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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
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
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.
Liar, moron, or just didn't even read the summary?
The data was wiped AFTER the suit was filed.
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.
7 years? If he gets through this term; if he gets re-elected.
If the USA votes Trump in for a second term then your decline into irrelevance will fall off a cliff. Such insanity should be punished.
New Zealanders are well balanced with a chip on each shoulder. One represents Australia, the other the rest of the world
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.
"but all Trump has to do is fire Mueller, and that investigation is over." So what you're saying is you're a moron. See you at the gallows, traitor lol. Bring your long necktie! #Winning!
Firing the guy investigating you is basically the next thing to admitting guilt, particularly when the reason given was that they felt bad how they treated Hillary. I actually talked to a guy at work. He believed that you had to successfully stop an investigation for it to be obstruction of justice. That is not the law. Here is the quote from wikipedia.
Whoever knowingly alters, destroys, mutilates, conceals, covers up, falsified, or makes a false entry in any record, document, or tangible object with the intent to impede, obstruct, or influence the investigation or proper administration of any matter within the jurisdiction of any department or agency of the United States or any case filed under Title 11, or in relation to or contemplation of any such matter or case, shall be fined under this title, imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both.
Note that it doesn't say success. Mueller is spotless. There is no plausible reason to fire him other than to obstruct justice. I think at that point enough republicans might support impeachment, since getting rid of him asap allows them to recover sooner.
I wouldn't be at all disappointed if Trump fired enough people until he could get rid of Mueller. I think it would signal his end, with all the evidence Mueller and the Senate/House collected used to speed along his removal. Firing Comey should have been enough to start the process, but the republicans wanted power more than they wanted to do what was right. Note that I don't agree that Comey should have revealed all he did, when he did, but to think Trump fired him because he disapproved is beyond nonsense.
Also, just think. Comey prepared for the day of his possible firing, though didn't really expect it. Just think how prepared Mueller must be now...
Come to think of it, Trump's attempts to influence the outcome of the investigation by calling it all fake news, and attempting to discredit everyone who disagrees, could be seen as a form of obstruction.
* 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.
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.
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.
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're nearly 30 years out of date. On '80s era HDs, it's true, a single overwrite of the data would leave traces sufficient that given some very expensive equipment and a very expensive analysis, the data could be recovered. On modern drives, even a single overwrite with zeros is sufficient to make the data irretrievable.
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.
Why not all three?
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
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
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
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.
So two groups of people did illegal things. That doesn't diminish this case one bit.