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Utah voting system fending off 1B hacking attempts per day

utahpolicy.com

41–50 of 220 posts

Re: Utah voting system fending off 1B hacking attempts per day

#42
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first is a good idea, but the second is not. Voter ID cards are historically used to make it harder to vote and thus compromise elections. In person fraud is very uncommon, and it would be very difficult for a foreign government to pull off a large scale interference without being detected. After all, we struggle to get people to show up to vote once already! The idea of mass ballot fraud seems difficult to count…

Right. The hysteria around double or fraudulent voting is crazy. You’d need thousands of people doing it in most districts to have any impact, and that would get obvious really bloody quickly. I think this is a pretty good example of what I find to be the typical of an American practice of cutting off their own nose to spite their face. [1] Americans absolutely hate the idea of freeloaders or someone getting somethin…

>Americans

Yeah well not all of us, thanks.

Re: Utah voting system fending off 1B hacking attempts per day

#43

What are they including in the metrics? Are they including SSH port scanning and attempts on port 22?

Probably the data on these “hacking attempts” was compiled by the same people who reported healthcare.gov being 500 million lines of code.

Re: Utah voting system fending off 1B hacking attempts per day

#44
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first is a good idea, but the second is not. Voter ID cards are historically used to make it harder to vote and thus compromise elections. In person fraud is very uncommon, and it would be very difficult for a foreign government to pull off a large scale interference without being detected. After all, we struggle to get people to show up to vote once already! The idea of mass ballot fraud seems difficult to count…

Right. The hysteria around double or fraudulent voting is crazy. You’d need thousands of people doing it in most districts to have any impact, and that would get obvious really bloody quickly. I think this is a pretty good example of what I find to be the typical of an American practice of cutting off their own nose to spite their face. [1] Americans absolutely hate the idea of freeloaders or someone getting somethin…

You've overlooked the race, income, etc. factors, which still matter more than most people would like to admit.

Consider a "radical" idea. Who doesn't get to vote if they don't have an ID card?

Re: Utah voting system fending off 1B hacking attempts per day

#45
post #21

Paper ballots, no machines and especially no machines connected to the internet...if we were able to get that crazy bug into Iranian nuclear reactors without direct transfer from Internet, then you can bet North Korea, Russia, Israel, and China will pour billions to do the same thing. Voting ID cards too, though I admit I don’t know enough about that. Even if it costs billions to get it done, confidence in fair and f…

> "...North Korea, Russia, Israel, and China..."

Interesting. Only one of those four have proper elections. That is, three can't have their elections hacked.

Re: Utah voting system fending off 1B hacking attempts per day

#47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Russia/NKO/China have been at digital war with USA for years

Sure, but that doesn’t change the fact that this is likely just people going through a dictionary trying to guess the password, rather than a cyberattack by a nation-state.

>people going through a dictionary trying to guess the password, rather than a cyberattack by a nation-state.

Russia allows its cyber-criminals free-reign when it comes to the rest of the world, as long as they're not interfering with official interests. Consider the difference in Letters of Marque vs the Admiralty in British history.

Re: Utah voting system fending off 1B hacking attempts per day

#49
post #8

What are they including in the metrics? Are they including SSH port scanning and attempts on port 22?

My guess is they're including requests for / A billion "hacks" per day seems a bit far fetched. At that point, it's either a visible act of war (if external to the US) or the FBI would be much more involved (if internal). Both of those would be much larger news.

Wouldn't it be a good estimator to include ANY connections coming outside of Utah?

I hope that whoever is attempting to hack the Utah voting system has no nefarious purpose greater than changing "Mitt" to "Mittens.

Re: Utah voting system fending off 1B hacking attempts per day

#50
post #10

What does "hacking attempt" even mean? I smell FUD.

Sadly I smell FUD virtually every time a security engineer opens his mouth. Yes there are some great ones, but I’ve never worked with one directly. Part of my skepticism is rooted in the prevalent ignorance of basic computing theory. If you can’t define the operational semantics of a system then you can’t rigorously convince yourself or anyone else that it is “secure.”

It's not a security professional saying this though. It's a politician.

You can never be 100%, you're right. You can be aware of common attack vectors and address them though. You can be aware of what resources are most vital to protect or are common targets in your industry and focus your efforts.

Most people actually in security will tell you the same.

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