topic Voting systems in Industry News

Voting systems

rslade — Fri, 20 Jul 2018 23:56:23 GMT

Election Systems and Software has long maintained that there is absolutely no way that any of their voting systems can be accessed remotely.

Apparently they have now had to admit they were lying.

Re: Voting systems

rslade — Sat, 15 Sep 2018 14:47:59 GMT

Re: Voting systems

rslade — Mon, 17 Sep 2018 17:19:01 GMT

Systems run by the people who ensure your elections are safe and fair ...

Re: Voting systems

rslade — Wed, 19 Sep 2018 21:20:07 GMT

It's dangerous and unreliable, but, what the heck, lets do it anyway ...

Re: Voting systems

cindelicato — Sun, 23 Sep 2018 15:24:38 GMT

What needs to be remembered is context.

For 8 years I served on my local district's election board. Our polling machines were made in the early 2000's, with a mechanical touch panel and LEDs which showed which candidate was chosen on the ballot that was affixed over the panel. Inside the locked cabinet there is a data cartridge that recorded the votes, and a paper tape that printed the vote totals. The back of the cabinet has LED counters and other diagnostic indicators.

I could not tell you how many people believed these devices could be hacked into from either across town or overseas, despite these devices having no data connectivity.

Now I am not saying there aren't polling devices that are connected; I am simply saying that not all are online. If states/local jurisdictions called up an accredited cyber security engineer (like, I don't know, maybe a CISSP?) who can examine the polling devices and determine whether or not they are online that might go a long way in dispelling the idea the devices can be hacked.

Of course, what the humans who tabulate the data do after the polls are closed are another story entirely.

Re: Voting systems

rslade — Thu, 27 Sep 2018 16:25:16 GMT

A more detailed examination of US voting systems.

Re: Voting systems

CraginS — Thu, 27 Sep 2018 16:59:51 GMT

Grandpa Rob @rslade has provided a series of news articles from enterprises like BBC, VICE, and New York Times.

For a more appropriate and relevant report suitable for our infosec community, see

Securing the Vote: Protecting American Democracy, a very recent (2018) publication from the National Academy Press. Dead tree and ebook formats cost $40-$50 USD but the downloadable PDF is free.

National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2018. Securing the Vote: Protecting American Democracy. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/25120.

Re: Voting systems

rslade — Fri, 28 Sep 2018 18:52:13 GMT

And it just gets worse ...

(For research and analysis, by the best in the business, going back to 1985, check out the RISKS-Forum Digest, and what it has to say on the topic.)

Re: Voting systems

rslade — Sat, 29 Sep 2018 16:43:42 GMT

As it happens, the latest RISKS-Forum Digest (sent September 28, 2018) has a number of pieces related to voting systems and other election risks ...

Re: Voting systems

rslade — Wed, 03 Oct 2018 00:55:35 GMT

And another couple:

Why isn't anyone trying to fix the broken systems?

The voting machine used in half of the US states has a flaw that's been known for decades.

Re: Voting systems

rslade — Thu, 08 Nov 2018 18:29:32 GMT

OK, not only do we use broken voting systems, and refuse to fix them. Not only do we ignore the many proven and noted failures in the voting systems.

Now we have instruction manuals that, contrary to all security awareness training and every security maven ever, tell voting administrators to use weak passwords, and to re-use weak passwords when the regulations mandate that they be changed.

I mean, no wonder you guys have problems with elections ...

Re: Voting systems

rslade — Sun, 25 Aug 2019 01:33:34 GMT

Maybe I should have put this here ...

Re: Voting systems

Caute_cautim — Mon, 26 Aug 2019 22:02:07 GMT

Well Venafi has done a survey on the subject: https://itwire.com/security/government-mandated-encryption-backdoors-weaken-election-infrastructure-venafi-survey.html

No surprises really?

Regards

Caute_cautim