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Head of election worker management company arrested for theft of personal data

190 points by happyopossum 4y ago

MichaelCollins 4y ago
- naillo 4y ago
  That penalty seems a bit excessive
  - MichaelCollins 4y ago
    - jjulius 4y ago
      >They should be charged with espionage and executed like the Rosenbergs. Ah, cool, jumping to conclusions and wishing death upon people instead of waiting to see how this plays out. Don't confuse this with me saying that espionage isn't possible here, I'm just saying - cool your jets and breathe before pulling any triggers. Yikes.
      - MichaelCollins 4y ago
        > Ah, cool, jumping to conclusions I never suggested denying them a trial. I want them tried and executed for espionage. Preferably in a public and awful manner.
        jjulius 4y ago
        >I never suggested denying them a trial. This is the first time I've seen you suggest it, every other post was essentially, "Kill them". Even the post I'm replying to suggests that your mind is made up and you want them dead or - at the very least - miserable as all hell, whatever the reality of the details of the case may be.
        AnimalMuppet 4y ago
        Don't suppose you'd be willing to execute them only if they are found guilty at the trial? At best, you seem to be certain of their guilt. At worst, you seem to be advocating for the kind of trial that will definitely return a guilty verdict. Either way, cool your jets. You're way too quick to condemn on incomplete information.
        buttercraft 4y ago
        Bullshit. If you've already decided that they're guilty and have already decided their fate, you don't really want them to have a trial. Not a fair one at least.
      - adamrezich 4y ago
        is Democracy and the integrity thereof not the single most sacred and important thing everyone cares about with regards to government in the West? that's what everyone says all the time, "we're not a constitutional republic, or if we are I don't really like care or whatever—what matters is, we're a Democracy, Democracy is what matters, Democracy is all that matters." well okay then, if it's so damn important, what the hell is this complete unwillingness to do everything humanly possible to protect it? you can't have it both ways, if you don't ruthlessly defend the institutions that are supposed to be the cornerstone of contemporary Western society, what do you expect will happen? foreign powers are all too happy to ruthlessly exploit what we delude ourselves into believing isn't worth defending.
        jjulius 4y ago
        >well okay then, if it's so damn important, what the hell is this complete unwillingness to do everything humanly possible to protect it? For having chastised people in another post for focusing too much on "regicide" and not on OP's "completely 100% valid point", I am a bit surprised that you're ignoring my own comments, such as: >Don't confuse this with me saying that espionage isn't possible here I'm saying, hold the fucking phone before you call for someone's murder, especially before you abdicate for their public dismemberment. Let's see what the facts of the case are before we determine how far to go with punishment (and I say this as someone being fully open to this being an act against the US that should be punished accordingly). At no point have I suggested we take on a "complete unwillingness to do everything humanly possible to protect it". Is nuance dead? Must things be all or nothing? "KILL THEM NOW, and if you dare disagree with that sentiment then surely you are unwilling to defend the US at all"? Seriously?
        adamrezich 4y ago
        > I'm saying, hold the fucking phone before you call for someone's murder what is a trial EDIT: where are you from where people get executed for crimes without a trial, why would anyone need to explicitly state that? I'm breathing fine thanks
        4y ago
  - Alupis 4y ago
    While I agree death is a bit extreme, we do need to craft a system where knowingly providing data on American Citizens to enemies of this nation carries severe and unfair consequences. The punishment does need to be oversized, to serve as a deterrent. Do we know if this was deliberate or accidental? If the contract was explicit, and this individual knowingly violated it, then the intent is pretty clear even if the goal was not to aid China but rather to save money or similar. We see how pitiful punishments are for malfeasant corporate executives - and we see how often they recid or are copied by others cleaver enough to calculate the punishment does not outweigh the crime. The consequences for giving sensitive citizen data to China, Russia or any other nation should be severe enough to make folks think very hard before trying it. Our election meddling problem will only grow worse in the future as our adversaries grow more and more sophisticated... best we don't help them along.
- aschearer 4y ago
  I'm confused why you're bringing up regicide in the 21st century, about a country that's never had a king, on a site for technologists. Anyway, let's throw the book at the perpetrator.
  - MichaelCollins 4y ago
    Because that penalty is fitting.
    - Alupis 4y ago
      I think you're likely better served by using the word and punishment for treason. Although I admit that word has been casually tossed around for cheap political gain recently and has lost it's severe connotation for many.
      - MichaelCollins 4y ago
        jjulius 4y ago
        >Treason cannot apply due to the way it is narrowly defined by the US Constitution. So, you don't want to punish them for treason because of how narrowly it's defined under the US Constitution, but you do want to punish them for regicide, which... isn't even a law in the US?
        Alupis 4y ago
        I think the point the parent was making was there is no current law that affords death as a punishment for this crime - but there should be. Or at least that is my take.
        ejb999 4y ago
        Read the post again, the OP said: "should be comparable to the traditional penalty for regicide."
- labster 4y ago
  I don’t know if I’d be quite so barbaric. How about civil forfeiture of all of their assets? I’m sure his home was used in the commission of a crime, right? Though a day in the stocks sure seems attractive too.
  - munk-a 4y ago
    The good news about civil forfeiture is that it doesn't even matter if their home was used in the commission of a crime - you can just seize it now and sort out all those pesky details later!
- esoterica 4y ago
  If you think provisioning a server in the wrong country is grounds for the death penalty then I think you might be unsuited to living in a first world country. Have you considered Saudi Arabia or North Korea? You might find those places a better cultural fit for you.
  - anonymousiam 4y ago
    Maybe you would feel differently if it was your PII that made it into the hands of the CCP. Unfortunately this has already happened to me. The CCP now has all of my employment history, education history, banking information, and all contact info for my friends and family. https://www.opm.gov/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-incidents/ https://www.opm.gov/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-incidents/
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - shubb 4y ago
      So what, they have a zoom info subscription? I'm deeply worried about CPP + Tiktok, because it's potentially a huge database of people doing things that they can be blackmailed for. Your resume content is basically public information at this point.
      - anonymousiam 4y ago
        My PII is not public information in the USA, and it should not be in the hands of the CCP. Although it's not the case in my situation, many completed SF86 forms contain information that could be used to blackmail the applicant, such as DUI convictions, mental breakdowns, credit problems, bankruptcy, drug use, etc. The USG collects the information to "protect" the applicant from being exploited by the enemy, but such information could still be embarrassing if publicly disclosed. Aside from the problems that publicizing information can cause, there's also the risk of a bad actor using the information to fraudulently obtain credit. The SF86 contains everything that anyone would need to obtain credit using somebody else's identity. At a minimum, the information could be used as a form of harassment. A worst-case real-world example of how such information could cost lives is what the Mossad has been doing with Iranian nuclear scientists over the past two decades. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Iranian_nuclear_scientists https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Iranian_nucle...
petsormeat 4y ago
In some counties, this could lead to physical harm to those poll workers: https://archive.ph/fGn0r https://archive.ph/fGn0r
- Wistar 4y ago
  Including, ever more likely, the U.S.
  - sva_ 4y ago
    Ah yeah, counties like the US.
- MichaelCollins 4y ago
  It endangered poll workers in America. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33050320 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33050320 https://safeguarddefenders.com/en/blog/230000-policing-expands https://safeguarddefenders.com/en/blog/230000-policing-expan...
  - md2020 4y ago
    Just a note to you and the other commenter with a similar comment, they said “counties”, not “countries” and linked to a piece about a county in the US.
- Mezzie 4y ago
  I just signed up to be a poll worker in the East Lansing area. This is going to be fun...
eej71 4y ago
The NYT might need to update their article from yesterday. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/03/technology/konnech-election-conspiracy-theories.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/03/technology/konnech-electi...
- ceejayoz 4y ago
  They did. > Update, Oct. 5: After this article was published, the chief executive of Konnech was arrested on suspicion of theft of personal information about poll workers.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - hn_throwaway_99 4y ago
    That is the most bullshit "update" I have ever seen. NYT shouldn't just "update" that article, they should issue a retraction and a major apology, and fire people involved with the story. Maybe if the update had said this I'd be OK with it: > Update, Oct. 5: After this article was published, the chief executive of Konnech was arrested on suspicion of theft of personal information about poll workers. Prosecutors asserted that the chief executive had poll worker information stored on servers in the People's Republic of China, which in our original article we disparaged as an "unfounded conspiracy theory", and the statement in our article, "It said that all the data for its American customers were stored on servers in the United States and that it had no ties to the Chinese government." is likely totally false.
    - pnf 4y ago
      Why would they fire anyone? These aren't mistakes.
      - the_optimist 4y ago
        It is a mistake. They’re supposed to use article structure, careful language, selective statements, hidden sources, and unfounded suasion to hide misinformation and hackery.
mise_en_place 4y ago
Even if this was a case of incompetence, it's highly unusual to store sensitive government data on an offshore server.
- MichaelCollins 4y ago
  > incompetence Oopsie, I accidentally provisioned a server in communist China. Yeah right.
  - ironchief 4y ago
    I thought your comment was a joke until I read the link. Wow "District Attorney investigators found that in contradiction to the contract, information was stored on servers in the People’s Republic of China."
    - mikeyouse 4y ago
      They had a software development subsidiary with a testing server / database in China that apparently received some actual poll-worker PII.
      - transcriptase 4y ago
        Why did a company with 20 employees have a subsidiary with a server in China?
        MichaelCollins 4y ago
        themitigating 4y ago
        Well either cheap labor or spies which do you think is more likely with the current evidence
IG_Semmelweiss 4y ago
This has white hat "tip" fingerprints all over it. Local and state will have no way to effectively police this sort of contract breach.
jeffbee 4y ago
It's a bit ridiculous that the county would even outsource this function specifically. What's so difficult about payroll for a transient workforce, above and beyond the complexities that a jurisdiction of 10 million people already faces?
- ceejayoz 4y ago
  It (http://www.pollchief.com/ http://www.pollchief.com/) appears to do quite a bit more than just payroll, quite a bit of it fairly specialized.
  - rdxm 4y ago
ceejayoz 4y ago
> Konnech distributes and sells its proprietary PollChief software, which is an election worker management system that was utilized by the county in the last California election. The software assists with poll worker assignments, communications and payroll. PollChief requires that workers submit personal identifying information, which is retained by the Konnech. I'm so very tired of proprietary software made by tiny little outfits being critical to elections.
- danielodievich 4y ago
  in my previous/previous/previous career I was heavily involved with various states election systems (juicily enough starting in hanging chads Florida). The field is full of tiny little outfits AND huge consultancies (Accenture in my personal example) doing stuff. The quality varies tremendously from amazing to amazingly atrocious. When I did all this work the cloud was not yet a big thing so no servers were provisioned in anything other than well known data centers, but it's you get what you pay for. Since it's secretaries of state paying for some, and then tons of random counties paying for some others, these are not incredibly lucrative contracts, and it does attract just random small software firms.
  - pyuser583 4y ago
    Is “the cloud” really a good idea for high integrity software?
- hotpotamus 4y ago
  - anonymousiam 4y ago
    Fortunately, elections are managed by the states. Unfortunately, the Federal Government is trying to take them over. https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/senate-bill/2747 https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/senate-bill/274... https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/1/text https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/1/te...
anon291 4y ago
I fully support this action, but I also think county bureaucrats and elected officials who allowed this software to be used despite clearly having no ability to audit it, should also be held accountable.
willcipriano 4y ago
"We fortified the election boss, it's now behind the great wall."
Whatboard 4y ago
"Konnech was required to keep the data in the United States and only provide access to citizens and permanent residents but instead stored it on servers in the People’s Republic of China." I think we'll soon learn that his ties to China run far deeper than simply storing data.
- mercy_dude 4y ago
  And wouldn’t be surprised if China used or continue to use these covet tactics to alter election results.
  - V-eHGsd_ 4y ago
    alter?
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
  - themitigating 4y ago
    What evidence do you have that China has altered elections?
  - MichaelCollins 4y ago
    They may leak the stolen personal information of poll workers to extremists in America upset with whatever the latest election result is.
- barbazoo 4y ago
  Maybe Hanlon’s razor applies here and hopefully someone simply created a cloud resource in the wrong region.
  - jameshart 4y ago
    You can't just accidentally create resources in one of AWS's mainland China regions. ap-east-1 in Hong Kong, maybe, but the AWS china Beijing and Ningxia regions are not just a misclick away.
carom 4y ago
Yet my voter records are public with my name, address, and phone number. Curious. Also the DMV sells my information. Also the post office forwards my information to companies who have my previous address when I file a change of address form. Also my property records are public. I would love if the government gave me the ability to opt out (or better, opt in) to these practices. They are a huge source of data leaks.
- mistrial9 4y ago
  those USA records are huge sources for local law enforcement, credit card companies, anyone in consumer credit, private detectives, insurance industry and more.. anyone with property is being tracked since the 1960s at least. You just didnt get the memo.
- advisedwang 4y ago
  35 states do have some kind of program for protecting addresses if you are at risk of stalking, DV etc. See https://www.sos.wa.gov/acp/about.aspx https://www.sos.wa.gov/acp/about.aspx for an example and the 35 state number.
- uoaei 4y ago
  The USPS sent my phone number to scammers as soon as I signed up for SMS package notifications. I'm hoping the FTC cares enough to investigate my report...
sudden_dystopia 4y ago
The DAY after the NYT called it a “right wing conspiracy theory”.
- tootie 4y ago
  This is absolutely unrelated to the right wing conspiracy theory which is 100% a propaganda campaign.
  - ejb999 4y ago
    The 'right wing conspiracy theory' that you say this is unrelated to was this: *Using threadbare evidence, or none at all, the group suggested that a small American election software company, Konnech, had secret ties to the Chinese Communist Party and had given the Chinese government backdoor access to personal data about two million poll workers in the United States, according to online accounts from several people at the conference.* which is exactly what happened, and thus the arrest - so in this case, the 'theory' was spot on. Tell us again how this is unrelated?
    - smallerfish 4y ago
      Where's your evidence that they had secret ties to the Chinese Communist Party and/or gave them backdoor access, as opposed to, say, hiring a dev team in China on Upwork because they were cheap, and had a poor understanding of compliant data handling?
      - thepasswordis 4y ago
        I’m sorry but this is actually kind of funny. You’re saying, basically: where are the secret ties? The ties are right there in the open! (Well now they are at least) “Hey they got caught. They’re not being so secretive anymore” is not really evidence suggesting that there was nothing nefarious occurring.
        smallerfish 4y ago
mercy_dude 4y ago
> In this case, the alleged conduct had no impact on the tabulation of votes and did not alter election results Would be curious how they asserted that. A contractor in the last election dumped ballots in garbage in Pennsylvania. Justice department maintained it didn’t alter election integrity. https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/temporary-contractor-threw-trump-mail-ballots-trash-pennsylvania/story?id=73251533 https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/temporary-contractor-threw-t...
- ceejayoz 4y ago
  > A contractor in the last election dumped ballots in garbage in Pennsylvania. Justice department maintained it didn’t alter election integrity. Given that it was nine ballots, that seems rational.
- tootie 4y ago
  Read it. The alleged crime was related to PII of election workers. Not voters. The assertion is that nothing in their investigation indicated trouble with votes which isn't the same as guaranteeing nothing happened.
- puffoflogic 4y ago
  There is an extremely simple process to determine whether election integrity is compromised. Just check who won!
adolph 4y ago
Under its $2.9 million, five-year contract with the county, Konnech was supposed to securely maintain the data and that only United States citizens and permanent residents have access to it. District Attorney investigators found that in contradiction to the contract, information was stored on servers in the People’s Republic of China. Maybe there are additional facts not claimed in the press release, but at face value the two above statements are not mutually exclusive. If the PRC wanted access and the company was willing, it is hardly necessary for the data to reside in any geographic location.
rglover 4y ago
The incredibly important punchline: > District Attorney investigators found that in contradiction to the contract, information was stored on servers in the People’s Republic of China. It's shocking how effective the CCP has been at infiltrating Western governments and institutions. My favorite turn to date has to be Charles Lieber from Harvard [1]. He's got some fun patents [2] floating around. [1] https://www.justice.gov/usao-ma/pr/harvard-university-professor-convicted-making-false-statements-and-tax-offenses https://www.justice.gov/usao-ma/pr/harvard-university-profes... [2] https://patents.google.com/patent/WO2015199784A2/en https://patents.google.com/patent/WO2015199784A2/en
- shubb 4y ago
  To be fair, this is probably a guy going to jail because he used a text message sending API that used tencent cloud somewhere in their backend or something...
  - rglover 4y ago
    I wish that were true but considering his ties, expertise, and the general theme of his patents I'd say that's a naive interpretation. That said I certainly hope you're right and I only say "naive" to discourage people shrugging it off as a nothing burger.
- woodruffw 4y ago
  There is no evidence of "infiltration" here. The reality is that, in its march to privatize everything it can, the US government has incentivized a race to the bottom. If Chinese companies provide the cheapest services, then American data is going to end up on Chinese servers until the incentives are fixed. Is this good? No. But it also isn't CCP infiltration; it's the logical consequence of trying to channel public money into private economies, public money that is meant to fund our most basic civic activity.
  - rglover 4y ago
    > it's the logical consequence of trying to channel public money into private economies, public money that is meant to fund our most basic civic activity. Yes, and that logical consequence is being exploited by foreign governments. By "infiltrate" I mean "taking advantage of our shortsightedness," similar to how we ignorantly offshored pharmaceutical sourcing/production to China [1]. There's plenty [2] of loose threads that warrant my "only the paranoid survive" POV on stuff like this. Hell, there's even a book that goes into detail about the strategy [3]: > "If one party is at war with another, and the other party does not realize it is at war, the party who knows it is at war almost always has the advantage and usually wins.” And this is the strategy set forth in Unrestricted Warfare: waging a war on an adversary with methods so covert at first and seemingly so benign that the party being attacked does not realize it’s being attacked." - Qiao Liang --- [1] https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-care/u-s-officials-worried-about-chinese-control-american-drug-supply-n1052376 https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-care/u-s-officials-wor... [2] https://www.businessinsider.com/china-houston-consulate-document-burning-us-told-quickly-close-2020-7 https://www.businessinsider.com/china-houston-consulate-docu... [3] https://www.amazon.com/Unrestricted-Warfare-Chinas-Destroy-America/dp/1626543054/ https://www.amazon.com/Unrestricted-Warfare-Chinas-Destroy-A...
rmason 4y ago
I am from the East Lansing area and went to high school in Okemos. I know both communities very well. I've spent 30 years in developer and founder circles and never knew a single person from this company. The company's original headquarters is near my old high school in what was once a lumber yard. They were getting ready to move into an old department store that is owned by the city of East Lansing. This company was exceedingly good at getting money from both the local economic development people as well as the state. Told someone today that I felt like I was in the middle of a spy novel ;<). It is also the first time to my knowledge the little village of Okemos was ever mentioned in the old grey lady (aka NYT). Here's how local media covered the story: https://www.lansingstatejournal.com/story/news/2022/10/05/east-lansing-ceo-arrested-in-los-angeles-county-data-theft-probe/69541092007/ https://www.lansingstatejournal.com/story/news/2022/10/05/ea...
didgetmaster 4y ago
Wow. We actually found a crime that Gascon thinks is worth prosecuting!
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
jimcavel888 4y ago
tristor 4y ago
Literally the day after the NY Times accused people talking about this issue of being right-wing conspiracy theorists. Why does that not surprise me? https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/03/technology/konnech-election-conspiracy-theories.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/03/technology/konnech-electi...
- ummonk 4y ago
  That update is glorious. Doesn’t seem like the conspiracy theorists had any actual reason for suspicion of this particular firm other than xenophobia though. I wonder if they caught this guy because the firm conducted an audit in response to the conspiracy theories.
- usernomdeguerre 4y ago
  Are they vindicated if "Selling/Improperly Storing poll worker data" and "Forcing poll workers to change election outcomes" are two wildly separate claims? Or does the former prove the latter in your mind?
egberts1 4y ago
The biggest ways to jam the ballot boxes today are: 1. County workers leaking a roll of rarely voted voters to an external ballot stuffing operation. 2. Suitcases with rollers being carried into poll counting room. 3. And voters dropping off MANY ballots at early drop-boxes. Until we have ways to detect those alleged acts, it remains a hard problem.
- chrononaut 4y ago
  The trouble with all three of these is that it has to be done systematically across all polling places across a diverse number of counties -- or you end up with this: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/07/upshot/mapped-why-voting-anomalies-are-impossible-to-ignore-in-north-carolina.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/07/upshot/mapped-why-voting-... (Although they admit that it would be easier to do in some states than others.)
  - egberts1 4y ago
    There are many election contests showing consistent but wide disparity between absentee and in-person voting. Whether it is an issue remains elusive to this day. Also, probably can do this nationwide if you sell election devices … nationwide.
    - NotACop182 4y ago

190 points by happyopossum 4y ago

naillo 4y ago
That penalty seems a bit excessive
- MichaelCollins 4y ago
  - jjulius 4y ago
    >They should be charged with espionage and executed like the Rosenbergs. Ah, cool, jumping to conclusions and wishing death upon people instead of waiting to see how this plays out. Don't confuse this with me saying that espionage isn't possible here, I'm just saying - cool your jets and breathe before pulling any triggers. Yikes.
    - MichaelCollins 4y ago
      > Ah, cool, jumping to conclusions I never suggested denying them a trial. I want them tried and executed for espionage. Preferably in a public and awful manner.
      - jjulius 4y ago
        >I never suggested denying them a trial. This is the first time I've seen you suggest it, every other post was essentially, "Kill them". Even the post I'm replying to suggests that your mind is made up and you want them dead or - at the very least - miserable as all hell, whatever the reality of the details of the case may be.
      - AnimalMuppet 4y ago
        Don't suppose you'd be willing to execute them only if they are found guilty at the trial? At best, you seem to be certain of their guilt. At worst, you seem to be advocating for the kind of trial that will definitely return a guilty verdict. Either way, cool your jets. You're way too quick to condemn on incomplete information.
      - buttercraft 4y ago
        Bullshit. If you've already decided that they're guilty and have already decided their fate, you don't really want them to have a trial. Not a fair one at least.
    - adamrezich 4y ago
      is Democracy and the integrity thereof not the single most sacred and important thing everyone cares about with regards to government in the West? that's what everyone says all the time, "we're not a constitutional republic, or if we are I don't really like care or whatever—what matters is, we're a Democracy, Democracy is what matters, Democracy is all that matters." well okay then, if it's so damn important, what the hell is this complete unwillingness to do everything humanly possible to protect it? you can't have it both ways, if you don't ruthlessly defend the institutions that are supposed to be the cornerstone of contemporary Western society, what do you expect will happen? foreign powers are all too happy to ruthlessly exploit what we delude ourselves into believing isn't worth defending.
      - jjulius 4y ago
        >well okay then, if it's so damn important, what the hell is this complete unwillingness to do everything humanly possible to protect it? For having chastised people in another post for focusing too much on "regicide" and not on OP's "completely 100% valid point", I am a bit surprised that you're ignoring my own comments, such as: >Don't confuse this with me saying that espionage isn't possible here I'm saying, hold the fucking phone before you call for someone's murder, especially before you abdicate for their public dismemberment. Let's see what the facts of the case are before we determine how far to go with punishment (and I say this as someone being fully open to this being an act against the US that should be punished accordingly). At no point have I suggested we take on a "complete unwillingness to do everything humanly possible to protect it". Is nuance dead? Must things be all or nothing? "KILL THEM NOW, and if you dare disagree with that sentiment then surely you are unwilling to defend the US at all"? Seriously?
        adamrezich 4y ago
        > I'm saying, hold the fucking phone before you call for someone's murder what is a trial EDIT: where are you from where people get executed for crimes without a trial, why would anyone need to explicitly state that? I'm breathing fine thanks
        4y ago
- Alupis 4y ago
  While I agree death is a bit extreme, we do need to craft a system where knowingly providing data on American Citizens to enemies of this nation carries severe and unfair consequences. The punishment does need to be oversized, to serve as a deterrent. Do we know if this was deliberate or accidental? If the contract was explicit, and this individual knowingly violated it, then the intent is pretty clear even if the goal was not to aid China but rather to save money or similar. We see how pitiful punishments are for malfeasant corporate executives - and we see how often they recid or are copied by others cleaver enough to calculate the punishment does not outweigh the crime. The consequences for giving sensitive citizen data to China, Russia or any other nation should be severe enough to make folks think very hard before trying it. Our election meddling problem will only grow worse in the future as our adversaries grow more and more sophisticated... best we don't help them along.
aschearer 4y ago
I'm confused why you're bringing up regicide in the 21st century, about a country that's never had a king, on a site for technologists. Anyway, let's throw the book at the perpetrator.
- MichaelCollins 4y ago
  Because that penalty is fitting.
  - Alupis 4y ago
    I think you're likely better served by using the word and punishment for treason. Although I admit that word has been casually tossed around for cheap political gain recently and has lost it's severe connotation for many.
    - MichaelCollins 4y ago
      - jjulius 4y ago
        >Treason cannot apply due to the way it is narrowly defined by the US Constitution. So, you don't want to punish them for treason because of how narrowly it's defined under the US Constitution, but you do want to punish them for regicide, which... isn't even a law in the US?
        Alupis 4y ago
        I think the point the parent was making was there is no current law that affords death as a punishment for this crime - but there should be. Or at least that is my take.
        ejb999 4y ago
        Read the post again, the OP said: "should be comparable to the traditional penalty for regicide."
labster 4y ago
I don’t know if I’d be quite so barbaric. How about civil forfeiture of all of their assets? I’m sure his home was used in the commission of a crime, right? Though a day in the stocks sure seems attractive too.
- munk-a 4y ago
  The good news about civil forfeiture is that it doesn't even matter if their home was used in the commission of a crime - you can just seize it now and sort out all those pesky details later!
esoterica 4y ago
If you think provisioning a server in the wrong country is grounds for the death penalty then I think you might be unsuited to living in a first world country. Have you considered Saudi Arabia or North Korea? You might find those places a better cultural fit for you.
- anonymousiam 4y ago
  Maybe you would feel differently if it was your PII that made it into the hands of the CCP. Unfortunately this has already happened to me. The CCP now has all of my employment history, education history, banking information, and all contact info for my friends and family. https://www.opm.gov/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-incidents/ https://www.opm.gov/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-incidents/
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - shubb 4y ago
    So what, they have a zoom info subscription? I'm deeply worried about CPP + Tiktok, because it's potentially a huge database of people doing things that they can be blackmailed for. Your resume content is basically public information at this point.
    - anonymousiam 4y ago
      My PII is not public information in the USA, and it should not be in the hands of the CCP. Although it's not the case in my situation, many completed SF86 forms contain information that could be used to blackmail the applicant, such as DUI convictions, mental breakdowns, credit problems, bankruptcy, drug use, etc. The USG collects the information to "protect" the applicant from being exploited by the enemy, but such information could still be embarrassing if publicly disclosed. Aside from the problems that publicizing information can cause, there's also the risk of a bad actor using the information to fraudulently obtain credit. The SF86 contains everything that anyone would need to obtain credit using somebody else's identity. At a minimum, the information could be used as a form of harassment. A worst-case real-world example of how such information could cost lives is what the Mossad has been doing with Iranian nuclear scientists over the past two decades. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Iranian_nuclear_scientists https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Iranian_nucle...

In some counties, this could lead to physical harm to those poll workers: https://archive.ph/fGn0r https://archive.ph/fGn0r

Wistar 4y ago
Including, ever more likely, the U.S.
- sva_ 4y ago
  Ah yeah, counties like the US.
MichaelCollins 4y ago
It endangered poll workers in America. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33050320 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33050320 https://safeguarddefenders.com/en/blog/230000-policing-expands https://safeguarddefenders.com/en/blog/230000-policing-expan...
- md2020 4y ago
  Just a note to you and the other commenter with a similar comment, they said “counties”, not “countries” and linked to a piece about a county in the US.
Mezzie 4y ago
I just signed up to be a poll worker in the East Lansing area. This is going to be fun...

eej71 4y ago

The NYT might need to update their article from yesterday. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/03/technology/konnech-election-conspiracy-theories.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/03/technology/konnech-electi...

ceejayoz 4y ago
They did. > Update, Oct. 5: After this article was published, the chief executive of Konnech was arrested on suspicion of theft of personal information about poll workers.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- hn_throwaway_99 4y ago
  That is the most bullshit "update" I have ever seen. NYT shouldn't just "update" that article, they should issue a retraction and a major apology, and fire people involved with the story. Maybe if the update had said this I'd be OK with it: > Update, Oct. 5: After this article was published, the chief executive of Konnech was arrested on suspicion of theft of personal information about poll workers. Prosecutors asserted that the chief executive had poll worker information stored on servers in the People's Republic of China, which in our original article we disparaged as an "unfounded conspiracy theory", and the statement in our article, "It said that all the data for its American customers were stored on servers in the United States and that it had no ties to the Chinese government." is likely totally false.
  - pnf 4y ago
    Why would they fire anyone? These aren't mistakes.
    - the_optimist 4y ago
      It is a mistake. They’re supposed to use article structure, careful language, selective statements, hidden sources, and unfounded suasion to hide misinformation and hackery.

mise_en_place 4y ago

Even if this was a case of incompetence, it's highly unusual to store sensitive government data on an offshore server.

MichaelCollins 4y ago
> incompetence Oopsie, I accidentally provisioned a server in communist China. Yeah right.
- ironchief 4y ago
  I thought your comment was a joke until I read the link. Wow "District Attorney investigators found that in contradiction to the contract, information was stored on servers in the People’s Republic of China."
  - mikeyouse 4y ago
    They had a software development subsidiary with a testing server / database in China that apparently received some actual poll-worker PII.
    - transcriptase 4y ago
      Why did a company with 20 employees have a subsidiary with a server in China?
      - MichaelCollins 4y ago
      - themitigating 4y ago
        Well either cheap labor or spies which do you think is more likely with the current evidence

IG_Semmelweiss 4y ago

This has white hat "tip" fingerprints all over it. Local and state will have no way to effectively police this sort of contract breach.

jeffbee 4y ago

It's a bit ridiculous that the county would even outsource this function specifically. What's so difficult about payroll for a transient workforce, above and beyond the complexities that a jurisdiction of 10 million people already faces?

ceejayoz 4y ago
It (http://www.pollchief.com/ http://www.pollchief.com/) appears to do quite a bit more than just payroll, quite a bit of it fairly specialized.
- rdxm 4y ago

ceejayoz 4y ago

> Konnech distributes and sells its proprietary PollChief software, which is an election worker management system that was utilized by the county in the last California election. The software assists with poll worker assignments, communications and payroll. PollChief requires that workers submit personal identifying information, which is retained by the Konnech. I'm so very tired of proprietary software made by tiny little outfits being critical to elections.

danielodievich 4y ago
in my previous/previous/previous career I was heavily involved with various states election systems (juicily enough starting in hanging chads Florida). The field is full of tiny little outfits AND huge consultancies (Accenture in my personal example) doing stuff. The quality varies tremendously from amazing to amazingly atrocious. When I did all this work the cloud was not yet a big thing so no servers were provisioned in anything other than well known data centers, but it's you get what you pay for. Since it's secretaries of state paying for some, and then tons of random counties paying for some others, these are not incredibly lucrative contracts, and it does attract just random small software firms.
- pyuser583 4y ago
  Is “the cloud” really a good idea for high integrity software?
hotpotamus 4y ago
- anonymousiam 4y ago
  Fortunately, elections are managed by the states. Unfortunately, the Federal Government is trying to take them over. https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/senate-bill/2747 https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/senate-bill/274... https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/1/text https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/1/te...

anon291 4y ago

I fully support this action, but I also think county bureaucrats and elected officials who allowed this software to be used despite clearly having no ability to audit it, should also be held accountable.

willcipriano 4y ago

"We fortified the election boss, it's now behind the great wall."

Whatboard 4y ago

"Konnech was required to keep the data in the United States and only provide access to citizens and permanent residents but instead stored it on servers in the People’s Republic of China." I think we'll soon learn that his ties to China run far deeper than simply storing data.

mercy_dude 4y ago
And wouldn’t be surprised if China used or continue to use these covet tactics to alter election results.
- V-eHGsd_ 4y ago
  alter?
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- themitigating 4y ago
  What evidence do you have that China has altered elections?
- MichaelCollins 4y ago
  They may leak the stolen personal information of poll workers to extremists in America upset with whatever the latest election result is.
barbazoo 4y ago
Maybe Hanlon’s razor applies here and hopefully someone simply created a cloud resource in the wrong region.
- jameshart 4y ago
  You can't just accidentally create resources in one of AWS's mainland China regions. ap-east-1 in Hong Kong, maybe, but the AWS china Beijing and Ningxia regions are not just a misclick away.

carom 4y ago

Yet my voter records are public with my name, address, and phone number. Curious. Also the DMV sells my information. Also the post office forwards my information to companies who have my previous address when I file a change of address form. Also my property records are public. I would love if the government gave me the ability to opt out (or better, opt in) to these practices. They are a huge source of data leaks.

mistrial9 4y ago
those USA records are huge sources for local law enforcement, credit card companies, anyone in consumer credit, private detectives, insurance industry and more.. anyone with property is being tracked since the 1960s at least. You just didnt get the memo.
advisedwang 4y ago
35 states do have some kind of program for protecting addresses if you are at risk of stalking, DV etc. See https://www.sos.wa.gov/acp/about.aspx https://www.sos.wa.gov/acp/about.aspx for an example and the 35 state number.
uoaei 4y ago
The USPS sent my phone number to scammers as soon as I signed up for SMS package notifications. I'm hoping the FTC cares enough to investigate my report...

sudden_dystopia 4y ago

The DAY after the NYT called it a “right wing conspiracy theory”.

tootie 4y ago
This is absolutely unrelated to the right wing conspiracy theory which is 100% a propaganda campaign.
- ejb999 4y ago
  The 'right wing conspiracy theory' that you say this is unrelated to was this: *Using threadbare evidence, or none at all, the group suggested that a small American election software company, Konnech, had secret ties to the Chinese Communist Party and had given the Chinese government backdoor access to personal data about two million poll workers in the United States, according to online accounts from several people at the conference.* which is exactly what happened, and thus the arrest - so in this case, the 'theory' was spot on. Tell us again how this is unrelated?
  - smallerfish 4y ago
    Where's your evidence that they had secret ties to the Chinese Communist Party and/or gave them backdoor access, as opposed to, say, hiring a dev team in China on Upwork because they were cheap, and had a poor understanding of compliant data handling?
    - thepasswordis 4y ago
      I’m sorry but this is actually kind of funny. You’re saying, basically: where are the secret ties? The ties are right there in the open! (Well now they are at least) “Hey they got caught. They’re not being so secretive anymore” is not really evidence suggesting that there was nothing nefarious occurring.
      - smallerfish 4y ago

mercy_dude 4y ago

> In this case, the alleged conduct had no impact on the tabulation of votes and did not alter election results Would be curious how they asserted that. A contractor in the last election dumped ballots in garbage in Pennsylvania. Justice department maintained it didn’t alter election integrity. https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/temporary-contractor-threw-trump-mail-ballots-trash-pennsylvania/story?id=73251533 https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/temporary-contractor-threw-t...

ceejayoz 4y ago
> A contractor in the last election dumped ballots in garbage in Pennsylvania. Justice department maintained it didn’t alter election integrity. Given that it was nine ballots, that seems rational.
tootie 4y ago
Read it. The alleged crime was related to PII of election workers. Not voters. The assertion is that nothing in their investigation indicated trouble with votes which isn't the same as guaranteeing nothing happened.
puffoflogic 4y ago
There is an extremely simple process to determine whether election integrity is compromised. Just check who won!

adolph 4y ago

Under its $2.9 million, five-year contract with the county, Konnech was supposed to securely maintain the data and that only United States citizens and permanent residents have access to it. District Attorney investigators found that in contradiction to the contract, information was stored on servers in the People’s Republic of China. Maybe there are additional facts not claimed in the press release, but at face value the two above statements are not mutually exclusive. If the PRC wanted access and the company was willing, it is hardly necessary for the data to reside in any geographic location.

rglover 4y ago

The incredibly important punchline: > District Attorney investigators found that in contradiction to the contract, information was stored on servers in the People’s Republic of China. It's shocking how effective the CCP has been at infiltrating Western governments and institutions. My favorite turn to date has to be Charles Lieber from Harvard [1]. He's got some fun patents [2] floating around. [1] https://www.justice.gov/usao-ma/pr/harvard-university-professor-convicted-making-false-statements-and-tax-offenses https://www.justice.gov/usao-ma/pr/harvard-university-profes... [2] https://patents.google.com/patent/WO2015199784A2/en https://patents.google.com/patent/WO2015199784A2/en

shubb 4y ago
To be fair, this is probably a guy going to jail because he used a text message sending API that used tencent cloud somewhere in their backend or something...
- rglover 4y ago
  I wish that were true but considering his ties, expertise, and the general theme of his patents I'd say that's a naive interpretation. That said I certainly hope you're right and I only say "naive" to discourage people shrugging it off as a nothing burger.
woodruffw 4y ago
There is no evidence of "infiltration" here. The reality is that, in its march to privatize everything it can, the US government has incentivized a race to the bottom. If Chinese companies provide the cheapest services, then American data is going to end up on Chinese servers until the incentives are fixed. Is this good? No. But it also isn't CCP infiltration; it's the logical consequence of trying to channel public money into private economies, public money that is meant to fund our most basic civic activity.
- rglover 4y ago
  > it's the logical consequence of trying to channel public money into private economies, public money that is meant to fund our most basic civic activity. Yes, and that logical consequence is being exploited by foreign governments. By "infiltrate" I mean "taking advantage of our shortsightedness," similar to how we ignorantly offshored pharmaceutical sourcing/production to China [1]. There's plenty [2] of loose threads that warrant my "only the paranoid survive" POV on stuff like this. Hell, there's even a book that goes into detail about the strategy [3]: > "If one party is at war with another, and the other party does not realize it is at war, the party who knows it is at war almost always has the advantage and usually wins.” And this is the strategy set forth in Unrestricted Warfare: waging a war on an adversary with methods so covert at first and seemingly so benign that the party being attacked does not realize it’s being attacked." - Qiao Liang --- [1] https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-care/u-s-officials-worried-about-chinese-control-american-drug-supply-n1052376 https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-care/u-s-officials-wor... [2] https://www.businessinsider.com/china-houston-consulate-document-burning-us-told-quickly-close-2020-7 https://www.businessinsider.com/china-houston-consulate-docu... [3] https://www.amazon.com/Unrestricted-Warfare-Chinas-Destroy-America/dp/1626543054/ https://www.amazon.com/Unrestricted-Warfare-Chinas-Destroy-A...

rmason 4y ago

I am from the East Lansing area and went to high school in Okemos. I know both communities very well. I've spent 30 years in developer and founder circles and never knew a single person from this company. The company's original headquarters is near my old high school in what was once a lumber yard. They were getting ready to move into an old department store that is owned by the city of East Lansing. This company was exceedingly good at getting money from both the local economic development people as well as the state. Told someone today that I felt like I was in the middle of a spy novel ;<). It is also the first time to my knowledge the little village of Okemos was ever mentioned in the old grey lady (aka NYT). Here's how local media covered the story: https://www.lansingstatejournal.com/story/news/2022/10/05/east-lansing-ceo-arrested-in-los-angeles-county-data-theft-probe/69541092007/ https://www.lansingstatejournal.com/story/news/2022/10/05/ea...

didgetmaster 4y ago

Wow. We actually found a crime that Gascon thinks is worth prosecuting!

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

jimcavel888 4y ago

tristor 4y ago

Literally the day after the NY Times accused people talking about this issue of being right-wing conspiracy theorists. Why does that not surprise me? https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/03/technology/konnech-election-conspiracy-theories.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/03/technology/konnech-electi...

ummonk 4y ago
That update is glorious. Doesn’t seem like the conspiracy theorists had any actual reason for suspicion of this particular firm other than xenophobia though. I wonder if they caught this guy because the firm conducted an audit in response to the conspiracy theories.
usernomdeguerre 4y ago
Are they vindicated if "Selling/Improperly Storing poll worker data" and "Forcing poll workers to change election outcomes" are two wildly separate claims? Or does the former prove the latter in your mind?

egberts1 4y ago

The biggest ways to jam the ballot boxes today are: 1. County workers leaking a roll of rarely voted voters to an external ballot stuffing operation. 2. Suitcases with rollers being carried into poll counting room. 3. And voters dropping off MANY ballots at early drop-boxes. Until we have ways to detect those alleged acts, it remains a hard problem.

chrononaut 4y ago
The trouble with all three of these is that it has to be done systematically across all polling places across a diverse number of counties -- or you end up with this: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/07/upshot/mapped-why-voting-anomalies-are-impossible-to-ignore-in-north-carolina.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/07/upshot/mapped-why-voting-... (Although they admit that it would be easier to do in some states than others.)
- egberts1 4y ago
  There are many election contests showing consistent but wide disparity between absentee and in-person voting. Whether it is an issue remains elusive to this day. Also, probably can do this nationwide if you sell election devices … nationwide.
  - NotACop182 4y ago