The Security of Our Election Systems • Hacker News Board

Re: The Security of Our Election Systems

#51

Post by DanielBMarkham » Sat, Jul 30, 2016, 3:02 PM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #30

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think so. In my response, if somebody used parallel construction? They'd be guilty of a crime. This is what we want, right?

No, it would be akin to anonymous tips leading to miraculous discoveries. After all, if the penalty would be to only be slapped on the wrist for the 'lesser' crime then that would up-end the whole system in place for evidence gathering, which is supposed to be lawful at all times. Parallel construction is sneaky in that it allows otherwise in-admissible evidence into a case or allows one to jump-start a case that wou…

Don't we already allow anonymous tips? Surely you're not saying we should disallow anonymous tips about crime, right?

I apologize. You must be making some point that I'm missing. If somebody breaks into your house, they are guilty of a crime. Period.

I didn't say anything about "slaps on the wrist" For all I care, you can make discovering a crime while breaking into the house the same as being complicit in the crime.

Along this entire subthread, there seems to be several topics conflated. Punishment is a separate matter from culpability, as is the state breaking the law during a criminal investigation, which you seem to be focusing on by bringing up parallel construction. The only thing I am addressing is how society should treat the discovery of random bits of information put into the public domain by thieves. That's it. Not how criminal investigations should be conducted, not the relative punishment for various crimes, not how a robber's personal morals should affect his decisions, and not whether it's okay to publish such information once it is made public.

These are all great topics. I'm just not talking about them.

Re: The Security of Our Election Systems

#52

Post by leviself » Sat, Jul 30, 2016, 3:08 PM UTC

krapp wrote: post #50

wwwdonohue wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The process was guaranteed to be a level playing field by the DNC charter (Article 5, Section 4): In the conduct and management of the affairs and procedures of the Democratic National Committee, particularly as they apply to the preparation and conduct of the Presidential nomination process, the Chairperson shall exercise impartiality and evenhandedness as between the Presidential candidates and campaigns. The Chair…

Is there any evidence that the bias of the DNC in this particular case is so uncommon as to be egregious? Candidates in both parties have cried foul that the process is 'rigged' (possibly with good reason) but only the Democrats are being accused of corruption.

I think it is always egregious, regardless of whether it happens all the time or not. For example, the USG is known to meddle with other countries elections. I don't think that's excusable. I assume the RNC played all kinds of tricks as well and that this is SOP for both parties. Wrong in every case.

Re: The Security of Our Election Systems

#53

Post by leviself » Sat, Jul 30, 2016, 3:13 PM UTC

jonathankoren wrote: post #15

Dowwie wrote: post #4

There'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…

The thing is about the leaks, is that there's isn't anything there that anyone paying attention didn't already know. Of course DWS was putting the thumb on the scales for Hillary, who schedules something you want people to see on a Saturday night? [0] As far as "corrupted" and "preventing" democratic process where's the evidence? Seriously. What votes were not counted?Where's the voter fraud? I'll tell you. Nowhere.…

I think you're right that people paying attention already knew. But there were denials from DWS that she was being unbiased. The same thing happened with the Snowden leaks. Most paying attention knew, but it was still upsetting when the proof came out.

Concerning election fraud, there are separate reports on that. For example the one from Election Justice USA http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/7/29/1554022/-Election-Ju...

Re: The Security of Our Election Systems

#54

Post by leviself » Sat, Jul 30, 2016, 3:16 PM UTC

jonathankoren wrote: post #25

haikuginger wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The sheer banality of the "sabotage" found in the emails is honestly pretty good proof to me that there isn't anything truly horrible to be found- if there was, Sanders' folks would be trumpeting it, not "Sanders doesn't understand Democratic politics".

Yeah. My favorite of the truther conspiracies is that the DNC somehow called MSNBC up on the phone and had them kill a live segment. "Pull" means "get a copy" in this context. It's as bad calling a cisco wifi repeaters a "white noise device".

I agree that folks are latching onto any "proof" they can find even when it's not true. I don't know what those devices were, but there are white noise devices that look like that. Also, it's not unheard of for these devices to be used by Clinton. Take a listen to these before/after videos. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/hillary-clinton-static-n...

Re: The Security of Our Election Systems

#55

Post by leviself » Sat, Jul 30, 2016, 3:23 PM UTC

revelation wrote: post #6

I 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.

I agree with this very much. The WMDs are an example of intelligence errors as casus belli. It's important to keep in mind the political context as well, with Cold War II emerging from the last NATO summit http://www.salon.com/2016/07/12/the_west_escalates_with_russ...

Re: The Security of Our Election Systems

#56

Post by krapp » Sat, Jul 30, 2016, 3:25 PM UTC

Dowwie wrote: post #4

There'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…

>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.

Why assume the " narratives intended to advance pro-Russian agendas" need to be fictitious in order to be effective? You're presenting a false dichotomy that either the Democrats are corrupt, or Russia had nothing to do with the hacks. It can be the case that Russia exposed Democratic party corruption in order to advance their own agenda.

Re: The Security of Our Election Systems

#57

Post by chillwaves » Sat, Jul 30, 2016, 3:44 PM UTC

jonathankoren wrote: post #15

Dowwie wrote: post #4

There'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…

The thing is about the leaks, is that there's isn't anything there that anyone paying attention didn't already know. Of course DWS was putting the thumb on the scales for Hillary, who schedules something you want people to see on a Saturday night? [0] As far as "corrupted" and "preventing" democratic process where's the evidence? Seriously. What votes were not counted?Where's the voter fraud? I'll tell you. Nowhere.…

You comment sounds a lot like the reaction to Snowden. There is a difference between allegations and evidence. I hope you can understand that difference.

By the way, controlling the media is a form of corruption.

Re: The Security of Our Election Systems

#58

Post by Spooky23 » Sat, Jul 30, 2016, 3:46 PM UTC

Dowwie wrote: post #4

There'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…

Not at all really. The leaks revealed the frustrations, biases, egos and banality of functionaries in a big political party.

There was no scandal -- everyone knew, including Sanders, that the party didn't like him or his candidacy. You can be sure that the RNC and associated actors had similar communications about Trump and Cruz.

What the leaks did is perpetuate the circus atmosphere of this election cycle. The longer and more absurd that atmosphere gets, the better for Trump. Trump is great for Putin, as Putin no doubt sees him as easier to manipulate for a variety of reasons.

Re: The Security of Our Election Systems

#59

Post by e40 » Sat, Jul 30, 2016, 3:57 PM UTC

fncndhdhc wrote: post #45

And yet a Democratic Party IT administrator was shot and killed in DC two weeks ago. The media is trying to attribute it to a mugging, but no items were found taken off of his body. http://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/Man-Shot-Killed-in-N...

I don't own a tinfoil hat, but... man, that incites all sorts of ideas.

Re: The Security of Our Election Systems

#60

Post by specialist » Sat, Jul 30, 2016, 4:01 PM UTC

"This means voting machines with voter-verified paper audit trails..."

I've attended "audits" of VVPATs. They merely verify that the printer still worked as expected. Nothing more.

This turf has been hashed and rehashed. The Election Verification Network (academics, administrators, activists) have covered this many times. Auditing electronically mediated elections is impractical and adds little more certainty in the results.

No, crypto voting doesn't help.