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from the your-vote-really-doesn't-count dept.
An anonymous Department of Homeland Security (DHS) official has told several media outlets that hackers have targeted voter registration systems in 20 states.
It also has been reported that nine, and more recently, 18 states, have sought assistance from the DHS to "help improve cyber security for their election systems":
Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson told a Senate hearing Tuesday that 18 states have taken up his agency's offer to help improve cyber security for their election systems, in the wake of suspected breaches blamed on Russian hackers. "We are seeing a limited number of instances where there have been efforts through cyber intrusions to get into the online presence of various state election agencies. And, one or two of them have been successful, others have not," Johnson said at a Senate Homeland Security Committee hearing.
[...] Asked by Sen. Jon Tester, D-Montana, whether hackers are seeking to change votes, Johnson said: "What we are seeing are efforts to get into voter registration rolls, the identity of registered voters, things of that nature, not to change a ballot count." Johnson said the matter was still an active investigation and that the source of the intrusions hadn't been concluded.
US officials briefed on the investigation have told CNN that an intrusion in an Illinois voter registration database and an attempted breach in Arizona are believed to be the work of hackers working for Russian spy agencies. US officials say there's strong evidence that Russian government hackers are behind a series [of] other cyber-attacks against the Democratic National Committee and other affiliated political organizations.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 01 2016, @10:58AM
The Republic has been broken. Better to let Emperor Obama appoint his own successor now. The People can't be trusted to choose.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 01 2016, @11:44AM
You mean Emperor Soetoro. Baraq Hussein Soetoro, a citizen of Indonesia and an agent of Saudi Arabia.
(Score: 2) by Pslytely Psycho on Saturday October 01 2016, @12:32PM
Found the Trumpeteer!
You forgot, however, to repeat the lie three times to make it true.
Team TP would be disappointed in you.
As a wise scholar once said: "My name is Cornholio, I need TP for my bunghole!"
Alex Jones lawyer inspires new TV series: CSI Moron Division.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 01 2016, @01:06PM
You've been trolled.
(Score: 2) by fritsd on Saturday October 01 2016, @01:47PM
Oh, look! I can troll, too! And better than you as well:
If I understand correctly, all presidents of the USA, upto now, have stopped being president, when their term was officially up. They relinquished their power, as they were supposed to do according to the law.
I think president Barack Hussein Obama will also relinquish his power in a few months.
I think president Hillary Clinton would relinquish her power after her time is up.
I think president Donald Trump would elect his horse as a consul, and crown his daughter Ivanka as empress of the USA, after his term in office is up. And maybe his sycophant, Ted Cruz, as high priest.
What do you think? He's old enough to have seen I C-C-C-Claudius..
The Americans are sick and tired of voting for presidents, while their country inevitably slides down into chaos as their empire wanes.
They are ripe for a good old-fashioned, divinely-appointed EMPEROR TRUMP of the USA and Puerto Rico.
Maybe 2016 is America's 1672 "Rampjaar" [wikipedia.org], where they disembowel their haughty intelligent elites [wikipedia.org],
eat their balls [wikipedia.org], and instead choose to follow a completely non-elite "man of the people",
such as King William III of England and the Netherlands [wikipedia.org].
You're right: say goodbye to your republic.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 02 2016, @01:16AM
Its hilarious that so many people think a billionaire born into money is a non-elite "man of the people".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 02 2016, @02:32AM
Especially when he has bragged in the past about bribing^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hmaking hefty campaign contributions to both parties to ensure he has influence over whomever wins the election. Man of the people, indeed.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 01 2016, @11:35AM
Using electronic voting is just completely irresponsible. Rigging the results is much easier to do on a large scale than if we used paper ballots, and even if the results aren't rigged, just the perception that the results might have been rigged is harmful enough. Also, many voting machines run on non-free proprietary software; having black boxes used to count votes is utterly insane and shouldn't even be allowed under any circumstances. Simple solution: Use paper ballots. Maybe paper ballots are more expensive, but it's worth it. We survived without voting machines before, and can certainly do it now.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 01 2016, @11:40AM
Nobody uses paper for anything anymore. Young voters who turned 18 yesterday and who immediately registered to vote ( and the dudes registered with selective service) have never even seen a sheet of paper in their lives. Everything is done on phones, tablets, and laptops now. Everything.
(Score: 2) by drussell on Saturday October 01 2016, @03:49PM
Well, here in Canada our elections are done properly with simple paper ballots and pencils.
All those goofy mechanical and electronic voting systems are completely insane!
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday October 01 2016, @12:32PM
The systems in question are voting registration systems, not e-voting. We haven't become Estonia just yet.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by art guerrilla on Sunday October 02 2016, @01:24PM
yep, except paper ballots *aren't* 'more expensive' (huh? the bedrock activity of small-dee democracy is 'too expensive', after spending BILLIONS on bullshit campaign ads and shit ?), and the POINT isn't to have the cheapest, fastest elections; but the fairest, most accurate elections...
those computer-based systems are ALWAYS being updated or junked for not being reliable (hmmm...), and the PROPRIETARY systems cost tons... (wtf? what are PROPRIETARY s/w systems doing on OUR vote counting/tabulating machines ? ? ? *)
i would also add two provisos: hand-counted by gen-u-wine nekkid ape citizens, AND locally reported, so no jiggery-pokery done at a central vote tabulating/fraud center...
further (while we are dreaming dreams of a real small-dee democracy (oh, and fuck you 'its a republic' pedants)), why not go all out and put in the single most important factor in ATTEMPTING to recapture Empire, and institute what was called 'Instant Runoff Voting', but i guess has been re-branded to 'Ranked Choice Voting'... that it makes tons of sense and opens up democracy to third party efforts is EXACTLY why it will never be allowed to happen...
* um, am i too stoopid to know what i am talking about, or is a fucking vote program *SHOULD* be about as simple a program (or spreadsheet/database) as could be written (ASSUMING they are NOT tied to the internet: WTF for beyond STUPID, false 'convenience' ?)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 01 2016, @11:44AM
of omnipotent Russian hackers enforcing a true democracy upon us!
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday October 01 2016, @01:11PM
Meh. Ol' Red Menace and whatnot.
What the Rooskies should do is hack into the systems not to change votes but to gather evidence of deep-state meddling, then present that evidence to the American people.
There is an article up on RT today, and of course RT is blatantly biased, but the article did point out one truth -- they are winning this so-called "information war," controlling the narrative, because they are telling the truth and the American government has no credibility with the public. Russia more trustworthy than the United States?! Imagine that!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 01 2016, @11:44PM
"Russia is more trustworthy than the United States". Is that so? That sounds a bit un-American. Do you and you comrades often read RT, Ethanol? Or should we call you Boris?
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Saturday October 01 2016, @11:55AM
Maybe Trump WILL win, what with those darn Ruskies helping him!
CNN: Trump wins. We all lose.
Or
CNN: Hillary wins. We all lose also.
Suicide at 11!
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday October 01 2016, @12:25PM
Just imagine the chimpouts which will ensue if Trump wins.
On an unrelated note, it's time to buy stock in firearms.
(Score: 3, Touché) by takyon on Saturday October 01 2016, @12:31PM
If that is true, you've just outlined a way that firearms sales are going to increase in either scenario.
I think I need to call my broker.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 01 2016, @12:32PM
There will be chimpouts in any event because the candidates is not black and this election is a step backwards for the cause of negro representin'.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Saturday October 01 2016, @01:23PM
An anonymous Department of Homeland Security (DHS) official has told several media outlets that hackers have targeted voter registration systems in 20 states.
The insightful part is they're so incompetent they haven't even noticed the successful attacks against the other 31. OR, more likely, DHS officially supports the "changes" being made in the results in the other 31.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 01 2016, @02:05PM
Did you just call your own conspiracy theory insightful?
Ego much?
(Score: 2) by bradley13 on Saturday October 01 2016, @01:49PM
sought assistance from the DHS to "help improve cyber security for their election systems"
Right. DHS is soooo good at security. And absolutely famous for cybersecurity. This smells of a put-up job: DHS prompting these questions, so that they can expand their bureaucratic empire even farther.
Imagine: the competence of the TSA applied to election security. Every six-year-old will be able to rig the elections.
Plus, they have to mention the Russians again. There must be an external boogeyman, to distract attention from domestic incompetence.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Saturday October 01 2016, @08:12PM
Yes. These days the only people who can manipulate the voting machines are the ones with secure access. Say the people to store them, the people who deliver them, the city councils, etc. ... and of course the people those people authorize.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 02 2016, @01:13AM
You're being sarcastic, right? Or did you really not know that this election has absolutely no validity [arstechnica.com] due to just how easy it is to untraceably hack the voting machines? In the democratic primaries, the more easily hackable the machines were, the bigger the margin by which Hillary won and the bigger the margin by which the exit polls were off. Only a moron would consider that a coincidence.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 01 2016, @01:58PM
Illinois still has precincts that routinely have greater than 100% voter turnout. If they noticed any election fraud, it's only because the results didn't come out the way the election commission decided they would before-hand.
Systems in use in my county are completely un-auditable and known to be wide open to attack by insiders (results stored in an Access database that not only has no password protection but also has no audit logs) and complaints to the government result in banal "trust us" canned replies. Many of the voting systems in use in this country are vulnerable to remote attacks, but many, many more are vulnerable to insider attacks. The Russians are not the people I'm most worried about here.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 01 2016, @11:18PM
Hell one dude in VA was just caught registering 19 people. 19 DEAD people. He was only caught because people were going through the new register rolls and comparing them. Not because the election commission was doing its job.
How did he accomplish this nefarious feat of voter fraud? He just logged into the website and typed the data in.
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Saturday October 01 2016, @04:01PM
Do you have Web sites, or computers connected to the Internet? You may find that your important systems are being scanned too. If you see anything suspicious, notify the FBI.
“There’s been a variety of scanning activities as well as some attempted intrusions of voter registration databases beyond those we knew about in July and August,” [FBI Director James] Comey said.
-- http://miami.cbslocal.com/2016/09/30/fbi-holds-emergency-meeting-with-florida-officials-over-election-hacking-concerns/ [cbslocal.com]
"This is very different than the vote system in the United States, which is very, very hard for someone to hack into because it's so clunky and dispersed," Comey said [...]
In late June an "unknown actor scanned a state's Board of Election website for vulnerabilities" and, after identifying a security gap, exploited the vulnerability to conduct a "data exfiltration," or unauthorized data transfer, the FBI said in a recent bulletin.
-- https://abcnews.go.com/US/attempts-hack-state-election-systems-detected-fbi-director/story?id=42418303 [go.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 02 2016, @07:26AM
Aren't voter registration rolls pretty much freely, or for only a small fee, available just for asking?
https://www.facebook.com/TomAlciereViolatesYourPrivacy/ [facebook.com]
https://www.ksl.com/?sid=28316343 [ksl.com]