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To Deter Foreign Hackers, Some States May Also Be Deterring Voters (npr.org)
A number of states are blocking web traffic from foreign countries to their voter registration websites, making the process harder for some U.S. citizens who live overseas to vote, despite the practice providing no real security benefits. From a report: On its face, the "geo-targeting" of foreign countries may seem like a solid plan: election officials around the country are concerned about foreign interference after Russia's efforts leading up to the 2016 election, so blocking traffic to election websites from outside the United States might seem like an obvious defense starting point. But cybersecurity experts and voting rights advocates say it's an ineffective solution that any hacker could easily sidestep using a virtual private network, or VPN, a commonly-used and easily-available service. Such networks allow for a computer user to use the Internet and appear in a different location than they actually are.
Seems like the only thing something like this would do is deter voters. Hackers know better. This is a perfect case and point as to why people who don't understand computers, networks, or the internet shouldn't be making rules that govern it.
This signature has Super Cow Powers
4chan blocks VPNs, slashdot blocks VPNs.
despite the practice providing no real security benefits
Acey's Maxim: Unless a solution to a problem is perfect, we should do nothing.
Yes we want to be sure people who are allowed to vote should be able to vote. We don't want people who are not allowed to vote to be able to vote.
However the current trend of interference in the election isn't hacking the system and casting fake votes. But from foreign groups working hard to make us distrust our neighbor, who happens to have a different view of politics. And Radicalize you and them to prevent consensus to actually move forward.
If you are left of center, anyone right of you are racist bible thumping bigots who will avoid all science, and would let the world die just as long the GDP stays positive.
If you are right of center, anyone left of you are spoiled brats who just want freebees without contributing to society. Who would let society collapse just to save a tree.
We should know that both depictions isn't true for either group, while they may have some people who may go to those levels. However most people will be more reasonable when faced with the actual issues. But the media combined with other groups trying to egg on these differences really cause people to take sides, once they take sides, they will move from near the center and more firmly into the stupid Territory of their particular political leanings.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Go back to paper and skip all this electronic nonsense which has auditing and outside influence trouble. Short of providing a PDF on a state voting site someone can download and fill out there really isn't a solid solution to keep electronic voting secure and frankly it sounds like there never will be.
All this bitching about needing ID's to vote is insane, no other country in the world is stupid enough to relax the voting requirements as much as some states do...
It's a great reason to have the state system the U.S. does, so the stupidity of one states voting system can only spread so far.
Before we can even talk about different kinds of elections in the U.S., we really need to firm up voting security across the board.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
once again, this is just good 'ole fashion voter suppression.
For my money I want to see voting made mandatory, like Jury Duty. That would be the best way to end voter suppression. Also move voting to Saturday or Sunday and/or make it a national holiday with mandatory pay. Oh, and I don't care if you're convicted of a crime or even currently in prison. _Everyone_ gets to vote. If America has so many Ax Murders and child molesters they can swing an election maybe we should fix that first before worrying about who gets to vote...
Of course, our ruling class isn't going to allow that. Sad thing is there's a portion of Americans who really believe we should stop the "wrong" people from voting. I get the racists and why they feel that way, I even get the nutters who want to repeal the 19th amendment. But then you get regular folk who just have some vague notion of who the "wrong" people are that they can't put it in words that I can't explain. Maybe they get it from right wing talk radio, I don't know. Either way it's messed up.
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Actually, this is a legitimate approach to authentication (someplace you are).
However, it must be taken to its logical extreme, eliminating all un-trusted infrastructure, to have a chance to be effective.
DER RUSSIANS HACK'D DUH ELECSHUNS IN 2016 AND GAVE US DRUMPF.
So the government registration websites block Russian IPs.
DEH EVIL-RETHUGLICANS IS TRYING TO STOP PEEPLES FROM VOTIN'
If the Russians (and other state actors) are going to go through that much effort to hack facebook (as is claimed) to throw an election - don't you think they'd go through greater effort to hack it *at it's source*?!
How do you know you have security experts who have not kept up their skills and craft? They agree with the above report.
As has been shown in many reports and presentation in security conferences that yes it is easy to get around but it is one of the best way of dropping the number of scans, script kiddies, basic attack attempts, etc done against a system. That small cost is still a barrier, it will not stop some state run APT but it stop a large amount of those people running armitage against you and fillin up your logs and requiring some time to deal with. It also has no negative consequences if you are not doing business to those countries.
Anyone remember when Georgia's Secretary of State started screaming about Obama hacking their computers?
Better block ones in the US.
Hackers all have acces to VPN and things like that to look like their are from somewhere else....
Thats sooooo pathetic seriously.... who gave the go on this stupid idea...
In my country the people living abroad (so not in the country) vote for the right and centrists (which is about the same thing as the right), so go for it and block the website, I will be fine with that! except for intellectual integrity or something that will tell me it's not fine.
I suppose voting goes through embassies and consulates, even physical voting there, or sending snail mail, or through an embassy from a friendly neighbor or maybe Sweden or Switzerland if one is lacking in a particular country.. Maybe there's Internet voting afterall, but then I forgot about it. Most everyone does paper voting at the booth, or stays at home and don't give a damn.
Is this a thing? My state has no online voter registration. To register I needed to visit the town clerk in person and fill out the registration form. This is a one-time activity.
I found that 38 states have online voter registration. https://www.brennancenter.org/analysis/voter-registration-modernization-states I would support the automatic voter registration referred in this link, however that is unlikely to happen where I live for some time given the various databases are unlinked.
No, you ended up with Trump for a few simple reasons:
1. Republican voters were so sick of establishment politicians who routinely stab us in the back that we were willing to flip the coin and say "heads we win, tails we burn your house down" to the GOPe.
2. The Democrats ran a candidate who could lose a popularity contest to Elizabeth Bathory at an all female middle school.
... but most of them don't.
Blocking foreign IPs objectively reduces the amount of incoming attacks, hugely.
By "interefering", do they mean crackers breaking into online voter servers? Or just posting opinions and the like in social media?
If the latter, that hardly "interfering". Just voicing opinions. Double-plus good oh my brother!
Ruby Neural Evolution of Augmenting Topologies
Pass laws that make guns harder to get and some cry out 2nd amendment suppression for normies, and only the criminals will find a way around (e.g. blackmarket) Enact geo-fencing to make voting harder and some cry out voter suppression, for normies and only the criminals will find a way around (e.g. vpn).
It all about friction to make getting around the laws/fencing harder. And when I hear politicians cry out "voter suppression, I know whatever friction is being introduced is making it harder for them to abuse that channel for their own ends.
Voting is a privilege, not a right, and it can be taken away if you f-up too much.
Voting should be restricted to one vote per person (think the busing to move people around precincts to vote multiple times)
Voting should require proof of residency or citizenship as Forgien Nationals have no business voting for American affairs that affect the citizens and residents.
Without official votes, foreign hackers are free to forge votes under these identities. This would actually promote the success of such fraud.
No, the biggest threat to democracy is the US groups that are a party to that for short term expedience.
Your Benjamin Aaron Shapiro figures, who repeat the lies they are fed by Russian trolls, knowing they're lies. Or the Rand Paul's, who go to Moscow to restart good relations with Putin, knowing he really wants help getting reelected.
And groups like the Heritage Foundation, the ones behind a lot of the data crunching, voter disenfranchisement laws.
IMHO, countries die from within, Russian didn't control Eastern Europe by force, it controlled Eastern Europe by traitors selling out their country.
It's almost like they need to hire competent security staff and then follow expert recommendations instead of their "common sense" ideas.
---
According to the latest ruleset, this post should be modded as Vorpal Flamebait +5.
People are acting like deterring voters is a bad thing. But this is America in 2018, where winning is all that matters and government policies need not be based on any particular principles.
Given such a situation, suppose your statistic models suggest that the deterred voters might vote differently than you want them to. Wouldn't deterring them be a good thing, then? Isn't that a goal that we should all strive for?
Makes it tricky to get into my 401k from Israel. Security by those who do not understand what they are doing.
Only a retarded hacker is using their real IP. They're either using already compromised hosts, tor, or a VPN. This is why you shouldn't have politicians in power.
So, if the states listed are blocking foreign IP addys from their online registration, that does not prevent them from voting.
First off, you don't vote in a state, rather a county. Second, there are zero counties in the US that allow internet voting at the moment. (Yes, military and overseas voters can use a fax and some use email, but it is still a scanned document, which is printed and then tabulated.)
If the military and overseas peeps want to re-register, there are are ways without going through the secretary of states' websites. They can mail in a registration card or call.
The Kai's Semi-Updated Website Thingy
Personally, I prefer for decisions to be made by people who have at least *some* interest or knowledge of the subject.
The majority of Americans don't have enough interest in civics to even know who the current vice president is. That's fine, it doesn't mean they are stupid; they just prefer to spend their time on attention on other things.
If someone is interested in botany and knows all about which plants grow well here, I want them to help decide what to plant. If they don't even know who their current senator *is*, how could they possibly judge the senator's performance? They can't in any useful way, of course. At best, they might see a 140 character Twitter "vote for Sheesa Crook - do it for the plants".
Page 1 of any economics textbook will introduce the two main branches of economics. Most Americans don't know the two main branches, the stuff from page 1, so how the heck can they make informed decisions about national economic policy? They can't, of course. They can only vote based on a bumper sticker.
I'd prefer if all the people running around saying "everybody needs to vote" would switch to saying "everybody should learn a about civics so they can make informed voting decisions".
You disagree? Think about some of the people who have been elected lately, because people vote without having a clue about the policies each candidate represents.
My state block ALL traffic from outside the US and has for years.
Since we are an international company we cannot send required documents via our company email (servers based in Europe).
It gets blocked by the state every time.
They claim they have no way to whitelist us or the like, because it is policy to block all non US based connections.
We had to setup gmail accounts for our finance department to use just for communication with the state.
I have returned from a decade of living in China. In the city where I lived, to fax my ballot would have required for me to do that from the main police station and a copy of my "political activity" would have been placed in my foreign resident file. Frankly, that was a lot of work.
The solution was easy. I visited the county clerk and signed a document that had three purposes, the first was to provide notice that I understood that the method offered no privacy. The second purpose was to have a copy of my signature on fine. The third was for me to tell them which email account my ballots would come from.
Then, I filled out my absentee ballot, that was mailed to me inChina. I then took pictures of it and emailed the jpg files to the county clerk.
The trouble is that this method was not terribly secure and it was labour intensive. What I find a bit funny is that this method was more secure than many of the absentee e-ballots being proposed.
Do you want to do these things before or after the following:
-Removing the Electoral College
-Abolishing ICE
-Stacking the court with non-partisan Leftists
-Impeaching the President and/or Vice-President and/or Bart O'Kavanaugh
U got to have ur priorities
not a bug.
Sad thing is there's a portion of Americans who really believe we should stop the "wrong" people from voting. I get the racists and why they feel that way,
Oh, knock this silly shit off. It is NOT racist to want only those people who are citizens to be able to vote. "Not a citizen" is "wrong people", and "not a citizen" has nothing at all to do with race. Another "wrong people" is "people who don't care enough to vote". People who don't care enough to vote should not vote. You keep misrepresenting people you don't understand, and it only makes you look foolish.
For my money I want to see voting made mandatory,
You keep saying this silly thing, too. Forcing people to vote will not improve the results, it will only add noise to the signal. People who do not care enough to vote will not care enough to be informed voters. They will either vote for random people (first on the list, e.g.) or the names they hear the most on the radio ads.
If you want to make money even MORE important in elections, then make voting mandatory. When "name recognition" becomes the selection method for the majority of voters who have nothing else to base their decision on, then politicians will just buy more ads to keep their name in front of the public.
I am quite happy if the turnout for an election is only 40% or 50% of the potential voters. That means that 40% or 50% of the potential voters cared enough to have an opinion and express it. The rest don't matter at all -- if you have no opinion or you don't care, then don't pretend that your voice must be heard, and don't pretend on their behalf that their voice must be heard. You are trying to speak for people who just don't care. If they don't care, why do you?
Because a state-level hacker is an idiot who can't route to a secret intelligence service with a proper IP somewhere.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Not Registering to vote does not prevent you from being called to Jury duty. In some states (notably Red ones) it does increase the likelihood you will be called. This is on purpose. It is another form of voter suppression.
To be clear I don't think you're the one lying, but rather you're the one being lied to.
The benefits from eliminating voter suppression outweigh the occasional ill informed voter. the ruling class will mobilize ill informed voters. I remember a commercial against net metering (the practice where if your solar rig puts power back in the grid the power company pays you for it). The power co didn't want to pay for it, so they got a law on the ballots by tricking folks into signing a dubious petition. That done they had to get it passed, but people overwhelmingly supported Net Metering. What to do?
So they ran these ads. There was a bunch of old people sitting around and talking about something _scary_. Not once did anyone say what the scary thing was. At the end there was an impassioned plea to vote yes on prop such and such. They ran it in an off election when the only old folks were voting. It passed in a land slide.
Those are the kinds of voters we get when we pick and choose who votes. You get voters that the ruling class has picked. They're not informed, they're what most call "useful idiots"...
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Remember just two years ago when everybody was accusing Russia of hacking the election? Hell, it was still a thing up to a few months ago. So now you want to let somebody outside the US register fake voters so they can vote over the Internet and/or cellphones (another stupid idea for another article) and definitely influence the elections?
Hell, we have enough problems as it is with both parties stacking the deck with dead people voting. When will people realize that the Internet only makes things more complicated and risky and not the universal savior of all the world's ills?
Beware of Sales Reps bearing gifts.
I constantly have this problem with Michigan, while living in Japan.
Pay my quarterly estimated taxes? Website blocked
Pay my business LLC fee? Website blocked
Register for an absentee ballot? Website blocked
It's a constant battle to call people late at night when it's early morning there. And there answer is just to clear my cache or try a different browser.
After long battles, I managed to reach the right IT people in some of the departments and get some of the access enabled. But it seems like each department has a different IT contact and I wasn't able to get the business department people to understand the problem still. I'm pretty sure they're still firewalling all non-US IPs for "security"
Morphing Software
I am quite happy if the turnout for an election is only 40% or 50% of the potential voters. That means that 40% or 50% of the potential voters cared enough to have an opinion and express it. The rest don't matter at all -- if you have no opinion or you don't care, then don't pretend that your voice must be heard, and don't pretend on their behalf that their voice must be heard. You are trying to speak for people who just don't care. If they don't care, why do you?
The "care" because they have this fantasy that somehow if those people are forced to vote, they will automatically vote for their party.
We care enough to make your voice heard! Now use that vote to elect us.
It's about power, nothing else.