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Security Expert Jailed For Reporting Vulnerabilities In Lee County, FL Elections (theregister.co.uk)

Posted by msmash on from the this-is-what-you-want,-this-is-what-you-get dept.

rootmon writes: Information Security Professional David Levin was arrested 3 months after reporting un-patched SQL injection vulnerabilities in the Lee County, Florida Elections Office run by Sharon Harrington, the Lee County Supervisor of Elections. Harrington's office has been in the news before for voting systems problems (for example in during the 2012 election, 35 districts in Lee County had to remain open 3 hours past the closing of polls due to long lines and equipment issues, wasting $800,000 to $1.6 million of taxpayer money on incompatible iPads for which her office is facing an audit. Rather than fixing the issues in their systems, they chose to charge the whistleblower with three third-degree felonies. The News Press also has several related interviews.

5 of 307 comments (clear)

  1. No he wasn't by 110010001000 · · Score: 3, Informative

    He was arrested for actually hacking the website. Stop it with the clickbait headlines. This isn't the Star.

    1. Re:No he wasn't by hesiod · · Score: 5, Informative

      He was "hacking" it on a video demonstrating it directly to THE ELECTIONS SUPERVISOR, who agree he should not have been arrested.

  2. Re:White Hat by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    If a public system like a voting system is left wide open to fraud, then we will fail as a Democracy if we stand silently by and allow fraud to be committed the we all lose

  3. Re:FLORIDA by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    The joke is that things roll downhill from the rest of the US into Florida.

  4. Re:White Hat by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    There is no MUST - prosecutors have discretion. Judges have discretion, and Juries (though they don;t want you to know it!) have discretion.