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How to Hack an Election

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Re: How to Hack an Election

#41

Post by cubano »

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…

The question is, why do we pretend it's not happening until there's a smoking gun?

Only a fool thinks it not happening everywhere, and one thing I know for sure after reading these forums for a few years now...

HN members are not fools.

Re: How to Hack an Election

#42

Post by burkaman »

hackuser wrote: post #39
burkaman wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Hacking voting machines to a significant extent would require a team of people, not just one guy, which dramatically increases the risk of exposure As someone else points out, you don't need to hack the whole country, just some key locations. Also, you could hack the source; many firewalls from a major vendor had (have?) security holes because someone checked the necessary code into their revision control system. H…

Diebold-like machines are not used very much anymore, I think because of all the controversy over how easily they can be hacked. Most of the country uses paper ballots that are counted by machine.

Yes, polls can be wrong, but I think exit polls are rarely wrong. Another comment pointed out these can be wrong too though, so this might not be a useful point.

Yes, as I mentioned in another comment, if you want to hack a real election you need to take a long-term view and make electronic voting widespread.

Re: How to Hack an Election

#43

Post by doodlebugging »

rossdavidh wrote: post #7
rossdavidh wrote: post #6

Ugh. I don't know if the particular people involved here are telling the truth, but I basically know that something like this must be happening, given the incentives involved. Dispiriting, I have to say, since it would be hard to beat this sort of thing without becoming what you're fighting against.

Also, at the end there when they implied that HRC is hiring Rendon for the general election, did anyone else find themselves thinking that this whole story could be a manipulative plant of the very sort they were discussing? Not that I think HRC is above this sort of thing.

I wonder if the implication was that the candidate from Texas was the interested party instead of HRC.

I know she is a "leading candidate" and no party affiliation was mentioned but the hacker has in the past supported right-wing candidates and Ted Cruz is also closer to being the annointed one than he was a month ago. It might not be a coincidence that dirty tricks reminiscent of past elections are just starting.

It certainly appears that he is already on someone's payroll. Trump? Maybe, though it would be denied of course. Maybe this is Trump's answer to Cruz's manager.

It appears though that Cruz already has a slimer helping him according to a story I read a few weeks ago.

Maybe it is HRC and she's just trying to gear up for the mud-fest that will surely start once the real campaign kicks off.

[Behind Ted Cruz's Campaign Manager, Scorched Earth and Election Victories - NYTimes](http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/24/us/politics/ted-cruz-campa...)

Re: How to Hack an Election

#45

Post by clarkmoody »

doodlebugging wrote: post #43
rossdavidh wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, at the end there when they implied that HRC is hiring Rendon for the general election, did anyone else find themselves thinking that this whole story could be a manipulative plant of the very sort they were discussing? Not that I think HRC is above this sort of thing.

I wonder if the implication was that the candidate from Texas was the interested party instead of HRC. I know she is a "leading candidate" and no party affiliation was mentioned but the hacker has in the past supported right-wing candidates and Ted Cruz is also closer to being the annointed one than he was a month ago. It might not be a coincidence that dirty tricks reminiscent of past elections are just starting. It…

It was Rendón, not Sepúlveda (the hacker, in prison), who was allegedly helping Trump.

  > But Rendón says he’s in talks with another leading 
  U.S. presidential campaign—he wouldn’t say which—to
  begin working for it once the primaries wrap up and the 
  general election begins.

Re: How to Hack an Election

#46

Post by yummyfajitas »

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…

I know I'm not the first to point out this risk, but why should we assume that the reported vote count represents the actual vote? Becasue there is no smoking gun yet? That's like assuming your critical network hasn't been hacked, and doing nothing to protect it, because you haven't seen evidence of an attack yet.

Interestingly this exact same argument applies to fraudulent voting. We take no reasonable steps (e.g. requiring ID, same as for buying a beer or a gun) to prevent it, and have no way to detect it if it occurs, yet we assume it doesn't.

Re: How to Hack an Election

#47

Post by twoodfin »

cjslep wrote: post #38
burkaman wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of my points have anything to do with cost, I'm (realistically) assuming a campaign with huge amounts of cash. The problem, as with most conspiracy theories, is the number of people that need to cooperate and stay silent, and the number of independent safeguards that already exist. Spending more money actually hurts you, because it makes it harder to hide where that money is going, especially with all of the cam…

> The problem, as with most conspiracy theories, is the number of people that need to cooperate and stay silent, and the number of independent safeguards that already exist. It didn't seem like a problem for Diebold. The 2000 general election had a lot of awfully-convenient-for-Republicans scandals with their voting machines in place.

This is conspiracy-theory talk, especially without any citations.

And outside of squeaking by in Florida with an assist from SCOTUS, the 2000 general election was terrible for Republicans. They lost a few extremely close Senate races (ultimately resulting in a 50-50 tie) that any competent conspiracy could have pushed the other way.

Re: How to Hack an Election

#48

Post by twoodfin »

nosuchthing wrote: post #35
logfromblammo wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of this squares with what I have previously been told about US elections. 1. I have seen video demonstrations wherein one person with opportunistic unsupervised access to a voting machine can hack it to affect every issue on the ballot within five minutes. Given the security at many polling places in the US, this easily extrapolates to one person able to hack all machines at a given polling place prior to electi…

I still find it odd that we can receive carbon copies of time cards and receipts for ATM visits (..on thermal paper which decays rapidly), yet when it comes to voting for our state elections we have no record of our vote and everything is handed off to 3rd parties with seemingly no provable accountability or transparency. "It's not the votes that count, it's who counts the votes."

Eliminating the ultimate privacy of the voting booth has potentially serious negative consequences, like attempts to influence elections via intimidation or bribery ("Show us your vote for Smith and it's worth $100 to you. If you don't, remember we know where you live...") There are a variety of clever schemes that work around this, but none of them are as simple as you getting to bring home a certified copy of your ballot.

Re: How to Hack an Election

#49

Post by justinlardinois »

> with a shaved head, goatee, and a tattoo of a QR code containing an encryption key on the back of his head. On his nape are the words “” and “” stacked atop each other, dark riffs on coding.

Jesus, this guy sounds like he walked straight out of a bad cyberpunk story.

On the serious side, this gets to me:

> Sepúlveda says many of the candidates he helped might not even have known about his role; he says he met only a few.

It never occurred to me, but it's a novel concept: people campaigning for high office may be unaware of corruption in their own campaign. The idea of a well-intentioned politician with no idea corruption propelled them into office is scarier to me than a knowingly corrupt politician.

Re: How to Hack an Election

#50

Post by yummyfajitas »

simplemath wrote: post #12
josho wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

We already live in Elysium.

All we lack is robots preventing people from Earth (aka India/China/Nigeria/Malaysia) come join us. The ocean does a good enough job.

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