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How to Hack an Election

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Re: How to Hack an Election

#91

Post by burkaman »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #46
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. r…

We do have ways to detect it, nobody just assumes. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/07/09/7-pap...

Much of the country does require ID: https://ballotpedia.org/Voter_identification_laws_by_state

And requiring ID is not a reasonable step unless you provide a free and easy way to get an ID.

Re: How to Hack an Election

#92

Post by yummyfajitas »

burkaman wrote: post #91
yummyfajitas wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. r…

We do have ways to detect it, nobody just assumes. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/07/09/7-pap... Much of the country does require ID: https://ballotpedia.org/Voter_identification_laws_by_state And requiring ID is not a reasonable step unless you provide a free and easy way to get an ID.

The first two links cited by the washington post suggest there is little evidence of fraud. That totally misses the point of hackuser's critique: why do we pretend it's not happening until there's a smoking gun?...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.

To refute this claim, you need to show that fraud would be easily detected if present. In stats terms, show P(evidence|fraud) is large.

I suppose that requiring ID before purchasing a firearm, alcohol or opening a bank account is also unreasonable if said ID is not free and easy?

Re: How to Hack an Election

#93

Post by burkaman »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #92
burkaman wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We do have ways to detect it, nobody just assumes. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/07/09/7-pap... Much of the country does require ID: https://ballotpedia.org/Voter_identification_laws_by_state And requiring ID is not a reasonable step unless you provide a free and easy way to get an ID.

The first two links cited by the washington post suggest there is little evidence of fraud. That totally misses the point of hackuser's critique: why do we pretend it's not happening until there's a smoking gun?...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. To refute this claim, you need to show that fraud would be…

Well, there are more than two links in the article. Many of them lay out methods that would detect fraud if it were happening. Nobody is "pretending", we have investigated and concluded that it is not happening. For example: http://apr.sagepub.com/content/42/2/311

"Although voter ID laws have become a hot topic of political debate, existing scholarship has failed to produce conclusive evidence concerning the existence or frequency of electoral fraud, especially the type of fraud that would be prevented by photo identification laws and signature verification protocols for voting by mail. We propose a new method of measuring election fraud, especially identity fraud, that is superior to previous measurement efforts because it measures actual instances of fraud rather than waiting for conclusive proof of fraud produced in a criminal prosecution. We test our method in multiple jurisdictions, including two known cases of electoral fraud, and we find no additional cases of fraud. We speculate that public access to voting and registration records play an important role in preventing this type of election fraud, suggesting that these practices are perhaps more important than voter ID laws in preventing election fraud."

Requiring an ID for alcohol is not unreasonable because there is no constitutional right to be able to purchase it. I imagine there are some gun control opponents who argue that requiring an ID to buy a gun is unconstitutional, but there is ample evidence that not requiring an ID causes immense societal problems, and infringes on other people's constitutional rights. This is not true of voting, as you can see in that article.

Re: How to Hack an Election

#94

Post by shanacarp »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #50
simplemath wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

do you believe the state should exist - if so, how does it function? what are the duties of the state? how do people join the state? are there people who are "naturally part of the state" if so - why? How does this state thing work?

If you don't believe in a state. Do you believe in contact? if so, why? if they get broken, how do they get enforced, or he penalties within them enforced? Who is or is not involved

Do you believe in the concept of laws and law making? Who is involved in laws and law-making, especially if there is no state in your world view, but laws somehow do still exist.

Your claim, and other claims you've made in the past, especially around "violence via taxes" and "violence because immigration" makes it sound like you don't think a state should exist, and all the things that come with a stable state, such as the ability to make contracts and get them enforced, have laws and create new ones. It would make you sound less cynical and more serious if you explained what you were really arguing about, what you actually did believe in, what you believe was the intelligent answer, rather than just arguing against people. Otherwise, how are you much better than the Sophists that Socrates railed against?

Re: How to Hack an Election

#95

Post by guessbest »

huherto wrote: post #73
guessbest wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is just plausible dependability for the candidate. This is traditionally how organized crime works.

I believe it is called "plausible deniability". ;)

Yay! I'm not the only one old enough to have seen that movie on HN.

Re: How to Hack an Election

#96

Post by dutchjourno »

Hi guys, I'm a journalist from the Netherlands and I'm working on this story. Basically in a way that you comment on it, asking myself the question what this story means for more adult democracies. So my question for you is: do you think it's likely that political campaigns have hackers on a payroll to spy on opponents agenda's and manipulate social media? I'd like to hear from you. You can email me as well on anne.sachtleven@volkskrant.nl
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