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Millions of UK voters’ data accessible in cyber-attack

theguardian.com

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Re: Millions of UK voters’ data accessible in cyber-attack

#31

Post by cameronh90 »

mrmikardo wrote: post #7
jjgreen wrote: post #2

While the data contained in the electoral registers is limited, and much of it is already in the public domain What is not generally in the public domain is the National Insurance number, mandatory on electoral registration since 2015, very useful for impersonation purposes. I wonder if they got those?

This is another good case for security-by-minimisation. I struggle to see why NI numbers were required on the electoral register — particularly when democracy in the UK had been functioning for over a century without them. The best way to ensure valuable data doesn’t leak into the public realm is to minimise the amount of unnecessary data collection.

One reason they're recorded is to try and detect voter fraud.

Re: Millions of UK voters’ data accessible in cyber-attack

#32

Post by flir »

mistrial9 wrote: post #28
midasuni wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe the word is “courageous”, minister. That’s the beauty of turning up and putting an x on a piece of paper. You can of course slip in the occasional fraudulent vote (pretend to be someone who isn’t going to vote). You can register a false person in the address. It’s quite easy to swing dozens of votes across the country, with an increasing risk of being caught But the effort it takes would be better spent get…

> It’s quite easy to swing dozens of votes across the country, the best liars believe what they say

I think he literally means dozens of individual votes, not dozens of elections.

7AM-10PM, I could do... what... 30 votes, if I planned meticulously? With the risk of a collision going up with each attempt, and the chances of swinging an election very close to nil. Like OP said, it's more effective to campaign.

Re: Millions of UK voters’ data accessible in cyber-attack

#33

Post by darkclouds »

jjgreen wrote: post #4
darkclouds wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tried to take myself off it using the webpage, I couldnt remove myself only change my name. Dont see the point of being on it, I wont be voting ever again!

It is a criminal offence to not register.

It doesnt look like it is a criminal offence but when I tried to remove myself the option wasnt there, so I changed the name. I could remove other people on the system.

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2013/6/section/5/enacte...

Maintenance of registers: invitations to register in Great Britain

(1)A registration officer in Great Britain must give a person an invitation to apply for registration in a register maintained by the officer if—

(a)the officer is aware of the person’s name and address,

(b)the person is not registered in the register, and

(c)the officer has reason to believe that the person may be entitled to be registered in the register.

Re: Millions of UK voters’ data accessible in cyber-attack

#34

Post by darkclouds »

maxehmookau wrote: post #9
andyjohnson0 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is a criminal offence to not register. Afaik that is not correct. It is a criminal offence to refuse to complete the registration form or to give false information. But if you're not asked ro register then no offence is committed.

Apparently you must register to vote. You can opt out of the extended register. [1] Not being on the electoral register is a huge pain too. It affects your credit quite significantly. [1] https://www.manchester.gov.uk/info/500328/voting/6470/regist...

> It affects your credit quite significantly.

I dont care, I closed my bank accounts because I dont like the way the banks share data with credit agencies. One of the reasons why I stopped using crypto.

Privacy is massively undervalued. :)

Re: Millions of UK voters’ data accessible in cyber-attack

#35

Post by willprice89 »

tempaway25755 wrote: post #26

To me the report seems very vague as to whether the details were exposed by accident or as the result of an attack. Like, the organisation is trying to make it _sound_ like it was the result of an attack, but they seem to know very little about it so that makes me suspicious.

> It said the attack had “used a sophisticated infiltration method, intended to evade our checks”, which was why it had taken so long to detect.

They seem pretty clear that it was an attack rather than accident, but I agree the details seem intentionally vague. Maybe it wasn't quite that sophisticated after all...

Re: Millions of UK voters’ data accessible in cyber-attack

#36

Post by bennyelv »

willprice89 wrote: post #35
tempaway25755 wrote: post #26

To me the report seems very vague as to whether the details were exposed by accident or as the result of an attack. Like, the organisation is trying to make it _sound_ like it was the result of an attack, but they seem to know very little about it so that makes me suspicious.

> It said the attack had “used a sophisticated infiltration method, intended to evade our checks”, which was why it had taken so long to detect. They seem pretty clear that it was an attack rather than accident, but I agree the details seem intentionally vague. Maybe it wasn't quite that sophisticated after all...

You can almost guarantee that. Even if they don’t want to share it, a Freedom of Information request will force them to.

Re: Millions of UK voters’ data accessible in cyber-attack

#37

Post by wkat4242 »

dfawcus wrote: post #21

Thus providing an example of why we should stick with our pencil and paper, manually counted voting system, and not computerise it. Most of the info lost is already publicly available (if one is willing to visit libraries in each electoral ward), so could be collated. Despite that, the manual process of the polls means that it is very difficult to corrupt, and even more so to corrupt without being detected. In a comp…

Yes for this reason we went back to pencil and paper in the Netherlands. Years ago.

Re: Millions of UK voters’ data accessible in cyber-attack

#38

Post by lawtalkinghuman »

darkclouds wrote: post #33
jjgreen wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a criminal offence to not register.

It doesnt look like it is a criminal offence but when I tried to remove myself the option wasnt there, so I changed the name. I could remove other people on the system. https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2013/6/section/5/enacte... Maintenance of registers: invitations to register in Great Britain (1)A registration officer in Great Britain must give a person an invitation to apply for registration in a register main…

It isn't a criminal offence. It's a civil penalty that can be levied if they require you to register and you don't.

The legislative text (it's an amending regulation—think a diff—but the underlying statute hasn't been updated on Legislation.gov.uk yet) is here: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/en/uksi/2013/3198/regulation/...

The Electoral Commission's guidance - https://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/running-electoral-reg...

I can't find any reports of people actually receiving the penalty. It'd certainly be useful if the Electoral Commission collected these statistics, but they don't. It seems fairly rare, and it's likely to be one of those things that's there to encourage people to register to vote rather than something to be actively enforced.

I'd also note that given there is a requirement for an in-person home visit to encourage registration before service a formal notice, it's pretty likely that COVID restrictions and guidance meant quite a lot of the home visits didn't happen over the last few years.

Re: Millions of UK voters’ data accessible in cyber-attack

#39

Post by maxehmookau »

darkclouds wrote: post #34
maxehmookau wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apparently you must register to vote. You can opt out of the extended register. [1] Not being on the electoral register is a huge pain too. It affects your credit quite significantly. [1] https://www.manchester.gov.uk/info/500328/voting/6470/regist...

> It affects your credit quite significantly. I dont care, I closed my bank accounts because I dont like the way the banks share data with credit agencies. One of the reasons why I stopped using crypto. Privacy is massively undervalued. :)

I'm glad you're in a position to not need a bank account. Unfortunately the vast majority of us rely on having a bank account and a credit record to exist in society.

You can argue that it sucks, and I'd partly agree, but that is how society works right now.

Privacy is undervalued, I agree. But I also like having a roof over my head and a way for my employer to give me money each month.

Re: Millions of UK voters’ data accessible in cyber-attack

#40

Post by darkclouds »

maxehmookau wrote: post #39
darkclouds wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It affects your credit quite significantly. I dont care, I closed my bank accounts because I dont like the way the banks share data with credit agencies. One of the reasons why I stopped using crypto. Privacy is massively undervalued. :)

I'm glad you're in a position to not need a bank account. Unfortunately the vast majority of us rely on having a bank account and a credit record to exist in society. You can argue that it sucks, and I'd partly agree, but that is how society works right now. Privacy is undervalued, I agree. But I also like having a roof over my head and a way for my employer to give me money each month.

I would live on the streets but everything is owned by someone or something so you become incarcerated by different entities against your will. Violence always wins. And we can only suicide for free, euthanasia costs money.

Life is intelligent slavery now, more psychological than physical, and way more stealth than most people realise.

Anyway don't worry about me you have yours and your loved ones backs to watch and your grown up toys to worry about. Nothing has changed in thousands of years.

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