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> That is an orthogonal issue. Turnout is unrelated to security We are both talking about election security. The reason we are talking past each other is that

by zapita 6y ago

> That is an orthogonal issue. Turnout is unrelated to security We are both talking about election security. The reason we are talking past each other is that you’re describing a neat hypothetical model that fits your belief of what is worth discussing. Whereas I’m describing a nexus of actual threats, carried out by actual attackers, in the context of an overall strategy. You’re welcome to ignore the full context of those threats, but that will result in your model being worthless. > Identifying voters, and ensuring the integrity of the voting mechanism are both important security issues. A meaningless statement without clarifying the context. Let’s continue your list of possible threats to the integrity and fairness of the US electoral system: - Voter ID fraud - Hacking of voting machines - Hacking of the tally system - Hacking of government contractors developing and operating the election infrastructure - Illegal purging of voter rolls - Corruption of election officials - Voter intimidation - gerrymandering - Targeted shuttering of voting stations - Targeted disinformation in crucial counties - Exfiltration of polling data for precise targeting of attacks - Hacking of political parties (headquarters and campaign staff) All these threats are being carried out right now against the US election system, in a coordinated fashion, by the same nexus of attackers. They are interlocking attacks supporting the same goal: minority rule and a transition to an authoritarian regime. This threat is as serious as it gets. Of course there is one exception in the list: voter ID fraud, in person or by mail, is not a threat. No serious election security expert worries about it. That would be like worrying about a Martian invasion in the middle of WW2: there are more pressing and realistic concerns to worry about... There is no serious coordinated effort to commit such fraud, and as far as I know, there never has been. Hopefully this context will help you understand why you are mistaken in framing election security around the non-issue of voter ID fraud.

darawk 6y ago
> The reason we are talking past each other is that you’re describing a neat hypothetical model that fits your belief of what is worth discussing. Whereas I’m describing a nexus of actual threats, carried out by actual attackers, in the context of an overall strategy. You’re welcome to ignore the full context of those threats, but that will result in your model being worthless. We haven't been talking at all. I'm not the grandparent commenter. But more to the point, let's apply your security model to software. How would you feel about it if you reported a 0day to Microsoft, and they said "Listen, there's no evidence of this being exploited in the wild, we're not going to patch it". > All these threats are being carried out right now against the US election system, in a coordinated fashion, by the same nexus of attackers. They are interlocking attacks supporting the same goal: minority rule and a transition to an authoritarian regime. This threat is as serious as it gets. > Of course there is one exception in the list: voter ID fraud, in person or by mail, is not a threat. No serious election security expert worries about it. That would be like worrying about a Martian invasion in the middle of WW2: there are more pressing and realistic concerns to worry about... There is no serious coordinated effort to commit such fraud, and as far as I know, there never has been. You are setting up a straw man argument, and knocking it down. Good for you. Integrity is about more than just protection from coordinated assault. It is also about ensuring the system functions as it is intended to. No, you probably cannot, as an individual actor, systematically throw an election via voter impersonation. But that doesn't mean that the practice cannot alter outcomes. And it certainly doesn't mean that we should accept a low grade, persistent level of fraud that is trivially preventable. One person cheating on the SAT isn't going to bring down our entire education system. But you have to show ID for that, because it matters. I'd say our elections matter quite a bit more than the SAT does.
- zapita 6y ago
  > How would you feel about it if you reported a 0day to Microsoft, and they said "Listen, there's no evidence of this being exploited in the wild, we're not going to patch it" But in-person voter ID fraud is not a 0day. The electoral system is not vulnerable to it. There is nothing to patch. Meanwhile the made-up threat of ID fraud is used as a bad faith argument to justify actual attacks on the election system, taking place right now. The “what about id fraud” narrative is part of the attack. By amplifying it you are indirectly providing cover to the attackers, while offering nothing of value to the conversation about election security.

by zapita 6y ago

darawk 6y ago

> The reason we are talking past each other is that you’re describing a neat hypothetical model that fits your belief of what is worth discussing. Whereas I’m describing a nexus of actual threats, carried out by actual attackers, in the context of an overall strategy. You’re welcome to ignore the full context of those threats, but that will result in your model being worthless. We haven't been talking at all. I'm not the grandparent commenter. But more to the point, let's apply your security model to software. How would you feel about it if you reported a 0day to Microsoft, and they said "Listen, there's no evidence of this being exploited in the wild, we're not going to patch it". > All these threats are being carried out right now against the US election system, in a coordinated fashion, by the same nexus of attackers. They are interlocking attacks supporting the same goal: minority rule and a transition to an authoritarian regime. This threat is as serious as it gets. > Of course there is one exception in the list: voter ID fraud, in person or by mail, is not a threat. No serious election security expert worries about it. That would be like worrying about a Martian invasion in the middle of WW2: there are more pressing and realistic concerns to worry about... There is no serious coordinated effort to commit such fraud, and as far as I know, there never has been. You are setting up a straw man argument, and knocking it down. Good for you. Integrity is about more than just protection from coordinated assault. It is also about ensuring the system functions as it is intended to. No, you probably cannot, as an individual actor, systematically throw an election via voter impersonation. But that doesn't mean that the practice cannot alter outcomes. And it certainly doesn't mean that we should accept a low grade, persistent level of fraud that is trivially preventable. One person cheating on the SAT isn't going to bring down our entire education system. But you have to show ID for that, because it matters. I'd say our elections matter quite a bit more than the SAT does.

zapita 6y ago
> How would you feel about it if you reported a 0day to Microsoft, and they said "Listen, there's no evidence of this being exploited in the wild, we're not going to patch it" But in-person voter ID fraud is not a 0day. The electoral system is not vulnerable to it. There is nothing to patch. Meanwhile the made-up threat of ID fraud is used as a bad faith argument to justify actual attacks on the election system, taking place right now. The “what about id fraud” narrative is part of the attack. By amplifying it you are indirectly providing cover to the attackers, while offering nothing of value to the conversation about election security.