How to Hack an Election • Hacker News Board

Re: How to Hack an Election

#11

Post by burkaman » Thu, Mar 31, 2016, 7:15 PM UTC

hackuser wrote: post #4

This shouldn't be a surprise: I think most HN members know that it's possible; we know that the rewards (incredible power, status, and everything you can get with them includig the spoils of office) are worth the investment (only $600K for this solution!); we know that there are many people, including politicians, unsavory enough to do it. The question is, why do we pretend it's not happening until there's a smoking…

A few reasons I can think of:

1) Hacking voting machines to a significant extent would require a team of people, not just one guy, which dramatically increases the risk of exposure.

2) The reported vote count is usually very close to the predicted vote count, and always very close to exit polling results. The hacked results would need to be very close to the real results, or be combined with control over a huge number of people in the polling industry. Campaigns also run internal polls, so opponent campaigns might become suspicious if their own polls were not matching the results.

3) Recounts are possible and somewhat common. Therefore hacking could not be used to create a very close result that could trigger a recount, or it would need to be combined with actual ballot theft, or control over the officials doing the recount.

These are not theoretical concerns. See Bush v. Gore in Florida for what might happen if someone tried to hack a close election.

It seems to me that hacking an election would only be feasible in an already close race, would require the cooperation of a number of people with huge risks of exposure, and could still be caught by one of the many safeguards that exist.

Obviously I am only talking about hacking voting machines. It would not surprise me if the tactics in this article were common; using Twitter bots, spying on other campaigns, etc.

Re: How to Hack an Election

#12

Post by simplemath » Thu, Mar 31, 2016, 7:20 PM UTC

josho wrote: post #8

hackuser wrote: post #4

This shouldn't be a surprise: I think most HN members know that it's possible; we know that the rewards (incredible power, status, and everything you can get with them includig the spoils of office) are worth the investment (only $600K for this solution!); we know that there are many people, including politicians, unsavory enough to do it. The question is, why do we pretend it's not happening until there's a smoking…

It is happening in the US and in plain sight--yet its citizens don't seem to care. Eg. Gerrymandering, drastically reducing voting stations (see AZ), goofy voter registration law changes. These issues don't occur in other mature democracies.

They do happen in late stage capitalist oligarchies though.

We'll get Elysium, not utopia.

Re: How to Hack an Election

#13

Post by natrius » Thu, Mar 31, 2016, 7:25 PM UTC

Capitalism makes centralized democracy untenable, and capitalism is here to stay.

So much power is controlled by infrequent elections, so influencing those elections is always worthwhile. Capitalism is an evolutionary force that selects for the most profitable business practices. People who figure out how to profit from influencing our democracies will outcompete those who don't. We can pass new laws, but that's like inventing a new antibiotic: it works for a while until evolution finds a way.

We must decentralize governance to be free. But how? We can use trade to individually enforce rules. Consider ISIS. ISIS controls territory by paying people to control territory. The money ISIS pays is worthless paper. You and I give that paper value because we accept it for our work. If you want to reduce ISIS's power without anyone's permission, all you have to do is stop accepting any money they've traded for your work.

We now have the ability to build decentralized ledgers of trade that you can consult to do this. Instead of relying on political parties to pursue your policy goals, you'll install an app that cuts people off from your economy when they break your rules. If this is a power that people desire, they must stop accepting anonymous money and only accept money through their policy wallet apps.

We're using bad technology to organize our society and it's giving us political corruption, terrorism, and global warming. It's imperative that we decentralize democracy so we can rid the world of this unnecessary damage.

Re: How to Hack an Election

#14

Post by ggchappell » Thu, Mar 31, 2016, 7:27 PM UTC

BurningFrog wrote: post #9

ggchappell wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The media seems generally unprepared for a coordinated campaign of fake tweets from accounts that don't have eggs as their avatar or #freeiphones in their profiles. Why should they care? The purpose of a news business is to make money. If it works, then it works. I think the real problem here is the incentive structure for a modern news business, as well as the network effects of sharing, links, etc.

Even assuming maximum cynicism, they should care about losing trust (and therefore future business) when it's shown they've spread fake news.

That would be the case if they did in fact lose money based on this problem.

I don't know how common/significant such losses are. But it seems clear that lots of news organizations are betting heavily that such losses are less than the cost of ensuring that they publish only reliable news.

Re: How to Hack an Election

#15

Post by nxzero » Thu, Mar 31, 2016, 7:28 PM UTC

burkaman wrote: post #11

hackuser wrote: post #4

This shouldn't be a surprise: I think most HN members know that it's possible; we know that the rewards (incredible power, status, and everything you can get with them includig the spoils of office) are worth the investment (only $600K for this solution!); we know that there are many people, including politicians, unsavory enough to do it. The question is, why do we pretend it's not happening until there's a smoking…

A few reasons I can think of: 1) Hacking voting machines to a significant extent would require a team of people, not just one guy, which dramatically increases the risk of exposure. 2) The reported vote count is usually very close to the predicted vote count, and always very close to exit polling results. The hacked results would need to be very close to the real results, or be combined with control over a huge numbe…

Seems like if you're able to poke at the idea in as much detail as you're providing that you might be able to draft your own. Have any ideas on how to do it?

That said, appears like given your points that I agree a better use of the idea would be to insure an election and reduce costs too. Meaning run a real campaign, stay behind, but close enough to not draw attention, which I'm guessing would reduce costs more than enough to cover the added costs of hacking.

Re: How to Hack an Election

#16

Post by haddr » Thu, Mar 31, 2016, 7:29 PM UTC

This is scary. Although we believe that an intelligent person would probably distinguish most social media manipulations, I think that we fall into the trap of deceptions more than we think we do. I wonder if there is some sort of study on how often significan social media manipulations occure in elections on the west.

Re: How to Hack an Election

#17

Post by _greim_ » Thu, Mar 31, 2016, 7:32 PM UTC

rm_-rf_slash wrote: post #3

danso wrote: post #2

> He also splurged on the very best fake Twitter profiles; they’d been maintained for at least a year, giving them a patina of believability. > Sepúlveda managed thousands of such fake profiles and used the accounts to shape discussion around topics such as Peña Nieto’s plan to end drug violence, priming the social media pump with views that real users would mimic. For less nuanced work, he had a larger army of 30,00…

Propaganda takes time. Often the most effective stuff happens when you aren't even aware of it. You progress through your regular life and encounter regular things. People bitch on the internet about stupid stuff with the occasional decent argument, and nothing looks out of the ordinary. You see laughable arguments about politicians with hints of truth, or intrude, but maybe you ignore it. After a while you see more…

The world is neck deep in dearly-held beliefs that would quickly die out if people en-masse embraced the kind of systematic, relentless skepticism required to combat this. Society protects these beliefs by stigmatizing skepticism, but in doing so effectively makes itself vulnerable to exploit.

Re: How to Hack an Election

#18

Post by ThrustVectoring » Thu, Mar 31, 2016, 7:36 PM UTC

hackuser wrote: post #4

This shouldn't be a surprise: I think most HN members know that it's possible; we know that the rewards (incredible power, status, and everything you can get with them includig the spoils of office) are worth the investment (only $600K for this solution!); we know that there are many people, including politicians, unsavory enough to do it. The question is, why do we pretend it's not happening until there's a smoking…

Changing the reported vote count is amateur-level election rigging. Professionals engage in much less obvious efforts - say, by suppressing turnout in unfavorable voting locations.

Re: How to Hack an Election

#19

Post by codeddesign » Thu, Mar 31, 2016, 7:38 PM UTC

burkaman wrote: post #11

hackuser wrote: post #4

This shouldn't be a surprise: I think most HN members know that it's possible; we know that the rewards (incredible power, status, and everything you can get with them includig the spoils of office) are worth the investment (only $600K for this solution!); we know that there are many people, including politicians, unsavory enough to do it. The question is, why do we pretend it's not happening until there's a smoking…

A few reasons I can think of: 1) Hacking voting machines to a significant extent would require a team of people, not just one guy, which dramatically increases the risk of exposure. 2) The reported vote count is usually very close to the predicted vote count, and always very close to exit polling results. The hacked results would need to be very close to the real results, or be combined with control over a huge numbe…

The exclusion would be caucases where a particular party would be in charge of the ballets and voting count.

Re: How to Hack an Election

#20

Post by nosuchthing » Thu, Mar 31, 2016, 7:39 PM UTC

hackuser wrote: post #4

This shouldn't be a surprise: I think most HN members know that it's possible; we know that the rewards (incredible power, status, and everything you can get with them includig the spoils of office) are worth the investment (only $600K for this solution!); we know that there are many people, including politicians, unsavory enough to do it. The question is, why do we pretend it's not happening until there's a smoking…

Arizona's voter database has apparently been tampered with or at the very least been susceptible to lax security standards.

Apparently someone has copies of voter registration forms and just copied the signature and changed party affiliation, nullifying votes (causing voters to receive provisional ballets, which generally are not counted) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1PnM6rf7X8

Here's the Arizona House elections Committee hearing, and a citizen mentions that voter registration documents have been leaked to the web. https://youtu.be/ESyXvGLMIS0?t=58m37s