U.S. Offers Reward of $10M for Info Leading to Discovery of Election Meddling:
The U.S. government is concerned about foreign interference in the 2020 election, so much so that it will offer a reward of up to $10 million for anyone providing information that could lead to tracking down potential cybercriminals aiming to sabotage the November vote.
The U.S. Department of State’s Rewards for Justice (RFJ) program, overseen by the Diplomatic Security Service, will pay for info that can identify or locate someone workingwith[sic] or for a foreign government “for the purpose of interfering with U.S. elections through certain illegal cyber activities,” according to a release posted on the department’s website.
The reward covers anyone seeking to interfere with an election at the federal, state or local level by violating or even aiding the violation of a U.S. law against computer fraud and abuse, according to the department.
“The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, 18 U.S.C. § 1030, criminalizes unauthorized computer intrusions and other forms of fraud related to computers,” according to the release. “Among other offenses, the statute prohibits unauthorized accessing of computers to obtain information and transmit it to unauthorized recipients.”
The department is encouraging anyone with information on foreign interference in U.S. elections to contact them via their website or contact a U.S. Regional Security Officer at the nearest U.S. embassy or consulate.
[...] [Voting machine-maker Election Systems & Software ] ES&S said that its formally released policy applies to all digital assets owned and operated by ES&S – including corporate IT networks and public-facing websites.
No word on rewards for non-foreign interference.
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Bruce Schneier, along with Ryan Shandler and Anthony J. DeMattee, has published a a blog post on the role that confidence has in elections and, specifically, the role that electronic voting systems have had in undermining that trust.
This technological leap has made voting more accessible and efficient, and sometimes more secure. But these new systems are also more complex. And that complexity plays into the hands of those looking to undermine democracy.
In recent years, authoritarian regimes have refined a chillingly effective strategy to chip away at Americans’ faith in democracy by relentlessly sowing doubt about the tools U.S. states use to conduct elections. It’s a sustained campaign to fracture civic faith and make Americans believe that democracy is rigged, especially when their side loses.
Previously:
(2022) A Scientist's Quest for an Accessible, Unhackable Voting Machine
(2020) U.S. Offers Reward of $10M for Info Leading to Discovery of Election Meddling
(2020) HBO's 'Kill Chain' Documentary Highlights Flaws in US Election Machines
(2019) Researchers Assembled Over 100 Voting Machines. Hackers Broke Into Every Single One.
(2019) DARPA's $10 Million Voting Machine Couldn't be Hacked at DefCon (for the Wrong Reasons)
(2019) Top Voting Machine Maker Reverses Position on Election Security, Promises Paper Ballots
(2019) Amid Worries About Election Security, Microsoft Unveils Voting Machine Software
(2018) I Bought Used Voting Machines on eBay for $100 Apiece. What I Found Was Alarming
(2018) Def Con 26 Voting Village Sees an 11-Year-Old Crack a Voting Machine
and many more ...
(Score: 3, Insightful) by hemocyanin on Friday August 07 2020, @02:19AM (8 children)
Google, Twitter, Rachel Madow, CNN --- easy money.
Yeah I know -- this is about foreigners -- but perhaps we should know who the major investors are in media and tech companies.
(I'm relying on the mod police to keep coming back and mod me underrated after the legacy media troll squad is through with me)
(Score: 1, Funny) by Runaway1956 on Friday August 07 2020, @02:21AM
Well, if we didn't have that whole anchor baby thing, all those lizard people would still be aliens. It's too late now!
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 5, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 07 2020, @02:21AM
Trump, Barr, RNC, Fox easier money.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 07 2020, @03:26AM (3 children)
You boomers sure are committed to being stupid assholes. A for effort, F for everything else.
(Score: 1) by hemocyanin on Friday August 07 2020, @09:05AM
Not a boomer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 07 2020, @10:20AM (1 child)
#okmillennial
(Score: 1) by hemocyanin on Saturday August 08 2020, @05:00PM
Not a millenial.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Friday August 07 2020, @03:29AM
Wait, *that*'s what you're considering easy money? Just find a few vulnerabilities in the machines and/or spin up a few stories about foreign interference, sell them to small foreign media outlets, er, "investors", and split the reward. How easy is this bounty to game?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by driverless on Friday August 07 2020, @05:06AM
This is standard practice for pretty much every vendor of snake-oil crypto, they all offer gigantic rewards for anyone who can crack their unbreakable military-grade patented proprietary encryption. No-one ever gets to collect the reward for some strange reason, but they do get to trumpet the fact that their crypto is unbreakable based on this at every opportunity.
Looks like the Department of State is going for the same playbook. If it works for the snake-oil salesmen...
(Score: 4, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Friday August 07 2020, @02:24AM (6 children)
So what's to stop Russia from interfering, throwing their hackers under the bus, then collecting the reward?
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 07 2020, @02:59AM
Better question [extends pinky finger to mouth] -- What's to stop me?
There are a ton of freelancer sites that specialize in foreign talent.
(Score: 0, Troll) by hemocyanin on Friday August 07 2020, @09:10AM (4 children)
What's to stop them? Oh, maybe just that the Russians are all a fantasy Democrats invoked with full faith and credit of 90% of the media so that they would have to do zero self-reflection?
You know, The Democrats could consider that maybe it isn't everyone else who is the issue when they give us a warmongering job exporter wall street whore for 2016 and a segregationist octogenarian with a rape allegation and dementia for 2020. That's seriously the best they could do?
(Score: 4, Interesting) by bzipitidoo on Friday August 07 2020, @04:26PM (3 children)
Oh, I think the Russian interference is real. However, it pales in significance to the much greater interference from domestic sources. I am especially troubled by reports that the DNC both engineered Hillary's victory over Bernie in the primaries, and helped Trump win the Republican primaries figuring he'd be such an odious candidate that even a corporate shill candidate could beat him. If so, they were wrong, as it turned out. There was also the matter of James Comey bringing up Hillary's emails, again, in the weeks before the vote.
Another big problem is that a lot of campaign finance is in the dark, thanks to Citizens United. Who is contributing, and what do they really want? I expect its sordid corruption, nothing more. Damn the larger picture, the "donor" wants huge gifts such as antisocial legislation that favors them, and juicy contracts and sinecures, in exchange for the contribution. For example, the tax prep industry lobbies to keep income tax as painful and complicated as possible so that tax payers are all but forced to pay them to fill out the tax forms. Big Pharma wants to maintain and expand their racket, and ban prescription drugs from Canada. Wall Street always wants fewer rules, the better to rip off small investors, municipalities, pension plans, and the like. Gun manufacturers want to scare more people into buying more weapons, for self-defense, of course. And they all want others to pay all the costs. That's the kind of crap that really got Trump elected: shared irresponsibility.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Friday August 07 2020, @05:00PM (2 children)
Americans are allowed to participate in American elections. Foreign governments are not. If they're buying astroturfers and/or ads that is a crime.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Friday August 07 2020, @06:35PM (1 child)
In this ever smaller and more connected world, that strikes me as quaint. Who forbids foreign governments from influencing elections? What's the democracy going to do about it, complain to the U.N.? Declare war? Quibble over whether the methods were ethical or not? I really don't see any problem with a foreign nation running a mere advertisement campaign on behalf of their preferred candidate, though I am not aware of any attempts to do so.
Trying to rig the election is a problem, but if that is possible, we should be asking ourselves why. We can make vote tallying reasonably secure, but it seems there are many who would rather it not be as secure as it could be. Backdoors and loopholes can be used by anyone who knows about them, regardless of who put them there and why.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Friday August 07 2020, @06:59PM
Our Representative Democracy passes a law forbidding it.
There are many ways to apply leverage to a foreign government. Also, you can punish the companies that knowingly accept that illegal campaign contribution money.
Only because you are actively ignoring it. SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE UNITED STATES SENATE ON RUSSIAN ACTIVE MEASURES CAMPAIGNS AND INTERFERENCE IN THE 2016 U.S. ELECTION VOLUME 1: RUSSIAN EFFORTS AGAINST ELECTION [senate.gov]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by fustakrakich on Friday August 07 2020, @02:26AM
That means the fraud has to be built in at the factory. No problem. Happy hunting
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 5, Insightful) by shortscreen on Friday August 07 2020, @02:52AM (2 children)
Poor widdle USA is always the helpless victim and it's everyone's fault except theirs that their country is collapsing.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 07 2020, @03:28AM (1 child)
Nah, that is a minority of the US which is so dumb, please don't paint us all with the hemocyanin / runaway / TMB brush. I didn't mention EF since he is a psychopath and would be embarrassing in any country.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 08 2020, @12:28PM
Not op. I appologize on behalf of us all, it's just so easy to forget sometimes, when your perception of americans comes from TV and the internet. Now how about him Kanye as president, that would be cool right!
(Score: 0, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 07 2020, @02:58AM (8 children)
You owe me $70,000,000.00
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 07 2020, @03:11AM (5 children)
Well, what do you know. Another primitive, simple-minded, binary, tribal little POS who thinks it's all "the other side's" fault.
Right now, you have a well known psychopath, con-man, sexual predator and child molester in the white house, and it's not "democrats, ANTIFA, CNN, etc" who put him there.
Fucking republitards. Always claim to be all about "individual liberty" and "personal responsability", and yet the moment they shit all over the floor, they try to blame it on anybody else but themselves. Pathetic hypocritical little shitfucks.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 07 2020, @03:37AM
Don't forget how they downmod every criticism but whine like babies about the "mod patrols" or whatever. Which of course means that they are running sock puppet accounts to make themselves feel better about the world leaving them behind.
(Score: 3, Informative) by PartTimeZombie on Friday August 07 2020, @03:39AM (1 child)
Don't you remember that time Obama wore a tan suit?
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 07 2020, @12:56PM
At least he didn't have a spray on tan.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 07 2020, @11:52AM (1 child)
You've been brainwashed by the shit Democrats have been feeding you. They've done nothing but start witch hunt after witch hunt towards an outsider that came in to shake up the bullshit corrupt political system. Idiots like you are going to vote for Kayne West. Have fun when Kayne West wins the next POTUS and puts the Kardashians in charge of education, secretary of state, and (gasp) the treasury and attorney general.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 07 2020, @08:12PM
Honestly, would a Kardashian be any worse than DeVos as Secretary of Education?
I mean, they too would be clueless, but at least they might not be actively hostile to public education.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Friday August 07 2020, @06:43PM (1 child)
> You owe me
Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 08 2020, @12:31PM
I'm seriously considering the possibilty that the US would be better off if fewer people tried to do things for the country.
(Score: 0, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 07 2020, @03:24AM (6 children)
"by violating or even aiding the violation of a U.S. law against computer fraud and abuse, according to the department."
If they mean meddling into the election by exercising your free speech to support or oppose whatever candidate you want (even if countries do it) I don't see how this is something the government should be concerned about. Free speech is part of the democratic process and should not be discouraged by our government. Our government shouldn't restrict the free speech of countries as well.
If they mean hacking the elections over the Internet, why are such critical voting infrastructure on the Internet in a way that can be hacked to change election outcomes in the first place? This makes no sense.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Friday August 07 2020, @03:39AM (2 children)
Republicans "win" elections by cheating. So, of course they don't want electronic voting to be secure.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by nostyle on Friday August 07 2020, @06:26AM (1 child)
This might be the real reason the white house fears mail-in voting - too tough to meddle in it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 07 2020, @12:58PM
The white house meddling already started with additional defunding moves against the US Post Office. Trump must have been slapped by a postal worker when he was a kid*, why else would he hate a federal agency so much?
*and the little entitled shit probably deserved it.
(Score: 2) by shortscreen on Friday August 07 2020, @12:50PM
They don't want all the digital evidence of their own malfeasance to be leaked again. We should take this to mean that there is plenty of great, as yet unseen evidence out there for whoever can find it.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Friday August 07 2020, @05:03PM (1 child)
Commercial speech, such as paid ads or paid astroturfers is not protected free speech.
It is illegal for foreign nationals or governments to pay for ads or astroturfers in an American election.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 08 2020, @12:34PM
If I were you I'd be more scared of facebook, twitter and google influencing the election.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 07 2020, @01:28PM
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/christopherm51/state-department-reward-russia-election-interference-spam [buzzfeednews.com]
https://meduza.io/en/feature/2020/08/06/russians-are-receiving-text-messages-about-the-u-s-state-department-s-10-million-reward-for-information-on-election-interference [meduza.io]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Friday August 07 2020, @02:30PM (2 children)
Black Box Voting [blackboxvoting.org] has been tackling this issue for 20 years. They initially focused on electronic voting machines that are easily hackable and which have no audit trail. Now they cover the issue more broadly.
It is not a new problem, though. Republicans famously questioned Kennedy's election, saying dead voters in Chicago had somehow risen from the grave to cast their ballots for him. Further back, Democrats used all kinds of tricks like literacy tests to turn away black voters in the South.
What has changed is how systemic and instantaneous the cheating can now be. It's pretty certain that behind the scenes, in dark rooms somewhere, there is an arms race to see which side can cheat better and make the outcome stick.
It presents an existential threat to democracy, because if nobody accepts the outcome of an election, then nobody can rule. That leads to civil war, cold or hot.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Saturday August 08 2020, @02:48AM
“As long as I count the Votes, what are you going to do about it?”
-- attributed to William M. “Boss” Tweed in Thomas Nast cartoon, 7 October 1871
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 08 2020, @08:12PM
Oh look, another partisan post from the "ex democrat" lol what a tool.