How soon will the Clinton team carcus call for investigation of election results in swing states?

Politics & Elections
62

With all the stuff about making sure we trust the integrity of our elections, one thing that would not disenfranchise anyone is the push for easily read, unobscured open source code used in voting machines. The code could be pored over, and even decompiled to check and see that the same code is actually what ran.

And there should, frankly, be some spot checks on the system, randomly selected in every state. That state has to check the real votes. There’s no reason for this not to regularly be done.

I mean, cybersecurity was an issue in this election, with the unsecured server and all.

63

Latest information I’ve read indicates that Wisconsin is more or less auditable, there being a paper trail to examine. Michigan, too. But Pennsylvania would be impossible because they don’t use any sort of paper backup to the electronic system. That needs to be changed, don’t you think? I think any state who benefits from the lower cost of electronic voting (questionable, at best) should be required to be able to prove the system is working by random audits of the output of machines across the state, paper record vs. machine output.

I believe that all electronic voting machines are, in fact, run through a diagnostic before each election cycle. If this is done by an agency of the state, using any sort of device that is accessible by the internet at any time, the possibility of someone, foreign or domestic, hacking the diagnostic code and installing a hidden bias code that self destructs as soon as the election is over is very real…

64

In theory, but I don’t think this can be forced. Generally, a recount of a voting machine means plugging the machine in and collecting the total votes again. I don’t know of any state where a candidate can simply demand to have the paper backup counted.

65

That is sad, if true.

66

That’s movie crap. enCase examination of a hard drive would show signs that the erase happened.

Code exists as binaries that are executable, and while executing reside in memory.

Those binaries are compiled from source code, which itself may or may not reside on the same machine.

If the counting code erases itself, then you have a machine that has no counting code.

If the hack is a separate piece of code that exists on each machine to mess with the vote totals after they are collected, then even one machine that broke before use will retain the evidence.

67

This, I absolutely endorse. The code that runs should have a known hash and that hash taken on random machines to confirm it’s unchanged. Not sure decompiling is necessary but sure, knock yourself out.

68

You’re correct about one broken machine.

But code can erase itself and it can erase all evidence of itself from a drive by overwriting the sectors numerous times. Malicious code can coexist with, and interfere with, legitimate code. You can, for example, have separate code that accesses the same database. When it deletes itself, the legitimate code is still there. You could have code that changes one or more stored procedures in the database then, at the end of the night, changes them back and deletes itself.

All of that of course depends on the details of particular machines. Do they use a hard drive or flash ram? If they use a hard drive is it a physical drive or an SSD?

I don’t need an education about binaries, executables, etc. I’m a software developer.

I also don’t think it’s likely that the machines were hacked, it would be risky as hell because, as you say, one broken machine could give the whole thing away, and there would have to be a lot of hacked machines (of course someone would have to bother to check them). But I don’t think that it’s totally impossible, especially for a sophisticated nation state like, for example, Russia. In fact, they might not mind so much if it was discovered. Imagine the chaos if a whole election was invalidated. Putin would love that.

Part of a forensic audit would be to look at machines that broke or were shut down early for some reason, or weren’t brought into service.

My other concern is with bugs. I can tell you from experience that all the testing in the world does not guarantee bug free code. However, it seems unlikely that there would be some unintentional bug that would always favor one party over another.

What it comes down to is that I’m uncomfortable without some sort of meaningful paper trail. You always talk about people having confidence in elections, well voting on a black box with proprietary code doesn’t exactly lend confidence.

69

Are you talking about Hillarys’ unsecured server? I mean if the Secretary of State can’t even secure a server how can we trust these local yokels?

70

Here is the list of security protocols that are supposed to happen in Wisconsin:
http://elections.wi.gov/elections-voting/voting-equipment/security

It includes initial logic/tabulation testing, public testing, chain of custody records for each machine, tamper indicating seals on memory devices, and a post election audit.

They also have a listing of all the types of machines used in Wisconsin:
http://elections.wi.gov/elections-voting/voting-equipment/voting-equipment-use

71

Our good friend Josh Marshall, over at Talking Points Memo, reports on Dr Stein’s (Green Party) fundraising effort to challenge the results. Reports have it that she initially sought to raise $2.5 million, then decided she needed $4.5 million, now $7 million. He find this suspicious. I quite agree.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/a-word-of-caution

72

Jill Stein has found a way to fund the Green Party’s 2018 election campaigns. And it looks like Hillary supporters are going to fund it.

73

That certainly deserves further investigation.

But aside from that: it’s interesting to see how quickly the money is flowing in.

74

The Green Party isn’t being deceptive, they say any unused funds will be used to train local candidates.

75

I am so thrilled that Jill Stein is now worried that a few thousand votes gave the Presidency to Trump. I just wish there had been something, anything, that she could have done prior to the election to make sure that Trump did not get the Presidency.

As to what that possibly could have been… I don’t know, I’m all out of ideas. Anyone?

Seriously: The woman is lining her pockets with the dreams of depressed Democrats. She is the Left’s Donald Trump, a person who wants to will to power for their own personal aggrandizement. I have less respect for her now than I did before this “campaign”.

76

Keeping her name in the news, Jillary filed for a recount in WI a couple of hours ago.

77

Code that erases itself is technically possible, but I would assume that the machines have only just enough space to run, and nothing more–it would be inefficient to create them otherwise.

It’s also not a problem with open source, unobscured code. It would be plainly visible if it did.

And, yeah, using a hash from the compiled code to make sure it’s the same compiled code would suffice rather than decompiling. It gets compiled once and then that compilation is the required binary. Heck, take if further and don’t even check a hash–check it against the binary itself, so no deliberate hash collisions can be made.

78

For starters, aren’t they just checking to see if there’s a discrepancy between the paper ballot count and the machine count? Finding a significant discrepancy right there would be cause to question the results elsewhere.

79

AFAIK, no jury has ever convicted anyone of deliberately hacking voting machines to change an election but there have certainly been many (inadvertant?) bugs reported that favored one candidate over another. And voting machines are often unconscionably easy to hack.

Voting machine companies have been very reluctant to reveal their source code and other methods. Even open source code may not be a panacaea: Recall the Lecture Ken Thompson gave when he won the Turing Award (pdf).

80

Jiminy f-ing Christmas…how long will you libtards be in denial?

Just move on. Get over it, you lost the election, plan for the next. Believing you somehow have a chance for Hillary to still be president is a fairy tail. A deal was struck after Podesta went on stage election night and said go home. A call was made, it was agreed that she would conceded and not challenge in exchange for Trump dropping his promise to investigate her if elected, as recently eveidenced.

81

Please don’t insult other posters. Warning issued. Don’t do it again.