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US Voting Server At Heart of Russian Hack Probe Mysteriously Wiped (theregister.co.uk)

A computer at the center of a lawsuit digging into Russian interference in the U.S. presidential election has been wiped. "The server in question is based in Georgia -- a state that narrowly backed Donald Trump, giving him 16 electoral votes -- and stored the results of the state's vote-management system," reports The Register. "The deletion of its filesystem data makes analysis of whether the system was compromised impossible to ascertain." From the report: There is good reason to believe that the computer may have been tampered with: it is 15 years old, and could be harboring all sorts of exploitable software and hardware vulnerabilities. No hard copies of the votes are kept, making the electronic copy the only official record. While investigating the Kennesaw State University's Center for Election Systems, which oversees Georgia's voting system, last year, security researcher Logan Lamb found its system was misconfigured, exposing the state's entire voter registration records, multiple PDFs with instructions and passwords for election workers, and the software systems used to tally votes cast. Despite Lamb letting the election center knows of his findings, the security holes were left unpatched for seven months. He later went public after the U.S. security services announced there had been a determined effort by the Russian government to sway the presidential elections, including looking at compromising electronic voting machines.

In an effort to force the state to scrap the system, a number of Georgia voters bandied together and sued. They asked for an independent security review of the server, expecting to find flaws that would lend weight to their argument for investment in a more modern and secure system. But emails released this week following a Freedom of Information Act request reveal that technicians at the election center deleted the server's data on July 7 -- just days after the lawsuit was filed. The memos reveal multiple references to the data wipe, including a message sent just last week from an assistant state attorney general to the plaintiffs in the case. That same email also notes that backups of the server data were also deleted more than a month after the initial wipe -- just as the lawsuit moved to a federal court. It is unclear who ordered the destruction of the data, and why, but they have raised yet more suspicions of collusion between the Trump campaign team, the Republican Party, and the Russian government.

9 of 431 comments (clear)

  1. Obligatory by spaceman375 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Voting Machines: https://xkcd.com/463/

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    On the one hand you take life too seriously, and on the other, you do not take playful existence seriously enough. Seth
  2. Gotta ask by Tablizer · · Score: 1, Funny

    with a cloth?

  3. Re: Like Hillary's server was? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    What, like with a rag?

  4. Windex? by Tolvor · · Score: 1, Funny

    By "wiped" do you mean with Windex? Was Hillary anywhere around?

  5. Re:Like Hillary's server was? by gmb61 · · Score: 2, Funny

    Hillary's server was wiped

    Like with a cloth or something?

  6. Re:Can you say "FalseFlag" by Democrats w/ zero? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    * I've lived over 1/2 a century & NEVER in my life have I seen such utter STUPIDITY over a Presidential Election in the USA!

    Alzheimer's is a bitch.

  7. Re:insecure voting machines by fahrbot-bot · · Score: 5, Funny

    Bet you'll find plenty of insecure voting machines around.

    Tell them they're pretty or handsome and doing a really good job. That'll help their self-esteem.

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    It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
  8. Re:Nothing narrow about Trump's win in Georgia by ewhac · · Score: 3, Funny

    Liar, moron, or just didn't even read the summary?

    Why not all three?

  9. Re:They always tell the truth so this is fine by jwhyche · · Score: 2, Funny

    Trump will get through this term just fine. Despite all the ramblings from foolish democrats they are not going to impeach him. Really democrats, you should write these representatives and tell them knock it off. It used to be funny, now its just sad.

    As for Trump going for a full 8 years, I predict there is a 50/50 chance of that happening. I'm betting there is a 50% chance he will not run again in 2020. Then again, Trump has to much of a ego not to do round two.

    Now lets poke some SJW. If Trump does run in 2020 as he currently stands he will win by a land slide. Simple because once you separate the personality from the president he is doing a pretty decent job.

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    I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.