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Comment by wila | Hacker News Reader

This is due to a Dutch ethical hacker (Sijmen Ruwhof) investigating the way that our elections work. He had posted a great research document [0] that showed how bad our current system was. Two days later, we're back to paper.

Thanks Sijmen :)

[0] https://sijmen.ruwhof.net/weblog/1166-how-to-hack-the-upcomi...

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Why does everyone think that hacking the DNC amounted to "hacking the election".

Did anyone complain when Iceland PM resigned as a result of the Panama Papers leak and the large-scale protests that ensued? You wouldn't say that that somebody hacked Iceland's democracy. The truth came out and whatever happened was a natural result of that.

> You wouldn't say that that somebody hacked Iceland's democracy.

No, you wouldn't. The wailing and gnashing of teeth over the DNC hacks are all because the Democratic leadership is unwilling to accept responsibility for putting forward a bad candidate. Better blame the Russians, instead! If only the public didn't know the truth, we would have won!

You aren't wrong about the Democratic Party putting forth a weak candidate, but it is concerning that there weren't similar actions on the other side. The attacks were targeting a specific party alone and seem to be motivated by foreign geopolitical interests, not in the American public's interest.

There is a reason we want equal time laws for example, because if I constantly hear one side of the argument, it doesn't matter how true those arguments are, I will come to biased conclusions.

If the press digs up dirt on a candidate, should they not publish it until they dig up some dirt on their opponent? What if it's a foreign newspaper? Should Deep Throat's leaks not been published, because they would influence the election? What if he were a card-holding Democrat? What if he were a reptilian agent?

I hate Trump as much as the next person, but there was no shortage of actual dirt that was dug up on him. There was no democratic outrage over the source of his comments about grabbing people's genitals... Or that one page of his tax return.

On July 27th, Donald Trump asked for the assistance of a foreign power under US sanctions. Specifically, he asked for assistance in performing opposition research. This is fundamentally wrong IMO, and arguably a foreign emolument in and of itself. He did this during a live televised press conference, beginning with the words "Russia, if you're listening..." [1]. There is documented evidence of a large-scale Macedonian-originated "fake news" ring [2], and thousands of comments in closed pro-Trump Facebook groups which demonstrate that a nontrivial number of Americans believed the obviously-false (e.g. [3]) information being peddled.

That is fundamentally different than having a questionable history be exposed by a free press.

1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnY7D4M4k68

2: http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-38168281

3: http://usapoliticszone.com

The press "digging up dirt" is surely different than the illegal hacking and wholesale release of all private email correspondence. Deep Throat provided info on the current President's illegal actions to a journalist, not just "dirt".

Even if we accept that it is better to know the info in the DNC leaks, it is still a big problem if a foreign government can wield its influence so easily through illegal computer intrusions. At least to me.

Leaking the Trump tax return was illegal. There was nothing illegal in the tax return. The Snowden leaks were quite probably illegal. Many of the things he leaked were not illegal. (Since this will never go to trial, we'll probably never know.) Should the press only report on legally-sourced information? They aren't a jury.

Good news for us, though - both illegal leaks, and illegal hacks are illegal. We already have a mechanism to deal with bad behaviour in this space.

> We already have a mechanism to deal with bad behaviour in this space.

I'm not sure if we do, that's kinda my point about why this makes me so uncomfortable. Clearly no one will be held accountable for the DNC hacks.

I think I misread your original comment a little too, the press should definitely report on every thing we just mentioned. They definitely aren't a jury and once it's out, it's out. My issue is framing the actual leaks like they were "whistle blower" leaks like Deep Throat or Snowden. I guess that's mostly personal opinion on the value of the leaks though.

The idea that our political discourse is now shaped by who can get what hacked information and how they can weaponize it (Trump's taxes, DNC's emails) scares the crap out of me. Even more so if it was a foreign government targeting one political party.

I'm rambling a little but the future that this shows me looks terrible (and probably unstoppable).

Not necessarily. There was some circumstantial evidence that the tax returns were leaked by his ex-wife, who would have every right to release the returns since they are also her returns.

> The Snowden leaks were quite probably illegal.

Not at all. It was required behavior. Until the government enacts a useful whistleblowing program someone who witnesses criminal actions has literally no legal choice but to leak. Ignoring it and hoping it goes away is the illegal option.

I want my institutions to be fixable from inside but when they aren't, I simply want them fixed.

Re Downvoter - I understand that you're upset but lashing out, especially against the truth, doesn't help.

It was illegal. Which does not stop it from being moral.

No, it was legal because it was a requirement which overrode all lesser orders.

No law can compel you to break the law, or cover up abuses of it.

The way he went about it was (and is) illegal. The legal way would have gotten him nowhere, though.

That's not true though. No law can override your requirement to report a crime. If one does, it obviously isn't valid.

He had every reason to think this was the minimum he had to do. Which has been shown to be true.

Not sure that there's actual conclusive proof that the phishing attack on Podesta's gmail account was in fact carried out by an entity affiliated with the Russian government. All of the other accusations that I've heard along the lines of russian hackers hacking into the actual "election hw/sw" were laughable.

Funny thing is this alleged hacking was [supposedly] one of the reasons for demanding recounts in the states narrowly won by Trump and the only actual hard evidence discovered was "pro-Clinton discrepancies" in Detroit at which point the recount in the state of Michigan was stopped :)

Just because one party was predominantly targeted doesn't mean they were sponsored by a foreign geopolitical interest. This could mean that guccifer 2.0 was a partisian (in America or abroad) acting on his own beliefs, or it could also mean that Democrats are especially bad with infosec and Republicans aren't.

> but it is concerning that there weren't similar actions on the other side.

This is just wrong, of course there were. "Grab them by the pussy." Was also a leak and was also published with political intent. (And just quietly, also demonstrated a man is an utterly foul human being whom I would cross the road to avoid.)

It doesn't concern me at all. The Democratic Party isn't a branch of government. It's a private company. That so many treat it like it's a government organization is far more concerning than the motivations behind any hacks of one or both major parties.

While you are technically correct, do you want to live in a country run by private corporations or would you rather public pressure and regulations be able to influence the parties?

I'd rather the latter. Which is why I don't care that the private company that is the DNC was hacked.

They don't succumb or respond to public pressure in any meaningful way.

I think we should do more than treat it as a governmental organization, we should regulate it into behaving more like one, or regulate some of its influence away so that there's is more room for third parties

Plenty of states already have regulations. California has rules about how parties elect their boards and whatnot, for example, and officially recognizes parties.

I agree that we should reduce their influence. That would be the opposite of doubling down on our current system of treating them like pseudo-branches of government.

One way to accomplish that would be to ban official recognition of parties, require them to fund and run their own primary elections, and move to multi-member representation districts. All of these things can be done at the state level for state and local offices.

Whoever it was actually did target the RNC, but as for your other point it still befuddles me how Russians not wanting a president who was threatening WWIII with them is some sort of groundbreaking revelation that proves this was an insane conspiracy and not just every day business by a nation looking out for their interests

Imagine all the dirt on GOP email accounts

Like that time Sarah Palin had to release her personal email acct? Remember all the bad stuff in there? No? That's because there wasn't any. It's weird that when a political entity gets caught rigging debates (and worse) the std response is "I'm sure the other side did it too".

It wasn't just the presidential race either, Guccifer 2.0 (suspected Russian front) also targeted Democractic down-ballot races in the House and Senate: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/13/us/politics/house-democra... with stuff taken from the DNC.

You are so wrong it's practically dangerous. And not about Clinton.

Seventeen US intelligence agencies [1] have joined in a consensus opinion that Russia, under Putin's command, ran a targeted campaign aimed at opposing Hillary Clinton and helping to elect Donald Trump. It is well-documented beyond any reasonable doubt in a full report, portions of which (including conclusions) have been made unclassified [2].

This should be troubling to any American. In fact, it seems to be: Donald Trump himself has pledged to conduct an investigation into voter fraud surrounding the 2016 US election [3].

So let's do it. Investigate the circumstances surrounding the 2016 election. Make public the extent and severity of Russian disinformation operations, and hold them accountable. Investigate why James Comey made a fact-free statement contrary to FBI policy during early voting, when 40% of total ballots are cast. Investigate any and all financial dealings with Russia in the run-up to the election, by either candidate. Perform full recounts and investigate voting rolls for evidence of improper exclusion or inclusion. Oh yeah – and check to make sure Hillary Clinton, the tragically flawed candidate who nonetheless put up with mountains of abuse – really did win the popular vote by approximately three million.

1: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2016/...

2: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0a/ODNI_Sta...

3: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/25/us/politics/trump-voting-...

> You wouldn't say that that somebody hacked Iceland's democracy.

Right, because the Panama Papers leak wasn't a leak targeting specifically one Icelandic party, traced back to a foreign government with active geopolitical disputes with Iceland who also had similar hacks of other Icelandic parties traced back to them with no corresponding leaks.

There are quite a few additional relevant differences, as well, but I think that suffices to demonstrate that the situations are not, at all, parallel with regard to the applicability of the description in question.

> Why does everyone think that hacking the DNC amounted to "hacking the election".

In the American two-party political system, it is very important who the two candidates are, and how they are chosen. While it is formally only the business of the two political parties to choose their candidates however they see fit, in practice also the primaries are an important part of democracy.

If America had a more modern multiparty system, the decisions of individual parties would be less important for the whole.

Most European countries run their presidential elections in two rounds: First round all parties can run their candidates, and second round is between the two winners of the first round. In America the primaries pretty much take the role of the first round in the European model.

(Also, the whole idea of counting votes instead of counting winners per electoral district is a bit alien to the American system, so it's not easy to see how the European system could be implemented in America.)

That just speaks about the misinformation media machine nowadays.

The "hacking of election" is the same thing as having a 1 year media smear campaign between candidates that occurs before the USA elections.

> You wouldn't say that that somebody hacked Iceland's democracy.

This the kind of thing you could read here on HN and it would be taken seriously and debated to death until the `hack` term would lose any semblance of definition.

A great write-up, but I'd say at least as much credit to the person who reported the issue to the RTL news, who then contacted Sijmen to investigate further. According to [0], the original reporter had already enumerated all the flaws of the system.

0: https://tweakers.net/nieuws/120667/proces-stemmen-tellen-ned...

Interesting read, thanks!

Here's the related HN post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13524466

Best news I've heard electorally for some time. They're even fully proportional voting.

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