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The article states that at one point in time, at a voluntary hearing in Michigan, Dominion CEO said "It is technologically impossible to see votes being counted

The article states that at one point in time, at a voluntary hearing in Michigan, Dominion CEO said "It is technologically impossible to see votes being counted in real-time or to flip them". I think that everybody here is fairly technically inclined so what are your guys thoughts on this? My personal opinion is that using the term "technologically impossible" in this instance was not a good idea. If @antirez is reading this, would love if you could provide any useful insights. FYI, I ask becuase of your background in research and development of "TCP Idle Scan" back in '98.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
yielding 6y ago
The claim that the CEO is disputing is that the Dominion machines are operated from a central location which can monitor and control the outcome of any action taken with one of their machines. The "technology" is specifically referring to the Dominion system, not "technology" in general. If the Dominion system does not include remote access, if it doesn't include remote monitoring and if it doesn't include remote vote management then "technologically impossible" is a fair statement. They are not arguing that it is impossible for such a system to ever be built, they're arguing that their system is not built that way. Voting machines are audited and have a chain of custody, it would be very difficult to argue that "someone could hack all the machines and install this capability" fits within the realm of possibility.
throwawaygh 6y ago
> It is technologically impossible to see votes being counted in real-time or to flip them Dominion machines aren't on the internet. Dominion doesn't have centralized access to all of their machines. Could they eg send out an army of technicians to every voting location and use some insane side-channel attack to physically read and flip bits from across the street? Sure. But by that logic it's also "not impossible" for you or I to launch the US nuclear arsenal. I think saying that "it is technologically possible to see votes being counted in real-time or to flip them" is "technically correct" but obviously not actually correct in any reasonable sense.
- rglover 6y ago
  Eric Coomer (on many of Dominion's patents) mentions that there's a cellular modem in the machines: https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=2529&v=YLIS68YfMYU&feature=youtu.be https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=2529&v=YLIS68YfMYU&feature=y... So it's not just a LAN connection that would be isolated to the network in the voting place (what you'd expect). They also reported sending out updates to the machines in some precincts after certification, just before the election: https://www.politico.com/news/2020/11/04/georgia-election-machine-glitch-434065 https://www.politico.com/news/2020/11/04/georgia-election-ma... (not sure of the current veracity of this but bookmarked it as it was interesting).
rglover 6y ago
This isn't for a Dominion machine but it's for an old Sequoia machine (which I believe that company was acquired by Dominion): https://file.wikileaks.org/file/advantage-insecurities-2008.pdf https://file.wikileaks.org/file/advantage-insecurities-2008..... It's certainly technically possible (which of course it is, if you control the software and access to the machine, you can do what you want).
pedrocr 6y ago
Calling it impossible to flip votes is quite silly. You can just pre-program the machine to pick a candidate randomly every few votes and you skew the election. Do it after the first few votes to give you a distribution so as to only do it between the major candidates and not inflate any marginal runners. Do it only on machines in locations that vote against your preferred candidate and you skew to your candidate. If there are no paper receipts you just get away with it. If there are you can still attack democracy itself by sowing a bunch of doubt in the election. Electronic voting is a really poor idea. There's no credible evidence the US election was stolen but the way it's ran is appalling and makes this kind of mistrust easy, which is a very important failure mode as was evident this time around. We had an election here yesterday. Each voter just filled in a pre-printed paper and dropped it into a box. COVID restrictions meant we had up to 10 minute queues depending on time of day, normally it's much faster. Each polling table is self-contained and had less than 1000 votes to count at the end of the day. They're just setup in school buildings on a Sunday when they'd otherwise be empty. Two hours after the election almost all of them had counted their votes, reported them centrally and that was available on a simple website anyone can see. There will be a central recount in a few days as a double check. It never finds any differences. Each of these polling tables is staffed with 5 or 6 people that double check what each of them is doing and makes it so there's a lot of people involved in the election further increasing the trust of the population in the process, because a not insignificant part of them take part. The scaling of the process is embarrassingly parallel so is workable for any size of country or election. I don't get why anyone would want to go through all the trouble of inventing these complex technology solutions to a non-problem that then create these huge attack vectors not only to actually do something nefarious but even more importantly to convince people that that has happened and rile up a mob.
- yielding 6y ago
  Dominion machines print a ballot, which the voter takes — and as such, can see the vote — and deposits for counting separately. The final vote tally can be from the machines, but there’s always the paper ballots available to count — which is what a recount is: a manual count of the ballots. The machines simplify the process but they don’t change it.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

yielding 6y ago

The claim that the CEO is disputing is that the Dominion machines are operated from a central location which can monitor and control the outcome of any action taken with one of their machines. The "technology" is specifically referring to the Dominion system, not "technology" in general. If the Dominion system does not include remote access, if it doesn't include remote monitoring and if it doesn't include remote vote management then "technologically impossible" is a fair statement. They are not arguing that it is impossible for such a system to ever be built, they're arguing that their system is not built that way. Voting machines are audited and have a chain of custody, it would be very difficult to argue that "someone could hack all the machines and install this capability" fits within the realm of possibility.

throwawaygh 6y ago

> It is technologically impossible to see votes being counted in real-time or to flip them Dominion machines aren't on the internet. Dominion doesn't have centralized access to all of their machines. Could they eg send out an army of technicians to every voting location and use some insane side-channel attack to physically read and flip bits from across the street? Sure. But by that logic it's also "not impossible" for you or I to launch the US nuclear arsenal. I think saying that "it is technologically possible to see votes being counted in real-time or to flip them" is "technically correct" but obviously not actually correct in any reasonable sense.

rglover 6y ago
Eric Coomer (on many of Dominion's patents) mentions that there's a cellular modem in the machines: https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=2529&v=YLIS68YfMYU&feature=youtu.be https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=2529&v=YLIS68YfMYU&feature=y... So it's not just a LAN connection that would be isolated to the network in the voting place (what you'd expect). They also reported sending out updates to the machines in some precincts after certification, just before the election: https://www.politico.com/news/2020/11/04/georgia-election-machine-glitch-434065 https://www.politico.com/news/2020/11/04/georgia-election-ma... (not sure of the current veracity of this but bookmarked it as it was interesting).

rglover 6y ago

This isn't for a Dominion machine but it's for an old Sequoia machine (which I believe that company was acquired by Dominion): https://file.wikileaks.org/file/advantage-insecurities-2008.pdf https://file.wikileaks.org/file/advantage-insecurities-2008..... It's certainly technically possible (which of course it is, if you control the software and access to the machine, you can do what you want).

pedrocr 6y ago

Calling it impossible to flip votes is quite silly. You can just pre-program the machine to pick a candidate randomly every few votes and you skew the election. Do it after the first few votes to give you a distribution so as to only do it between the major candidates and not inflate any marginal runners. Do it only on machines in locations that vote against your preferred candidate and you skew to your candidate. If there are no paper receipts you just get away with it. If there are you can still attack democracy itself by sowing a bunch of doubt in the election. Electronic voting is a really poor idea. There's no credible evidence the US election was stolen but the way it's ran is appalling and makes this kind of mistrust easy, which is a very important failure mode as was evident this time around. We had an election here yesterday. Each voter just filled in a pre-printed paper and dropped it into a box. COVID restrictions meant we had up to 10 minute queues depending on time of day, normally it's much faster. Each polling table is self-contained and had less than 1000 votes to count at the end of the day. They're just setup in school buildings on a Sunday when they'd otherwise be empty. Two hours after the election almost all of them had counted their votes, reported them centrally and that was available on a simple website anyone can see. There will be a central recount in a few days as a double check. It never finds any differences. Each of these polling tables is staffed with 5 or 6 people that double check what each of them is doing and makes it so there's a lot of people involved in the election further increasing the trust of the population in the process, because a not insignificant part of them take part. The scaling of the process is embarrassingly parallel so is workable for any size of country or election. I don't get why anyone would want to go through all the trouble of inventing these complex technology solutions to a non-problem that then create these huge attack vectors not only to actually do something nefarious but even more importantly to convince people that that has happened and rile up a mob.

yielding 6y ago
Dominion machines print a ballot, which the voter takes — and as such, can see the vote — and deposits for counting separately. The final vote tally can be from the machines, but there’s always the paper ballots available to count — which is what a recount is: a manual count of the ballots. The machines simplify the process but they don’t change it.