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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.
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.
Bet you'll find plenty of insecure voting machines around. There is absolutely no reason to have those things connected to the Internet.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Hillary's server was wiped, and the circumstances under which is was wiped (and who decided to do what when) was thoroughly investigated and no one was charged (though the admin probably should have been), and the files were recovered.
Hopefully this server wiping is as thoroughly investigated.
I stole this Sig
We know the Trump administration has nothing to hide because of their straightforward and transparent statements and actions. We know the GOP would never impeach an insane golden goose that MIGHT lay them a Trillion dollar egg. What we don't know is what Putin gets out of the deal, or whether Paul Ryan will be appointed President and continue this spineless corrupt quid pro quo pandering horseshit after Mueller's investigation destroys both Trump and Pence in a 48 hour period.
Black box voting machines make it easy for election officials to throw the results however they pleased. Let's skip the Russian conspiracy theories when good ol' domestic corruption is more than enough to explain suspiciously wiped servers.
Voting Machines: https://xkcd.com/463/
On the one hand you take life too seriously, and on the other, you do not take playful existence seriously enough. Seth
Buttery males!!1
Benghazi!!
Deflector shield up! I'm not sure she can take much more, Captain
Hopefully this server wiping is as thoroughly investigated.
I won't hold my breath.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Move along. Ignore the man behind the curtain. Electronic voting systems are perfectly safe. There's no need to keep any paper records because the machines never make mistakes and are secure from intrusion.
There's never been a case where voting machines have been compromised. How do we know? Because we say so.
It's time to get over it.
with a cloth?
Table-ized A.I.
than deleting backups.
Just sayin.
Oh please shut up with your petty partisan politics.
Election rigging has a long history in the US, and neither major party has shown much interest in reforming the system.
What, like with a rag?
Liar, moron, or just didn't even read the summary?
The data was wiped AFTER the suit was filed.
How would the Democrats gain access to the voting computer? The Republicans won that state so they control it.
Way to troll.
"If it was ordered by a Republican, it would be the first thing mentioned."
Of course it would because then we'd know who authorized it.
I ignore Anonymous Coward posts. If you want to discuss something, that's awesome. Log in.
Why would it have to be mentioned? The Georgia Secretary of State is responsible for elections there, top-to-bottom (he's a Republican). The Governor of Georgia is a Republican. The state legislature is controlled by Republicans. The Attorney General of Georgia is a Republican. Republicans control every single state-wide lever of power.
The server was wiped after voting rights activists filed a lawsuit against the Republican Secretary of State. The reason for the lawsuit? To force the Republican Secretary of State to have the server independently analyzed.
So, please explain why and how "Dems are burning the evidence" in this case? And how did they manage to get a server, and all of its backups simultaneously wiped when they were under Republican control.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Funny that even the summary describes people trying to legally get access to this server prior to it being wiped. Maybe try reading the second paragraph of the summary.
I ignore Anonymous Coward posts. If you want to discuss something, that's awesome. Log in.
So I guess all the right-wing conspiracy nuts will be jumping all over this.
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2017/jul/11/donald-trump/did-john-podesta-deny-cia-and-fbi-access-dnc-serve/
Go back to Russia, asshole.
Voting results for federal elections -- at the individual ballot level -- must be kept for 22 months after the election. The servers got wiped after just 8 months.
I'm thinking this is a clear violation of election law. IANAL but, given the timing of the destruction of the records -- mere days after the lawsuit was filed -- I wonder whether it's also obstruction of justice.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
By "wiped" do you mean with Windex? Was Hillary anywhere around?
Or was it a case of "Erase this box of hard drives." Are you suggesting Intern Ricky go to prison for a common computer drudge task?
Like with a cloth? For dust?
Diebold's CEO promised to deliver Ohio to Bush, and in contradiction to the exit polls, the Diebold machines made good on the promise. Not proof (polls are tricky), but there was a "magic" card that could set the machine to deliver and specified result. Might have been a test card to check the the central server correctly tallied the remote machines, but production code should never have had it.
The last time a Democrat won Georgia was under Jimmy Carter, who was born there.
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
p.s. sorry quantaman, of course that wasn't directed at you, but the AC you replied to.
Hillary's server was wiped
Like with a cloth or something?
* 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.
The fact that we have to go to a UK site to even hear about it because there's nothing on CNN or NBC about it makes this theory plausible. I mean there's an AP story about a suspected Russian-hacked voting machine being wiped and CNN isn't running it as the top story? I wouldn't expect to see FoxNews touch it with a 10 ft pole but if CNN isn't running with it that's very fishy.
Pretty sure this is just old fashioned election fraud and doesn't have anything to do with the Ruskies
but who knows, maybe it's all a big coincidence and they just happened to be deleting their data then. Along with their backups.
That doesn't raise any suspicions of collusion with Russia. This is just ordinary election corruption that happens everywhere for every election, by both parties. Stupid attempt to bring in fake news to a real thing.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/10/26/fact-check-what-we-know-uranium-one-deal/804753001/
thanks for the input comrade! how is the weather in Vladivostok?
Is good.
- LarryStorch213
His ignorance covered the whole earth like a blanket, and there was hardly a hole in it anywhere. - Mark Twain
The Russia investigation is shifting to the Democratic Party collusion. The butt covering has begun. Hopefully it takes the Clintons and other liberals down. They have scammed their way into the US government and need to be removed from power for good.
Er, nvrmnd.
His ignorance covered the whole earth like a blanket, and there was hardly a hole in it anywhere. - Mark Twain
Yes, lets equate emails with voting records and use this news to flog a dead horse. Distract and dodge. Works every time, and the best bit is, you don't even need to do it yourself, an army of tribal supporters are willing to do your work for you on internet discussion spaces everywhere.
Be fair. It's not like this is the first time there was presumptive evidence that a voting machine had been corrupted, which mysteriously disappeared before it could be validated. This is probably a bit more important than many of the others, but I believe there was a time or two in Illinois that were equally suspicious, and similarly important.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
The state was being sued for having a shit electronic voting system with no verifiability, and now the primary evidence was mysteriously erased! Must be the Ruskies (who haven't been shown to have done jack or shit last year), not someone looking to cover for corrupt election officials in the state.
The non-clickbaity side of the story (a statement from Center for Elections Systems at Kennesaw State University, who had possession of the server) is here:
"In March 2017, a Center for Election Systems’ server involved in an alleged data breach was turned over to the FBI. While the server was in the possession of the Bureau, a forensic image or copy of all the data on the server was made and held by the agency. Following the notification from the FBI that no data was compromised and the investigation was closed, the server was returned to the University’s Information Technology Services group and securely stored. In accordance with standard operating procedures, an after-action report was prepared. This report outlined hardware improvements for the Center, including repurposing the impacted server and surplusing servers that had exceeded end of life. As part of the report, the original server that had been investigated by the FBI was designated to be repurposed, and the drives on the server were erased and the server made available for alternative uses."
"As noted by the subpoena filed today by the Attorney General’s Office, the data and information that was on the server in question has been and is still in the possession of the FBI and will remain available to the parties in the event it is determined to be relevant in the pending litigation."
So (a) the feds already investigated and found no evidence the server was compromised, and (b) they still have their forensic image of the server. This seems a lot more like litigants and journalists huffing and puffing than it does a real issue.
just like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lois_Lerner
Her hard drive got wiped just as the justice system got interested in her actions.
Hillary did the same thing.
I am sure countless others on both sides of the aisle have wiped data from computers to hide something. I can't wait until people start realizing they have no say in how our government works.
Hillary and the DNC paying Fusion GPS (and the Russians) for FAKE intel....
Get ready to ignore the bank records....
5 out of 6 people enjoy Russian Roulette & 6 out of 7 Dwarfs are not Happy
The view is quite a bit more clear than rom the hole you climbed into after accusing Iraq invasion skeptics of being Saddam lovers. Why don't you crawl back in it.
...in this case is a margin of 231,000 votes. i.e. not all that narrow.
I think he just did a Crazy Ivan on you.
His ignorance covered the whole earth like a blanket, and there was hardly a hole in it anywhere. - Mark Twain
No, but the ones who control election systems are.
You are welcome on my lawn.
There are exactly 2 Podesta's mixed up in all this and they are brothers and co-founders of the Podesta group. Both worked with Manafort on Russias's behalf (often paid through shell charities) it's just that one also happens to have been Clinton's campaign chair.
The Podesta's (either one, take your pick) have a pretty long and very deep relationship with Russia but they seem to be more than willing to take money from anyone so there's always that defense.
Of course that's just my opinion...... you could be wrong!
I have a personal vendetta against Putin too. Turns out, when you're a ruthless cunt, people don't like you very much.
Only crack the nuts that crack. You don't put the ones that don't crack in the sack.
One statement does not contradict the other. If the FBI never served a formal request to investigate the physical server, it won't have had access to it. And still the DNC never had denied the FBI access to the server.
You are fake news.
http://thehill.com/policy/national-security/313555-comey-fbi-did-request-access-to-hacked-dnc-servers
>The bureau made “multiple requests at different levels,” according to Comey, but ultimately struck an agreement with the DNC that a “highly respected private company” would get access and share what it found with investigators.
>“We’d always prefer to have access hands-on ourselves if that’s possible,” Comey said, noting that he didn’t know why the DNC rebuffed the FBI’s request.
So, please explain why and how "Dems are burning the evidence" in this case?
The whole story is part of a smear campaign against Republicans. If the name of the person who ordered the wiping matched the rhetoric, he would be accused immediately. Everything about the "russian collusion" story is repeated unsubstantiated allegations against Republicans or "we don't know this 100%"-type defense of Democrats. If no accusation has been made, then (consistent with the mode operandi so far) the person who did the did was a Democrat.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
Oh please shut up with your petty partisan politics.
Election rigging has a long history in the US, and neither major party has shown much interest in reforming the system.
Vote machine tampering is not particularly bipartison since the major vote machine manufacturers are under control of the Republican-campaigning Koch brothers.
At any rate, "reforming the system" has nothing to do with at least making the system work according to prescription. Of course, reforming the electoral system has been centuries overdue but is not in the interest of established parties. The founders were as a rule plantage owners and moulded the electoral system to maintain their control. Women and negro voting eventually got permitted, but reforms have stopped around the electoral system vastly favoring large parties (and thus allow only watershed rather than gradual changes).
No, winning elections would only allow them to control political offices. I doubt the hands-on operations or operational policies are enforced by political operatives.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
Yawn... Hillary lost the election old news.
Because having a madman in charge of the country is much better then a lady who poorly managed her IT.
At this point it isn’t about Clinton or Trump. We had been played for suckers by the Russians. They had shown to push both sides of the political spectrum to be more radicalized just to destabilize the US. So they can wield more power. If Clinton won there would be so much hatred on the right that she would be facing massive battles to push any agenda. Trump is just too stupid to be able to push an agenda even with his party in power.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
buh... did the deed... not did the did.. sometimes this inability to edit is really frustrating.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
Why not all three?
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
You don't consider that funny? FBI talking about this huge russian hack of our election, an unprecedented act of war, but they don't deem it necessary to analyze the DNC servers?
...election" LOL.
It's beginning to sound just like "weapons of mass destruction". Repeat it endlessly and nobody ever asks WHAT exactly the 'Russians' did...
Somebody in Russia (not 'Russia') exposed Hilary Clinton's e-mails and her crimes.... that's called "interference" by the controlled media that wanted Clinton to win the election...
So let's not consider a 15 year old server to be part of the problem here, let's blame Russia. Sadly, only this stuff is exposed after some feel jilted at the voting booth because their person did not win. Would be interesting to know how many people would be exposing this if Clinton had won? Or is it more about the ends justifying the means?
I am a volunteer poll worker in Virginia. NO vote-tallying equipment is connected to the Internet, anywhere in the U.S. We are not idiots. We have about 230+ years' worth of experience with people trying to throw an election, and we understand -- and mitigate -- the risks.
This server in Georgia did NOT hold vote counts. It held voter registration records, instructions, and voting equipment passwords.
Each precinct tallying the votes keeps an independent record of their machines. There are paper backups of voting totals in the form of printed counts and hand-copied summary sheets.
In my state, we have switched over to machine-counted paper ballots in all precincts. Those scanners do not even have wireless hardware in them, they can only be accessed via ethernet cable. Once a machine is tested and certified for voting, a cover is placed over the ethernet socket and it is sealed with a plastic band.
I do advocate the use of paper ballots, but not because then humans could do a hand-count of them. Humans are lousy at repetitive tasks. A hand-count of millions of votes would have a margin of error 10x the size of the margin of error of machine-counted votes. In Virginia, when there is a recount, we bring in a completely different set of scanners than were used to originally count the votes, and run the same paper ballots through them. That is a excellent independent count.
"We receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us" - Faraday
Throw all these electronic voting machines in the trash! Use paper ballots and a pen, stuff those in sealed envelopes, have voters drop those into sealed and transparent ballot boxes, seal the slot when voting is over, then bring all ballot boxes to the counting place and have the count be open to the public. Once counted compare votes cast with the number of people signing in at polling stations. Both numbers have to match. Keep the sign in lists and the ballots at least until the next election and put a single person in charge of safeguarding them.
It will not solve all problems, but it will solve many. It will cost more, but in exchange there can be as many recounts as needed, there is a paper trail, and stuffing the ballot boxes will not be as easy given that anyone can check on progress. With the sign in sheets retained it will even be possible to ask people if they voted or not. Low tech is in this case better than high tech. Sure, will take longer to get results, but I rather wait a day to get a reliable result than get a wrong or tampered result fast.
And while we are at it, get rid of the electoral college for presidential elections. It takes significant less votes to get a seat from Montana compared to one from Michigan. It will also remove the case where the candidate who received more votes loses the election. What kind of whacked up idea of democracy is that?
Itâ(TM)s hyperbole. You can make just as many claims on either side of the aisle. Trump has his Russian friends in business, Clinton/Obama apparently had their Russian friends in politics.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
Conclude that it was compromised and proceed from that standpoint.
A computer at the center of a lawsuit digging into Russian interference in the U.S. presidential election has been wiped.
"What, like with a cloth or something??" - That never gets old...
Ken
...it was Democrats who INSISTED that electronic voting was the key to the future, since their voters were too stupid to operate a paper ballot in the Florida 2000 presidential election.
-Styopa
a lady who poorly managed her IT
What? You bought her "aw shucks, gee whiz" performance?
With malice of forethought she NEVER, EVER logged in or in any way touched a government email account in her entire term as Secretary of State because, being so backwards technically, she found it easier to hire her own IT consultant, have a server built and managed on her own dime, and have to tell everyone she worked with her email was not hrc@state,gov but instead Hillary@hrc45.com?
Hillary somehow "for simplicity sake" abandoned her official email that she used as a US Senator opting for one run by a guy that does IT work on the side when she stepped into Obama's Cabinet?
As an Ivy League educated lawyer, who was on the wrong side of dozens and dozens of "he said, she said" lawsuits and investigations, you honestly believe she has no idea how emails can derail a political career?
Ken
And still the DNC never had denied the FBI access to the server.
Why, you almost make it sound like the FBI never wanted the physical server... But as reported in January, 2017 I don't believe that to be the case.
Ken
First, paper ballots, duh.
Second, sounds like more that just Russians.
If there are E-mails talking about wiping servers and backups, after a judicial proceeding started, that seems like destruction of evidence.
If the backups were offline, it seems worth looking to find a trail leading to folks in the US.
If the backups were online, it seems worth finding the folks in charge and showing them the door.
Either way, it shows why old fashioned voting systems are still necessary.
At least with them you have to stuff the box locally by hand.
I'm thinking this is a clear violation of election law.
FTA, "Since the server was not under a court protection order, the destruction of its data is not illegal but it is extremely suspicious."
I am curious though, does the purpose of the server determine the time records must be kept? Was the server used to tally votes or keep totals or was it holding voter registration data? I haven't seen a clear answer on what the server did.
Besides circumstantial evidence there isn't much to go on.
That is how it is everywhere it is close. It is one reason why "hacking" the election would be difficult in the US. You have to find the districts that are close 50/50 and nudge it in one direction without being seen across the country in different states with different election laws and oversight rules across a lot of voting districts.
Manipulating voter registration records can also affect the outcome of an election, particularly in a situation where you are performing mass voter roll purges -- which I believe Georgia did. Tweaking the purge in the partisan way is one of the things that could be hidden by this.
Many voters who are denied a ballot may not choose to cast a provisional ballot, or come out to vote next time. Although this may seem like they get what they deserve if they're not sufficiently dedicated, voting can be more of a sacrifice for some people, particularly those with limited time to vote and where the polling stations are located inconveniently. If you're risking late for work you might choose just to leave. There have been documented attempts to manipulate turnout by inconveniently locating polling places.
As far as paper ballots, the obvious choice is optically scanned paper ballots. That said, I have never seen any evidence that human recounters don't perform acceptably. They are not perfect, but neither are machines -- for that matter how could you possibly know if a machine is perfect? In any case human limitations can be dealt with using statistics, to any desirable level of confidence.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
could be hidden by this
As another poster below linked. If it was hidden, the FBI missed it.
"While the server was in the possession of the Bureau, a forensic image or copy of all the data on the server was made and held by the agency. Following the notification from the FBI that no data was compromised and the investigation was closed"
You can breathe now.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-p...
So two groups of people did illegal things. That doesn't diminish this case one bit.
Well, one did allow the FBI to have the server to conclude their investigation while retaining an image in the event of pending litigation unlike some other group and server.
That dead horse you speak of is a blatant example of rules for thee not for me.
So let me get this straight. You think it is just as bad for the DNC to pay a former BRITISH spy for oppo research as it is for Trump's son and son in law to pay RUSSIAN spy's for oppo research?
I would call it one group. They are the people who, if they delete emails and computer records, are not held accountable.
Then there is the rest of us.
When the only tool you have is a claw hammer every problem starts to look like the back of someone's skull.
I'm confused. The narrative in the news was either that there were 30,000 deleted and unrecoverable emails that were just personal so no one needed to know anything about those, or there were 30,000 deleted and unrecoverable emails that were full of Russian collusion and payoffs to the Clinton foundation.
Either way, I never saw anyone denying there were 30,000 deleted and unrecoverable emails, no matter which side of the political reality spectrum they were viewing the world through. Now you say all of those emails were recovered.
Why is this the first time I am hearing about this?
When the only tool you have is a claw hammer every problem starts to look like the back of someone's skull.
You equivocating fool. There is a big difference between "I just got a surprising call, someone wants to bringing us information about our opponent" and "You and your company are on retainer. Here is some money. Deliver us results. There is more money when you bring us something that helps us against our opponent."
When the only tool you have is a claw hammer every problem starts to look like the back of someone's skull.
Then it's a serious case of negligence? No paper records? Sorry folks. Electronic voting machines are too easy to tamper with for them to be a reliable source of votes.
On the campus of Kennesaw State University maybe? That is where the computer was when it was degaussed.
It certainly wasn't in the direct control of any state elected officials. Good news though. The FBI has a complete copy of the data that was on the computer in question. Looks like you didn't know that, which is interesting. It's in the news. All you have to do is read and not be a fucking sheep.
When the only tool you have is a claw hammer every problem starts to look like the back of someone's skull.
The court order doesn't actually matter in this case. Ars Technica has an update to their story on this, and a commenter cites the law: These guys knowingly broke the law.
-
First: The FBI made and has retained a full copy of the drive previous to the lawsuit. The FBI has stated it is available to the participants in the lawsuit.
Second: The computer was at Kennesaw State University when it was degaussed by a low level technician.
These are the facts. What are you talking about? Everything you stated is irrelevant in light of these facts.
When the only tool you have is a claw hammer every problem starts to look like the back of someone's skull.
Because you might get elected.
The Atlanta FBI, which made an image of the server when it temporarily took custody in March, would not say whether it retained that copy – or whether it has done a forensic examination to determine whether the server was accessed by hackers and had files altered.
Kennesaw State University administers Georgia's elections. And it was not a "low-level technician" who wiped the server, it was a senior university engineer.
The server was wiped the day after a lawsuit was filed to preserve the server as evidence. All of the backups were also wiped.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Correction: This is how Jimmy Carter got in. Georgia has a long history of election tampering, and when large flaws were discovered they brought Jimmy in. The rest is history (and btw, I just moved to Atlanta last year and people think THE WORLD of Jimmy Carter, so I don't understand the distaste for bringing in another Dem).
-
What's significant is that this happened in the wake of a very close Special Election that would have put a Democrat, John Ossoff, in the mix for Georgia. The Russian thing? Whatever. It gets spun this way so it's seen as conspiracy theory, working up Dems while Repubs just call it hooey (classic media, polarizing the issue) instead of the deeply troubling issue that anyone could get behind: Another significant Georgia election has likely been rigged (it has a history of election tampering; Jimmy Carter got in office due to findings omassive election fraud on the Republican side).
It was pretty strange that it looked like Ossoff could win, but suddenly didn't.
-
I can only advise you when someone tries to sell you a bridge: walk away from it.
I read the arstechna article and it didn't say they broke the law. One of the plaintiffs suing them are saying that the records should have been preserved even without a court order, of course they are saying GA broke the law because that is basis of their lawsuit.
The article also says: "In accordance with standard operating procedures, an after-action report was prepared. This report outlined hardware improvements for the Center, including repurposing the impacted server and surplusing servers that had exceeded end of life. As part of the report, the original server that had been investigated by the FBI was designated to be repurposed, and the drives on the server were erased and the server made available for alternative uses."
That isn't as nefarious as "These guys knowingly broke the law.".
https://arstechnica.com/tech-p...
The server was wiped the day after a lawsuit was filed to preserve the server as evidence.
That's a tighter time frame than I'd read elsewhere, but let's run with it since you always seem to know what you're talking about.
So since the lawsuit was filed on July 3, that means the server would have been wiped on July 4, two days before legal notice of the lawsuit was served on even one of the defendants on July 6, and six days before the earliest date the plaintiff even claims the defendant that had possession of the server got notice.
I think you'd best go shopping for another canister of smoke for that gun.
The House initated a probe about it this week.
But I'd be put up on federal charges if my response to a subpeonas what to degauss all my media. If I were in a civil case and I did that, at the very least I can expect to be in contempt of court.
But I guess I'm just weird for wanting to hold my government to the same standards that they hold me.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
If Wisconsin is going to vote for a Republican, Georgia going GOP should be a foregone conclusion.
A certified letter from the plaintiff's attorneys was sent to the Secretary of State demanding that the evidence be preserved almost two weeks before the lawsuit was filed.
Not an email, but an actual legal demand letter, on paper. The suit was filed because there was an expectation that the Georgia officials would destroy evidence. They did.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Did this server contain top secret information? Special Access Program level top secret information? You know, like names or details that could reveal the identity of operatives working in hostile environments, or other incredibly sensitive information that the very nature of it had to be concealed from the public?
This machine appears to have contained voter registration information, instructions, and passwords for non-networked voting equipment. The FBI also has a forensic image of it prior to it being wiped, so it isn't the case where data is having to be recovered.
Respectfully, I think you might be comparing apples to oranges here.
Well, I assumed you were holding your breath for a thorough investigation. The FBI did investigate it and has a copy of the server and recommended the original server to be repurposed.
As far as your other stuff, I agree. I wonder if it was malice or stupidity to delete the server when it was recommended by the FBI. Normally, unless evidence suggest otherwise, I subscribe to Hanlons razor. The more I read about this case the more I am leaning toward that razor.
Honestly, I don't think this is some smoking gun of Russian interference, or election stealing and even the FBI say as much. At most it is, as you say, contempt of court, or some other legal rule that was broken. Still worth further investigation but probably not as bad as others are making it.
We are not idiots
As someone who works with computer security, I beg to differ: There are no known way of doing electronic voting with security level above "idiots", compared to paper-based voting.
As somebody who lives in a State with human-readable paper ballots that are normally counted by computer, I totally agree. Having the paper ballot and lots of humans from both parties watching all the steps of counting is what makes the computer a trustworthy tool.
You most likely only get contempt if it is late enough in the process for the judge to have ordered you to preserve it. If you destroy it right after you're notified of the lawsuit, as here, then normally you don't get in that kind of trouble you just lose the case because the destroyed evidence is presumed to have shown whatever the worst stuff was it might have shown.
If you had bothered to read that article after it came up in your search results, instead of just scanning a few paragraphs and linking to it, you'd realize that it doesn't purport to offer any details, just bare assertions from an individual at the FBI, and the DNC responding by linking back to their prior statement and standing by their account.
The link proves that what you "believe" is based on an account that you know, or should know, has been disputed by people with direct knowledge of the events.
Why is this the first time I am hearing about this?
I'm guessing partisanship, echo chambers, and credulousness of newsvertainment.
Steele was basically asking people, including FSB types, for all the rumours they'd heard about Trump.
I.e. he was pretty much a cut out.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
He didn't care if any of it was true or not. And neither did the DNC, CNN or Buzzfeed. All they wanted was a big compendium of rumours that they could use to discredit Trump. Well for a while, until it became clear that not only was it all a pack of lies, they'd all known it was a pack of lies.
Meanwhile Trump Jr went to a meeting with a Russian lawyer some oppo research, worked out that the person he was dealing with was a Russian agent trying to lobby about the Magnitsky act and more importantly didn't have any information and then he walked. No money changed hands and neither did any information.
Unlike with the Clinton campaign which did pay and didn't declare it
http://www.dailywire.com/news/...
Following the bombshell revelation on Tuesday that Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) funded the "Trump-Russia" dossier, a non-partisan group filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission (FEC), saying that the Clinton campaign and the DNC broke campaign finance laws.
The Campaign Legal Center filed a complaint with the FEC on Wednesday stating that the Clinton campaign and the DNC violated campaign finance laws because they failed to "accurately disclose payments related to the so-called Trump Dossier," Law Newz reported.
The Campaign Legal Center filed the complaint after The Washington Post reported on Tuesday that Mark Elias - a lawyer representing the Clinton campaign and the DNC - hired Fusion GPS to conduct "research" on then-candidate Donald Trump.
Adav Noti, who previously served as the FEC's Associate General Counsel for Policy, filed the complaint which Law Newz obtained:
This complaint is filed pursuant to 52 U.S.C. SS 30109(a)(1) and is based on information providing reason to believe that the Democratic National Committee ("DNC")(C00010603) and Hillary Rodham Clinton's presidential campaign committee Hillary for America (C00575795) have failed to file accurate reports, in violation of the Federal Election Campaign Act ("FECA"), 52 U.S.C. SS 30101, et seq., and Commission regulations.
Specifically, the DNC and Hillary for American reported dozens of payments totaling millions of dollars to the law firm Perkins Coie with the purpose described as "Legal Services" or "Legal and Compliance Consulting," when in reality, at least some of those payments were earmarked for the firm Fusion GPS, with the purpose of conducting opposition research on Donald Trump. By failing to file accurate reports, the DNC and Hillary for America undermined the vital public information role that reporting is intended to serve.
"If the Commission, upon receiving a complaint . . . has reason to believe that a person has committed, or is about to commit, a violation of [FECA] . . . [t]he Commission shall make an SS 30109(a)(2) (emphasis added); see also 11 C.F.R. SS 111.4(a) (emphasis added).
Law Newz cited campaign legal experts as saying that it is illegal for a "campaign to pay a law firm who then hires other [firm] to perform campaign-related activities without reporting the purpose of the expenditures."
That's the funny thing about Trump and the Republicans. As scummy as they are, the Democrats are clearly worse.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
I don't believe any of the official /media claims about russian interfere in elections are valid (as in usually false and when true, irrelevant) but the question remains: we're in a conflict with them, where is the nastiness? Then it makes sense that the Russians would be trying to instigate general trouble and separatism so claims about this could be more credible than others. In the current climate you can't believe anything though.
Whether the aim is 'to destroy the west' , that seems unlikely. As long as Putin is in charge I think the door remains open for forms of normalization. Instigating trouble is also a questionable tactic. It's also used by governments in order to subvert and discredit activism of any kind. For instance there are now claims that there is some form of collaboration between Russia and 'Black Lives Matter'. That's just the kind of things governments come up with to discredit activism.
But then I wonder sometimes whether governments tend to mirror each other in odd ways. Russia protecting Snowden while they disagree with what he did(because they consider him kind of a traitor). Russia Today giving a voice to western dissidents (and very sensible ones too), not because they agree with them but because they also consider them harmful for a country.
Wapo article: It's not the first time that Adam Entous surprises me with good journalism. Still surprising though.
Yeah, one of them is illegal if you don't declare the payments.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
YOU are an idiot. Reread this sentence: "In my state, we have switched over to machine-counted paper ballots in all precincts". Where does he indicate the state is using electronic voting?
A certified letter from the plaintiff's attorneys was sent to the Secretary of State demanding that the evidence be preserved almost two weeks before the lawsuit was filed.
Well, it's passably strange that (a) you're the only one I've seen mention a supposed certified letter, and (b) the only document the plaintiff is actually talking about as evidence of notice is an email sent a week after the lawsuit was filed. (Also (c) that you haven't provided a link to this supposed document that nobody else is talking about, but that isn't really so strange since it would impair your ability to just tell us what it really says and what it really means, right?)
Also the Russiagate narrative was 'Trump paid foreigners to get opposition intelligence to influence a US election'. No evidence of that came out. What did come out was that the DNC paid FusionGPS to get the Steele dossier. The one which accused Trump of hiring Russian prostitutes to pee on Obama's bed. Basically it was a bunch of gossip.
Still consider, Steele was a foreigner. And the DNC paid him for opposition research. Which he may have got from Russian intelligence. To influence a US election. I.e. the exact thing they accused Trump of.
https://www.washingtonpost.com...
It's always struck me as rather naive that the FSB would think that getting Trump elected would solve all their problems and that they'd be try to swing the election for him. It's much more likely that they just want to create chaos in the US and will oppose any US POTUS. In fact both Bush and Obama aimed for a better relationship with Russia. Bush said he'd looked into Putin's eyes and seen a good man (McCain quipped that 'when I look into Putin's eyes I see the letters K, G and B'). Obama and Clinton tried their reset policy and Clinton sold Russian uranium. None of that helped of course - Putin invaded Georgia when Bush was POTUS and invaded Ukraine when Obama was POTUS and Clinton was secretary of state.
Probably Dugin's Foundations of Geopolitics is a better indication of how Russia sees the US. As an enemy that needs to be destroyed
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
The book emphasizes that Russia must spread Anti-Americanism everywhere: "the main 'scapegoat' will be precisely the U.S."
In the United States:
Russia should use its special services within the borders of the United States to fuel instability and separatism, for instance, provoke "Afro-American racists". Russia should "introduce geopolitical disorder into internal American activity, encouraging all kinds of separatism and ethnic, social and racial conflicts, actively supporting all dissident movements â" extremist, racist, and sectarian groups, thus destabilizing internal political processes in the U.S. It would also make sense simultaneously to support isolationist tendencies in American politics."
And of course we found out that Russia had backed BLM and US separatist movements
https://slashdot.org/comments....
You should stop being so rational if you want more /. buddies.
Go a bit further with your analysis.
1. Russian officials were sources of key claims in the dossier, and were paid by Steele for info.
2. Fusion GPS was hired by Marc E Elias, lawyer for Clinton and DNC.
3. Dossier is full of discredited info.
4. The Dossier was used by Obama Whitehouse to obtain FISA warrants in order to wiretap Trump campaign "because Russia Interference".
5. FBI has confirmed they reimbursed expenses to Steele for dossier. This makes the dossier "official FBI intel", which allows it to be used as evidence to obtain FISA warrants.
6. Fusion GPS does lots of work for many Russian officials.
7. The dossier was the source of the whole Trump-Russia collusion story circulating in the media, and led to the appointment of Special Investigator Mueller.
So it looks like yes, Russia was trying to influence the election, but not the way the media is reporting. And now we're finding out about all the shady business dealings with Uranium One and Clinton.
For instance there are now claims that there is some form of collaboration between Russia and 'Black Lives Matter'. That's just the kind of things governments come up with to discredit activism.
That report was by The Guardian, a far left UK paper, who went digging for Russia links to discredit Trump and prove Hillary's 'Russia collusion' narrative.
https://www.theguardian.com/wo...
The main topics covered by the groups run from Russia were race relations, Texan independence and gun rights. RBC counted 16 groups relating to the Black Lives Matter campaign and other race issues that had a total of 1.2 million subscribers. The biggest group was entitled Blacktivist and reportedly had more than 350,000 likes at its peak.
Actually backing BLM and Texan independence is straight out of Dugin's playbook. Quite literally - Foundations of Geopolitics has a set of recommended things a Russian government should do to destabilise the US and backing 'separatism' and 'Afro-America racists' are among those things.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
The book emphasizes that Russia must spread Anti-Americanism everywhere: "the main 'scapegoat' will be precisely the U.S."
In the United States:
Russia should use its special services within the borders of the United States to fuel instability and separatism, for instance, provoke "Afro-American racists". Russia should "introduce geopolitical disorder into internal American activity, encouraging all kinds of separatism and ethnic, social and racial conflicts, actively supporting all dissident movements - extremist, racist, and sectarian groups, thus destabilizing internal political processes in the U.S. It would also make sense simultaneously to support isolationist tendencies in American politics."
Also if Russia's goal is to 'spread Anti-Americanism everywhere' it doesn't make sense to back one US party over the other. Presumably the FSB are smart enough to realise that changing the POTUS at the top of the system isn't enough to convert the US from a strategic competitor to an ally.
The reason for that is that isolationism and abandoning allies isn't a viable strategy for the US. Trump may have said some isolationist things as a candidate but like US POTUSs before him he's ended up abandoning them in office for the simple reason they are disastrous
https://slashdot.org/comments....
Putin is a foreign policy realist, and he'd presumably expect this. Actually I suspect he thought he'd get honeymoon period like he did with W Bush and Obama and then the US would revert to business as usual. Unfortunately for him that hasn't been the case with Trump. Trump bombed a Syrian airbase which had Russian personnel on it, though he warned them first. He also shot down a Syrian jet
http://time.com/4823314/syria-...
I.e. he's actually noticeably more hawkish on Russia than Obama and W Bush were in the first year in office.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
Yup, it's a characteristically sleazy but effective move by the Clintons and DNC.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
Well it wasn't the Secretary of State that wiped the server. It was the IT staff. And based on my experience with IT staff, they tend to lean left. My guess is they did it to protect their own asses, not to hide nefarious election stuff. You can't get fired for not properly securing an important server if you can't prove the server is insecure.
He needed to cover up for his dad, Rafael, who conspired with the Soviets and Republicans to assassinate Kennedy.
(I may not be entirely sure of my sources, but I read it on the Internet so it must be true.)
The Kai's Semi-Updated Website Thingy
To be honest, American Airlines is a risk for any passenger.
It's Georgia. Kennesaw, Georgia.
And Republicans in Georgia have always run crooked elections.
https://www.thenation.com/arti...
You are welcome on my lawn.
I do advocate the use of paper ballots, but not because then humans could do a hand-count of them. Humans are lousy at repetitive tasks. A hand-count of millions of votes would have a margin of error 10x the size of the margin of error of machine-counted votes. In Virginia, when there is a recount, we bring in a completely different set of scanners than were used to originally count the votes, and run the same paper ballots through them. That is a excellent independent count.
Paper ballots do not have to be counted by hand. I have voted by paper ballot in California in all except two elections in the past 42 years and they were never counted by humans EXCEPT on the rare cases of recounts. Since electronic voting system were banned several years ago, I have voted on ballots counted optically, again allowing manual examination and counting when needed.
N.B. Voting is largely controlled by county and not all counties use the same voting systems.
Kevin Oberman, Network Engineer, Retired
she found it easier to hire her own IT consultant, have a server built and managed on her own dime, and have to tell everyone she worked with her email was not hrc@state,gov but instead Hillary@hrc45.com?
... Look, without taking sides here (I have an opinion, I'm just not expressing it): Yes. Of course.
Frankly, your argument is weird. Of course it's easier to keep using the email that you've got than to start giving out a new one and get everyone to switch over. You should know this, everyone who has ever used email knows this.
No, the whole campaign is to find a Republican boogie man or to hide the Democarts footprints. Based on how it has been conducted so far (not on what I want it to be, but what it has been so far), if no name is given, it's more likely to be a Democrat who is being protected than a Republican.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
How can you know software is working?
By black box, double-blind testing, of course.
This isn't that hard. The key to both security and testing is independent, parallel validation. That's why I like the idea of taking paper ballots from one election and running them through an entirely different set of scanners for a recount.
"We receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us" - Faraday
Hm, you know how it goes. You start out with some superficial agreement but after more discussion you end up disagreeing about everything. Trump has said things about foreign policy that I'm not sure if they're isolationist, but they're in that family. Only, sometimes isolationist thinking overlaps with what I consider good sense. I'm in favor of improving relations with Russia and North Korea, allowing Syria to win the war, and getting out of Afghanistan. If Trump changed his mind on these things it's in part because he's not in control.
As for Russia, it is also a reasonable approach to refrain from aggressive moves against the US in the runup to the new president , just to improve the chances for better relations. It's a way to signal your intentions. So it may well be the Russians have been doing nothing at all(except the ordinary stuff), except feverishly trying to understand what's going on.
Nice that you noticed Putin is a realist.
I am sure you stated the same after the decisive 52% that President Obama won in 2008?
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
When was the last Presidential election in Georgia that the Democrats won? Trump's margin in Georgia was about the same as the last 6 presidential elections, so why would we expect a big change (which it would be, if it switched parties)?
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
And yet the vast majority of us successfully use our work email for work.
Stop! Dremel time!
He's a friend of Lady Mondegreen.
Oh what trite bullshit you are. You post garbage to support a complete nonsense claim and when called on it, "oh but I'm still right, I've got plenty of evidence over here where you cant see it"
I ignore Anonymous Coward posts. If you want to discuss something, that's awesome. Log in.