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36 of 50 States Have Installed Sensors at 'Elections Infrastructure Level' To Monitor Computer Systems Managing Voter Data or Devices (reuters.com)
A majority of U.S. states has adopted technology that allows the federal government to see inside state computer systems managing voter data or voting devices in order to root out hackers. From a report: Two years after Russian hackers breached voter registration databases in Illinois and Arizona, most states have begun using the government-approved equipment, according to three sources with knowledge of the deployment. Voter registration databases are used to verify the identity of voters when they visit polling stations. The rapid adoption of the so-called Albert sensors, a $5,000 piece of hardware developed by the Center for Internet Security www.cisecurity.org, illustrates the broad concern shared by state government officials ahead of the 2018 midterm elections, government cybersecurity experts told Reuters. [...] As of August 7, 36 of 50 states had installed Albert at the "elections infrastructure level," according to a Department of Homeland Security official. The official said that 74 individual sensors across 38 counties and other local government offices have been installed. Only 14 such sensors were installed before the U.S. presidential election in 2016.
You're trying to install a security product inside a vulnerable system to detect compromise. Not good enough. Integrity must be non-repudiated.
Voting infrastructure is harder than voting machines. Paper voting is notoriously vulnerable to corrupt officials; paper audit trails are manipulable and have been used to identify voters and their votes; electronic voting machines can be proven non-tampered, and the votes proven non-tampered. The voting infrastructure, though? That's centralized, and prone to all sorts of attacks--not just computer hacking, but insider threat and social engineering.
Your best protection against infrastructure attacks is same-day registration and same-day party affiliation re-registration.
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This will just become the next attack vector hackers use to compromise the systems.
We're installing all of this insecure technology around a vital process of our governance, whereas paper ballots and paper trails work elsewhere. Florida failed to provide a clearly understandable paper ballot in 2000, but when has this electronic voting been a fix?
It's a gravy train for government-connected firms, that's what it is.
The only electronic voting I want is something that can give me a QR code to print a paper ballot I can sign off on, giving me time to research the entirety of the options and speeding time at the booth.
I believe this and approval voting would go a long way towards actually fixing things.
allows the federal government to see inside state computer systems managing voter data or voting devices in order to root out hackers.
Great but where is the checks to make sure a future govt cannot manipulate it.
Can someone explain how this doesn't introduce a single point of failure? Even a plausible theory?
Nope, no sig
Anything less won't work.
Remember, snapshot and full database rollbacks with query/row match for discrepencies in volatile precincts and counties are key for db comparisons. Random audits.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
For our corrupt government to confirm the effectiveness of the hacking they've been doing to all the computer voting machines since they were rolled out?
Wake up. "Russia hacking our elections" was done at the invitation of our corrupt Congress, to allow them the scapegoat they DIDN'T HAVE around the Diebold controversy.
Just as in the years leading up to the market crash and great depression a century ago, it doesn't matter who votes or who they vote for; what matters is WHO COUNTS THE VOTES.
mnem
Smoke & mirrors... always smoke & mirrors.
~44 ex-cia people are running as democrats for office now.
They're just moving the cheating this time.
Anything less won't work.
Remember, snapshot and full database rollbacks with query/row match for discrepencies in volatile precincts and counties are key for db comparisons. Random audits.
Even then, the issue is counting votes and then securing from alteration the materials upon which the votes are recorded so they can be counted again and again when desired.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Great, now when the Republics clean house during the midterms, no one can complain that the election was "hacked". Everyone can finally be happy and content with the results.
It doesn't matter who wins, half the country will be incensed about the results... Assuming the last election was any indicator of what we are in for come November.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Add same day in person registration. Most states have figured out how to maintain security of physical ballots, and sequester those where registration is in question for verification.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Didn't say there where already issues here, only that having a physical ballot doesn't solve all of the issues with vote count integrity.
You still have to have to get an honest count. This requires a secure means of maintaining the physical ballots so they cannot be altered (or added to or subtracted from) AND you need a way to count them, preferably multiple different ways. I remember the Al Gore Florida recounts, we don't need that mess again.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
I don't know, but I'm guessing it's something very similar to Security Onion. (Network security should have multiple layers; like an onion. Get it?)
Albert sensors are probably very similar, using a more hardened platform, with similar FOSS tools installed, and with access to government-specific threat intel feeds and analysis.
Paper ballots can't be hacked and are easier to secure. Simple fact you can't secure voting that's hooked up to the internet.
Funny, any time one mentions voting fraud, a highly-moderated response will spring up claiming, such fraud is "miniscule" because no study has ever found anything bigger.
But Diebold can be the butt of FUD-spreading without any sort of proof it ever contributed to actual vote-corruption — and without challenges from the same sticklers to the "unproven therefore false" approach...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
I'll bet if you could get the same hardware at Banggood it would be $5, not $5000
The issue with the Florida recounts in my mind was two fold.
First, the act of counting them, altered the ballots, ever so slightly, when done mechanically. Looking for holes in cards and the problem of missing chads, hanging chads and dimpled chads was insanity. Yes, it was a very stupid system and we should take that as a cautionary tale to not build another system with similar problems.
Second, it was legally pointless to count, recount, manually count and recount these ballots as long as they did. Once the legal process had already run it's course and the election had been legally certified by Florida's secretary of state and presented to congress. It was a done deal, regardless of what the count ended up being or how many times they counted the results after that.
So I would add one additional requirement for ballot handling which goes something like this. "Once the election is certified and all possible legal avenues have been exhausted in the determination of the winners, the ballots will be securely stored for no less than 1 year and no more than 2, unless they are material evidence in an active criminal investigation.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
" because anyone with power over you can tell you to bring your ballot to him and fill it out in front on him so that he knows that you voted for his choices. "
Yeah, that's a common problem up here.....LOL.
Please cite a source to this horrible scourge.
Worst....strawman....EVER!
Donald Trump, on a crusade to make Nixon look respectable
Second, it was legally pointless to count, recount, manually count and recount these ballots as long as they did. Once the legal process had already run it's course and the election had been legally certified by Florida's secretary of state and presented to congress. It was a done deal, regardless of what the count ended up being or how many times they counted the results after that.
I wouldn't say it was legally pointless.
Even if the election was done with it is still possible to uncover election fraud, so while you can't do anything about the turnout of the election you can still hold someone accountable.
Even if you don't uncover any criminal activity you can still identify irregularities and mistakes so that you can work on preventing them in the future.
Also, I see very little reason to throw away ballots within a year or two.
Storing them is only expensive if you care about the integrity of them. If you are going to throw them away you might just dump them in an unguarded unheated storage facility.
They might not be of interest for legal reasons, but next to the constitution voting ballots may be one of the most important documents we have from a democratic perspective.
“Two years after Russian hackers breached voter registration databases”
Under the pretext of protecting us from “Russian hackers” the US deepstate has hacked voting machines.