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.

Comments

aha

[superwiz]

Of course, it's "unclear". If it was ordered by a Republican, it would be the first thing mentioned. The whole Russian collusion story is falling apart, so Dems are burning the evidence to create doubt. Democratic Party is a criminal organization.

Nothing narrow about Trump's win in Georgia

[wyattstorch516]

He beat Clinton by 6 points. Just ridiculous conspiracy theory mongering. Funny how nobody wanted to look at the results until after they found out the data was wiped.

Nice try democrats

[RedK]

We now know that it was the DNC and the Clinton campaign that colluded with Russia through Manafort working for the Podesta Group and paying Steele for the fake dossier.

Don't try to deflect. It's over. Trump won. Clinton colluded, cheated and still loss, proving how much of a failure of a candidate she was.

Can you say "FalseFlag" by Democrats w/ zero?

[Anonymous Coward]

See subject: I'd wager, based on their disproven "russian narrative" vs. Trump (which Shillary & Podesta are going down for too with other things like Uranium One, Benghazi & illegal info. Hillary CANNOT CLAIM IGNORANCE OF - No DoD securing of those servers, they were never registered w/ gov't. & had classified info on them - SHE WAS A FORMER ATTORNEY + SECRETARY OF STATE - she KNOWS those are HUGE "no nos" to do)) ?

Democrats KNEW they had nothing, so being the lying snakes they are, they're now "trying for 'He had the Server Wiped. We CAN prove it!'" (yea, lol - riiiiiggghhhtt).

* 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!

(They're awful 'desperate' these globalists - I find that 'channeling your inner criminal' helps you forecast their nefarious activities, lol... as I just have!)

I JUST LIKE HOW THEY KEEP GETTING BUSTED LYING THOUGH, lol!

APK

P.S.=> Former Democrat here (but I am a "Trump Man" this round) too - For instance: I did not like Bush (both) or Obama, but I wasn't doing stupid shit against them - why? They were OUR Presidents - support them, like it or not... so what is wrong w/ these Antifa (paid by soros, them I understand - not respect though) & Democrats? apk

DNC/CLinton/FBI Russian collusion...

[Anonymous Coward]

That's the sad state of our times. The fucking cunts that have been blaming Trump for their crimes are the guilty ones. I wouldn't be surprised if it was Hillary that peed on the bed of hookers and then said that popular RAPER word in the bathroom.

I didn't click on the link, but if this was the DNC server that NO ONE IN OUR GOVERNMENT HAS LOOKED AT? If so, then how fucking convenient it gets wiped when this bullshit Russian narrative is crashing down, since its entire foundation is based on deflective-lies and diarrhea, which has been spread by bought-and-paid-for-media-outlets, and the very crooks that sold part of our Uranium to the Russians.

FUCK OFF DEMOCRATS! FUCK OFF DNC! AND FUCK THE MEDIA for praying on the week minded Americans who were gullible enough to buy into this Russian bullshit.

Re:insecure voting machines

[rickb928]

There need not be a court order to preserve evidence for the act to be 'obstruction of justice'. The officials who are responsible for the system knew or should have known that the devices they altered would be expected to be evidence, and so their actions are at best negligent, and, in the absence of compelling evidence to the contrary, deliberate acts, and obstructionist in nature. The standard of proof may be higher than that, but at the least dismissal is appropriate. I doubt that happens until the suit is resolved, since it would appear to be an admission of at least incompetence, and possibly malfeasance, and the plaintiffs' case would be strengthened.

"It is unclear who ordered the destruction of the data, and why"

Oh yea, it doesn't matter as much as the actual act does, but if the officials, elected or appointed claim they don't know, they can be dismissed for incompetence. Oh well, again, not until the suit is resolved.

"but they have raised yet more suspicions of collusion between the Trump campaign team, the Republican Party, and the Russian government."

Why? you think state officials in Georgia are engaged in collusion with Russian actors? Really? Since we have compelling evidence that the entire Russian collusion narrative is actually one of DNC, FBI, and Clinton campaign interaction, this is nonsense on two fronts; first, the players involved are in fact not Trump people, and second, the intention was to benefit the Clinton campaign.

This is so twisted it's hard to decipher, but my Clinton and anyone-but-Trump supporting friends are so lost in the narrative that they can't even hear the current evidence being made public. They are so far gone they can't tolerate competing reports, no matter the content, and the recent revelations are at least as credible as the initial ones, and I believe are, in fact, true.

We are in a lot of trouble.