The Security of Our Election Systems • Hacker News Board

Re: The Security of Our Election Systems

#61

Post by nickpsecurity » Sat, Jul 30, 2016, 4:05 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…

"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."

Actually, the moral argument would be in favor of both DNC and RNC leaks. Selectively leaking a ton of dirt on one dirty party but not the other is not aiding democracy. Instead, it gives one the moral, high ground immediately. That one might be accused of facilitating the leak but many parties available to scapegoat in day & age where hacks and leaks happen all the time. So, this could be a setback for U.S. "democracy."

Re: The Security of Our Election Systems

#62

Post by nickpsecurity » Sat, Jul 30, 2016, 4:09 PM UTC

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #7

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…

Yeah. This is another moral question along the Snowden/Manning lines. Here's the thing: breaking into somebody's house is illegal. If you do it, you're a criminal and should face some kind of legal proceeding. If you break into their house and leave some personal items along the curb, like nude photographs? I'm probably going to gawk at them as I drive by. I don't like the fact that I do it, but I am human. You are s…

"If you break into their house and leave some personal items along the curb, like nude photographs? I'm probably going to gawk at them as I drive by. I don't like the fact that I do it, but I am human. You are still a criminal, and as long as I don't start sharing your personal items, I'm not. I'm just a schmuck."

What you've just unknowingly (I hope) done is encouraged continuously violating people's privacy, property, and physical health using powers of state just in case something is found. Given most are innocent enough, that means innocent people will be hurt constantly to find some extra guilty ones. That's ridiculous from a moral perspective.

It also assumes the cops are all good: an assumption that's countered by existence of Bill of Rights itself. Not to mention steady stream of corruption cases, misrepresented evidence, lying to get fake confessions, and so on. Definitely not the kind of people that need any "right to ignore rights" if that should ever exist. Their incentive is to lock people up, not keep them free. So, the system should give us protection against that to force them to do it only when they have strong justification.

Re: The Security of Our Election Systems

#63

Post by specialist » Sat, Jul 30, 2016, 4:14 PM UTC

chvid wrote: post #46

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…

"What bothers me is that no-one seems to be able to separate politics from technical assessment."

What bothers me is that anyone thinks their emails are private.

Re: The Security of Our Election Systems

#64

Post by lawpoop » Sat, Jul 30, 2016, 4:19 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…

> 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 do - what's happening here?!).

During the USSR times, the project of Russia as a communist country was to be egalitarian and inclusive. It was a terrible place to live, but in the most abstract sense, lefties could identify with that goal, while righties saw it as fundamentally going against the social order. Thus the threat of "Russians" became a gloss for helping the poor, taxing the wealthy, minority rights, women's rights, etc.

Now that Russia is an oligarchy, the basic social structure appeals to righties, and has become a boogeyman to lefties. "Russians" are now a gloss for gangster/crony capitalism, oligarchs, etc.

Re: The Security of Our Election Systems

#65

Post by specialist » Sat, Jul 30, 2016, 4:19 PM UTC

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #2

Timely, well-reasoned, and excellent article by Schneier. But there's a problem. Elections are managed by state governments by design. This is to prevent centralized political corruption . Having the feds "take the lead" is a little too nebulous to be practical. What could be done is a certification system for electronic voting that requires a paper audit trail and individualized printed receipts for each voter. (Whi…

VVPATs just demonstrate that the printer is working. Nothing more. Receipts remove voter privacy.

The Australian Ballot, private voting / public counting, remains the gold standard for election integrity.

(Forgive the repetition.)

Re: The Security of Our Election Systems

#66

Post by elgabogringo » Sat, Jul 30, 2016, 4:30 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…

Funny that the left all of a sudden cares about security in our elections.

Try to implement the most basic security that is common even in poor foreign countries, such as an ID requirement and the left is up in arms.

The truth is, the left doesn't care about election security, it just cares about the left.

Re: The Security of Our Election Systems

#67

Post by nickpsecurity » Sat, Jul 30, 2016, 4:32 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…

"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."

I originally skipped that blog entry but all these anti-Schneier comments make it worth reading. Reading it shows the opposite of the claims I'm seeing on HN. It's in the style of his other reporting on stuff, like Sony situation, where he lists the official position on it in non-committal way (note the "if"), optionally lists alternative theories (apparently has none or doesn't care), focuses on meat of situation (election insecurity), optionally notes prior warnings/work (his and others), and then delivers recommendations to reduce or eliminate the risk. Common pattern on his blog very evident from a guy reading it for about eight years.

Far as personal bias, I've regularly counterpointed him on his own blow & even wrote a character assessment of him based on reading many claims:

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/10/can_i_be_trus...

Schneier's moderation style is so permissive we get the thoughtful and trolling alike. Yet, far as political or technical points, he doesn't expect lip service from anybody. Let's the "yay," "nay," and "screw you all" posts all stand. So, I speak for myself noting he's not pushing New York Times, the main theory, anything but the topic of elections security & recommendations to get it on track. Those recommendations also reflect both his own research and tons of discussion on those topics on his blog that came to same conclusions. They're the blog's consensus.

Re: The Security of Our Election Systems

#68

Post by elgabogringo » Sat, Jul 30, 2016, 4:36 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…

If we care about foreign influence, shouldn't we be concerned about all the foreign money the Clinton's have taken?

Millions to their foundation (just while she was SoS):

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/foreign-governments-...

Millions in speaking fees outside the US (just while she was Sos): http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/bill-doubled-speaking-fees...

And it's doubly-ironic how much the left suddenly cares about Email security after getting let off by FBI.

Re: The Security of Our Election Systems

#69

Post by nickpsecurity » Sat, Jul 30, 2016, 4:42 PM UTC

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #51

jacquesm wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it would be akin to anonymous tips leading to miraculous discoveries. After all, if the penalty would be to only be slapped on the wrist for the 'lesser' crime then that would up-end the whole system in place for evidence gathering, which is supposed to be lawful at all times. Parallel construction is sneaky in that it allows otherwise in-admissible evidence into a case or allows one to jump-start a case that wou…

Don't we already allow anonymous tips? Surely you're not saying we should disallow anonymous tips about crime, right? I apologize. You must be making some point that I'm missing. If somebody breaks into your house, they are guilty of a crime. Period. I didn't say anything about "slaps on the wrist" For all I care, you can make discovering a crime while breaking into the house the same as being complicit in the crime.…

"Don't we already allow anonymous tips? "

We allow anonymous tips that can get police's attention on something. Our rights then apply to restrict their behavior to what's sensible. Parallel construction is them violating our rights, producing (forging?) evidence, lying about the methods that produced it, then faking/finding a new route to convict us, and then we're convicted on weight of that and/or secret evidence. This poses extra risk due to (a) damage from parallel construction activities themselves, (b) ability to target dissenting/unpopular groups as FBI has long history of doing with permissive powers, and (c) inability to challenge the quality or effectiveness of their selection & evidence gathering process vs more open processes.

" The only thing I am addressing is how society should treat the discovery of random bits of information put into the public domain by thieves."

What's you've done is force the situation to be an extremely narrow case that doesn't represent how parallel construction is used at all. It's normally LEO's focusing on specific groups with surveillance, subversion, and informants. What they focus on vs what harms society most has a disconnect that reveals more political than protective reasons. One of reasons we have accountability measures in the first place. Analysis stemming from thieves breaking into a house & dumping evidence is a very, uncommon case.

Let's look at it anyway. Regular process usually involves searches that you would know about so you can make sure nobody plants evidence. Thief breaks into your house, leaves child porn there, delivers anonymous tip to authorities that you possess child porn, they search you, they find it, and you're convicted. Still trust public safety via thieves method?

Alternatively, a politician wants to be insanely powerful. All he has is parallel construction, police authority, and some surveillance tech. Starts using it selectively on key members of Congress, judges, media people, and so on. Finds dirt on them, but doesn't act on it: extorts them for appropriations, expanded legal powers, hushing on bad stories, and so on. Might be able to pull this stuff off for a long time with untold damage. Wait, why speculate: I'm talking about how J Edgar Hoover amassed power for him and his FBI. Process could be repeating with NSA's surveillance power & Congress constantly ignoring their corruption but we won't know because all of that is secret. ;)

Shifting power to executive branch for secret accusations against people with less and less protections only results in predatory behavior. Both U.S. and foreign history are pretty clear that this is what usually happens. So, it shouldn't be allowed. Our prior system worked well enough. Too well given number of wrongful convictions and false confessions. Reforming it is a better idea.

Re: The Security of Our Election Systems

#70

Post by buddapalm » Sat, Jul 30, 2016, 4:47 PM UTC

I'm surprised most all comments latch onto the political nature of the DNC hack vs. the point Bruce is making: the act demonstrates overt attempts of a foreign government to mess with our election system, and the ___voting portion of the system ___ is what remains vulnerable despite many years of warnings from industry experts. We ignore this at our peril.