Researchers Assembled over 100 Voting Machines. Hackers Broke Into Every Single One.

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dank69

dank69

Lifer
Oct 6, 2009
35,378
28,731
136
interchange said:
And our current election security efforts give you confidence in our future security practices why?
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One central system kept up to date and a strong auditing system would be much more robust than trusting individual states and counties/towns to figure their thousands of systems. People love to think their paper trails are so safe but they didn't help shit in the past when you have corrupt people counting or manipulating them.
 
J

Jhhnn

IN MEMORIAM
Nov 11, 1999
62,365
14,681
136
cytg111 said:
When I have cast my vote I want a ticket ... a ticket I can later use to look up what happened to my vote down the line. Anonymously of course.
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We have that in voting by mail here in Colorado. It's an excellent system. Works great. Too bad not everybody has it.
 
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I

interchange

Diamond Member
Oct 10, 1999
8,020
2,870
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dank69 said:
One central system kept up to date and a strong auditing system would be much more robust than trusting individual states and counties/towns to figure their thousands of systems. People love to think their paper trails are so safe but they didn't help shit in the past when you have corrupt people counting or manipulating them.
Click to expand...

I agree that having a whole bunch of locales figure out how to do voting independently is not a good way to have secure systems. Standardization is good. Centralization is centralization. Not inherently good or bad. I think the problem, though, is that you can't funnel all people to the same voting location. The votes have to be collected in a distributed fashion. There are some advantages to that. If physical access is required, it takes a lot more people and effort to affect machines. Kind of like in-person voting fraud. It's not all that hard per se, but it's hard to do it in any way that makes a difference on the outcome of an election.
 
J

Jhhnn

IN MEMORIAM
Nov 11, 1999
62,365
14,681
136
dank69 said:
One central system kept up to date and a strong auditing system would be much more robust than trusting individual states and counties/towns to figure their thousands of systems. People love to think their paper trails are so safe but they didn't help shit in the past when you have corrupt people counting or manipulating them.
Click to expand...

Yeh, you'd only need a few corrupt individuals to throw an election, not thousands. Part of the strength of the system is its decentralization & the integrity of the group vs the individual. They're all watching each other.
 
dank69

dank69

Lifer
Oct 6, 2009
35,378
28,731
136
Jhhnn said:
Yeh, you'd only need a few corrupt individuals to throw an election, not thousands. Part of the strength of the system is its decentralization & the integrity of the group vs the individual. They're all watching each other.
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This is not true. With a strong audit system it could essentially be impossible to cheat.
 
J

Jhhnn

IN MEMORIAM
Nov 11, 1999
62,365
14,681
136
dank69 said:
This is not true. With a strong audit system it could essentially be impossible to cheat.
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I take it that you also believe in unicorns. No system can completely eliminate cheating, I suspect, but the current system limits the impact when it does occur.
 
dank69

dank69

Lifer
Oct 6, 2009
35,378
28,731
136
Jhhnn said:
I take it that you also believe in unicorns. No system can completely eliminate cheating, I suspect, but the current system limits the impact when it does occur.
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If no system can completely eliminate cheating, why aren't our banking institutions falling on a regular basis? I mean, trillions of dollars are up for grabs.
 
K1052

K1052

Elite Member
Aug 21, 2003
46,218
33,450
136
Jhhnn said:
We have that in voting by mail here in Colorado. It's an excellent system. Works great. Too bad not everybody has it.
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This and automatic voter registration should be mandated by federal legislation.
 
dank69

dank69

Lifer
Oct 6, 2009
35,378
28,731
136
I

interchange

Diamond Member
Oct 10, 1999
8,020
2,870
136
dank69 said:
Okay so reading the description the hackers took advantage of vulnerabilities in member banks' systems. This is what I mean about one central system so you don't have to rely on hundreds or thousands of members to properly update their individual systems. One system, kept up to date, and continually probed and tested for vulnerabilities.
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Other first page results (my Google profile, not sure about others):
https://futurism.com/banbanks-sophisticated-hackers
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/30/business/bank-hacks-capital-one.html
 
dank69

dank69

Lifer
Oct 6, 2009
35,378
28,731
136
interchange said:
Other first page results (my Google profile, not sure about others):
https://futurism.com/banbanks-sophisticated-hackers
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/30/business/bank-hacks-capital-one.html
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Okay the first link says that hack attempts are increasing but does not list any successful attacks.
The second link says:
Federal law enforcement officials said on Monday that Paige Thompson, a software engineer in Seattle who used to work for Amazon, got into Capital One’s computer network through what the bank described as a “configuration vulnerability” in its security software. It was akin to leaving a window open overnight at the local bank.
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Once again, an online voting system would require that we keep it up-to-date with security patches. I'm going to save you a bunch of time and tell you up front that any examples you find will be the result of not keeping the system updated and patched properly. Additionally, there are solutions like blockchain that can prevent tampering even if someone were able to penetrate the security.
 
I

interchange

Diamond Member
Oct 10, 1999
8,020
2,870
136
dank69 said:
Okay the first link says that hack attempts are increasing but does not list any successful attacks.
The second link says:

Once again, an online voting system would require that we keep it up-to-date with security patches. I'm going to save you a bunch of time and tell you up front that any examples you find will be the result of not keeping the system updated and patched properly. Additionally, there are solutions like blockchain that can prevent tampering even if someone were able to penetrate the security.
Click to expand...

I think I've gone far enough. If you want to do a more thorough review of banking security, go ahead.
 
dank69

dank69

Lifer
Oct 6, 2009
35,378
28,731
136
interchange said:
I think I've gone far enough. If you want to do a more thorough review of banking security, go ahead.
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Does that mean you concede that it is possible to have an online voting system secure enough for our purposes?
 
I

interchange

Diamond Member
Oct 10, 1999
8,020
2,870
136
dank69 said:
Does that mean you concede that it is possible to have an online voting system secure enough for our purposes?
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Possible? I don't know. The fact that systems exist online which have never been known to be hacked doesn't prove that it is improve. Good idea? No. A system which is never online is definitely impossible to be hacked without physical access.
 
dank69

dank69

Lifer
Oct 6, 2009
35,378
28,731
136
interchange said:
Possible? I don't know. The fact that systems exist online which have never been known to be hacked doesn't prove that it is improve. Good idea? No. A system which is never online is definitely impossible to be hacked without physical access.
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Well, let me then bring notice to the fact that many of the links in your LMGTFY link reference people hacking ATM machines. Now, what would ATM machines be equivalent to in our preferred voting systems? Yeah, you're a smart guy so I am sure you guessed the voting machines right away. Plain and simple law of security: the more people involved in maintaining the system, the more vulnerable it is. Centralize it. Use a blockchain type solution to make it tamper-proof. Use open-source code where possible so millions of experts can identify potential security holes faster.
 
J

Jhhnn

IN MEMORIAM
Nov 11, 1999
62,365
14,681
136
dank69 said:
Does that mean you concede that it is possible to have an online voting system secure enough for our purposes?
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No. It entails incalculable security risks. It offers no significant advantages over the vote by mail system here in CO.

Dunno about where everybody else lives, but our ballots include all kinds of proposals for us to vote on, issues that require some thought. Our ballots come weeks in advance, so there's plenty of time to do some research & think it all over. Our ballots include a lot of proposals requiring a vote. I don't need to do it all at once, either. The underlying security is top notch & I can verify online that my vote has been accepted.
 
dank69

dank69

Lifer
Oct 6, 2009
35,378
28,731
136
Jhhnn said:
No. It entails incalculable security risks. It offers no significant advantages over the vote by mail system here in CO.

Dunno about where everybody else lives, but our ballots include all kinds of proposals for us to vote on, issues that require some thought. Our ballots come weeks in advance, so there's plenty of time to do some research & think it all over. Our ballots include a lot of proposals requiring a vote. I don't need to do it all at once, either. The underlying security is top notch & I can verify online that my vote has been accepted.
Click to expand...
Gosh, imagine if you could just fill out the form online at your leisure and didn't have to burden the postal system or kill any trees in the process. Imagine zero votes getting lost in the mail because there is no mail. Imagine not being able to pay off the person opening all the mail-in votes to accidentally drop a certain portion of them in the fireplace before they are counted, or that person not being able to decide to do it for free because if Democrats win we all lose.
 
M

Mandres

Senior member
Jun 8, 2011
944
58
91
Most states that use electronic voting systems require a public test of the equipment prior to each election. If you're concerned about the integrity of the voting system in your County/City/Parish then you should attend and watch how it works and how the safeguards in place are designed.

Whether paper ballots or electronic direct-recording equipment, the election is only as secure as the people tabulating the results and the processes they use. So go check it out and let your state elections office know if you see anything to be concerned about.
 
J

Jhhnn

IN MEMORIAM
Nov 11, 1999
62,365
14,681
136
dank69 said:
Imagine not being able to pay off the person opening all the mail-in votes to accidentally drop a certain portion of them in the fireplace before they are counted, or that person not being able to decide to do it for free because if Democrats win we all lose.
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Nice conspiracy theory.
 
dawp

dawp

Lifer
Jul 2, 2005
11,345
2,705
136
what is really disapointing is on the fed level, where it really needs to be, there really hasn't been anything done.
 
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