President Donald Trump

[nullnor]

funny is good, dumpster fire not so much. what the former does is it disarms other members that disagree, even if they are responding to something witty and congruent to the conversation.. i think it's possible to be critical and attempt to be funny at the same time. the best of both worlds.

[DMT]

https://www.theroot.com/evidence-shows-hackers-changed-votes-in-the-2016-electi-1827871206

At the 2017 Def Con computer security conference, perhaps the biggest gathering of hackers in the world, organizers challenged attendees to hack into a variety of 30 different voting machines used by election officials around the country.

Within 24 hours they hacked every one.

A 16-year-old hacker broke into as ExpressPoll voting machine used by Georgia in 45 minutes. Another cyberhacker showed how he could change votes in the WINvote machine used in Virginia, Pennsylvania and Mississippi, with only a computer, a mouse and a Microsoft Word document, as long as he had the password. But the hacker soon discovered that WINvote machines all had the same password.

The password, which could not be changed, was (you might want to take a deep breath) “abcde.”

[baldgriff]

As if anyone should be surprised that a voting machine can be hacked? There has been concern about this going on for almost a decade now. Maybe one good thing about Trump getting elected is having a hard look at the mechanics of our election process. Not the electoral college, but who gets to and how they get to vote.

[chancellor]

As if anyone should be surprised that a voting machine can be hacked? There has been concern about this going on for almost a decade now. Maybe one good thing about Trump getting elected is having a hard look at the mechanics of our election process. Not the electoral college, but who gets to and how they get to vote.

Agree on the voting machine issue, and ten years might be a little light. I seem to remember some articles coming out shortly after Bush/Gore. There's been a very interesting bi-partisan consensus group advocating for paper ballots again for some time. While the old mayor Daley proved those can be dealt with, it's still a much more secure solution than most of the machines.

[Sour Masher]

Agree on the voting machine issue, and ten years might be a little light. I seem to remember some articles coming out shortly after Bush/Gore. There's been a very interesting bi-partisan consensus group advocating for paper ballots again for some time. While the old mayor Daley proved those can be dealt with, it's still a much more secure solution than most of the machines.

As long as we don't go back to hanging chads, or confusing butterfly ballots...

[nullnor]

on election stealing i think of battlestar galactica when tom zarek asked laura roslen if she stole the election. might be a bad example because she did and got away with it.

as citizens we may never know about it, but i would bet they would. ..something doesn't qualify as a secret once too many people know about it. and like i said before about gossip being a sign of intelligence, such knowledge or suspicions would be uncontainable. if a presidential candidate thought they really had an election stolen (and they would know) they would raise holy hell.

can't you just go ask people who they voted for after? and then if it doesn't add up than we might have election stealing problems.

of course i only voted once in my life. to me it doesn't matter. the same shit is gonna happen one way or another. it's ironic, i believe in freewill but i don't believe in elections. we all have our shortcomings.

[baldgriff]

I have to admit my frustration with some people that up until Trump was elected, held the belief that the electronic voting process couldnt be hacked, or that we shouldnt be concerned about it. Not sure if anyone here necessarily fits that category, but I seem to recall some discussions around voting machine/ballot box tampering and it was poo poo'd as some type of conspiracy thing.

Well now we have Trump - and oh my - the sky is falling.

Its just so disingenuous - again not directed specifically at anyone here - just venting my frustration.

[revo]

I have to admit my frustration with some people that up until Trump was elected, held the belief that the electronic voting process couldnt be hacked, or that we shouldnt be concerned about it. Not sure if anyone here necessarily fits that category, but I seem to recall some discussions around voting machine/ballot box tampering and it was poo poo'd as some type of conspiracy thing.

Well now we have Trump - and oh my - the sky is falling.

Its just so disingenuous - again not directed specifically at anyone here - just venting my frustration.

Have we ever heard Trump say the voting process is rigged because of hacking? Or more because of fake voters? That's a MAJOR difference, IMO. The first one we all know about and should rightly fear. The other is the dreams of right wing conspiracy theorists and the solution usually has something to do with suppressing people's right to vote.

[DMT]

I have to admit my frustration with some people that up until Trump was elected, held the belief that the electronic voting process couldnt be hacked, or that we shouldnt be concerned about it. Not sure if anyone here necessarily fits that category, but I seem to recall some discussions around voting machine/ballot box tampering and it was poo poo'd as some type of conspiracy thing.

Well now we have Trump - and oh my - the sky is falling.

Its just so disingenuous - again not directed specifically at anyone here - just venting my frustration.

As chancellor noted, people have been sounding the alarms well before Trump. Does Diebold ring a bell?

[DMT]

can't you just go ask people who they voted for after? and then if it doesn't add up than we might have election stealing problems.

Yep, it's called exit polling and lo and behold Trump performed significantly better than exit polling indicated he would.

https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/reporter-thinks-russian-hackers-changed-votes-trump-and-his-explanation-doesnt

PENNSYLVANIA — 20 Electoral Votes

Exit Polls: Clinton 50.5, Trump 46.1 — Clinton wins by 4.4

Actual: Clinton 47.6, Trump 48.8 — Trump wins by 1.2

Trump gain: 5.6

WISCONSIN — 10 Electoral Votes

Exit Polls: Clinton 48.2, Trump 44.3 — Clinton wins by 3.9

Actual: Clinton 47.6, Trump 48.8 — Trump wins by 1.2

Trump gain: 5.1

[baldgriff]

As chancellor noted, people have been sounding the alarms well before Trump. Does Diebold ring a bell?

I know we have around here discussed it plenty in the past. Its just frustrating that no one was listening over the last decade plus to those that were raising the alarm bells.

[Hornsby]

Minnesota uses paper ballots that you fill out like the multiple choice tests back in school. You make your choice, fill in the circle for your preferred candidate, and the ballot is scanned into a stand alone machine.

The only issue is that every once in a while, ballots for one of the machines get misplaced. That happened in the Franken race back in 2008...

[Ken]

A 16-year-old hacker broke into as ExpressPoll voting machine used by Georgia in 45 minutes. Another cyberhacker showed how he could change votes in the WINvote machine used in Virginia, Pennsylvania and Mississippi, with only a computer, a mouse and a Microsoft Word document, as long as he had the password. But the hacker soon discovered that WINvote machines all had the same password.

I'm not sure the first part of this statement is surprising at all. Outside of MFA, which is, in computer history terms, a relatively new concept, I'm not aware of any system that someone couldn't "hack" given the password. That's not a big surprise. If I call you and tell you my password and you use it to login to my email are you a hacker? Not really a big deal.

The password, which could not be changed, was (you might want to take a deep breath) “abcde.”

So the real issue here was that they used a terrible password, and likely had no lockout system for failed attempts. Seems easily correctable.

[umjewman]

So the real issue here was that they used a terrible password, and likely had no lockout system for failed attempts. Seems easily correctable.

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[DMT]

So the real issue here was that they used a terrible password, and likely had no lockout system for failed attempts. Seems easily correctable.

No, the real issue is that this was done in 2017, well after any reasonable time needed to recognize this is a major problem.