Slashdot Mirror
Justice Department Warns It Might Not Be Able To Prosecute Voting Machine Hackers (vice.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: After more than a decade of headlines about the vulnerability of U.S. voting machines to hacking, it turns out the federal government says it may not be able to prosecute election hacking under the federal law that currently governs computer intrusions. Per a Justice Department report issued in July from the Attorney General's Cyber Digital Task Force, electronic voting machines may not qualify as "protected computers" under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, the 1986 law that prohibits unauthorized access to protected computers and networks or access that exceeds authorization (such as an insider breach).
The report says the law generally only prohibits against hacking computers "that are connected to the Internet (or that meet other narrow criteria for protection)" and notes that voting machines generally do not meet this criteria "as they are typically kept off the Internet." Consequently, "should hacking of a voting machine occur, the government would not, in many conceivable circumstances, be able to use the CFAA to prosecute the hackers." Aside from the fact that the assertion about voting machines not being connected is incorrect -- many voting machines are connected in that they use cellular and landline modems that connect with cell towers and backend telecom networks to transmit results on election night -- the government's assertion that the CFAA applies only to connected machines is news to legal experts.
The report says the law generally only prohibits against hacking computers "that are connected to the Internet (or that meet other narrow criteria for protection)" and notes that voting machines generally do not meet this criteria "as they are typically kept off the Internet." Consequently, "should hacking of a voting machine occur, the government would not, in many conceivable circumstances, be able to use the CFAA to prosecute the hackers." Aside from the fact that the assertion about voting machines not being connected is incorrect -- many voting machines are connected in that they use cellular and landline modems that connect with cell towers and backend telecom networks to transmit results on election night -- the government's assertion that the CFAA applies only to connected machines is news to legal experts.
...if those same voting machines were downloading movies or whatnot, why the Feds would be all over them with black helicopters, etc.!
If someone commits fraud by tampering with a traditional vote that is a crime. IANAL so I don't pretend to know exactly which crime. Just because they tamper with a computer tally rather than an old school tally it doesn't magically become legal. This is simply the old yarn that we need a special law that says "with a computer." If I bash someone over the head with a hammer and kill them it is murder. If I instead bash them with a computer and kill them it doesn't magically become legal. Of course if I ksh or ash them that is a different story :-)
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
This is the Justice Department. They're all about using every law on the books to make their targets sweat (cf. Swartz, Aaron). Why would they ever state publicly that they can't do something?
They could have said nothing and everyone would assume if caught hacking voting machines they would be prosecuted. Here they are publicly stating there's no law against it and you can't be prosecuted. Go ahead and hack away. There's no downside to it. Sounds more like tacit permission if not downright encouragement to me.
we've got elections going by a few thousand votes right now, so I'm inclined to say you could.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/