The Security of Our Election Systems
schneier.com
The Security of Our Election Systems
1–10 of 89 posts
Re: The Security of Our Election Systems
#2Timely, well-reasoned, and excellent article by Schneier.
But there's a problem.
Elections are managed by state governments by design. This is to prevent centralized political corruption. Having the feds "take the lead" is a little too nebulous to be practical.
What could be done is a certification system for electronic voting that requires a paper audit trail and individualized printed receipts for each voter. (Which would be encrypted to prevent others from determining which votes were cast)
The big leap is that electronic-only systems are never going to work. For various reasons, I don't think most folks are ready to go there. That is the major problem that must be solved. After that's fixed, the other stuff will at least be easier to address.
Re: The Security of Our Election Systems
#3Timely, well-reasoned, and excellent article by Schneier. But there's a problem. Elections are managed by state governments by design. This is to prevent centralized political corruption . Having the feds "take the lead" is a little too nebulous to be practical. What could be done is a certification system for electronic voting that requires a paper audit trail and individualized printed receipts for each voter. (Whi…
> Timely, well-reasoned, and excellent article by Schneier.
I thought it was pretty breathless. He says
>> Retaliation is politically fraught and could have serious consequences, but this is an attack against our democracy. We need to confront Russian President Vladimir Putin in some way politically, economically or in cyberspace and make it clear that we will not tolerate this kind of interference by any government.
(my emphasis)
I don't see that the New York Times, releasing the same information, would come in for criticism, much less this level of demonizing. If other countries want to interfere in our elections by giving us accurate information, what's the problem supposed to be? That's the whole point of having elections.
Re: The Security of Our Election Systems
#4There's a strong moral argument in favor of the DNC leaks: the American people ought to know that its political process was corrupted by powerful actors within its own institutions.
Schneier said, "This kind of cyberattack targets the very core of our democratic process. " In this case, though, the attack targeted actors who prevented democratic process.
Were we exposed to fictitious narratives intended to advance pro-Russian agendas? Was truth revealed, without manipulation of content? It seems to be the latter.
Attacking the polls would be unacceptable and deserve retaliation, but it hasn't happened yet. Attacking a whistle blower who has helped to reveal a corrupt political process isn't something I'd agree with. Schneier speculates that foreign influence will continue into the polls -- I guess we had better strengthen the election process and ensure transparency, then.
Re: The Security of Our Election Systems
#5Timely, well-reasoned, and excellent article by Schneier. But there's a problem. Elections are managed by state governments by design. This is to prevent centralized political corruption . Having the feds "take the lead" is a little too nebulous to be practical. What could be done is a certification system for electronic voting that requires a paper audit trail and individualized printed receipts for each voter. (Whi…
> Timely, well-reasoned, and excellent article by Schneier. I thought it was pretty breathless. He says >> Retaliation is politically fraught and could have serious consequences, but this is an attack against our democracy . We need to confront Russian President Vladimir Putin in some way politically, economically or in cyberspace and make it clear that we will not tolerate this kind of interference by any govern…
To be clear, my complaint was that it skimmed the surface. Your "breathless" was my "you missed some important parts"
I'm willing to cut him slack for adding his own politics in to the article. With the election approaching, it's like the Ponn Farr here in the states. If anything, it was a bit reserved.
His over-arching points are important and need attention. 1) We are basically in an ongoing cyber-war with other major international powers, and 2) we've been busy buying electronic voting systems that are terribly insecure.
It's a message that needs to be transmitted, and he's one of the best folks to transmit it.
I don't think there's any demonizing going on. This is the state of affairs. We must be aware of it and act accordingly.
Re: The Security of Our Election Systems
#6I think you would be quite silly to just outright accept intelligence agency declarations of "it was Russia". As history shows, not only are these people frequently ignorant to technical realities, but political reasons at every single layer of these organizations obscure and pervade the truth.
Re: The Security of Our Election Systems
#7There's a strong moral argument in favor of the DNC leaks: the American people ought to know that its political process was corrupted by powerful actors within its own institutions. Schneier said, "This kind of cyberattack targets the very core of our democratic process. " In this case, though, the attack targeted actors who prevented democratic process. Were we exposed to fictitious narratives intended to advance pr…
Yeah. This is another moral question along the Snowden/Manning lines.
Here's the thing: breaking into somebody's house is illegal. If you do it, you're a criminal and should face some kind of legal proceeding.
If you break into their house and leave some personal items along the curb, like nude photographs? I'm probably going to gawk at them as I drive by. I don't like the fact that I do it, but I am human. You are still a criminal, and as long as I don't start sharing your personal items, I'm not. I'm just a schmuck.
If, however, you leave evidence of moral or criminal wrongdoing out on the curb for everybody to see? Then the community has an obligation to take action both against the robber and the person who's house was broken into. Simply because you were robbed doesn't mean that you get out of consequences for your actions once they become public.
I'm tempted to view the ramifications of the leaked emails as a purely internal DNC affair. Having said that, I am reading partisan attacks that say there are illegal activities in there. If so? Well, somebody needs to face some kind of legal proceeding. And somebody else is still a robber.
Whatever our views, it's important to come up with standards that apply no matter who's "side" you're on.
Re: The Security of Our Election Systems
#8There's a strong moral argument in favor of the DNC leaks: the American people ought to know that its political process was corrupted by powerful actors within its own institutions. Schneier said, "This kind of cyberattack targets the very core of our democratic process. " In this case, though, the attack targeted actors who prevented democratic process. Were we exposed to fictitious narratives intended to advance pr…
His point is that there are actors trying to influence the process by compromising technology, details of the DNC incident aside. In and of itself that is a very concerning threat to have and in general we have to take that into consideration when evaluating the role of technology in the election cycle, even if this time the hack seemingly had net positive benefit to the citizens. Next time we may not be so lucky.
As he pointed out, Schneier has been beating this drum for years. Computer security is not a high enough priority in politics, and with what we know is possible and see happening we can't assume elections will be free of tampering by default.
Re: The Security of Our Election Systems
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Timely, well-reasoned, and excellent article by Schneier. I thought it was pretty breathless. He says >> Retaliation is politically fraught and could have serious consequences, but this is an attack against our democracy . We need to confront Russian President Vladimir Putin in some way politically, economically or in cyberspace and make it clear that we will not tolerate this kind of interference by any govern…
To be clear, my complaint was that it skimmed the surface. Your "breathless" was my "you missed some important parts" I'm willing to cut him slack for adding his own politics in to the article. With the election approaching, it's like the Ponn Farr here in the states. If anything, it was a bit reserved. His over-arching points are important and need attention. 1) We are basically in an ongoing cyber-war with other ma…
> It's a message that needs to be transmitted, and he's one of the best folks to transmit it.
> I don't think there's any demonizing going on.
Ok, what is it that we're not supposed to tolerate from Russia? They spied on our documents and released them for public review. Schneier himself would be the first to tell you that they're not going to stop spying on us and we shouldn't expect them to. The phrase "attack against our democracy" can only refer to making accurate public representations to our electorate. That's not an attack against democracy.
Re: The Security of Our Election Systems
#10There's a strong moral argument in favor of the DNC leaks: the American people ought to know that its political process was corrupted by powerful actors within its own institutions. Schneier said, "This kind of cyberattack targets the very core of our democratic process. " In this case, though, the attack targeted actors who prevented democratic process. Were we exposed to fictitious narratives intended to advance pr…
I hate that he used the "Russians are coming" argument, but at the same time, he probably wouldn't have gotten even 1/4 of the attention if he just said "our voting machines aren't secure and anyone in the world, including our own government, could hack them."
He's playing on the Russian fear, which is what the Democratic party is really pushing right now (by the way, isn't this something the Republican party used to do - what's happening here?!). If this leads to a ban on electronic voting machines, then the methods may be excused by the outcome, but I have a feeling that's not going to happen, so this just ends up helping one party over another politically.