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How to Hack an Election

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Re: How to Hack an Election

#51

Post by anonymousDan »

natrius wrote: post #13

Capitalism makes centralized democracy untenable, and capitalism is here to stay. So much power is controlled by infrequent elections, so influencing those elections is always worthwhile. Capitalism is an evolutionary force that selects for the most profitable business practices. People who figure out how to profit from influencing our democracies will outcompete those who don't. We can pass new laws, but that's like…

As an alternative, what about moving away from representative democracy (i.e. where you periodically elect someone to make decisions for you by proxy), to a system where you can optionally choose to cast your own vote for particular issues. If we had more lightweight mechanisms for performing trustworthy elections then maybe this would be feasible. I imagine by default though most people wouldn't be bothered to put in the effort to make knowledgeable decisions, and hence why you want to still have representatives.

Re: How to Hack an Election

#53

Post by Aelinsaar »

hackuser wrote: post #4

This shouldn't be a surprise: I think most HN members know that it's possible; we know that the rewards (incredible power, status, and everything you can get with them includig the spoils of office) are worth the investment (only $600K for this solution!); we know that there are many people, including politicians, unsavory enough to do it. The question is, why do we pretend it's not happening until there's a smoking…

Because most people don't know, don't understand the basic concepts, and don't trust people like you and me when we tell them. We're not "Good people" with "Good values". sigh

Re: How to Hack an Election

#54

Post by doodlebugging »

clarkmoody wrote: post #45
doodlebugging wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if the implication was that the candidate from Texas was the interested party instead of HRC. I know she is a "leading candidate" and no party affiliation was mentioned but the hacker has in the past supported right-wing candidates and Ted Cruz is also closer to being the annointed one than he was a month ago. It might not be a coincidence that dirty tricks reminiscent of past elections are just starting. It…

It was Rendón, not Sepúlveda (the hacker, in prison), who was allegedly helping Trump. > But Rendón says he’s in talks with another leading U.S. presidential campaign—he wouldn’t say which—to begin working for it once the primaries wrap up and the general election begins.

That's right.

I didn't keep the two of them clearly separated in my mind since they had operated as a team for so long.

I wonder though if part of his access to computers while locked up allows him opportunity to carry on the same sort of operations as before, this time only for "approved" clients.

Elections aren't what they used to be. Maybe they never were.

Re: How to Hack an Election

#55

Post by a3n »

nosuchthing wrote: post #35
logfromblammo wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of this squares with what I have previously been told about US elections. 1. I have seen video demonstrations wherein one person with opportunistic unsupervised access to a voting machine can hack it to affect every issue on the ballot within five minutes. Given the security at many polling places in the US, this easily extrapolates to one person able to hack all machines at a given polling place prior to electi…

I still find it odd that we can receive carbon copies of time cards and receipts for ATM visits (..on thermal paper which decays rapidly), yet when it comes to voting for our state elections we have no record of our vote and everything is handed off to 3rd parties with seemingly no provable accountability or transparency. "It's not the votes that count, it's who counts the votes."

The reason for that is to maintain secrecy of the ballot. Otherwise your husband or neighborhod thug might beat you if you don't vote correctly, or you might be paid to vote a certain way.

Re: How to Hack an Election

#56

Post by irixusr »

colordrops wrote: post #23
hackuser wrote: post #4

This shouldn't be a surprise: I think most HN members know that it's possible; we know that the rewards (incredible power, status, and everything you can get with them includig the spoils of office) are worth the investment (only $600K for this solution!); we know that there are many people, including politicians, unsavory enough to do it. The question is, why do we pretend it's not happening until there's a smoking…

> The question is, why do we pretend it's not happening until there's a smoking gun? Part of the propaganda is to label and marginalize people who point things like this out as conspiracy nuts and mentally unstable.

I would add that we need tip think we're a democracy

Re: How to Hack an Election

#57

Post by natrius »

anonymousDan wrote: post #51
natrius wrote: post #13

Capitalism makes centralized democracy untenable, and capitalism is here to stay. So much power is controlled by infrequent elections, so influencing those elections is always worthwhile. Capitalism is an evolutionary force that selects for the most profitable business practices. People who figure out how to profit from influencing our democracies will outcompete those who don't. We can pass new laws, but that's like…

As an alternative, what about moving away from representative democracy (i.e. where you periodically elect someone to make decisions for you by proxy), to a system where you can optionally choose to cast your own vote for particular issues. If we had more lightweight mechanisms for performing trustworthy elections then maybe this would be feasible. I imagine by default though most people wouldn't be bothered to put i…

"Liquid democracy" is very cool, and it seems strictly superior to our current system. However, it will still be captured by capitalism. The most popular representatives will attract the most funding, and their actions will be as biased toward their funders as they can be without losing too much support. The big threat there is regulatory capture: promoting laws to clamp down on profitable industries, but in ways that give incumbents huge advantages because the laws are hard to comply with.

The only way to get money out of politics is to make sure the people can control money.

Re: How to Hack an Election

#58

Post by anonymousDan »

natrius wrote: post #57
anonymousDan wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an alternative, what about moving away from representative democracy (i.e. where you periodically elect someone to make decisions for you by proxy), to a system where you can optionally choose to cast your own vote for particular issues. If we had more lightweight mechanisms for performing trustworthy elections then maybe this would be feasible. I imagine by default though most people wouldn't be bothered to put i…

"Liquid democracy" is very cool, and it seems strictly superior to our current system. However, it will still be captured by capitalism. The most popular representatives will attract the most funding, and their actions will be as biased toward their funders as they can be without losing too much support. The big threat there is regulatory capture: promoting laws to clamp down on profitable industries, but in ways tha…

Sure but at least it reduces, albeit doesn't eliminate, the ability of politicians to say one thing at election time and then do the opposite once they've been elected.

Re: How to Hack an Election

#59

Post by speeder »

burkaman wrote: post #11
hackuser wrote: post #4

This shouldn't be a surprise: I think most HN members know that it's possible; we know that the rewards (incredible power, status, and everything you can get with them includig the spoils of office) are worth the investment (only $600K for this solution!); we know that there are many people, including politicians, unsavory enough to do it. The question is, why do we pretend it's not happening until there's a smoking…

A few reasons I can think of: 1) Hacking voting machines to a significant extent would require a team of people, not just one guy, which dramatically increases the risk of exposure. 2) The reported vote count is usually very close to the predicted vote count, and always very close to exit polling results. The hacked results would need to be very close to the real results, or be combined with control over a huge numbe…

Brazil use machines that can be very easily hacked.

Also, the deviation in the last elections from the mathematically expected was about 4%...

But the end results was 51% vs 49% meaning that if the result went as expected, the 49% candidate would have won (with 53%).

So, in some situations is not that hard to cheat.

EDIT: also even when there is blatant cheating going on, nothing much can be done about it...

Example, during elections for a minor office in one of the smallest Brazillian states (Acre), the number of invalid votes, intentionally blank votes, and voters that didn't show was exact the same, and the total number of votes was higher than the number of voters.

The losing candidate sued, the government argued that "the computer counts, and thus a recount is not a valid request", and FINED the guy that sued.

And the whole argument stopped there.

Re: How to Hack an Election

#60

Post by guessbest »

justinlardinois wrote: post #49

> with a shaved head, goatee, and a tattoo of a QR code containing an encryption key on the back of his head. On his nape are the words “ ” and “ ” stacked atop each other, dark riffs on coding. Jesus, this guy sounds like he walked straight out of a bad cyberpunk story. On the serious side, this gets to me: > Sepúlveda says many of the candidates he helped might not even have known about his role; he says he met onl…

It is just plausible dependability for the candidate. This is traditionally how organized crime works.
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