The Security of Our Election Systems • Hacker News Board

Re: The Security of Our Election Systems

#41

Post by toth » Sat, Jul 30, 2016, 1:19 PM UTC

Dowwie wrote: post #4

There's a strong moral argument in favor of the DNC leaks: the American people ought to know that its political process was corrupted by powerful actors within its own institutions. Schneier said, "This kind of cyberattack targets the very core of our democratic process. " In this case, though, the attack targeted actors who prevented democratic process. Were we exposed to fictitious narratives intended to advance pr…

Well, I would agree with you if the DNC leaks were accompanied by equivalent GOP leaks. Personally, I didn't find the DNC leaks that damning to be honest - I don't think the same standards of impartiality that you need for the general election need to be applied to how parties select their candidates. However if other people do find them damning it is information they should have. The rub is that I would be very surprised if there weren't similarly shenanigans from the GOP side, and if that's the case then if you let foreign actors select what gets leaked that's giving them a lot of power...

Re: The Security of Our Election Systems

#42

Post by CPLX » Sat, Jul 30, 2016, 1:32 PM UTC

mtgx wrote: post #10

Dowwie wrote: post #4

There's a strong moral argument in favor of the DNC leaks: the American people ought to know that its political process was corrupted by powerful actors within its own institutions. Schneier said, "This kind of cyberattack targets the very core of our democratic process. " In this case, though, the attack targeted actors who prevented democratic process. Were we exposed to fictitious narratives intended to advance pr…

I hate that he used the "Russians are coming" argument, but at the same time, he probably wouldn't have gotten even 1/4 of the attention if he just said "our voting machines aren't secure and anyone in the world, including our own government, could hack them." He's playing on the Russian fear, which is what the Democratic party is really pushing right now (by the way, isn't this something the Republican party used to…

Your argument might make sense in the abstract, but I think Bruce has a uniquely credible position with which to comment on the relative dangers posed by Russian hacking specifically.

Re: The Security of Our Election Systems

#43

Post by grav » Sat, Jul 30, 2016, 1:53 PM UTC

3pt14159 wrote: post #11

Dowwie wrote: post #4

There's a strong moral argument in favor of the DNC leaks: the American people ought to know that its political process was corrupted by powerful actors within its own institutions. Schneier said, "This kind of cyberattack targets the very core of our democratic process. " In this case, though, the attack targeted actors who prevented democratic process. Were we exposed to fictitious narratives intended to advance pr…

> Schneier said, "This kind of cyberattack targets the very core of our democratic process. " In this case, though, the attack targeted actors who prevented democratic process. Parties choose their candidates. While it is democratic in the sense that people cast ballots; the process was never guaranteed to be a level playing field. Sanders was an outsider from the democratic party. The party has rules and systems to…

Paper votes makes a lot of sense, as it is possible to verify for non-experts.

Re: The Security of Our Election Systems

#44

Post by sverige » Sat, Jul 30, 2016, 1:55 PM UTC

toth wrote: post #41

Dowwie wrote: post #4

There's a strong moral argument in favor of the DNC leaks: the American people ought to know that its political process was corrupted by powerful actors within its own institutions. Schneier said, "This kind of cyberattack targets the very core of our democratic process. " In this case, though, the attack targeted actors who prevented democratic process. Were we exposed to fictitious narratives intended to advance pr…

Well, I would agree with you if the DNC leaks were accompanied by equivalent GOP leaks. Personally, I didn't find the DNC leaks that damning to be honest - I don't think the same standards of impartiality that you need for the general election need to be applied to how parties select their candidates. However if other people do find them damning it is information they should have. The rub is that I would be very surp…

It wasn't just the open (amongst themselves) desire to keep Bernie out that was disturbing. The hypocrisy of the racist and homophobic comments from the people who are supposedly their champions is as smelly and toxic as creosote.

Re: The Security of Our Election Systems

#45

Post by fncndhdhc » Sat, Jul 30, 2016, 2:20 PM UTC

And yet a Democratic Party IT administrator was shot and killed in DC two weeks ago. The media is trying to attribute it to a mugging, but no items were found taken off of his body.

http://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/Man-Shot-Killed-in-N...

Re: The Security of Our Election Systems

#46

Post by chvid » Sat, Jul 30, 2016, 2:23 PM UTC

eternalban wrote: post #37

The OP is a shameful blot on Bruce Schneier's record [imo]. For "evidence" we are directed to The New York Times -- a political organization. This sort of evidence certainly suffices for the non-technical set but that HN is accepting this without subjecting the assertion to the rigor that we apply to topics that are not conflated with emotional and psychological triggers is disconcerting. I would like to pose the que…

Of course you cover your trails if you do a hack.

As a minimum you get a server to work from (and have your backdoors point back to) that does not directly link back to you. Typically another hacked machine - not necessarily hacked by you - you can buy them cheaply on dark net market places.

DNC has an obvious interest in spinning this and they seem to have done this very successfully.

What bothers me is that no-one seems to be able to separate politics from technical assessment. Even people with deep technical insights such as mr. Schneier.

I think the chance of Trump's presidency scares a lot of people and that scare clouds judgement.

I don't have any say in the american election but I think that people overestimate what the presidential post means and underestimate the check-and-balances of the rest of democratic system (congress, legal system, existing GOP apparatus, press and so on).

Re: The Security of Our Election Systems

#47

Post by toth » Sat, Jul 30, 2016, 2:23 PM UTC

eternalban wrote: post #40

toth wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, even if it wasn't Russia that hacked the DNC (and now the Clinton campaign) it is still the case that someone did, and that's still reason enough to take the measures Bruce Schneier's advocates.

Please answer the question. Leaks may also be from disgruntled staffers whose idealism shattered on encountering the hard realities of American political system.

The question about about TOR? Sure, they could have used TOR, but that doesn't make them automatically untraceable. I am definitely not an expert on this kind of forensics, but in past cases the "smoking gun" pointed to by experts tends to be some sort of metadata (i.e., text files encoded using cyrillic character set), not an ip.

Also, there's been some claims that NSA and other agencies are running TOR exit nodes. Not sure if there's anything to it, but the point is state level actors have resources that nobody else does.

Besides, I am not sure what is your point. "Russian hackers would have covered their tracks, therefore it must not have been Russian hackers"?

Re: The Security of Our Election Systems

#48

Post by brudgers » Sat, Jul 30, 2016, 2:31 PM UTC

A political party's computers are not part of the "critical election infrastructure" unless the party [or parties] has become the state.

Exceptionalism is political crack. States seek to influence elections in other states. Always have, always will. Having a candidate aligned explicitly aligned with the interests of a foreign state is quite common in Americas. As is having a foreign state explicitly align themselves with a candidate.

Re: The Security of Our Election Systems

#49

Post by toth » Sat, Jul 30, 2016, 2:31 PM UTC

sverige wrote: post #44

toth wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I would agree with you if the DNC leaks were accompanied by equivalent GOP leaks. Personally, I didn't find the DNC leaks that damning to be honest - I don't think the same standards of impartiality that you need for the general election need to be applied to how parties select their candidates. However if other people do find them damning it is information they should have. The rub is that I would be very surp…

It wasn't just the open (amongst themselves) desire to keep Bernie out that was disturbing. The hypocrisy of the racist and homophobic comments from the people who are supposedly their champions is as smelly and toxic as creosote.

If you leak tens of thousands of emails by hundreds of people that the senders expected to remain private you are pretty much guaranteed to find some that you can read as racist, sexist, homophobic, or whatever you want.

In an ideal world we'd have leaks of every group involved in the election: DNC, GOP, Hillary campaign, Bernie campaign, Trump campaign, Trump's tax records, Clinton foundation donor list, etc. However, having a subset, which was selected by some actor with ulterior motives, leaked is IMHO strictly worse than no leaks at all.

Re: The Security of Our Election Systems

#50

Post by krapp » Sat, Jul 30, 2016, 2:47 PM UTC

wwwdonohue wrote: post #33

3pt14159 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Schneier said, "This kind of cyberattack targets the very core of our democratic process. " In this case, though, the attack targeted actors who prevented democratic process. Parties choose their candidates. While it is democratic in the sense that people cast ballots; the process was never guaranteed to be a level playing field. Sanders was an outsider from the democratic party. The party has rules and systems to…

The process was guaranteed to be a level playing field by the DNC charter (Article 5, Section 4): In the conduct and management of the affairs and procedures of the Democratic National Committee, particularly as they apply to the preparation and conduct of the Presidential nomination process, the Chairperson shall exercise impartiality and evenhandedness as between the Presidential candidates and campaigns. The Chair…

Is there any evidence that the bias of the DNC in this particular case is so uncommon as to be egregious? Candidates in both parties have cried foul that the process is 'rigged' (possibly with good reason) but only the Democrats are being accused of corruption.