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The Guardian has a story detailing the firing of Christopher Krebs, who served as the director of the Department of Homeland Security's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (Cisa)
President Trump made the announcement on Twitter on Tuesday, saying Krebs "has been terminated" and that his recent statement defending the security of the election was "highly inaccurate".
CISA last week released a statement refuting claims of widespread voter fraud. "The November 3rd election was the most secure in American history," the statement read. "There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised."
Krebs, is a former Microsoft executive, and was appointed by President Trump after allegations of Russian interference with the 2016 election.
(Score: 4, Funny) by sjames on Thursday November 19 2020, @06:46PM (16 children)
Perhaps that's because the concerns were addressed. What's really funny is when the outbound Republican thinks he actually won and that any appearance otherwise is because the elections run by Republicans in a state with a Republican governor using equipment selected by a Republican and with Republicans watching the whole process was biased towards Democrats. (See Georgia)
Also that the same Republican seemed mostly afraid of the absentee ballots that are submitted as marks on paper just like in the old days.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday November 20 2020, @01:32AM (15 children)
I don't give a rat's ass what Trump thinks, I care that we have no way whatsoever to verify that our vote got counted and that it got counted as we cast it. I trust poll workers very little and computers not at all.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Touché) by sjames on Friday November 20 2020, @02:18AM (14 children)
If you don't trust the computers and you don't trust the poll workers, there is literally no way to trust the polling no matter how it's done short of you personally overseeing every ballot cast and then counting the results personally. Unfortunately, the President's term will be over before you can finish.
Of course, after that, you might be the only person who actually trusts the results, so each person will need to make approximately 260 million copies of their ballot witnessed by all 260 million people....
At the same time, I am glad most states have been phasing the unauditable machines out. I would be happier still with the old paper ballots marked in ink such as the absentee ballot I cast.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday November 22 2020, @01:25AM (13 children)
Sure there is. I take it you're not a programmer. We've long since solved untrusted parties dealing with critical data. And yet we don't use fucking any of those lessons on something this critical. Not only that but the Dems go way the hell out of their way to make fraud as convenient and untraceable as possible.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Sunday November 22 2020, @01:36AM (12 children)
I am a programmer. I am a programmer who has worked enough with emulation and OS intercepts to realize that most of the systems dealing with un-trusted parties just shove the trust under a rug where it's not so obvious.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday November 22 2020, @02:44AM (11 children)
There are some idiots who do not use what works != It is not an already solved problem
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Sunday November 22 2020, @06:21AM (10 children)
So what do you have in mind to make voting and tallying absolutely trustworthy in spite of untrustworthy computers and untrustworthy poll workers?
And what leads you to trust that that system has been implemented correctly and without subversion?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday November 22 2020, @02:29PM (9 children)
Being able to verify that your own vote was counted and was correctly counted would be a good start. That's dead simple to do without coupling your identity to your vote. You create a single-use identifier for each ballot cast. Not a crypto hash, a 32bit number would do just fine. You print it out on two copies of the paper ballot, one for recounts and one for the voter. The only metadata saved for that number should be the polling place id, a timestamp with a intentionally poor resolution (fifteen minutes, an hour, whatever's necessary to not be able to tell whose vote it is by the timestamp), and the votes themselves. Then you upload all of the collected data to a torrent file or similar for anyone to do a recount any time they like.
That's just me spitballing off the top of my head. I could come up with something quite a lot better if I actually gave it any real thought.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Sunday November 22 2020, @06:20PM (8 children)
Then marvel as kooks come out of the woodwork for the next 4 years with fake ballots that they claim were 'lost'.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday November 23 2020, @12:20PM (7 children)
Kind of difficult to do if you can check that your vote was accurately registered as soon as you cast it.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Monday November 23 2020, @06:41PM (6 children)
How in the world does that prevent someone from fraudulently claiming that they cast a ballot that wasn't counted?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday November 24 2020, @02:19PM (5 children)
Same way you prove email came from the person it says it did. Cryptographic signature on the receipt.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Tuesday November 24 2020, @08:20PM (4 children)
You've passed the point where many qualified voters no longer understand how it works and so have to trust the downloaded software.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday November 25 2020, @03:26AM (3 children)
Verifying the validity of a ballot was never going to rest on the voter's shoulders. They already know if it's valid or not since they cast it. The signature is so someone else can verify that it's not a forgery.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Wednesday November 25 2020, @06:45AM (2 children)
So the voters are expected to trust those verifiers who actually understand how it works and Swear to God it DOES work?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday November 28 2020, @11:57AM (1 child)
Nope. And if you have to ask that, please never get into security of any sort beyond the Mall variety.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Saturday November 28 2020, @06:48PM
So you'll need to come up with something they actually understand that actually allows them to not need to trust those machines and people.