4 ms·

A hacker bought a voting machine on eBay. Michigan officials are investigating

25 points by fortran77 4y ago

fortran77 4y ago
> CNN has reported that the eBay seller, Ean Hutchison, who lives in Ohio, found the Dominion-made machine on a Michigan Goodwill website for just $7.99. He snapped it up then immediately put it up for sale on eBay. The issue is that Michigan thinks it may have been stolen.
yucky 4y ago
The most surprising part of this story is that Goodwill put up a voting machine for sale for $8. Even if you don't know what it's worth, you have to assume it's worth more than $8 right? Plus, Goodwill makes a ton of sales through eBay already, you would think it would have gone up for auction.
- ncmncm 4y ago
  There is a good case to be made that most voting machines have a large negative value, except possibly in security research. Kamala Harris established her political standing as California Secretary of State by making California elections hard to mechanically defraud, banning use of those negative-value machines in California. Unfortunately, they probably were sold on to states where their uncorrectable flaws could be recognized as immediately useful. It is not necessary to suborn election staff when you can easily suborn the machines they are obliged to trust.
tarakat 4y ago
> The U.S. Election Assistance Commission says voting machines should be meticulously inventoried and kept under lock and key "in a tamper-proof location, preferably within the election office." A tacit admission that election machines, after coming into contact with the wrong person, are no longer trustworthy. Meaning they were never trustworthy. But they keep being used for the massive advantages they provide over paper ballots and manual counting that make the trade-off worth it. Those advantages being...
- jfengel 4y ago
  Physical security is standard practice for computer systems. It's widely understood that somebody with physical access can make changes far beyond what anybody can do remotely. Those machines do have advantages, in terms of accessibility and clarity. Paper ballot design can tip elections -- most famously in 2000, and elsewhere. Is it worth the tradeoff? I don't know. But I do know that if you're not aware of the reason we're talking about it by now, I don't know that I can help.
  - tarakat 4y ago
    > Paper ballot design can tip elections -- most famously in 2000, and elsewhere. Voting machines also suffer from myriad issues - e.g. unresponsive touchscreens. And there are countless paper voting systems without the issues of the 2000 election - in fact they are the norm. Framing this as an inherent problem of paper that can only be solved by computers is dishonest. > Physical security is standard practice for computer systems. It's widely understood that somebody with physical access can make changes far beyond what anybody can do remotely. My point exactly. No black box can be trusted. > Is it worth the tradeoff? Let me remind you that the tradeoff is having elections silently and near-undetectably [1] stolen, and sow enough justifiable doubt to destabilize a democracy. [1] Exit polls have been as much as 30% off, especially in smaller elections through which nearly all politicians must pass, and that just passes the buck to securing polls. To dispel any naive ideas that polls would tell us about tampering. And that's in countries where people can answer those polls with relatively little worry. Imagine the disparity if they feared a militia would find they voted wrong and execute them. That's not a hypothetical. Voting systems must be resistant to such circumstances, because they may befall your country as well.
hoppyhoppy2 4y ago
See also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32764409 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32764409 5 days ago (same article)

25 points by fortran77 4y ago

> CNN has reported that the eBay seller, Ean Hutchison, who lives in Ohio, found the Dominion-made machine on a Michigan Goodwill website for just $7.99. He snapped it up then immediately put it up for sale on eBay. The issue is that Michigan thinks it may have been stolen.

yucky 4y ago

The most surprising part of this story is that Goodwill put up a voting machine for sale for $8. Even if you don't know what it's worth, you have to assume it's worth more than $8 right? Plus, Goodwill makes a ton of sales through eBay already, you would think it would have gone up for auction.

ncmncm 4y ago
There is a good case to be made that most voting machines have a large negative value, except possibly in security research. Kamala Harris established her political standing as California Secretary of State by making California elections hard to mechanically defraud, banning use of those negative-value machines in California. Unfortunately, they probably were sold on to states where their uncorrectable flaws could be recognized as immediately useful. It is not necessary to suborn election staff when you can easily suborn the machines they are obliged to trust.

tarakat 4y ago

> The U.S. Election Assistance Commission says voting machines should be meticulously inventoried and kept under lock and key "in a tamper-proof location, preferably within the election office." A tacit admission that election machines, after coming into contact with the wrong person, are no longer trustworthy. Meaning they were never trustworthy. But they keep being used for the massive advantages they provide over paper ballots and manual counting that make the trade-off worth it. Those advantages being...

jfengel 4y ago
Physical security is standard practice for computer systems. It's widely understood that somebody with physical access can make changes far beyond what anybody can do remotely. Those machines do have advantages, in terms of accessibility and clarity. Paper ballot design can tip elections -- most famously in 2000, and elsewhere. Is it worth the tradeoff? I don't know. But I do know that if you're not aware of the reason we're talking about it by now, I don't know that I can help.
- tarakat 4y ago
  > Paper ballot design can tip elections -- most famously in 2000, and elsewhere. Voting machines also suffer from myriad issues - e.g. unresponsive touchscreens. And there are countless paper voting systems without the issues of the 2000 election - in fact they are the norm. Framing this as an inherent problem of paper that can only be solved by computers is dishonest. > Physical security is standard practice for computer systems. It's widely understood that somebody with physical access can make changes far beyond what anybody can do remotely. My point exactly. No black box can be trusted. > Is it worth the tradeoff? Let me remind you that the tradeoff is having elections silently and near-undetectably [1] stolen, and sow enough justifiable doubt to destabilize a democracy. [1] Exit polls have been as much as 30% off, especially in smaller elections through which nearly all politicians must pass, and that just passes the buck to securing polls. To dispel any naive ideas that polls would tell us about tampering. And that's in countries where people can answer those polls with relatively little worry. Imagine the disparity if they feared a militia would find they voted wrong and execute them. That's not a hypothetical. Voting systems must be resistant to such circumstances, because they may befall your country as well.

hoppyhoppy2 4y ago

See also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32764409 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32764409 5 days ago (same article)