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Edward Snowden Demonstrates How Easy It Is to Hack a Voting Machine

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Re: Edward Snowden Demonstrates How Easy It Is to Hack a Voting Machine

#81

Post by patall »

Zombieball wrote: post #33
hacker_9 wrote: post #3

Why do Americans use voting machines exactly? I mean, it just prints out their choice at the end right? What benefit do they actually gain from having pressed buttons instead of using a pen? It just seems to fuel the hacking conspiracy every time a president is elected. In the UK we turn up, go into the booth with the paper slip, and tick our choice with a pen. Then we fold it and post it into a container which later…

A former co-worker of mine wrote software for voting machines in Brazil. He described to me a few reasons why electronic voting machines are important. To be honest I forget the majority, but one story that stuck with me: One common scheme electronic voting machines help prevent is forced votes. A bad guy gets their hand on a single empty ballot and writes the name of the candidate he wants to win on it. He then come…

I am not sure how you vote but in my country, you could not pre-fill the ballot because you only get it at the voting booth. You have a voting registration that you bring to the booth, there you exchange it for the ballot which you fill out in a closed cabine and the pass right into an urn. (Which is basically like a voting machine, you only fill out your vote at the place you are voting). Honestly, not a very good reason for voting machines, only maybe against mail voting.

Re: Edward Snowden Demonstrates How Easy It Is to Hack a Voting Machine

#82

Post by NumberCruncher »

samastur wrote: post #52
Zombieball wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A former co-worker of mine wrote software for voting machines in Brazil. He described to me a few reasons why electronic voting machines are important. To be honest I forget the majority, but one story that stuck with me: One common scheme electronic voting machines help prevent is forced votes. A bad guy gets their hand on a single empty ballot and writes the name of the candidate he wants to win on it. He then come…

Color me unsurprised that a person who wrote software for voting machines also finds them useful. The problem I have with this particular scenario is that it imagines a reality in which someone can afford to collect votes one by one with impunity but can't force these same bunch of people (and one or two simply aren't enough to matter) at the voting station itself.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_FNsuyX8lNo

Re: Edward Snowden Demonstrates How Easy It Is to Hack a Voting Machine

#83

Post by dghf »

rhino369 wrote: post #15
hacker_9 wrote: post #3

Why do Americans use voting machines exactly? I mean, it just prints out their choice at the end right? What benefit do they actually gain from having pressed buttons instead of using a pen? It just seems to fuel the hacking conspiracy every time a president is elected. In the UK we turn up, go into the booth with the paper slip, and tick our choice with a pen. Then we fold it and post it into a container which later…

You are still using a voting machine, but you've just introduced a shitty paper input that needs to be scanned into the machine. The counting machine is a voting machine. It can be hacked. The only benefit is that you have a paper record that can be corroborated if there is evidence of hacking later. But we could do a printout paper record on voting machines too. You'd be surprised how many of those paper ballots don…

> You'd be surprised how many of those paper ballots don't get recognized when they are counted. Because the checkmarks don't fill up the box enough or because of optical/scantron error.

In the UK's 2014 elections for the European Parliament, a Scottish voter wrote against the four parties/candidates listed: "wank"; "wank"; "good guy"; "wank".

The vote was deemed valid as the voter had expressed a clear preference.

(Source: https://twitter.com/JamieRoss7/status/473068708441894912/pho...)

Re: Edward Snowden Demonstrates How Easy It Is to Hack a Voting Machine

#84

Post by dmfdmf »

rpearl wrote: post #59
ThomPete wrote: post #35

This is missing the point though. The american voting system is actually very secure. It's highly decentralized, machines are not connected to the internet, implemented in many different ways, which means that they would have to do many attacks many different places without being discovered to even have an effect. 75% of them have paper trails which would require an even bigger achievement to change enough off as it'…

The election was decided in its totality by 107k votes in WI, MI, and PA (the sum total margin of victory in those three states). You don't have to manipulate many votes to have an election-deciding effect.

I forget the statistical term but after the fact, you can't go back and say "look at this, only 107K votes determined the outcome" because you can always find such explanations post hoc. I tried to search but couldn't find the discussion but one example is how couples use this type of fallacy to "prove" their love was fated. Typically on the day the fated couple met there were a number of unusual events or circumstances (a missed bus, sick grandma, a power outage, etc.) that played a key role in their meeting and the probability of all these coincidences occurring together must mean they were fated to meet.

Moreover, you have to ask; How could the Simon Bar Sinister have known prior to the election that these three states (and probably one or two counties in each state) would be the decisive counties to hack to manipulate votes and win the election? He can't.

Re: Edward Snowden Demonstrates How Easy It Is to Hack a Voting Machine

#85

Post by BoorishBears »

nindalf wrote: post #44
strathmeyer wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In America we prefer the Clinton "walking around money" type of vote buying?

> In America we prefer the Clinton "walking around money" type of vote buying? Is it just me or does this sentence not make sense?

It kind of makes sense to me, I think the poster is trying to say Clinton buys votes but in a way we prefer/tolerate.

That way being "walking around money" in the sense of mingling with wealthy people at expensive events funded by other wealthy people in an attempt gain favor (and votes) from the people who can afford those events.

I think it's being purposely dramatic, but the English (kind of) adds up.

Re: Edward Snowden Demonstrates How Easy It Is to Hack a Voting Machine

#86

Post by lisivka »

NumberCruncher wrote: post #75
sandworm101 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> This system just begs for being manipulated. Paper ballots are not immune from such concerns. The concept of votes being added or removed from a count isn't a new phenomena. So the standard should be whether or not the electronic means are better, rather than them being a perfect counting method.

Using paper ballots you can at least re-count the votes and validate the results of the election. With the electronic system like this you can not validate the results. Does it use an open source firmware? How can you make sure that there is no IF vote = Clinton AND random line in the code?

Yep, you can recount fake paper votes, but how you will distinguish fake votes from real ones? Remember, votes are anonymous, so you cannot track vote back to live being to ask. And even if you will be able to do so, live being can lie you about his vote, to protect himself, or just to not look dumb in eyes of others.

Re: Edward Snowden Demonstrates How Easy It Is to Hack a Voting Machine

#88

Post by miguelrochefort »

krapp wrote: post #63
miguelrochefort wrote: post #21

Wouldn't a voting system that let people confirm that their vote is taken into account be trivial to implement? I can't believe we still rely on trust for this kind of thing.

> Wouldn't a voting system that let people confirm that their vote is taken into account be trivial to implement? How do you verify that your vote is actually "taken into account?" You may be shown that your vote matches what you intended, but then it can be manipulated or discarded somewhere else in the process, beyond your ability to verify. It's like reading open source code without validating the operating system…

Let's start with a simple example. A spreadsheet with your name and your vote. You can be sure that your vote is taken into account by the SUM function.

Re: Edward Snowden Demonstrates How Easy It Is to Hack a Voting Machine

#89

Post by rikkus »

Procrastes wrote: post #6
hacker_9 wrote: post #3

Why do Americans use voting machines exactly? I mean, it just prints out their choice at the end right? What benefit do they actually gain from having pressed buttons instead of using a pen? It just seems to fuel the hacking conspiracy every time a president is elected. In the UK we turn up, go into the booth with the paper slip, and tick our choice with a pen. Then we fold it and post it into a container which later…

Hi Hacker_9. In Texas, where I vote, the machines don't even print paper. We just have to trust that the machine correctly recorded our vote. The reasons for the machines are, 1. cost cutting over manual counts, 2. profiteering by well connected companies, 3. And potentially making sure only the "right" votes count, although that part isn't proven. In California we were able to vote at home with a mail-in, paper ball…

In the U.K. the ballot staff are volunteers and cheap/free venues are used (schools, church halls, etc.)

Re: Edward Snowden Demonstrates How Easy It Is to Hack a Voting Machine

#90

Post by matwood »

nindalf wrote: post #44
strathmeyer wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In America we prefer the Clinton "walking around money" type of vote buying?

> In America we prefer the Clinton "walking around money" type of vote buying? Is it just me or does this sentence not make sense?

It is legal and common in the US [1]. It's typically done by the democrats because in general more people voting is good for democrats and bad for republicans.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Street_money

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