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No, a Teen Did Not Hack a State Election (propublica.org)

Posted by msmash on from the closer-look dept.

Headlines from Def Con, a hacking conference held this month in Las Vegas, might have left some thinking that infiltrating state election websites and affecting the 2018 midterm results would be child's play. Articles reported that teenage hackers at the event were able to "crash the upcoming midterm elections" and that it had taken "an 11-year-old hacker just 10 minutes to change election results." A first-person account by a 17-year-old in Politico Magazine described how he shut down a website that would tally votes in November, "bringing the election to a screeching halt." But now, elections experts are raising concerns that misunderstandings about the event -- many of them stoked by its organizers -- have left people with a distorted sense of its implications. From a report: In a website published before r00tz Asylum, the youth section of Def Con, organizers indicated that students would attempt to hack exact duplicates of state election websites, referring to them as "replicas" or "exact clones." (The language was scaled back after the conference to simply say "clones.") Instead, students were working with look-alikes created for the event that had vulnerabilities they were coached to find. Organizers provided them with cheat sheets, and adults walked the students through the challenges they would encounter. Josh Franklin, an elections expert formerly at the National Institute of Standards and Technology and a speaker at Def Con, called the websites "fake." "When I learned that they were not using exact copies and pains hadn't been taken to more properly replicate the underlying infrastructure, I was definitely saddened," Franklin said. Franklin and David Becker, the executive director of the Center for Election Innovation & Research, also pointed out that while state election websites report voting results, they do not actually tabulate votes. This information is kept separately and would not be affected if hackers got into sites that display vote totals.

73 comments

  1. I used to attend Def Con in 80's and 90's by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    and they wouldn't do stupid things like what they are doing now

  2. We already knew this. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This was reported already she manipulated the html to display incorrect results. I don't get why this is new news.

    1. Re:We already knew this. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

      I don't get why this is new news.

      You don't eh? It's a big mystery to you?

      We're almost into year 3 of endless "the election was hacked!!1!" bullshit fed to these idiots continuously through every feed come in contact with. So every stupid nothingburger story about election hacks ricochets around the progressive echo chamber like Happy Fun Ball.

  3. Neither did by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    the Russians.

  4. I was there, and... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ... I was surprised at how little the Voting Villiage resembled actual election systems. The language used to promote the event seemed sensationalistic and disingenuous. The whole thing seemed engineered to generate the headline "Teen Hacks US Midterm Elections". It's like they started with the headline they wanted and then enginneered (and re-engineered) the specifics until the system produced it.

  5. Wot, no HAXX?!?!?! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What sort of shoddy clickbait is this? Mention HAXX but then say THERE ARE NONE?!?!?!?

    IMPOSSIBRU!

    The letdown!

    The k-radness! Well, lack thereof.

  6. The fearmongering has become boring. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Always you hear about "hacking" elections and other "manipulations"... ... but why anyone would feel the need to do that, when everyone anyone could vote for, is already a "lobbyist"?
    ("Lobbyist" is lobbyist-speak for somebody who commits treason against the sovereign of the country. So against you.)

    Seriously, try to find a single politician who has a chance at being elected anywhere, and hasn't worked for a big corporation, will not work for one afterwards, and doesn't get kickbacks in any other way ... and I'll show you somebody who will have a "accident" in the future. (Like Kennedy, one could say.) Or be Sanders’d (so probably blackmailed). Often even if they are lobbyists for one side, but another side doesn’t approve.

    You and me don't get to vote. There is no election for us. We only get to pick between a tiny set of lobbyists that are completely the same in all relevant questions, and only differ in things useful for meaningless "us vs them" bickering. Lobbyists that have been pre-picked in the actual election, by their employers. "Interest groups", corporations, local and foreign nutjobs, etc.

  7. This is slashdot FFS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Linux geeks and programmers on Slashdot, we known damn well they hacked the website, not the voting machine and we also know damn well that any voting machine without a paper audit trail, reports whatever the votes the Russian hacker says it should report.

    Stop the PR effort against auditability, and help get the last of the states still using non-auditable voting machines to get their shit together.

    There should *not* be a single voting machine now that cannot be audited, yet Florida and Pennsylvania, both swing states, both running large number of DRE machines without paper audit trails. How the f**k is that even legal, they could never comply with a recount, because they could only recount what the voting machine says it recorded as the vote, not the actual voters vote.

    It's not a good thing, to pretend there is no problem here and sweep it under the rug, block the use of the paperless voting machines and use the emergency paper voting backup. Because the vote is worth far more than the Grocery you bought at Walmart and received a *paper* receipt for.

    1. Re:This is slashdot FFS by kenh · · Score: 1

      Stop the PR effort against auditability, and help get the last of the states still using non-auditable voting machines to get their shit together.

      Simple question - Imagine you are running an election, and you have electronic polls that create and audit trail and a tally. What do you do when the total and the audit trail don't match?

      If you always trust the audit trail, then why have the automated tally?

      --
      Ken
    2. Re:This is slashdot FFS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, they did not "hacked the website". The article literally says they did not "hack" even the websites used for reporting results - but visual replicas - with known vulnerabilities they were coached to find. There's no confirmation the original websites had these vulnerabilities.

      You think voting machines without paper trails is important. Don't present misinformation for the cause or you just come across as deranged.

    3. Re: This is slashdot FFS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Because it is useful when the two match and when they don't. When they match it means the results are valid and when they don't it means that they are invalid.

  8. Lying in a "good" cause by joe_frisch · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Sometimes people feel so strongly about a cause, for example the dangers of electronic voting, that they think its ok to distort information or even outright lie for that cause. Its becoming very common - and I think its always wrong.

    1. Re:Lying in a "good" cause by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Like, "Zoinks!!! The Russians are going to hack our elections!" The Democrats sound exactly like Donald Trump two years ago.

    2. Re:Lying in a "good" cause by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      It's not about the dangers of electronic voting. Democrats don't care about that - you can tell because their bills for "securing" the election are never about the voting machines but instead about hiring private contractors to secure servers "against foreign cyber threads" AKA "Russian hackers."

      This has nothing to do with showing flaws with voting machines. If it did, they would be hacking voting machines. No, this is part of a continued left-wing effort to convince people that our elections are fraudulent, and that Democrats "should" have won them. It's an effort to explain away their historic losses that's seeing them losing control on both a federal and local level. At this point I'm fairly well convinced they're already preparing their excuses for when they lose the midterms and give away even more seats to Republicans.

      It's lying, but it's not for a good causes (or even one they think is good), and it's not about electronic voting machines. It's about explaining away election losses without having to admit that the voters don't agree with them.

    3. Re: Lying in a "good" cause by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      *cough* Global Warming, rising sea levels, cities underwater, dying polar bear populations ...

    4. Re:Lying in a "good" cause by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wow, this guy lives in an alternate universe but somehow managed to post here.

      Unfortunately for us, it's our world where the right-wing Republican party has gone on a hell-bent effort to convince us that our elections are under siege, even concocting a set of fantasies to explain a dark and nefarious threat to our voting systems, while ignoring the real and evident problems of their solutions, as well as trying to get us to pretend that gerrymandering today isn't an issue since they've got this idea that the public doesn't really care, which given turnout rates, isn't unfair, but there's a point where it becomes an abomination.

      It's not about the flaws in our voting. Conservatives don't care about that - you can tell because their bills for "securing" the election are never about the voting machines but instead about taking actions that ultimately serve to reduce voter participation AKA discrimination against those who don't vote their way.

      It's lying, but it's not for a good causes (or even one they think is good), and it's not about the integrity of elections. It's about keeping themselves in power without having to admit that the voters don't agree with them.

    5. Re:Lying in a "good" cause by kenh · · Score: 1

      Sometimes people feel so strongly about a cause, for example the dangers of electronic voting, that they think its ok to distort information or even outright lie for that cause.

      We see this play out all the time in the mainstream press, how many "racist/homophobic/sexist customer" insulted me on the CC receipt claims have proven to be false? How about the black students that put nooses around campus to alert everyone to the rampant racism on campus? Or the lesbian couple that wrote anti-homosexual slurs on their own garage door, to prove their neighbors were anti-gay? The list, literally goes on and on.

      The latest trend is for elected officials to claim police harassment/mistreatment, only to be proven wrong with the officers body cam or dash cam footage?

      --
      Ken
  9. I actually said this the first time... by Junta · · Score: 2

    While the organizers of the event themselves stoked the misunderstanding, everything about it smelled like a kids hacking competition with an election theme rather than a real thing. Even if you assumed that the headliner child was some sort of once in a lifetime super genius, it certainly wouldn't have been the case for the majority of the participants to succeed, which did occur.

    If the real thing were so trivial so that an 11 year old could casually do it, then one of the *huge* number of veteran security researchers would have found those problems for real in the real sites.

    --
    XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
    1. Re:I actually said this the first time... by phantomfive · · Score: 0

      [Citation needed], please.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    2. Re: I actually said this the first time... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well since the companies who maintain these systems don't allow outside inspection. One would be implicating them self if they announced this, and thus be subject to prosecution under the computer fraud and abuse act. So of course there will be no official citations.

      However there was one known bug a few years back where simply scrolling ,as you were instructed to, changed your choices. This may have added an unknown number of votes to one of the Obama elections.

    3. Re: I actually said this the first time... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      See there is no proof of this claim. Furthermore, rtfa, this has nothing at all to do with voting machines, you fucking retard

    4. Re: I actually said this the first time... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The past 15 years of annual reports on election insecurity.

    5. Re:I actually said this the first time... by kenh · · Score: 1

      It was "Day of Code" meets "Election Hacking" - the kids were all but handed step-by-step instructions on how to "compromise" the websites in question - websites which apparently were little more that public results websites, the hacking of which proves nothing.

      --
      Ken
    6. Re:I actually said this the first time... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They hacked it the same way I "hack" websites that are paywalled. Hitting right-click inspect, delete the floating div.

  10. But...but...11-year-old hackers! by elrous0 · · Score: 1

    You mean an 11-year-old boy and 11-year-old girl didn't just hack all-der-voting-machines with their mad-crazy l33t hacking skills alone?!?

    You lied to me AGAIN, media! DAMN YOUR HOUSE OF LIES!

    --
    SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
  11. Yes Uri by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Yeh sure, the election wasn't hacked, those hacked emails were all nothingburgers and Slashdot wasn't deluged with a bunch of "Texas Houswives" suddenly concerned about "Bengazi".

    Also computers never get hacked, even modern ones, Windows XP used in these old voting machines without paper trials has stood the test of time. No need to add any kind of paper trail, or test their security, since mother time has tested it for you!

    Also Russian asbestos is totally tasty and edible and should be used as a filler in nothingburgers!

    1. Re:Yes Uri by kenh · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Yeh sure, the election wasn't hacked

      You have evidence it was? Please share, I have seen no evidence in the mainstream press, just speculation.

      those hacked emails were all nothingburgers

      Hacking into the email of a political party is not "hacking the election", see, the elections are run by the states, and a political party has no part in the running of an election.

      Your spewage on Windows XP, paper trails, and Russian Asbestos don't merit a response.

      The Hillary Campaign tried to run a very different, data-driven campaign in 2016 than candidates had previously employed, and her campaign's data told her there was no need to visit several "blue wall states" in the general election, that she should instead maximize her fund-raising on either coast.

      Hillary lost (or Trump won) because of simple mistakes made by her campaign, nothing more - but rather than accept that simple fact, we are spending countless millions of dollars investigating opposition research put together by the losing candidate in the last election (at a cost of millions of dollars) because her supporters are too butt-hurt to accept that "the smartest, most prepared woman" ran a lousy campaign and lost.

      --
      Ken
    2. Re: Yes Uri by Zero__Kelvin · · Score: 1

      That means you don't pay attention to MSM or don't understand what they are saying. It is a universally known fact that the Russians hacked the election via phishing and social engineering techniques.

      --
      Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
    3. Re: Yes Uri by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No.
      No, the Russians did not "hack the election".

      Podesta, at the DNC, fell for a phishing scheme associated with Russian hackers. This resulted in his emails being released by Wikileaks, which embarrassed the DNC and Clinton. This happened in March while the election took place on November 8th, 2016. In case your math skills are as good as your others, that was 8 months before the election.

      There is no evidence that the "election was hacked". No evidence that a single voting machine was infected with malware, no evidence that a single vote was changed, and no evidence that a single voter was disenfranchised through "hacking the election" - by Russia or anyone else.

    4. Re: Yes Uri by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It is a universally known fact that the Russians hacked the election via phishing and social engineering techniques.

      You're a loony.

    5. Re: Yes Uri by Zero__Kelvin · · Score: 1

      Yep ... The intelligence agencies are all lying loonies. Thank God we have honest super stable Trump to set the record straight.

      --
      Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
  12. Suggested subtitle: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Why did so many editors uncritically fuel the idea "voting is rigged, therefore pointless" at a time when a known adversary is pushing that very idea into the US electorate through various media?

    1. Re:Suggested subtitle: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nope, sorry. Had clueless voters not cast votes for Ralph Nader, we would never have gotten GWB. Had Clinton bothered to campaign in swing states instead of assuming those states would fall in line, we would not have Der Trumpf.

      The vote matters, and you cannot blame gerrymandering - that is just some clueless MSNBC talking head idea that has no merit. And you cannot blame Russian hacking - that dumbass idea belongs to the assholes at CNN. And finally you cannot blame Santa Claus and Jesus - that is for the idiots at Faux News to discuss.

      Get out and vote, or accept your fate.

    2. Re:Suggested subtitle: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nope, sorry. Had clueless voters not cast votes for Ralph Nader, we would never have gotten GWB. Had Clinton bothered to campaign in swing states instead of assuming those states would fall in line, we would not have Der Trumpf.

      Yes. IN SWING STATES. The majority of Americans, myself included, DO NOT LIVE IN SWING STATES. My vote in presidential elections is literally meaningless. If you don't live in a swing state, the only way you can have any say in who becomes president is by moving.

      The vote matters, and you cannot blame gerrymandering - that is just some clueless MSNBC talking head idea that has no merit. And you cannot blame Russian hacking - that dumbass idea belongs to the assholes at CNN. And finally you cannot blame Santa Claus and Jesus - that is for the idiots at Faux News to discuss.

      Where I live is so badly gerrymandered that the parties don't even bother trying to run opposition candidates. There's no point for me to vote in the upcoming midterm because everyone is unopposed anyway. The primaries might have mattered for choosing someone within the party, but no one was allowed to run against the incumbents, so even there, my vote is literally meaningless because there is only one choice. This is fairly normal here, too. It's very rare that any given race has more than a single person on the ballot.

      I don't think you quite grasp the degree to which how many Americans have literally no voice in things. If I wanted my vote to mean something, I'd have to move.

    3. Re:Suggested subtitle: by kenh · · Score: 1

      I don't think you quite grasp the degree to which how many Americans have literally no voice in things.

      Gerrymandering only impacts House elections and state assembly and other local elections, gerrymandering has no impact on Senate or Presidential races, where state electoral votes are assigned based on the state-wide totals each candidate receives.

      Your willingness to declare your vote meaningless in all elections is interesting, I suspect it is you that doesn't quite grasp how the election process works.

      --
      Ken
    4. Re:Suggested subtitle: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How hard is this to understand?

      I DO NOT LIVE IN A SWING STATE. THE PARTY MY STATE GOES TO IS ALREADY KNOWN. IT WILL ALWAYS GO THAT WAY. THANKS TO WINNER TAKES ALL, MY VOTE MEANS NOTHING.

      Get it yet? Has it been hammered through your thick skull?

      My state is not a battleground state. The senate and presidential ballots are meaningless. The real election for Senators happens during the primary, but there the party apparatus ensures that never matters either. The other party simply never runs candidates because they don't want to waste the money on someone who has no chance.

      My 2016 ballot literally had one race with two bubbles to fill in: the Presidency. That's not a joke. Every other election - every single one, from Senator to Representative to Sheriff to dog catcher had only one person running and then a write-in space below it. My vote literally - LITERALLY - did not matter.

  13. No "THIS ONE THING" can defeat an election by davide+marney · · Score: 3, Informative

    As I commented in another thread on election security, unless you have run an actual election, you probably don't appreciate the sheer scale of what's involved in securing an election. I am an election officer in Virginia. Let me shed some light on the subject.

    An election is a massively live event involving hundreds of millions of individuals spread out over 7 time zones (don't forget Guam) and an entire continent-sized geographic area.

    51 independent elections are held, each with their own rules of procedure, equipment, and personnel, with the exception of some common rules for federal elections.

    Within these 51 elections there are thousands of individual voting precincts where the actual votes are counted. Each one of those 51 x 000s precincts are under the complete supervision and control of volunteers. No politician or government worker ever administers the casting of a vote. This is done by your neighbors, a veritable small army of people.

    A voter can only vote in the same physical place where they are a resident. You cannot vote remotely.

    Before you can cast your vote, in most states you must prove your identity and residency. In all states, this process is entirely disconnected from the actual casting of a ballot.

    Except in two states that allow mail-in voting (shame on them), your vote is completely private. No one can force you to vote against your conscience. No one can force you to prove how you voted.

    The threat surface of such an undertaking is massive. There is the possibility of fraud in registering voters. There is possible fraud in selecting and configuring equipment. There is possible fraud in authentication. There is possible fraud in training (or lack thereof). There is possible fraud in counting. There is possible fraud in administration and reporting. And on and on.

    There is no "this one thing" that can defeat an election. To successfully throw an election is a non-trivial task of monumental proportions. Of course that doesn't stop people from trying.

    The gold standard preventative tools we use to secure a vote are:

    - Contemporaneous, independent protocols recording the votes, such as scanned paper ballots, hourly running call logs of the number of voters voting, and duplicate end-of-day reports placed under court custody
    - 100% Chain-of-custody controls of equipment
    - Black-box testing
    - Training, training, training
    - Aggressive de-duplication and data cleansing.

    Anyone who tells you that some 11 year-old can "throw" an election with a hack on some copy of a reporting web site is just trying to sell you something or gain some internet fame.

    --
    "We receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us" - Faraday
    1. Re: No "THIS ONE THING" can defeat an election by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The defcon hack was bullshit, yes. An exercise for the kids in attendance to undertake.

      But you're mistaken about election security. You don't need to hack the entire thing, only a relatively small number of key precincts where the margins will normally be small.
      It makes no sense to try and hack a GOP win in California, that State will vote Dem no matter what, and by a large enough margin that any fraud would be obvious. But in the swing states, it could make a difference.

      What most of us advocate is that the electronic machines print a paper receipt which the voter verifies, then drops in a secure ballot box. That way even if a 100% reliable and undetectable hack occurs, there's an audit trail which will reveal the fraud and provide an accurate vote count.

    2. Re:No "THIS ONE THING" can defeat an election by drinkypoo · · Score: 0

      There is no "this one thing" that can defeat an election.

      No, you need two things; "this one thing" plus illegal halting of a legitimate recount.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    3. Re: No "THIS ONE THING" can defeat an election by kenh · · Score: 2

      What most of us advocate is that the electronic machines print a paper receipt which the voter verifies, then drops in a secure ballot box.

      This is called a paper ballot - what is the purpose of the machine?

      That way even if a 100% reliable and undetectable hack occurs, there's an audit trail which will reveal the fraud and provide an accurate vote count.

      So, you take the electronic results, tally up your "audit trail" (paper ballots) and compare the numbers, and if there is a discrepancy always trust the "audit trail" (paper ballot)? WTF? Why bother with the voting machines at all, just hand out paper ballots and count them up?

      --
      Ken
    4. Re:No "THIS ONE THING" can defeat an election by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's not about changing all the votes.

      It's about changing some votes in a few key precincts that matter more.

      That said, the media is absolutely full of shit. The stories that perpetrated this are a disgrace to journalism, and should be a disgrace to DEFCON.

    5. Re: No "THIS ONE THING" can defeat an election by Zero__Kelvin · · Score: 1

      No, you just made up the part about "always trust the paper ballot" part. You are literally the only person that keeps saying this. Nobody else said it once as far as I can tell.

      --
      Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
    6. Re:No "THIS ONE THING" can defeat an election by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You mean the 5th, illegal, recount? The one with new rules carefully tailored to add the ballots that were potentially marked for Gore while excluding those marked for Bush?

      The rules for the 2000 election were agreed upon by both sides beforehand. Only when one side saw the opportunity to overturn the results of the entire thing did it suddenly become important the change the rules.

    7. Re: No "THIS ONE THING" can defeat an election by davide+marney · · Score: 1

      "But you're mistaken about election security. You don't need to hack the entire thing, only a relatively small number of key precincts... "

      But WHICH precincts are "key"? You mean the ones in Florida, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan? The Blue Wall that was supposed to protect Clinton in 2016?

      If throwing an election were as easy as you say, then President Trump would not be President Trump today.

      --
      "We receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us" - Faraday
    8. Re: No "THIS ONE THING" can defeat an election by davide+marney · · Score: 1

      The purpose of a paper ballot is to have a voter-verifiable record.

      The purpose of scanning is to reduce the enormous error rate of hand-counted ballots down as far as possible. As a freebie, you also get a second contemporaneous record in the form of the scan image.

      What makes this imperfect is that human beings still have to mark the paper, and the error rate on that is thousands of times greater than the error rate of scanning.

      In a perfect world, the humans would be using computers to perfectly mark a ballot, which then gets scanned by a second machine. Then the error rate would be the error rate of bar codes: 1 in 400,000. In Virginia, that would have meant that 10 ballots would have been possibly miscounted IN THE ENTIRE STATE in 2016.

      --
      "We receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us" - Faraday
  14. 11 year old hackers by lucasnate1 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Only exist in film.

    --
    Avantgarde Hebrew science fiction
    1. Re:11 year old hackers by Mashiki · · Score: 1

      Oh come on now. Don't ya know they're so skilled they can hack the Gibson.

      --
      Om, nomnomnom...
    2. Re:11 year old hackers by Aighearach · · Score: 1

      Are you suggesting that all the 11 year olds who get in trouble for hacking their school computers are all just victims of some vast conspiracy?

      Is it aliens? Please tell me it has aliens.

    3. Re: 11 year old hackers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      By age 11 I was using debugging tools to step through boot loader instructions and crack the protection schemes on assorted software pieces. There were plenty of other people better at it than I was at the time, but I wanted to learn more. Yhey absolutely existed. Not sure about these days, admittedly. Too many script kiddies.

  15. Don't know what they were reading... by QuietLagoon · · Score: 1

    ...Headlines from Def Con, a hacking conference held this month in Las Vegas, might have left some thinking ...

    ... but all the articles I read on the topic left me with the impression that it was a duplicate copy of the election system, not the real, live election system itself.

    1. Re:Don't know what they were reading... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And it wasn't at all. It was a website that 'looked' like an election results page. This is why Def Con sucks. It is 90% BS and self-social engineered dunning-kruger wannabe script kids.

    2. Re:Don't know what they were reading... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The real website isn't the real live election system either.

  16. Maybe not, but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...I hacked a state election. Posting anonymously for obvious reasons.

  17. IMPERSONATING me AGAIN?... apk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Impersonating me again I see: Poor imitation & yet sincerest form of flattery proving you WISH you were ME but an offtopic "ne'er-do-well" in yourself can NEVER ever be since you waste your time producing the outcome of your WASTED LIFE we all see now from you.

    APK

    P.S.=> Grow up, get on topic & be normal... ok? Thanks... apk

    1. Re: IMPERSONATING me AGAIN?... apk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Take your own advice. This is the result of the off-topic spam you posted in the MacOS malware article yesterday. These posts will be showing up all weekend. Don't like it? Don't post your hosts file spam.

  18. WRONG: What I wrote works on Macs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This works on MacOS X: It's easy to manually enter for users of it w/ rights to hosts https://it.slashdot.org/commen... just as I do it on Linux vs. MAC/DAC & in Windows too vs. WFP/SFP to edit hosts!

    * VERY tiny amount of entries to do to be SAFE vs. this threat & MANY OTHERS this month alone e.g. https://it.slashdot.org/commen... + https://it.slashdot.org/commen... + https://it.slashdot.org/commen... & that's only recently while I've been on Linux AGAIN (a month++ now only) & 100's of times vs. MANY other botnets/malwares etc. in the past circa 2006-early 2018 while I was on Windows

    PLUS, like I said - a PURE MacOS X version of my program?

    Only a compile away once the guy I know w/ a Mac frees up time to load FreePascal 3.04 & Lazarus 1.8.2 IDE for it to make it so (not long now I imagine)!

    APK

    P.S.=> Lastly as to OFF TOPIC? Speak for yourself & GET ON TOPIC chump... apk

    1. Re: WRONG: What I wrote works on Macs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Your posts about your Linux and Windows hosts file crapware were off-topic spam and you know it.

  19. 100,000++ users of my work disagree... apk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    See subject: 30 reviews by registered /.ers on quality/efficacy of Win32/64 model (Linux one's faster too) https://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=12478398&cid=57130680/ https://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=12478398&cid=57137806/ https://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=12478398&cid=57137868/ https://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=12478398&cid=57137916/ https://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=12478398&cid=57137944/

    * Want more? Ask & "ye shall receive"!

    (YOU WISH YOU WERE ME & your IMPERSONATING me proves it, lol!)

    APK

    P.S.=> Accept NO substitute for NATIVE efficacy vs. "Bolt-on-'MoAr'" ILLOGIC-LOGIC "solutions" FULL of security issues (DNS/Antivirus) OR that don't work by default (e.g. AdBlock) that SLOW YOU DOWN vs. hosts speeding you up 2 ways... apk

  20. SHEKELS? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Khazar Talmudic Jews believe this of all they call goyim/gentiles (any non-jew): Jews = biggest racists of all (for which they "jew guilt" you for no less! They're hypocrites known as thieves all thru history or were Argentines in the 1940 under Peron, Spanish inquistion, France (1306), Egypt (despoiled/robbed by jews), Arabs (pre & post 1948), England (1330 Edward longshanks), Romans under titus, Russia pogroms and Germany who got rid of them from their nations nazi german's too? No. Driven into DESERTS ages ago! Don't wonder why after all those exilings above.

    Should anyone doubt any of this see Jacob Javits' crony Rosenthal spill the beans on it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4zMVZ8HnFI/ where he called all Christianity fools for helping Israel and the biggest scam of all time per their beliefs below from their Talmud.

    This is the province of the synagogue of Satan (Pharisees whom Jesus Christ himself kicked to the curb out of the temple & they killed him for it. Jeremiah did the same to them also + the Essenes could not stand them either breaking away from the pharisee corruption):

    Mark Zuckerberg stole the Winklevoss twins' code for Fakebook (figures as he is a thieving low jew too).

    Maria Abramovic satanist spirit cooker pal of Hillary Clinton the Voodoo queen is a jew https://www.google.com/search?...

    Like Hillary Clinton's mentor Saul Alinsky author of rules for radicals book dedicated to Lucifer

    "Most Jews do not like to admit it, but our god is Lucifer Â- so I wasnÂ't lying Â- and we are his chosen people. Lucifer is very much aliveÂ" Harold Rosenthal http://www.thetruthseeker.co.u...

    Jewish rabbi openly admits to satan worship use white children's blood they kill for passover bread, infiltrating and subverting the catholic church, creating the Jesuit order https://www.youtube.com/watch?... and https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

    Barbara Spectre, a jew, tells everyone it's jews orchestrating the muslim migrant problem in Europe https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFE0qAiofMQ/ . No migrant raping of women in Poland. Tons in Sweden. Do the math. Use common-sense. This is to get muslims and other goyim/gentiles to wipe one another out as incompatible cultures that will clash and always have.

    Rabbi A. Finkelstein ADMITS their greatest enemies are ARABS and WHITES (blacks too) whom they wish to kill one another in a 'theater of war' which they find AMUSING https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

    Finkelstein also admits JEWS DID 9/11 (perpetrated by the Mossad & Bebe Netanyahu of ISRAEL) https://www.youtube.com/watch?... profiting by it (and that 3,000 jews employed there did not show up for work that day knowing about it beforehand).

    Finkelstein also admits JEWS are going to destroy the U.S. Dollar and dumping it for other world currencies and gold to destroy the United States.

    George Soros who funds groups to create division in the USA?? A jew. One who sold his own jew people into death for the nazis.

    Zucker now FIRED @ CNN is another frying publicly for lying about "russians" and John Bonifield a producer @ CNN said it is bs. Van Jones did also.

    Bernie Madoff (who made off with everyone's money, especially construction union pensions) shows the thieving nature of the JUDEN!

    Eric Schmidt had to step down @ JEWgle (a jew).

    Adam Schiff (gosh s

  21. no, the boy didn't really see a wolf by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    these manipulated headlines are so boy-cries-wolf I just ignore them, knowing the real story will come out after the clickbait ad impressions have been recorded - you guys remember the teen app millionaire who sold his app to yahoo? turns out his father gave him financing and he hired people to write code for him and his mother was a yahoo lawyer - same kind of thing here, only without the millions

  22. Stop impersonating me, nigger... apk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    See subject & the rest listed here + why (butthurt ac who destroyed himself on hosts kernelmode) https://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=12012911&cid=56473441/ vs. slower usermode (the little fuck that's doing this is a SERIOUS screwup, lol, hence the WEAK butthurt effete attempts @ "impersonating" me, via harassing others).

    I STAND BEHIND my words... you are a stupid nígger. You're probably impersonating me as a BUTTHURT AC because I EASILY DUSTED your bullshit blatherings about hosts and guns.

    * Unbelievable... lmao!

    APK

    P.S.=> You really are a stupid pathetic nígger. That's probably the RESULT of being raised as a "soyboy" weasel for the whimp trying to make me look "bad" impersonating me - RoTfLmAo... apk

  23. IMPERSONATING me AGAIN? Please, lol... apk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Grow up & it was a pleasure ANNIHILATING you easily here https://politics.slashdot.org/... + here too https://politics.slashdot.org/...

    * :)

    (Man - you KNOW you're just making me HAVE to say it again, don't you? See my p.s. below, lol...)

    APK

    P.S.=> THIS? This is tradtion vs. WEAK trolls & this was just "too, Too, TOO EASY - just '2ez'" & it always is vs. "ne'er-do-well" TROLLS wishing they were ME by IMPERSONATING me (or STALKING ME by UNIDENTIFIABLE anonymous)... apk

  24. IMPERSONATING me STILL AGAIN?... apk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Impersonating me again I see: Poor imitation & yet sincerest form of flattery proving you WISH you were ME but an offtopic "ne'er-do-well" in yourself can NEVER ever be since you waste your time producing the outcome of your WASTED LIFE we all see now from you.

    APK

    P.S.=> Grow up, get on topic & be normal: Ok? Thanks... apk

  25. Actually, no. Since I was one. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    And that was when the Internet was barely even a thing in private homes.
    Nowadays, the "hacking" tools have become way easier (or rather, exist at all), but the security measures also have become way harder. If you're a smart kid, you could find out how to hack into networks/computers back then, and certainly can do it now that all the information is at your fingertips.
    (Especially if you can speak Russian. Good black hat hacker communities available to the common man only speak Russian, unfortunately.)

  26. I was there by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The voting village had several machines opened up to be poked and prodded. The majority of people walked by, some looked at the chip names, some looked closely to find a serial port, but most just said "well if you hardware access, then of course it can be hacked." The hacks weren't great. Using SQL injections to hijack web pages aren't new, and that hack didnt change the tally. The only way any meaningful hack could take place would be to put someone in where they are stored between elections and add some remote access, but the caveats are obvious. After being in most of these machines, the hacks are not that easy to do surreptitiously.

  27. Can't help but wonder. by Hallux-F-Sinister · · Score: 1

    I knew as soon as I heard the story that it was 100% pure, uncut bullshit. That much was obvious. I figured the "exact copy" of the website was the HTML code your computer downloads when visiting the site, and that THAT's what he allegedly changed, which is a bit like claiming someone can hack your car and open the doors because he can open the doors on HIS car, which happens to be the same kind as your car, and oh, we forgot to mention the doors were already unlocked... or something like that. In any case, even if for not precisely the right reasons, I was right about the fact that the story was total bullshit.

    HOWEVER... I can't help but wonder if this is going to turn into a zombie-lie, you know, a fake, bullshit story that people go on citing over and over again either in stupid, pointless verbal arguments or in substantiate, meaningful, important debates on matters of policy, and that the dolts who are convinced that an 11 year old hacked into the voting system of a US state... will keep spouting this debunked claim over and over again. I'm sure in some circles, it will. Anything, for some people, that serves the point of their argument, they'll insist is "valid" even when it plainly ISN'T.

    --
    Our reign has gone on long enough. Indeed. Summon the meteors.
  28. Alexander Peter Kowalski continues his Lies by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Alexander Peter Kowalski continues his Lies
    Like how he claims the Chinese copied him but can't produce any evidence.
    How about when he states that hosts does port filtering but again can't backup his statement which was shown to be false.
    There is also his list of "experts" who support him but it turns out they don't say what he is claiming.
    This also ignores his out of context quotes he uses to lie by omission.
    The problem with APK is that his entire reputation is built upon the lie he told years ago that hosts is an effective security solution. It has been exposed numerous times as being a lie and when exposed APK fails to argue logically and instead will try to deflect criticism, change the subject, move the goal posts, return to a previously disproven statement, demand you prove you did better than his file concatenator, or just call people names. He will continue to lie by stating that he won or "dusted" you while failing to refute anything you said, will never provide real evidence, and generally try to dodge the issue.

    Face it Alexander Peter Kowalski is one of the most detested individuals here for good reason. When ever his poor behavior, awful logic, over statements, and horrendous writing are called out he has a fit and has done so for years across the internet. He is a spammer, and is an abusive insecure little man who is washed up and never amounted to anything. Until he produces actual verifiable facts supporting his case nothing he says should be taken seriously.