In Boston: Election-Hacking War Game Bypasses Election Systems (securityledger.com)

Slashdot reader Actually, I do RTFA remains wary of a new "blockchain-powered mobile voting app" being used by the state of West Virginia to collect ballots from overseas absentee voters.

But meanwhile, Slashdot reader chicksdaddy notes an election hacking exercise conducted with city employees and local FBI officers in Boston focused on attempts to disrupt a hypothetical election in "Nolandia" by simply clogging highways and sowing chaos. From Security Ledger: The day started with snarled traffic and a suspicious outage of the 9-1-1 emergency call center that has put the public and first responders on edge. Already, the city's police force was taxed keeping tabs on protests tied to a meeting of the International Monetary Fund. By afternoon, the federal Emergency Alert System (EAS) was warning Nolandia residents of massive natural gas leaks in neighborhoods in the north and west part of the city, prompting officials to order evacuations of the affected areas.

Later, bomb threats called in to local television stations shut down a bridge linking the northern and southern halves of the city -- a major artery for vehicles. The EAS warning turns out to have been false -- no gas leaks are detected, nor is any bomb found on the bridge. Later in the day, cyber attack s on a smart traffic light deployment in Nolandia snarl traffic further and sow chaos during the evening commute... This is election hacking 2018 style: a highly successful operation in which no voting machines or voting infrastructure were compromised, attacked or even targeted.
The cybersecurity company that created the exercise said they "wanted to expand that scope and demonstrate that the threat landscape is actually much broader...."

Comments

That isn't election hacking

[Zero__Kelvin]

To hack an election it has to go unnoticed. Any real government would reschedule the election in this scenario.

Re:That isn't election hacking

[PopeRatzo]

To hack an election it has to go unnoticed.

We have proof otherwise. A significant number of people wouldn't care if an election was hacked as long as the other side lost.

The media has been "hacking" elections forever

[petes_PoV]

If by hacking an election we mean manipulating the result to favour or disadvantage one political view or another, then that is the meat and potatoes of privately owned media organisations.

It makes little difference whether the "hacking" is done on social media by extra-national agents being paid for their efforts, or by proprietors setting an editorial policy that advocates some themes and disparages others. People criticise FAKE NEWS and social media for feeding people articles they are predisposed to agree with. Which is exactly what the media does. We watch a particular channel's news broadcasts because we think it accurately represents reality. Or we read a particular newspaper because we think it is unbiased - which just means we are in accord with its politics.

You can even see articles that dissuade people from voting by suggesting that their party is comfortably ahead, so there's no need to go out in the rain. Or that one candidate or another did a bad thing and is therefore undeserving of support. All of this is manipulation. It is no different to "hack" the voters as it is to hack the voting machines. The outcome is the same.

That one is done in plain sight and the other is performed surreptitiously only reinforces the view that if the crime is big enough, it is excused.