Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

11-Year-Old Changes Election Results On Florida's Website: Defcon 2018 (pbs.org)

Posted by BeauHD on from the child's-play dept.

UnknowingFool writes: At this year's DEFCON, a group of 50 children aged 8 to 16 participated in a hack of 13 imitation election websites. One 11-year-old boy changed the voting results in 10 minutes. A 11 year-old-girl was also able to change the voting results in 30 minutes. Overall, more than 30 of the 50 children were able to hack the websites in some form. The so-called "DEFCON Voting Machine Hacking Village" allowed kids the chance to manipulate vote tallies, party names, candidate names and vote count totals. The 11-year-old girl was able to triple the number of votes found on the website in under 15 minutes.

The National Association of Secretaries of State said in a statement that it is "ready to work with civic-minded members of the DEFCON community wanting to become part of a proactive team effort to secure our elections." But the organization expressed skepticism over the hackers' abilities to access the actual state websites. "It would be extremely difficult to replicate these systems since many states utilize unique networks and custom-built databases with new and updated security protocols," it read. "While it is undeniable websites are vulnerable to hackers, election night reporting websites are only used to publish preliminary, unofficial results for the public and the media. The sites are not connected to vote counting equipment and could never change actual election results."

7 of 202 comments (clear)

  1. Misleading Title by _Sharp'r_ · · Score: 5, Insightful

    11-Year-Old Changes Election Results On Florida's Website: Defcon 2018

    should actually be:

    11-Year-Old Changes Numbers Displayed On Faked Replica HTML Page Setup to be Changed by Kids: Defcon 2018

    --
    The party of stupid and the party of evil get together and do something both stupid and evil, then call it bipartisan.
    1. Re:Misleading Title by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Likely it is something like that. However, there is NO reason at all, none, not a single reason in the universe, to have any form of automated vote counting. To have electronic voting. To have mechanized voting. I mean, what the flying fuck.... you get a card, you mark an X on it, and you're done.

      Here we have representatives from each party, at each voting site, counting the vote together. And we have up to 6 or 7 legitimate parties, even in Federal elections! There is no benefit for mechanized or electronic voting, or counting. None. Nada.

      If someone is going to blather on about "counting", ffs. It's not that hard, at all. We have all those parties, and we get counts an hour after polls close.

      Some things do NOT need to be improved. Ever!

      And the cost to democracy is waaaaaay, way too high.

    2. Re:Misleading Title by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

      I'm sorry, you're absolutely wrong.

      You seriously trust the existing vote counting mechanism? What makes it so infallible? We have the worlds finances, stocks, banking in computers, the changing/hacking of which is far more profitable to an individual, but we're counting pieces of paper distributed through the country and assuming they all report the correct results with all the human error and hacking that can be done there.

      But no, we don't need to improve on it.

      Are you amish? WTF OBVIOUSLY we need to improve it. Australia votes with PENCIL on paper. Complete bullshit. I bring a black marker to vote and get told off if seen. I'd trust a computerised voting system over pencils and low paid counters any day. Any other viewpoint is stupid.

    3. Re: Misleading Title by Luckyo · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The sad part of this narrative is that you take something that is factually correct and should be used to beat the guilty party into submission to paint an innocent party.

      Yes, what was done to police force in UK is fucking horrifying. But it wasn't the media that did it. At most, it is complicit, but the main act was by someone else. It was the government, driven by anti-Western ideologues that its university are now producing. Read the 1998 McPherson report. It literally states that it has found no evidence for any systemic racism in Metropolitan police service or Crown Prosecution Service. And then goes to conclude that both of those parties were institutionally racist. It literally took the innocent people, concluded that it had no evidence of their wrongdoing, and then publicly hanged them for the crimes that they had no evidence for.

      After this, police were utterly horrified of even the mentioning of the word racist toward them, and for a good reason. And it had nothing to do with "jews" or "media" at that point. It had everything to do with McPherson's witch hunt and government's will to go with it.

      And this witch hunt has continued ever since, since the progressive movement with its ultimate goal of destruction of Western civilization took this decision and used it in media among other places to terrorize both the police and prosecution services in UK ever since.

      So put blame on correct people. Your target for blame should be McPherson and his progressive cronies first and foremost, and people in government who haven't touched the report itself, and instead simply read the conclusions and took them for granted.

  2. Re:We need a visible and unambiguous hack to occur by Opportunist · · Score: 3, Insightful

    And why would I do that when I could make Senator A president, become a billionaire in the process and get perpetual legal immunity? It sure beats being hunted down by every three-letter-agency in the US for showing that the emperor has no clothes and then spending the rest of my life in the worst kind of prison in an attempt to not only have the world forget me but also to send a message to everyone who'd dare to repeat my stunt.

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  3. Re:We need a visible and unambiguous hack to occur by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Try looking at the videos of Trump's election campaign speeches to see the size of the crowds that attended, versus the size of the crowds that attended Clinton's campaign speeches. Notice something? Trump had about FIVE TIMES as many people at his events. Why is that? Because you're an idiot who believes everything the media tells you, and you actually believe that Clinton had 50% of the population supporting her - she clearly did not - as proved by the best evidence possible - the number of people who attended her rallies.

    Anything to say?

  4. Re: We need a visible and unambiguous hack to occu by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

    To be fair, Clinton had the support of the homeless, gangbangers, welfare trash, and illegal immigrants. Not exactly the type who go to rallies, but they do make up a large chunk of the voting population.