By November, Russian hackers could target voting machines | Hacker News Reader

By November, Russian hackers could target voting machines

washingtonpost.com

39 pointscjdulberger24 comments

Part of me doesn't like the whole red scare deal, but also, electronic voting machines should be banned outright. You think that after the OPM scandal that those things have the highest security??

This Red Scare is getting ridiculous now.

One of the best things to come out of this election is how much political strategy has been exposed to the general public, inc. media complicity. I have so little faith in the political parties and media.

They are practically proactively announcing that they intend to invalidate the election results. Coupled with previously announced NATO's position regarding cyber warfare, we are looking at potential nuclear war.

Given that Russians blinked in the missile crisis and Yugoslavia, the establishment appears to think Russians will blink yet again.

But China will not. They crossed the Yalu river in the Korean war and they will not wait until their turn comes. They are not stupid.

The power elite are entirely out of control, drunk with power.

Unfortunately I am discovering lots of those in tech VC are complicit with the political power elite. Many are pushing the Russia meme on twitter/FB , despite the flimsy evidence and obvious push as a political strategy. I do not think many of them actually believe what they are saying. Terrifying.

You don't get promoted past a certain point in many large US corporations if you don't support the power structure. Thanks to facebook trackers and and other such browser analytics, it's entirely possible for most HR departments to easily fingerprint you (ostensibly to ensure you're not a threat - e.g. militant in sheep's clothing or other loose cannon).

As do I. My stomach has been churning in disgust seeing the collusion big money media and politicians. This latest attempt to drum up the Russian boogeyman is incredibly laughable, especially since they laughed it off four years ago. Yes Russia is corrupt, shitty regime, but they can't be culpable for every U.S. politician's failures and dirty deeds (where the inverse happens in the Russia), we've become so much like our so called "enemies", obeying and apologizing to top party members, publishing stories that only favor our dear leaders, etc.

Russia is no more of a "corrupt shitty regime" than your own. So maybe, just maybe, you should focus on constructive criticism of your own country instead of offending others, hmmm? After more than 60 years of anti-Russian propaganda I am not quite surprised that most Americans take every opportunity to jab at or feel somehow morally or otherwise superior to Russia and Russians, yet you would be surprised just how opposite and rather humane most Russians think of Americans and the States... and not because of some God given right of American righteousness and superiority, or some Russian inferiority complex.

So cut it with the anti-Russian nonsense.

Some of us are actually quite aware of what's going on in Russia. It's true that the US is also very corrupt, and its populace is easily led into believing it has enemies everywhere, but there are qualitative differences, here are a few:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_journalists_killed_in_...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Magnitsky

http://imrussia.org/en/analysis/nation/2224-a-new-emigration...

The most substantive critics of Putin tend to reside in Russia, and they tend to have the most decisive evidence of corruption, while Americans' negative perceptions of Russia do tend to be based in ignorance. So that point is true, but saying that A is mistaken about why B is bad does not mean that B is actually great, nor does it follow that if A is bad, B isn't.

America has better bread and circuses

only for those with not expensive tastes

>This latest attempt to drum up the Russian boogeyman is incredibly laughable

I'd argue it's scary. In the interview below with Eric Holder the interviewer says something about Russia being an adversary... rightfully so or not, that is exactly the sound bites that Putin wants and needs inside Russia to keep beating the drum that the U.S. and the world are out to get them. You just "proved" what Putin has been saying inside of Russia. Exactly what we don't need.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/eric-holder-donald-trump-russia-0...

It is getting ridiculous. They're blaming the Russian boogeyeman for everything now. I think it was telling when Leon Panetta got told "no more war" when he spoke at the DNC. The people aren't interested in fighting Russia, we have nothing to gain over there.

The whole concept of electronic voting machines seems ridiculous to me. Not only are they open to attacks at every level, there really isn't a significant benefit to implementing them, beyond possibly saving some trees.

The peace of mind in trusting election results seems well worth the hassle of paper.

The other big component that I think is missing from the debate over electronic voting is the cost to communities. I loved voting (on paper) in the 2012 election, then staying up a few hours to tally the ballots with the community. Voters came together to count the ballots together and deliver a final count, which has the dual benefit of getting as many eyes on the process as possible (less chance of fraud) and putting 'by the people' back into the election process.

I've seen complaints that that isn't scalable, but I don't buy it. Any community can be broken up into sub-groups that can cast their ballots locally and work together to tally them, even if a group just covers a city block.

One could argue that a properly implemented method of voting that involves computers in some capacity would decrease the chance of fraud, and allow voters to verify that their vote was counted. It could also allow more votes to be counted because it could immediately tell them their vote was invalid (how many hanging chads in Florida 2000?).

The problem is that we have companies like Diebold make this stuff. Companies that want to make a buck and cover their asses rather than make something secure and good for the people.

" Even so, we have to accept that someone is attacking our nation’s computer systems in an apparent attempt to influence a presidential election. "

This is so comical. If the DNC was actually acting in an ethical, responsible and legal way, the email release would not influence the election one wit. Instead it makes it even more clear that their apparatus had already chosen the winner - and it wasn't Sanders.

On the other: Why even have computerized ballots? Back to paper. Not perfect, but hacking problem solved.

If voting machines are that insecure, then you should be worried about Chinese hackers, and Arab hackers and even American Republican hackers. Let's be frank, voting machines that are insecure can be exploited by ANYBODY who cares to influence an election and those with the most to gain/lose are members/supporters of the parties whose candidates are standing for election. In other words USA hackers should be your main worry. If you can secure the voting systems against them, then you have a chance at a fair election. Otherwise all bets are off and all the foreign hackers will be battling over who controls the vote.

We'll have 5 different organizations trying to rig the same election to further their own agendas. Which group is the smartest? Whose manipulations will carry the day? Find out next time on Who Wants to Screw a -19 Trillionaire!

That's preposterous, don't you know the cold war is over?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1409sXBleg

Smug, condescending, and dismissive are recurring traits in politicians who eventually eat their words

And remember when Hillary "pushed the reset button" with Russia - because (I guess) relations with them were so bad under Bush - but her team screwed up the translation? That was a classic:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7930047.stm

When does this sort of thing become an act of war? It seems like "cyber" stuff is taken much less seriously in that respect. Maybe it just gets more attention.

Not a problem. Let's use paper. (And dear Supreme Court, kindly stick to the constitution this time.)

Obligatory XKCD reference: https://xkcd.com/463/

They do not need to, since siloviki silently support Trump anyway.

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