4 ms·

Software Glitch or Russian Hackers? Election Problems Draw Little Scrutiny

6 points by tysone 9y ago

api 9y ago
Forget about Russia. Maybe, maybe not. The real story here is how absurdly insecure electronic voting systems are. It's a double scandal because many of the companies that built them such as Diebold have extensive experience building secure financial kiosks like ATMs. It's not like they don't know how to build a secure device or a secure data channel. If the Russians hacked our election it's because we built an election system with shit security.
- existencebox 9y ago
  While I certainly agree with your thrust that our voting systems are woefully insecure; laughably so given the other infra produced, this article and your comment hit on something I don't hear discussed much. Namely that "russian hacking" as it's portrayed often seems either off the mark or boogeyman-ish. Is not a massive social engineering campaign far more feasible and viable given less sensitive information than going through the time and risk to actually break the voting systems themselves? To me Occams razor suggests we have two problems at play but they're often smushed into one problem which prevents the focus on the diagnosis which you'd suggest. Not a _single_ mention of Diebold in the entire article, but heavy focus on foreign interference, where to my eyes the possibility of more subtle and effective interference often goes unmentioned. It stood out to me when discussing the DNC hacks, the writers would often end with "there was no disruption or modified content so clearly their hack failed or was just a test run"; but to my eyes the data itself is the value target. This assumption that hacks must be disruptive feels like a red herring that distracts from the underlying issues: A lack of incentive for security in our infrastructure, and the natural malleability of societal opinion, both topics often missing from discussion as you point out the former half of.

4 ms·

Software Glitch or Russian Hackers? Election Problems Draw Little Scrutiny

6 points by tysone 9y ago

api 9y ago
Forget about Russia. Maybe, maybe not. The real story here is how absurdly insecure electronic voting systems are. It's a double scandal because many of the companies that built them such as Diebold have extensive experience building secure financial kiosks like ATMs. It's not like they don't know how to build a secure device or a secure data channel. If the Russians hacked our election it's because we built an election system with shit security.
- existencebox 9y ago
  While I certainly agree with your thrust that our voting systems are woefully insecure; laughably so given the other infra produced, this article and your comment hit on something I don't hear discussed much. Namely that "russian hacking" as it's portrayed often seems either off the mark or boogeyman-ish. Is not a massive social engineering campaign far more feasible and viable given less sensitive information than going through the time and risk to actually break the voting systems themselves? To me Occams razor suggests we have two problems at play but they're often smushed into one problem which prevents the focus on the diagnosis which you'd suggest. Not a _single_ mention of Diebold in the entire article, but heavy focus on foreign interference, where to my eyes the possibility of more subtle and effective interference often goes unmentioned. It stood out to me when discussing the DNC hacks, the writers would often end with "there was no disruption or modified content so clearly their hack failed or was just a test run"; but to my eyes the data itself is the value target. This assumption that hacks must be disruptive feels like a red herring that distracts from the underlying issues: A lack of incentive for security in our infrastructure, and the natural malleability of societal opinion, both topics often missing from discussion as you point out the former half of.