Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

DEF CON report on vulnerabilities in US election infrastructure [pdf]

defcon.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 145 posts

Re: DEF CON report on vulnerabilities in US election infrastructure [pdf]

#11

Post by crankylinuxuser »

texuf wrote: post #3

The conclusion: Over the last 26 years, DEF CON, and for the last two years, the Voting Village, have operated under two core principles: 1. It is important to derive facts through reason and inquiry rather than blind faith. 2. When we discover new facts, it’s important we share this information with the general public so individuals can decide how best to use the information. We did not make these principles up ours…

Ok. So, those are powerful findings of fact. From this, what has been done thus far regarding:

State election boards

State House/Senate committees on elections

Local election judges and boards

Federal House/Senate committees on elections

I would assume that these allegations must be verified. However, since all the procedures and observations are being made in the open, they should be relatively easy to confirm.

But, what are our legislators and boards doing to prevent hacking and malfeasance like this?

Re: DEF CON report on vulnerabilities in US election infrastructure [pdf]

#13

Post by w8rbt »

Klathmon wrote: post #8
w8rbt wrote: post #5

Virginia went back to paper ballots and optical ballot scanning several years ago. I think the only drawback to this approach is storing the ballots for X years after an election (takes up space). But, it's far more secure and easy for everyone to do. Just like taking a high school test... pencil in the circle. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_scan_voting_system

And IMO they should do away with "optical ballot scanning", and should move to regular humans counting them with their own eyes. An electronic scanning system could easily be vulnerable to many of the same issues that are presented here. Instead, have everyone mark their ballots like normal, then get a bunch of people in a room who all don't trust one another and have them count/tally votes together. Just about every…

I agree, but the optical scanners are like 1000 times better than wirelessly accessible Windows XP laptops... which is what they replaced. One step at a time ;)

Re: DEF CON report on vulnerabilities in US election infrastructure [pdf]

#14

Post by mikejb »

ragebol wrote: post #7
texuf wrote: post #3

The conclusion: Over the last 26 years, DEF CON, and for the last two years, the Voting Village, have operated under two core principles: 1. It is important to derive facts through reason and inquiry rather than blind faith. 2. When we discover new facts, it’s important we share this information with the general public so individuals can decide how best to use the information. We did not make these principles up ours…

> it takes about six minutes to vote Why does voting take 6 minutes? I think I used a voting machine maybe once in my life (in the Netherlands and apparently young enough to not have used those more often). Casting a vote on paper is usually checking a box with a red pencil, takes maybe a minute of dealing with the huge sheet of paper with all the candidates. Just curious.

I think this is measured on average, and it's possible that people are undecided, or look through everything and take their time making sure to do it right.

Re: DEF CON report on vulnerabilities in US election infrastructure [pdf]

#15

Post by flatline »

ragebol wrote: post #7
texuf wrote: post #3

The conclusion: Over the last 26 years, DEF CON, and for the last two years, the Voting Village, have operated under two core principles: 1. It is important to derive facts through reason and inquiry rather than blind faith. 2. When we discover new facts, it’s important we share this information with the general public so individuals can decide how best to use the information. We did not make these principles up ours…

> it takes about six minutes to vote Why does voting take 6 minutes? I think I used a voting machine maybe once in my life (in the Netherlands and apparently young enough to not have used those more often). Casting a vote on paper is usually checking a box with a red pencil, takes maybe a minute of dealing with the huge sheet of paper with all the candidates. Just curious.

When you are voting for a dozen candidates and a dozen ballot measures, it takes time to read through all of them and make sure you are marking the correct boxes, even when you know how you will vote in advance.

Re: DEF CON report on vulnerabilities in US election infrastructure [pdf]

#16

Post by Klathmon »

w8rbt wrote: post #13
Klathmon wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And IMO they should do away with "optical ballot scanning", and should move to regular humans counting them with their own eyes. An electronic scanning system could easily be vulnerable to many of the same issues that are presented here. Instead, have everyone mark their ballots like normal, then get a bunch of people in a room who all don't trust one another and have them count/tally votes together. Just about every…

I agree, but the optical scanners are like 1000 times better than wirelessly accessible Windows XP laptops... which is what they replaced. One step at a time ;)

That's fair, but it really feels to me like a kind of "token gesture" that makes it seem like it's in good faith (and could actually be done in good faith!) but keeps all the same underlying issues.

After all, a lot of those counting machines are proprietary and un-auditable, so you have no way of knowing if they are actually just windows-xp wireless laptops crammed into a fancy plastic case.

I don't know enough about it in this situation to know, but things like that can sometimes cause a false sense of security or improvement that can actually make things worse in the long run.

Re: DEF CON report on vulnerabilities in US election infrastructure [pdf]

#17

Post by Kalium »

ragebol wrote: post #7
texuf wrote: post #3

The conclusion: Over the last 26 years, DEF CON, and for the last two years, the Voting Village, have operated under two core principles: 1. It is important to derive facts through reason and inquiry rather than blind faith. 2. When we discover new facts, it’s important we share this information with the general public so individuals can decide how best to use the information. We did not make these principles up ours…

> it takes about six minutes to vote Why does voting take 6 minutes? I think I used a voting machine maybe once in my life (in the Netherlands and apparently young enough to not have used those more often). Casting a vote on paper is usually checking a box with a red pencil, takes maybe a minute of dealing with the huge sheet of paper with all the candidates. Just curious.

American elections are very rarely one box. Generally there's a whole series of offices being elected separately, and probably several different measures of various sorts being voted on directly.

Re: DEF CON report on vulnerabilities in US election infrastructure [pdf]

#18

Post by p49k »

ragebol wrote: post #7
texuf wrote: post #3

The conclusion: Over the last 26 years, DEF CON, and for the last two years, the Voting Village, have operated under two core principles: 1. It is important to derive facts through reason and inquiry rather than blind faith. 2. When we discover new facts, it’s important we share this information with the general public so individuals can decide how best to use the information. We did not make these principles up ours…

> it takes about six minutes to vote Why does voting take 6 minutes? I think I used a voting machine maybe once in my life (in the Netherlands and apparently young enough to not have used those more often). Casting a vote on paper is usually checking a box with a red pencil, takes maybe a minute of dealing with the huge sheet of paper with all the candidates. Just curious.

Sometimes there are 10-25 different votes you’re casting on a single ballot (for example: city council, judges/prosecutors, state representatives and senators, federal reps and senators, president, local and state ballot initiatives)

Re: DEF CON report on vulnerabilities in US election infrastructure [pdf]

#19

Post by mdorazio »

ragebol wrote: post #7
texuf wrote: post #3

The conclusion: Over the last 26 years, DEF CON, and for the last two years, the Voting Village, have operated under two core principles: 1. It is important to derive facts through reason and inquiry rather than blind faith. 2. When we discover new facts, it’s important we share this information with the general public so individuals can decide how best to use the information. We did not make these principles up ours…

> it takes about six minutes to vote Why does voting take 6 minutes? I think I used a voting machine maybe once in my life (in the Netherlands and apparently young enough to not have used those more often). Casting a vote on paper is usually checking a box with a red pencil, takes maybe a minute of dealing with the huge sheet of paper with all the candidates. Just curious.

How few options were on the ballot you cast? In the most recent election here in California, there were a rather ridiculous number of candidates for most positions, plus quite a few propositions. Even if you pre-select your choices before hand, you still have to find those choices on the screen (or on the paper ballot) since the ordering might have changed from the sample ballot. I want to say it took me about 4 minutes to vote even with 100% pre-selected answers on my sample ballot to refer to. Other people who did less research took quite a bit longer.

Re: DEF CON report on vulnerabilities in US election infrastructure [pdf]

#20

Post by dagw »

ragebol wrote: post #7
texuf wrote: post #3

The conclusion: Over the last 26 years, DEF CON, and for the last two years, the Voting Village, have operated under two core principles: 1. It is important to derive facts through reason and inquiry rather than blind faith. 2. When we discover new facts, it’s important we share this information with the general public so individuals can decide how best to use the information. We did not make these principles up ours…

> it takes about six minutes to vote Why does voting take 6 minutes? I think I used a voting machine maybe once in my life (in the Netherlands and apparently young enough to not have used those more often). Casting a vote on paper is usually checking a box with a red pencil, takes maybe a minute of dealing with the huge sheet of paper with all the candidates. Just curious.

In the US they often group together all federal, state, local and various referendums in the same election so it's not uncommon to have over a dozen choices to make when casting a vote.
Post reply on HN