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Facebook Funds 'Defending Digital Democracy' Initiative At Harvard (diginomica.com)
An anonymous reader quotes Diginomica:
A fresh initiative aimed at information sharing about election threats and dubbed Defending Digital Democracy has the financial support of Facebook and the academic muscle of Harvard behind it. Will the project succeed where similar initiatives have failed...? On 19 July and backed by a $500,000 initial grant from Facebook, the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard Kennedy School launched a new, bipartisan initiative called the Defending Digital Democracy Project. The project will be co-led by Robby Mook, Democrat Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign manager, and Matt Rhoades, Republican Mitt Romney's 2012 campaign manager. The hope is that creating a unique and bipartisan team comprised of top-notch political operatives and leaders in the cyber and national security world, the project will be able to to identify and recommend strategies, tools, and technology to protect democratic processes and systems from cyber and information attacks.
The group will also assess new technologies (including blockchain) to secure elections, and wants to create an information sharing infrastructure modeled "on similar efforts within the tech industry to share tech intelligence." The article says Facebook's chief security officer "hopes that election officials who are wary of cooperating with the federal government will be more receptive to working with an independent group tied to Harvard and the tech industy," and the group also includes Google's director for Information Security and Privacy.
"Facebook plans to host state and local election officials at its D.C. office later this year to discuss the information sharing organization, and launch the organization in early 2018."
The group will also assess new technologies (including blockchain) to secure elections, and wants to create an information sharing infrastructure modeled "on similar efforts within the tech industry to share tech intelligence." The article says Facebook's chief security officer "hopes that election officials who are wary of cooperating with the federal government will be more receptive to working with an independent group tied to Harvard and the tech industy," and the group also includes Google's director for Information Security and Privacy.
"Facebook plans to host state and local election officials at its D.C. office later this year to discuss the information sharing organization, and launch the organization in early 2018."
Wikileaks not appearing on Slashdot as usual.
Today, July 27th 2017, WikiLeaks publishes documents from the Imperial project of the CIA.
Achilles is a capability that provides an operator the ability to trojan an OS X disk image (.dmg) installer with one or more desired operator specified executables for a one-time execution.
Aeris is an automated implant written in C that supports a number of POSIX-based systems (Debian, RHEL, Solaris, FreeBSD, CentOS). It supports automated file exfiltration, configurable beacon interval and jitter, standalone and Collide-based HTTPS LP support and SMTP protocol support - all with TLS encrypted communications with mutual authentication. It is compatible with the NOD Cryptographic Specification and provides structured command and control that is similar to that used by several Windows implants.
SeaPea is an OS X Rootkit that provides stealth and tool launching capabilities. It hides files/directories, socket connections and/or processes. It runs on Mac OSX 10.6 and 10.7.
'Defending Digital Democracy' means pushing some selfserving political narrative in the US rather than actually defending democracy in places companies like Facebook kowtow to like China.
The most ingenious idea I have ever seen for securing ballots follows a few simple steps:
1. Assign a unique serial number to all ballots printed.
2. Use a scantron system to record the choices and serial number.
3. Let the voter either keep the ballot or a carbon copy.
4. As the votes are tallied, the serial numbers and choices are posted online on a government website so that voters can verify their vote.
Motor voter laws are probably the single biggest threat to our process aside from the lack of a solid ID requirement at the precincts. Set aside any views you have on politics and culture for a moment and just consider these facts:
1. In some states, illegal immigrants--by state policy--can get driver's licenses.
2. You can register to vote at the DMV without any form of ID showing you are a US citizen.
If any system dealing with PII, finances, etc. in your life had such a low barrier on security, would you use it? I don't think you would.
The hope is that creating a unique and bipartisan team comprised of top-notch political operatives and leaders in the cyber and national security world, the project will be able to to identify and recommend strategies, tools, and technology to protect democratic processes and systems from cyber and information attacks.
Step 1 to protecting democracy:
Don't riot when someone with different political views comes to your campus. For comparison:
Once the universities begin to act like a) they have a role in our democracy (we are actually a representative republic, but I am not going to split hairs), and b) start working constructively to improve it, then we may have something worthwhile.
No matter what kind of Rube Goldberg system they come up with, it will always be at the mercy of those who implement and run it.
You know what the most secure voting system is? Paper ballots. But they are subject to manipulation just as are electronic voting systems.
The primary "flaw" in voting systems is also their primary strength...the voter is ultimately disconnected from their vote. You don't know who voted for who.
It would be nice if there were a way I could confirm that the vote I cast is actually cast for who I voted. But then someone would be able to force me to vote a particular way...management, union bosses, etc. because they could confirm they way I voted.
I'm afraid it all comes down t the integrity and honesty of the people running the election.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.