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democratic countries with national elections next year—for federally certified voting systems running on soon-to-be-outdated Windows 7 software.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: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 21 2019, @06:21PM (3 children)
Better use COBOL next time for such stuff. You can audit that and use it forever, safely, without crazy surprises. Or FORTRAN, if you are into engineering.
(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
(Score: 4, Insightful) by fustakrakich on Saturday September 21 2019, @06:37PM (19 children)
How about fucking paper ballots instead?
Oh! I feel so very sorry. The tourette's is kicking in again...
But seriously, c'mon, people, just demand the superior solution and be done with it.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 21 2019, @06:47PM (8 children)
Only niggers use paper ballots because niggers live in poor nigger neighborhoods where they can't risk putting voting machines because everybody knows niggers would steal the voting machines.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 21 2019, @06:52PM (6 children)
Why you talk so bad about yo Big Black Daddy? Yo, nigga, yo mama likes a Big Black Nigga!
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 21 2019, @07:03PM (5 children)
Why are you bragging about your own nigger rapist father, quantum mulatto boy?
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 21 2019, @07:14PM (4 children)
admit you like that quantum jizz gushing down your throat white boy
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 21 2019, @07:22PM (3 children)
Your mother and your sisters snatch were gushing my jizz last night.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 21 2019, @10:08PM (2 children)
I wondered where the Anonymous Cowards from /. would go. Here, apparently.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 21 2019, @10:33PM (1 child)
I was able to log in with an old account and post as Anonymous on /. Are they fucking lazy or are new accounts unable to do it?
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Sunday September 22 2019, @01:53AM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 21 2019, @07:27PM
You've got it backwards. They are the ones insisting that everything be electronic, because they love their cell phones, and electronic voting machines look like large cell phones.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Saturday September 21 2019, @06:53PM (8 children)
No thanks- don't want paper cuts.
(Score: 5, Funny) by Gaaark on Saturday September 21 2019, @07:11PM (5 children)
and Chad says, "Hey! How's it hanging!"
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 21 2019, @07:16PM (2 children)
Punch ballots have been replaced by magnetic ink ballots. Thanks for trolling, troll.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by SomeGuy on Saturday September 21 2019, @07:41PM (1 child)
The sad thing is many idiots genuinely do believe that just because some previous system had issues, it is still impossible to overcome and a completely different system is required.
It is the same sort of thinking that new white/beige computer cases MUST have sharp edges, or that devices without bright blue LEDs are somehow not as powerful.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 21 2019, @07:54PM
White computers have blue lights to stop niggers from stealing our computers. Niggers see the blue lights and are reminded of police cars and run away from the cops.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Saturday September 21 2019, @07:40PM
Ba-dump-pssshhhh (that's my best drum rimshot).
And the answer is: in ribbons.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 21 2019, @11:31PM
And Dimples replies, "one slightly lower than the other."
(Score: 2, Funny) by fustakrakich on Saturday September 21 2019, @07:11PM (1 child)
You gotta
*know how to hold 'em
know how to fold 'em*
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 4, Funny) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Saturday September 21 2019, @11:33PM
You never count your ballots when you're sittin' at the table.
There'll be time enough for countin' when the cheatin's done.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 21 2019, @10:55PM
I suppose that could be amusing. However, I think the middle-aged and elderly women manning the check-in tables at my polling place might feel like they're being ignored. And that's just rude. As such, I restrict myself to legal pads in my home.
Not sure where you are, but we do have paper ballots where I vote. They are then scanned.
However, the paper ballots still exist and are used for manual recounts. If you don't have them where you live, then you need to elect folks who will implement them.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Saturday September 21 2019, @06:50PM (5 children)
Everything is going to the cloud. FFS, everything! Office 365, blah blah blah, everything, CLOUD!!!
Coming soon, all federal voting, state voting, and local voting will be handled *somewhere* in the cloud? Who will win that sweet, sweet contract? MS? Amazon? Google? Bharat's Garage Cloud Service, hosted in a suburb of Mumbai?
All of our levels of government are stupid blind enough to have jumped on the electronic voting bandwagon. The dumb bastards are going to jump into the cloud at the earliest opportunity as well. THEN, who is going to manipulate the votes? I foresee Israel manipulating an election to their liking, but before the results are publicized, a street gang in Hong Kong manipulates the numbers, and while THOSE results are being tabulated, an East Europe Cracker Club starts running a bitcoin instance, which makes the whole cloudy thing barf. At some point, one of those Ethiopian princes will get into the act, and everyone who voted for one party is credited with a quarter million dollars - which will trigger the Republicans, but not the Dems.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 21 2019, @06:59PM (1 child)
Twitter. Twitter is de facto a government agency by virtue of President Trump using Twitter for government business. Elections will be conducted exclusively on Twitter from now on, with no need to rock the vote to convince all those kids on your lawn to register, since they all have Twitter already.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 21 2019, @10:12PM
Will us old people who don't have Twitter accounts still be able to mail in our ballots so they can be counted as voting Democrat regardless of what we might actually put on the ballot?
(Score: 2, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 21 2019, @07:05PM (1 child)
Best part of the problem you don't realize yet is: You have no true political options, being able to pick only from a pre-selected set of approved mannequins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 21 2019, @07:07PM
#democracy
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 21 2019, @11:35PM
*tinfoil hat on*
No, they're perfectly smart enough to know the risks. They just don't care so long as they preserve their illusion that they are smarter than the other guy. What's a few tampered election between dynasties of control?
*tinfoil hat off*
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 21 2019, @07:11PM (2 children)
My old desktop computer is now an official "federally certified voting system."
This sort of reminds me of that registry hack where you could trick Microsoft into thinking your XP system was the embedded edition for point of sale or ATMs, and continue getting free security updates.
I wonder what will be involved with this on a technical level.
Also, Fuck off Windows 10.
(Score: 3, Informative) by RS3 on Saturday September 21 2019, @07:48PM (1 child)
Long ago I was also thinking about that. There are tons of "embedded Windows 7" installs out there, including medical equipment. MS will have to update them somehow, but the automatic update might not work on W7 desktops. But if they do produce the updates, they'll likely be available at http://www.catalog.update.microsoft.com/Home.aspx [microsoft.com] Worst-case scenario- I keep 1 Win10 machine, and the rest (finally) go to Linux. :)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 21 2019, @10:26PM
Just like what happened with XP, the first time an update is released, someone will trace the install process to figure out what it is looking for to validate it is the right type of Windows.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 22 2019, @12:13AM
Is your vote getting uploaded to a Microsoft servers somewhere?
(Score: 2) by jmichaelhudsondotnet on Sunday September 22 2019, @09:28AM
microsoft is securing the elections, how many of their executives are 'former' spooks?
the fact that their latest OS is not even considered as an election machine should really inform you that they aren't into that kind of non-cloud computer anymore, so why are they being treated like some sort of expert?
Security for us cattle means 'don't worry your pretty little heads, the megacorp whose ads you see all the time is going to take good care of it'
Why not hire microsoft to do the exit polling too? If you are completely going to stick your head up your ass, might as well go all the way so you don't have to see any of the results, which in this case could really be the end of the world if the current cabal gets 4 more years to run amok.