The Economics of Hacking an Election • Hacker News Board

Re: The Economics of Hacking an Election

#11

Post by 9712263 » Fri, Aug 10, 2018, 10:49 AM UTC

veridies wrote: post #7

jmdjmd wrote: post #6

All democratic elections are hacked, not in a technical way but in a social way. Take my country India, for example. The winning party in almost all elections till 2014 got just under 40% of the total vote. Minorities form 15-20% of the vote bank and the minority vote is always consolidated, i.e. they vote enmass for a single party (usually for The Indian National Congress (INC)). In other words, anywhere between 15-…

I won’t speak to the specific examples in either India or the US, but I will say that when you have extreme support for one candidate by members of minority ethnicities, that typically suggests that the other party is either apathetic or hostile to their interests. If there are enough members of the ethnic majority to reach a plurality, then that party will, and should, win. The fact that they vote en mass for one pa…

In an ideal world where people are intelligent enough to vote for their long term benefit, then what you said is true.

But let's say a country have little care to minority ethnicities. I have the many resources to arrange short benefit to them, such as occasional free dinner for those ethnicities, arranging cheap or free traveling trip for them. Essentially bribe those minorities.

Now I am elected to become a president. How do I get more resource to bribe minorities? I just receive donation from the rich and just set law to benefit them. Those law will get me donation and let the rich suck more money from the minorities. Now I have those dirty money in hand. Since minorities are living in a more challenging environment by my policy, those minorities will even more welcome my bribe and continue to vote for me.

Now you may ask, why are those minorities can't read news? Why they can't listen to the other side that may benefit to them? Firstly, minorities have very tough environment and they don't have education and even time to think about their future. Therefore, they just vote for whoever is familiar or whoever give free gifts. Secondly, a government could control the propaganda and paint those opposition as destabilizing country and blaming them as enemy and reason of their miserable situation.

It's not a hack, but a flaw. Democracy assume all people care enough about politics to understand the implication of each policy. If people don't have time resource for this, then it is pretty easy to spread propaganda to paint some enemy. People in poor condition just want to find someone to blame. And people trust the one who could bribe them a little benefit.

Of course, there are no better alternative than democracy, but people just too focus on their living and care to their own short term benefit. Long term benefit is difficult to promote since no one knows when will this be effective.

Re: The Economics of Hacking an Election

#12

Post by veridies » Fri, Aug 10, 2018, 10:55 AM UTC

9712263 wrote: post #11

veridies wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I won’t speak to the specific examples in either India or the US, but I will say that when you have extreme support for one candidate by members of minority ethnicities, that typically suggests that the other party is either apathetic or hostile to their interests. If there are enough members of the ethnic majority to reach a plurality, then that party will, and should, win. The fact that they vote en mass for one pa…

In an ideal world where people are intelligent enough to vote for their long term benefit, then what you said is true. But let's say a country have little care to minority ethnicities. I have the many resources to arrange short benefit to them, such as occasional free dinner for those ethnicities, arranging cheap or free traveling trip for them. Essentially bribe those minorities. Now I am elected to become a preside…

That argument is certainly true, but it applies to nearly everyone. Almost no one is politically well-informed enough to be sure of what’s in their long-term interest, with most people not understanding for example economics or environmental issues enough to take an informed position. So politicians frequently resort to short-term fixes, such as tax cuts, to keep people happy and voting for them. If more of those short-term fixes benefit minorities, that still isn’t worse than if they benefit majorities.

Re: The Economics of Hacking an Election

#13

Post by Retric » Fri, Aug 10, 2018, 11:01 AM UTC

dantheman wrote: post #10

sytelus wrote: post #2

This is seriously uninformed article with bad assumptions and assertions. The first assertion author makes is that attacker is resource limited which is a pointless assertion for stack sponsored entities unless cost of attack is astronomical. The second point author makes is that US elections are highly decentralize for attacks such as hacking electronic systems, making effective attacks very expensive. Again this is…

This is incorrect: You can literally donate just $100K to political candidate and he would pass a law for you that makes your company 10s of millions for many many years. It never ends to surprise me that political donations by commercial entities and ultra-rich is not considered a crime in US. In most other countries they are known as "bribe". Companies cannot give money directly to politicians and individuals are l…

> must be (nominally) independent from a candidate.

It sounds a lot more effective than it is. In practice it’s a non issue.

Re: The Economics of Hacking an Election

#14

Post by a_imho » Fri, Aug 10, 2018, 11:06 AM UTC

9712263 wrote: post #11

veridies wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I won’t speak to the specific examples in either India or the US, but I will say that when you have extreme support for one candidate by members of minority ethnicities, that typically suggests that the other party is either apathetic or hostile to their interests. If there are enough members of the ethnic majority to reach a plurality, then that party will, and should, win. The fact that they vote en mass for one pa…

In an ideal world where people are intelligent enough to vote for their long term benefit, then what you said is true. But let's say a country have little care to minority ethnicities. I have the many resources to arrange short benefit to them, such as occasional free dinner for those ethnicities, arranging cheap or free traveling trip for them. Essentially bribe those minorities. Now I am elected to become a preside…

Voting is merely one way to elect (any kind of) representatives and indeed, the problems mentioned in the gp are inherent to it. Consider how drawing a lot is probably more fair and less prone to manipulation [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition

Re: The Economics of Hacking an Election

#15

Post by freeflight » Fri, Aug 10, 2018, 11:07 AM UTC

deft wrote: post #3

sytelus wrote: post #2

This is seriously uninformed article with bad assumptions and assertions. The first assertion author makes is that attacker is resource limited which is a pointless assertion for stack sponsored entities unless cost of attack is astronomical. The second point author makes is that US elections are highly decentralize for attacks such as hacking electronic systems, making effective attacks very expensive. Again this is…

Good points. Your last paragraph really shows how easy it would be / is which makes me wonder why is the Russia story such a big deal? There very well could have been similar attacks pulled off in the past with no one noticing (or it being legal all together) Sidenote: politics only seems to have morality as a focus when it is in their favour.

> which makes me wonder why is the Russia story such a big deal?

Because it allows the responsible people to shift all the blame to an external actor:

"Sure, we might have used crappy and insecure voting machines, everybody with a clue warned us about for years, but that wouldn't have mattered if the Russians didn't hack them!"

Re: The Economics of Hacking an Election

#16

Post by stealthmodeclan » Fri, Aug 10, 2018, 11:53 AM UTC

veridies wrote: post #12

9712263 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In an ideal world where people are intelligent enough to vote for their long term benefit, then what you said is true. But let's say a country have little care to minority ethnicities. I have the many resources to arrange short benefit to them, such as occasional free dinner for those ethnicities, arranging cheap or free traveling trip for them. Essentially bribe those minorities. Now I am elected to become a preside…

That argument is certainly true, but it applies to nearly everyone. Almost no one is politically well-informed enough to be sure of what’s in their long-term interest, with most people not understanding for example economics or environmental issues enough to take an informed position. So politicians frequently resort to short-term fixes, such as tax cuts, to keep people happy and voting for them. If more of those sho…

> If more of those short-term fixes benefit minorities, that still isn’t worse than if they benefit majorities.

If minorities vote for receiving short term benefits then everyone including the minorities are knocked out of the long term benefits.

If you can just win by offering a vehicle like horse cart and keep upgrading it through research and development, adding 1km/hr speed increment every 5 year. Then you'll probably never be able to develop a car because its development requires long term research and development program, even if nothing, atleast a working infrastructure.

Re: The Economics of Hacking an Election

#17

Post by rayiner » Fri, Aug 10, 2018, 12:10 PM UTC

sytelus wrote: post #2

This is seriously uninformed article with bad assumptions and assertions. The first assertion author makes is that attacker is resource limited which is a pointless assertion for stack sponsored entities unless cost of attack is astronomical. The second point author makes is that US elections are highly decentralize for attacks such as hacking electronic systems, making effective attacks very expensive. Again this is…

> Overall, hacking political system has shown to have ROI of 10,000% or more and it should make a perfect economic sense to businesses and external governments.

This trope amazes me. If this were true, you’d see a lot more campaign donations. Instead, you see a few billion out of an economy of trillions. There isn’t an investment opportunity like that just sitting around without investors jumping on board and bidding up the price. It’s not logically possible for this to be true, without making a bunch of other hand waving and dubious assumptions.

Re: The Economics of Hacking an Election

#18

Post by ataturk » Fri, Aug 10, 2018, 12:19 PM UTC

Why hack voting machines? Instead, hack the counting. I can't tell you how many times I've seen the following pattern:

Republican wins by slim number of votes. Recount #1, some more votes "found" Democrat candidate closer, Republican still winning. Recount #2, additional votes "found" Democrat now has slim lead. STOP THE RECOUNTS, OMG!!!!

This happened in Oregon and Washington governors races, and notoriously in Minnesota with disgraced former Senator Al Franken. It happens all over the place in small elections. There is only one party cheating on elections in the US, it is the same party that has been conducting a witch hunt about Russia and is lying to public using their lapdog media mouthpieces in order to bullshit the public. Articles like the one from Columbia exist to sow confusion, to muddy the waters, to distract your eye away from the real goings on. "Russia hacked the election" is a gigantic lie, possibly one of the biggest ever told in recent history. No, Russian did not hack the election.

Are Republicans lily white? Nah, nobody is. But they don't cheat in elections the way Democrats do. If you want to see how vote fraud works, go to urban Detroit or Philadelphia, those two spring immediately to mind.

Lastly, there is plenty we can do about voting integrity if we wish to do so. There is a defense-in-depth strategy that can makes elections fair. The only problem is that there is a large faction out there that wants to continue cheating.

Re: The Economics of Hacking an Election

#19

Post by michaelt » Fri, Aug 10, 2018, 12:22 PM UTC

dantheman wrote: post #10

sytelus wrote: post #2

This is seriously uninformed article with bad assumptions and assertions. The first assertion author makes is that attacker is resource limited which is a pointless assertion for stack sponsored entities unless cost of attack is astronomical. The second point author makes is that US elections are highly decentralize for attacks such as hacking electronic systems, making effective attacks very expensive. Again this is…

This is incorrect: You can literally donate just $100K to political candidate and he would pass a law for you that makes your company 10s of millions for many many years. It never ends to surprise me that political donations by commercial entities and ultra-rich is not considered a crime in US. In most other countries they are known as "bribe". Companies cannot give money directly to politicians and individuals are l…

  Companies cannot give money directly to politicians

According to [1] Paul Ryan accepted $121,700 from Blackrock Inc, and [2] says Charles Schumer accepted $102,950 from Lockheed Martin.

Sounds like companies giving money to politicians to me?

[1] https://www.opensecrets.org/members-of-congress/summary/paul... [2] https://www.opensecrets.org/members-of-congress/summary/char...

Re: The Economics of Hacking an Election

#20

Post by maxerickson » Fri, Aug 10, 2018, 12:27 PM UTC

michaelt wrote: post #19

dantheman wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is incorrect: You can literally donate just $100K to political candidate and he would pass a law for you that makes your company 10s of millions for many many years. It never ends to surprise me that political donations by commercial entities and ultra-rich is not considered a crime in US. In most other countries they are known as "bribe". Companies cannot give money directly to politicians and individuals are l…

Companies cannot give money directly to politicians According to [1] Paul Ryan accepted $121,700 from Blackrock Inc, and [2] says Charles Schumer accepted $102,950 from Lockheed Martin. Sounds like companies giving money to politicians to me? [1] https://www.opensecrets.org/members-of-congress/summary/paul... [2] https://www.opensecrets.org/members-of-congress/summary/char...

They are aggregating the contributions of people associated with the company. Look at https://www.opensecrets.org/members-of-congress/contributors...

These tables list the top donors to candidates in the 2017 - 2018 election cycle. The organizations themselves did not donate, rather the money came from the organizations' PACs, their individual members or employees or owners, and those individuals' immediate families. Organization totals include subsidiaries and affiliates.