might not be able to find enough manual counters who can actually count properly and impartially. You might have 10 counters producing 10 or more different results and more than 10 arguments and fights.
Not saying all are stupid. But seriously with the numbers of Flat Earthers, anti-vaxxers etc around and the popularity and long tradition of anti-intellectualism: https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/wired-success/201407/anti-intellectualism-and-the-dumbing-down-america [psychologytoday.com] can you trust the counters to count properly and impartially?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 16 2017, @05:43PM
tally, don't count?
four lines crossed with a fifth line = 5 votes per group?
use a knife to put notches in sticks, line up the sticks for comparison?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 16 2017, @05:44PM
Citing a pseudo/pop-science source like Psychology Today doesn't build much confidence you are smart.
(Score: 2) by Lester on Saturday June 17 2017, @09:58AM
If you are counting 1000 votes of a box, the error range will be few votes. You can get 700 for A and 300 for B, or 705 for A and 295. even 700 for A and 295 for B (that don't sum 1000).
So What?
You'll never see 100 for A and 900 for B, So Statistically it will be non-significant. Moreover, Statistically there will be as many errors for one side as for the other. Unless the election is very very tight it is not important. And, in such case, automatic voting system wouldn't make things more reliable and less suspicious, but the opposite. With a voting machine it could get 1 for A and 999 for B, it could be suspicious but nobody would have any argument or proof to complain.
In Spain in 1978, the first democratic elections after 40 years, in the counting process there were battles for each dubious vote. Nowadays nothing of that happens. Why? people know that a vote up or down won't change anything. With 10 different results very similar there is no fight, they pick one and go home, that it is what they are longing to do after a long and boring day in the in the voting place. And I'm sure the error produced by such decisions is less than 0.0001%
(Score: 2) by dry on Saturday June 17 2017, @04:04AM (1 child)
The weak point in manual counting, at least in a close election, are the absentee voters. We just had an election here in BC which was close to a statistical tie, takes 44 seats to clearly win, results on election day were 43-41-3 with one of those 41 winning by something like 8 votes. Lots of people like me voted before election day, those ballot boxes were put away and the recount and the counting absentee votes took over 2 weeks. While it is easy to verify the election day votes just by standing around and watching the manual count, those absentee ballot boxes, there has to be some trust. Where they're kept for the 3-4 weeks before counting them and how secure their location is. In our case the recount and absentee ballots just made the 8 vote winner into a 150 or so winner and I'm sure if the government was cheating, they would have arranged to win that seat and get their 44 but the count could have easily changed the results and given the government a clear mandate to continue.
Close elections are interesting in our Westminster type Parliamentary system, it'll be the end of this month before the Legislature decides on who is going to govern and even the Queen, or rather Her Lieutenant-Governor might have to make an executive decision on who governs or even if we have another election.
BTW, the 3 seats that decide on who governs are the Green Party, who got 1/6th of the popular vote and who are demanding proportional representation. Voting 3rd party here can make a difference.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 17 2017, @09:48AM
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Sulla on Friday June 16 2017, @04:30PM (3 children)
The liberals wont be happy until we bombed Russia because they lost Hill the election. The neo-cons (Hill and Mccain) wont be happy until we bomb Russia because they made money on backroom weapon deals.
Lets just fuckin get it on and let all these god damned warmongers die in the same atomic flame as the rest of the world. Then finally they can be happy they killed the earth in revenge for liberal butthurt and in the quest for politician profit.
All Trump asked for was renewed relations, but these fuckers wont stop until we are all dead because they just cant have peace.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Friday June 16 2017, @06:00PM (2 children)
Liberals won't be happy until a hostile foreign governments stop fucking with the foundations of our democracy.
Your false equivalency is false.
(Score: 5, Touché) by bob_super on Friday June 16 2017, @06:41PM
The afterlife switchboard just called, asking in which order you would like to take the calls of all the foreign ex-leaders eager to point out the irony.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 17 2017, @05:42PM
lmao! since "fucking with the foundations of our democracy" is just for tammany hall career criminals at the dnc...
(Score: 2) by linkdude64 on Saturday June 17 2017, @08:29AM
Let me guess, absolutely no evidence of collusion with the Trump campaign or evidence that the Russian government had anything to do with this at all? Or wait, maybe the attacks originated from Putin's laptop which was revealed to be running Windows 7 without the latest updates (Only available in Windows 10! Get your Free* upgrade today!) which had a Guy Fawkes mask wallpaper on it.
I am also curious which locations' machines were hacked, and which were not. If Blue counties and states were attacked exclusively, it shows some clear motive but is still not evidence of collusion with Trump's campaign, however if voter registration data was deleted from Red areas or areas that are well mixed, this doesn't really stand out to me as anything other than a group of people wanting to mine some personal information to pair with others to form complete profiles which could be used for identity theft, and all of the (completely justified) bitching and moaning leading up the election about how insecure digital voting machines and systems are gave them some ideas about what they could sell to others who would pay for it, maybe their own Russian government, maybe the government of Saudi Arabia, who would much rather have had their lapdog in office.
From TFA
Whoops! Looks like the EL173 h4(K3r forgot to go to a different Starbucks!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 17 2017, @05:44PM
fuck you and your close sourced voting shitware. fuck you with your "sophisticated state haxxors". you are the malware.