5 ms·

Prediction: A massive, sustained attack will occur on key US Internet infra on election night in an attempt to debase the US election results.

mtgx 10y ago
It's okay. James Comey, the FBI chief, said the US electoral system is such a mess, it would be too hard for an attacker to hack it or damage its integrity in any way. It's all good. https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20160912/16553435504/fbi-director-our-electronic-voting-system-is-such-complete-mess-it-would-be-difficult-to-hack.shtml https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20160912/16553435504/fbi-d... Of course, he said nothing about internal rigging: https://twitter.com/TweetBrettMac/status/789372518436052992 https://twitter.com/TweetBrettMac/status/789372518436052992
- mplewis 10y ago
  Please keep the unfounded conspiracy theories off Hacker News. Thank you.
- seaghost 10y ago
  You have complex situation and you can't understand it, conspiracy theory offers simple answer.
MaxfordAndSons 10y ago
This is terrifying. Thankfully I don't think much actual voting infra is network reliant. But it could probably delay the results from being finalized for days, and allow Trump to spew further allegations of rigging. Though if they targeted electric grid, water, and public transport, starting early in the day and choosing the regions by their populations political leaning, it could easily have an effect on the result itself.
- nickbauman 10y ago
  Hahahaha. For sure it's not supposed to be network reliant. But from my experience working on critical infra, even things like power grids and rail systems, this is almost never the case.
- toomuchtodo 10y ago
  You don't need to target voting infrastructure. You target media infrastructure (DNS, streaming, web media) in order to either reduce or shift voter turnout. A candidate ahead in a battleground state? You stomp on media reporting to ensure their opponent's voters aren't dissuaded from heading to the polls. Control the message, and through that the actual votes cast.
  - myfinalaccount 10y ago
    I dont even think you need to necessarily shift voter turn out. I think you need to sow enough confusion in order to cast the results into doubt.
    - foxfaction 10y ago
      Yeah it just needs to be "The internet was broken so your votes were lost" and then some made up post-hoc explanations that 90% of people don't understand so they can't dispute
  - danielweber 10y ago
    Given various fuckups over the years, media won't call a state until the polls are completely closed. Silencing them doesn't change this strategy.
    - toomuchtodo 10y ago
      This is not congruent with their behavior during the primaries.
- dellsystem 10y ago
  That is a terrifying thought. Sounds like the plot of a potential Neal Stephenson novel.
- boie0025 10y ago
  I think you're right, not much of the voting infra is network reliant, but the more I think about it the more it seems that the "fear" factor of such outages could influence the election. Or, perhaps a curated working set of information sources, thanks to selective DDoS. Regardless, terrifying to be sure.
- azernik 10y ago
  I'm working at the polls in CA, and can verify this; all critical information is moved by sneakernet with a two-person rule on its handling. Of course, I have no information on the security model of the pre-election preparations and post-election tabulation, but luckily results for each polling place are also posted for the public to inspect - media outlets and campaigns can verify the tabulation themselves with a slight delay.
heartbreak 10y ago
Assuming you're referring specifically to targeting media companies reporting on the results and not the electric grid like someone else mentioned, wouldn't they have to DDoS Google itself for that to work? I don't really see a DDoS of Google being effective.
- boredprogrammer 10y ago
  .
  - tatterdemalion 10y ago
    This comment says literally nothing.
rybosome 10y ago
That was exactly my thought. This may be unrelated, or it may be a test run. But a large scale attack on Election Day that crippled communications would stir up unrest for a variety of reasons. Although I think that's highly unlikely to change the outcome, unrest after such a contentious election is not good.
- Shank 10y ago
  If this is a test run, this is an amazing early warning for Twitter and the like to immediately start working on contingency plans for election day.
  - rybosome 10y ago
    What can they do? It's not Twitter themselves being DDOS'd, it's a DNS provider. This propagates up the chain to impact both a Tier 1 network and cloud providers, which hits tons of stuff on top of that.
    - Shank 10y ago
      Have a failover DNS provider. Amazon uses Dyn, but also has UltraDNS as a backup, and it's obviously still up. Twitter vs Amazon: host -t ns twitter.com: ns3.p34.dynect.net, ns4.p34.dynect.net, ns1.p34.dynect.net, ns2.p34.dynect.net. host -t ns amazon.com: ns3.p31.dynect.net, ns4.p31.dynect.net, ns2.p31.dynect.net, pdns6.ultradns.co.uk, pdns1.ultradns.net, ns1.p31.dynect.net.
      - rtrox 10y ago
        Thank you so much for mentioning this. This was my first thought when I heard about all the major enterprise sites affected by the DDoS: "How do all these major players have singly-homed DNS"?
        pyvpx 10y ago
        if you utilize geoip routing features of one provider, it can be difficult to impossible to then ensure repeatable/deterministic behavior on a second provider.
codedokode 10y ago
Is it really important who wins it there are only two candidates that share common view on many problems? And you don't need Internet to count votes anyway.
pure_ambition 10y ago
Probably not a great idea. If the internet went down at my work, none of us would be able to do anything, so we'd probably all head out to the polls just because we have nothing better to do. Unintentionally increased turnout.

mtgx 10y ago

It's okay. James Comey, the FBI chief, said the US electoral system is such a mess, it would be too hard for an attacker to hack it or damage its integrity in any way. It's all good. https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20160912/16553435504/fbi-director-our-electronic-voting-system-is-such-complete-mess-it-would-be-difficult-to-hack.shtml https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20160912/16553435504/fbi-d... Of course, he said nothing about internal rigging: https://twitter.com/TweetBrettMac/status/789372518436052992 https://twitter.com/TweetBrettMac/status/789372518436052992

mplewis 10y ago
Please keep the unfounded conspiracy theories off Hacker News. Thank you.
seaghost 10y ago
You have complex situation and you can't understand it, conspiracy theory offers simple answer.

MaxfordAndSons 10y ago

This is terrifying. Thankfully I don't think much actual voting infra is network reliant. But it could probably delay the results from being finalized for days, and allow Trump to spew further allegations of rigging. Though if they targeted electric grid, water, and public transport, starting early in the day and choosing the regions by their populations political leaning, it could easily have an effect on the result itself.

nickbauman 10y ago
Hahahaha. For sure it's not supposed to be network reliant. But from my experience working on critical infra, even things like power grids and rail systems, this is almost never the case.
toomuchtodo 10y ago
You don't need to target voting infrastructure. You target media infrastructure (DNS, streaming, web media) in order to either reduce or shift voter turnout. A candidate ahead in a battleground state? You stomp on media reporting to ensure their opponent's voters aren't dissuaded from heading to the polls. Control the message, and through that the actual votes cast.
- myfinalaccount 10y ago
  I dont even think you need to necessarily shift voter turn out. I think you need to sow enough confusion in order to cast the results into doubt.
  - foxfaction 10y ago
    Yeah it just needs to be "The internet was broken so your votes were lost" and then some made up post-hoc explanations that 90% of people don't understand so they can't dispute
- danielweber 10y ago
  Given various fuckups over the years, media won't call a state until the polls are completely closed. Silencing them doesn't change this strategy.
  - toomuchtodo 10y ago
    This is not congruent with their behavior during the primaries.
dellsystem 10y ago
That is a terrifying thought. Sounds like the plot of a potential Neal Stephenson novel.
boie0025 10y ago
I think you're right, not much of the voting infra is network reliant, but the more I think about it the more it seems that the "fear" factor of such outages could influence the election. Or, perhaps a curated working set of information sources, thanks to selective DDoS. Regardless, terrifying to be sure.
azernik 10y ago
I'm working at the polls in CA, and can verify this; all critical information is moved by sneakernet with a two-person rule on its handling. Of course, I have no information on the security model of the pre-election preparations and post-election tabulation, but luckily results for each polling place are also posted for the public to inspect - media outlets and campaigns can verify the tabulation themselves with a slight delay.

heartbreak 10y ago

Assuming you're referring specifically to targeting media companies reporting on the results and not the electric grid like someone else mentioned, wouldn't they have to DDoS Google itself for that to work? I don't really see a DDoS of Google being effective.

boredprogrammer 10y ago
.
- tatterdemalion 10y ago
  This comment says literally nothing.

rybosome 10y ago

That was exactly my thought. This may be unrelated, or it may be a test run. But a large scale attack on Election Day that crippled communications would stir up unrest for a variety of reasons. Although I think that's highly unlikely to change the outcome, unrest after such a contentious election is not good.

Shank 10y ago
If this is a test run, this is an amazing early warning for Twitter and the like to immediately start working on contingency plans for election day.
- rybosome 10y ago
  What can they do? It's not Twitter themselves being DDOS'd, it's a DNS provider. This propagates up the chain to impact both a Tier 1 network and cloud providers, which hits tons of stuff on top of that.
  - Shank 10y ago
    Have a failover DNS provider. Amazon uses Dyn, but also has UltraDNS as a backup, and it's obviously still up. Twitter vs Amazon: host -t ns twitter.com: ns3.p34.dynect.net, ns4.p34.dynect.net, ns1.p34.dynect.net, ns2.p34.dynect.net. host -t ns amazon.com: ns3.p31.dynect.net, ns4.p31.dynect.net, ns2.p31.dynect.net, pdns6.ultradns.co.uk, pdns1.ultradns.net, ns1.p31.dynect.net.
    - rtrox 10y ago
      Thank you so much for mentioning this. This was my first thought when I heard about all the major enterprise sites affected by the DDoS: "How do all these major players have singly-homed DNS"?
      - pyvpx 10y ago
        if you utilize geoip routing features of one provider, it can be difficult to impossible to then ensure repeatable/deterministic behavior on a second provider.

codedokode 10y ago

Is it really important who wins it there are only two candidates that share common view on many problems? And you don't need Internet to count votes anyway.

pure_ambition 10y ago

Probably not a great idea. If the internet went down at my work, none of us would be able to do anything, so we'd probably all head out to the polls just because we have nothing better to do. Unintentionally increased turnout.