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Colorado scrambles to change voting-system passwords after accidental leak

arstechnica.com

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Re: Colorado scrambles to change voting-system passwords after accidental leak

#41

Post by anon291 »

cafard wrote: post #14
recursivecaveat wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never understood the desire to have any kind of machine at all. Paper ballots are a perfectly efficient and scalable system used for many large elections. Even if complicated machines are theoretically safe against malfeasance, keeping it simple increases public confidence.

I should say, the speed of tabulation. An American election can include ballot lines for president, senator, member of congress, state senator, three state representatives, a county councilmember or two, a member of the board of education etc.

If the speed of tabulation is the main reason then why are results no longer known by election night? They're saying it might be days again. When we had paper ballots, we knew that night. (For America)

Re: Colorado scrambles to change voting-system passwords after accidental leak

#42

Post by anon291 »

willcipriano wrote: post #39
brandonmenc wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One side says that it is totally secure, basically 0 fraud, most secure election in history Additionally, the sides have completely flipped. Utterly bizarre.

Notice the Cheneys and John Boltons of the world also have seemed to flipped with them.

I am happy to say, I've never been on the side of a Cheney. Go me!

Re: Colorado scrambles to change voting-system passwords after accidental leak

#43

Post by anon291 »

MichaelZuo wrote: post #36
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not bizarre at all. It's BS, but it's not bizarre. Politics has become trench warfare. Everything is a battle to the death to keep the other side from gaining an inch anywhere. And, as is often the case in warfare, truth is a casualty. Both sides will say absolutely anything to keep anyone from thinking that the other side has a valid point. It's advertising, but without any truth-in-advertising laws. Or, if you pref…

The true casualty is America’s credibility abroad. In pretty much every capital, embassy, boardroom, etc… it noticeably declines year on year. Even the Brits don’t take anything at face value anymore.

Our credibility has been suddenly made synonymous with how willing we are to go to war on behalf of other countries . We are not

But I think any attack on an American force will get you a quick lesson on our credibility, which, as an American, is all I really care about.

Similarly economically, good luck not participating in the American markets.

Re: Colorado scrambles to change voting-system passwords after accidental leak

#44

Post by anon291 »

Spivak wrote: post #27
aftbit wrote: post #21

I hate the narratives around voting security in the US. One side says that it is totally secure, basically 0 fraud, most secure election in history, etc etc. The other side claims that the election was completely stolen from them by voting machines. Neither of these claims is right. Personally, I doubt the election was stolen. I know of a handful of cases of voter fraud both anecdotally ("My mom [in a retirement home…

This is a wild amount of both-sidesing in a case where one side has evidence and the other is literally an unsubstantiated conspiracy theory at a scale where you could not keep the secret. Most secure in history is (in my state) is correct. There are more pointless safeguards than have ever existed. If you were willing to go with the results of any election pre 2020 then you should be overjoyed at how much more "secu…

Including the safeguards where observers are safely kept away from the counting! There were a lot of irregularities in 2020. The supreme Court recently said Pennsylvania should not have counted some of the ballots it did in 2020 (policy change by secretary of state vs legislature).

Re: Colorado scrambles to change voting-system passwords after accidental leak

#45

Post by myth2018 »

tupolef wrote: post #13

The only way to get an honest electronic vote is by giving realtime visibility on who voted what and where publicly. Everything else is a scam. It would mean no secrecy of vote, but I think that secrecy of vote is for places that are new to democracy. It could be anonymised to a point a clever system of personal certificats, but the idea is that in a 100 people district, the citizens should be able to count themselve…

> The only way to get an honest electronic vote is by giving realtime visibility on who voted what and where publicly.

The secrecy on individual votes has a good reason to exist. Votes are already bought based on per-section public results, imagine what would happen if individual votes were public.

Moreover, people under any sort of threat (communities dominated by drug dealers, employees of a dishonest, politically engaged business owner) would be in big trouble.

Re: Colorado scrambles to change voting-system passwords after accidental leak

#46

Post by unethical_ban »

brandonmenc wrote: post #29
aftbit wrote: post #21

I hate the narratives around voting security in the US. One side says that it is totally secure, basically 0 fraud, most secure election in history, etc etc. The other side claims that the election was completely stolen from them by voting machines. Neither of these claims is right. Personally, I doubt the election was stolen. I know of a handful of cases of voter fraud both anecdotally ("My mom [in a retirement home…

> One side says that it is totally secure, basically 0 fraud, most secure election in history Additionally, the sides have completely flipped. Utterly bizarre.

Good thing we fixed the hanging chad issue.

Did Republicans anywhere try to "secure elections" in a way that didn't involve curtailing voting rights? Improving voting machines, systems, counting, etc. in a way that partisan leadership couldn't mess with?

Georgia, I predict, will be a shitshow this year.

Re: Colorado scrambles to change voting-system passwords after accidental leak

#47

Post by mythrwy »

Spivak wrote: post #27
aftbit wrote: post #21

I hate the narratives around voting security in the US. One side says that it is totally secure, basically 0 fraud, most secure election in history, etc etc. The other side claims that the election was completely stolen from them by voting machines. Neither of these claims is right. Personally, I doubt the election was stolen. I know of a handful of cases of voter fraud both anecdotally ("My mom [in a retirement home…

This is a wild amount of both-sidesing in a case where one side has evidence and the other is literally an unsubstantiated conspiracy theory at a scale where you could not keep the secret. Most secure in history is (in my state) is correct. There are more pointless safeguards than have ever existed. If you were willing to go with the results of any election pre 2020 then you should be overjoyed at how much more "secu…

Yes drop boxes and mail in ballots with no signature verification and the counting done largely by one side of the partisan divide (county/state employees) is totally 100% secure what could go wrong? Those conspiracy nuts just don't get it.

Re: Colorado scrambles to change voting-system passwords after accidental leak

#48

Post by coolhand2120 »

Please correct me where I'm mistaken.

* This password list has been public for a long time, and is easy to access: hidden excel column on a public spreadsheet.

* BIOS access means the intruder can change boot devices, boot their own OS, infect the BIOS with a virus, change boot devices back, compromise the vote host OS.

* Keycard security isn't tight security. Any amature physical penetration tester would just use a primitive attack on the door to get around it. E.g.: Grab the handle from under the door with a wire. Youtube has a ton of examples.

* This could have been done months ago, and over a long period of time.

* The intruder could clean up logs and any other traces of their actions.

Where am I technically wrong here? I'm sure I'm missing something obvious. It sounds like what you would do with BIOS passwords if you wanted to do something nasty. I haven't seen these questions addressed anywhere.

I hear some people say "but we use paper ballots". Then why do you have a BIOS password? If it's all paper where does the computer fit in? All of this is honest curiosity, I'm not sure how the voting system works.

Re: Colorado scrambles to change voting-system passwords after accidental leak

#49

Post by unethical_ban »

recursivecaveat wrote: post #9
db1234 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regarding Indian voting machines, there is also randomization involved at various levels during distribution making it difficult to game the system but still I always wonder if there is any way to hack the system. I hope people in charge have a process to continuously evaluate the security procedures and improve it.

I never understood the desire to have any kind of machine at all. Paper ballots are a perfectly efficient and scalable system used for many large elections. Even if complicated machines are theoretically safe against malfeasance, keeping it simple increases public confidence.

Scalable? Not for same-day. I'd be fine waiting a few days if needed, though. Heck, early voting means I wait for weeks now.

Ranked choice voting is essentially doing multiple elections at a time, having to recount portions of votes every time a candidate drops out. That's a lot easier with computers.

I think the totals from every precinct could be made public in a way that they are verifiable from a central database, where the numbers add up to the total for the state and eventually federal count.

This is probably already happening, but people don't seem to think so.

Re: Colorado scrambles to change voting-system passwords after accidental leak

#50

Post by MichaelZuo »

anon291 wrote: post #43
MichaelZuo wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The true casualty is America’s credibility abroad. In pretty much every capital, embassy, boardroom, etc… it noticeably declines year on year. Even the Brits don’t take anything at face value anymore.

Our credibility has been suddenly made synonymous with how willing we are to go to war on behalf of other countries . We are not But I think any attack on an American force will get you a quick lesson on our credibility, which, as an American, is all I really care about. Similarly economically, good luck not participating in the American markets.

I really don’t want to burst your bubble… but do you not realize this is seen as a joke abroad?

e.g. In Hanoi, American officials, diplomats, and executives are rushing to wine and dine people who literally celebrate the defeat of ‘American force’ in public, on the record, every year.

They treat even a random third secretary for some party committee 100km from Hanoi much much better than the 90th percentile upper middle class American household in the Bay Area…

Edit: And I’m not even going to talk about Eastern Europe or the Middle East, it’s really too harsh to put into writing.

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