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Hacking the Presidential Election
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Wed Oct 10, 2007 09:00 AM
from the supreme-court-picks-anyway-now dept.
from the supreme-court-picks-anyway-now dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Security researchers at a recent summit predicted US voters will be targeted by web-based dirty tricks campaigns as the 2008 election gets nearer. Spam, botnets and phishing all provide good opportunities to mislead voters and attack rivals with little risk of being caught, they say."
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Submission: US election 'at risk of being hacked' by Anonymous Coward
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eBay The Vote 228 comments
Internet Voting writes "Voters in Argentina's upcoming presidential election have found an interesting solution to their political apathy: eBay. 'New and unused' votes are being posted from $0.30 to $95. Electoral authorities say they're powerless to stop it. 'Argentine electoral authorities say they can do little to stop the practice because it falls into a legal vacuum. One of the voters, Martin Minue, a doctor from the northern province of Rioja, told a newspaper it was his way to protest against useless politicians. Mr Minue, 33, told the Clarin paper he felt powerless to change the country's situation. The doctor, who works in the city of Chilecito, posted his vote on an auction website with a price tag of 20 pesos (US$6).'"
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WILL be? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Ron Paul (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Sooo.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Where the heck is the difference to earlier elections?
Re:Sooo.... (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
The difference is in the crook (Score:3, Insightful)
Roll back 2 party system (Score:5, Insightful)
The Democrats and Republicans have voted into place a system that pays for the Democrat and Republican parties. Oh sure, it doesn't say Democrat or Republican, it just says they have to get such and such a percentage to qualify, have to be nationwide, etc. All things that the Dems and Reps were at the time they inacted them. This is little different from Soviet Russia except instead of one party, we've got two.
The rules in place for running the House and Senate are even more blatant. It's all based on simple majority, which you can do with two parties. If a third party were ever to steal seats from both parties and neither of the two had a majority, they would have to rewrite all the rules for committees, offices, etc.
I will never donate any tax funds to pay for the elections of Democrats and Republicans and I urge everyone else not to either.
Parent
Re:Roll back 2 party system (Score:5, Insightful)
The thing about a two party system is that it encourages polarisation. The parties end up defining themselves by being different from the other party. If one party is for X, then the other party loudly proclaims that it's against it.
What makes this particularly nasty is that because the two parties must be very similar anyway simply in order to be fit to govern, X ends up being some stupid marginal issue that's unimportant. But because it's one of the defining issues that allows the voters to distinguish the two parties, it gets all the publicity and the air time. Any policies that the parties have in common get no publicity --- no matter how bad the policies may be. All the debate ends up being about trivialities, and all the real decisions get hidden.
Multiparty systems are a vast improvement because once you have three people in a debate, the X / not-X distinction is no longer sufficient. Party 1 is for X, party 2 is against X, and... party 3 starts asking awkward questions. Party 3 can play off parties 1 and 2 against each other. Soon, people are actually discussing X. This becomes a habit, and people end up discussing other things, including the issues that are actually important. Multi-party systems encourage debate and defuse party polarisation, which is always good.
Parent
It doesn't even require the Internet (Score:5, Insightful)
(Of course, online, any idiot could do this, whereas calling people requires a bit more coordination and resources).
But honestly, we should be asking ourselves if we want people who stoop to such measures to make the policy for our country in the first place. I don't think I'm voting for any of them.
Re: (Score:2)
The small problem with my assertion is that it COULD be true and there's no way to know whether or not it is. One party, or even both (or just about ANYONE for the online ones), could be joe jobbing a particular party and no-one will know.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
The organization (if you want to call it that) has a cell structure: its members don't know
Robocalls (Score:3, Interesting)
Those calls are designed to piss you off and make you want to stay home. So you look like a robocall success story. Just ignore the calls if you don't know who's making them. If you really want to know who's calling, listen to the entire thing because this information often comes at the end of the call.
Right before the last e
This just in... (Score:5, Funny)
In other news, results of the study of wetness by the Institute for Applied Water are said to be forthcoming.
Obligatory (Score:5, Funny)
In addition, during this name transfer, scapegoating the Democrats will not work. And everything else has ground to a halt. Even Fox News is straining to keep up as I type this.
I won't bore you with the laundry list of other problems that I've encountered while working with various democratic institutions, but suffice it to say there have been many, not the least of which is I've never seen a democracy that has run faster than its fascist counterpart, despite the democracies' faster marketplace of ideas. My banana republic with 8 torture specialists runs faster than this 300-million person democracy at times. From a productivity standpoint, I don't get how people can claim that democracy is a superior system of government.
Democracy addicts, flame me if you'd like, but I'd rather hear some intelligent reasons why anyone would choose to use a democracy over other faster, cheaper, more stable governments.
Re: (Score:2)
Not a hack, per se . . . (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I've seen similar stuff about Giuliani and Thompson supporters, re: switching to Romney. Problem for them is that I know one of the names they used, called him up and he had never heard of such a thing. Just another lie planted by the Romney camp.
Its like the "EvangelicalsForMitt" website earlier this year onthe Republican side - they are neither Evangelicals, nor are they "For Mitt". Nothing more than a front for an Atlanta PR firm with Romney ties that feeds th
goatse (Score:2, Troll)
2: Modify the hosts file so that the election website of you opponent points to goatse
3: profit.
Re: (Score:2)
Worse yet (Score:3, Insightful)
Absolutely Not (Score:2, Informative)
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Catch and Release (Score:5, Insightful)
But even when they are caught, voters let them off the hook. There are many examples, but someone tell me how John Sununu remained in office, and is now campaigning to likely keep his New Hampshire Senate seat, even though he was narrowly elected in 2002 with the help of active phone jamming [google.com] his opponent's Election Day "get out the vote" system? He stopped voters from voting to win. The guy actually operating the operation went to jail and gave evidence he'd coordinated with the Republican National Committee, and his phone logs show he worked with the White House during the operation. Sununu isn't just some "random senator": he's on the Senate Commerce Committee [wikipedia.org], which controls the FCC and telecom.
Of course these politicians will do anything for power. But when they're caught, what's our excuse for ignoring their criminal careers when we vote for them?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Just as the guy downthread who tries to argue that Ted Kennedy's drunk driving problem 40 years ago makes everything the Republicans are doing today, all right - there's no excuse for such stupidity.
People will not listen to what they don't want to hear. It's just a sad fact.
And there are two ways to look at anything: From a moral standpoint - these people who bury their head in the sand, have the blood of a half-million innocent Iraqi civilians on their hands. That's the morality of
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The only problem with everything you said is the IQ test for voting. Because the other big problem already is that so few people vote. Which means the #1 function of democratic voting, obtaining the consent of the governed, is lost. The #2 function, choosing an official, is lost in the collapse of the rest of the system, but it's already besides the point because the governed doesn't actually consent. Many more people need to vote, not fewer.
And even the IQ test is se
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Of course no one wants their pork cut. But why do people elect people who have been shown to be lying or cheating even in the act of asking for their vote?
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That's the kind of partisan I've turned into. You can thank your Decider for that.
The Internet as "enabler for democracy" (Score:3, Funny)
But to hell with it! Let's make the Internet an enabler for democracy!
In a few years, the candidate who wins the "LOL" vote will win every election.
Say your piece well--and get slammed for it (Score:3, Insightful)
However, the more carefully I present interesting or useful information, the more likely it becomes that my post will simply disappear into the black hole of negative mods. Why don't I feel motivated? Just because the more clearly I write the more certainly I will offend some cowardly anonymous moderator who will simply shoot my comment in the head with a truly meaningless "overrated" mod.
In engineering terms this is called negative dynamic stability. I suppose that the
That does not work very well. No wonder
Amusingly enough, the thing I miss these years is the humor. Almost none left on
Now I predict that if I have made my comment clearly enough, a bunch of anonymous negative mods will be piled upon it, presumably destroying my karma and causing me to effectively disappear as a contributor to any future discussions. But you know what? Given the quality of the typical discussion on
Oh yeah. On the actual topic, it isn't the hacking, it's the gerrymandering. The largest bloc of voters are the ones who don't vote--because they have correctly understood that their votes have been gerrymandered away from them. Why should they vote when they can't affect the election? It's about as useless as writing a thoughtful but provocative post on
What are you saying, exactly. . ? (Score:3, Insightful)
Having looked through your recent posting history, it doesn't appear that you are particularly clear in your writing style. Perhaps a larger sample of your posts would disabuse me of this notion, but as it stands, you seem to write in a manner I would call, "reactive", (acting as though you are in the middle of a conversation when you are not), which leads to the use of mildly cryptic statements and terms designed only for those 'in the know' as opposed to making statements designed to con
Not news (Score:2)
In Soviet Russia ... (Score:2)
What about the voting machines? (Score:5, Interesting)
However, the bigger, not as well reported, scandal is in the findings of the California Secretary of State. She set up teams to do penetration tests of the all-electronic (DRE) voting machines. Although the vendors later howled about the information given the penetration test teams, the information was similar to what the US Defense Department has been giving its penetration test teams for the last quarter century.
The team that tested the Diebold machine found that a minimally-skilled malicious voter could gain administrative access to the machine and erase all votes cast up to that point in the election. The access required a tool, described as being commonly found in an office, small enough to conceal in the palm of the hand, and such that it would create no suspicion in the minds of polling place officials. The description sounds to me like a paper clip.
In the 2004 general election, the board of elections of a Maryland county normally carried by Democratic candidates reported that up to 5% of their machines (all Diebolds) were suspected of having lost some or all of their recorded votes. Could this have been the same attack described by the California penetration test team? If so, where else was it performed? What other voting machine shenanigans occurred in 2004? How did that influence the outcome in 2004?
There was also a group of statisticians who determined that the 2006 Democratic margin in winning control of the House of Representatives was significantly different from the margin calculated from exit polls. The difference was around 3%, but should have been much smaller, according to well-tested statistical concepts. This could have meant several more Democratic seats in the House. Could this have been the result of voting machine tampering similar to what the California test teams demonstrated?
Could the 2008 election be decided, not by the voters, but by the sophistication of voting machine tamperers?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Why do you state that the exit polls were wrong? Organizations have been doing them for quite literally, decades. Year after year, election after election, the exit polls matched up quite nicely with the actual voting results. I don't recall seeing any deviation up until the 2000 election, and I've been watching election results in the U.S. since the mid 60s.
Why all of a sudden did
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
or maybe the other thing? (Score:3, Interesting)
Perfect "Campaigner's Market" (Score:3, Insightful)
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Re:Typical (Score:4, Insightful)
But yes, the GOP has made dirty tricks an art.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
The Dems' "excuse" is that they're politicians and spineless pussies.
Lemme guess, they're pussies because they don't agree with blatant fear/warmongering like any real, super, tough-guy, cowboy American should, right? Look, I don't think anyone will argue that people on both "teams" resort to some seriously shady business, but gimme a break with this whole "spineless" angle, it's just a steaming pile of crap. If you honestly believe that by being as bull-headed as we have been in our rush to war we have done ourselves any good at all, I really suggest you seek cou
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I had high hopes in Nov '06 when the election results were announced. The best we can say is that at least Bush doesn't have a rubber stamp anymore, and that the minimum wage was finally raised. That's about it.
Re:Typical (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Indeed. A vote for either of these two parties is a wasted vote. They'll argue bitterly over BS issues like flag burning and school prayer, but in the end they'll agree to pass laws which prolong the wars, destroy civil liberties, keep the borders open to illegal immigration and drive our country further into debt.
Now that you've realized there is no difference bet
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Elections (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Elections (Score:5, Funny)
You are confusing cause and effect. The truth is that Alpha Males with large penises tend to be Republicans. Along with the sort of real women who marry such real men. Lesser specimens of manhood, women who can't attract a mate (or don't want one), gays, etc. who know themselves to be unfit, vote for Democrats who promise to take care of the poor pathetic creatures.
Note that Democrat leader types are also often Alpha Males (Bill and Hillary Clinton both come to mind) but such personality types are rare in the rank and file. Regardless of party, you pretty much have to be an Alpha with zero self esteem issues to even want high political office.
And THAT folks is how to troll.
Parent
Re:Only about Half of the eligible voters vote. (Score:5, Interesting)
God and abortion are important, sure, followed by gays and, more distantly, guns, but these issues are no more prominent now then they have been in the past 20 years. You've also left out three issues that feature even more prominently in the minds of voters: immigration, health care and climate change.
And if you don't think this is an important election, you haven't been paying attention. The next president will manage the disengagement in Iraq (yes, it's inevitable), some sort of health care reform (although a total re-imagining is unlikely), the immigration question, give an up-or-down on a carbon tax/cap and trade scheme, and probably appoint 2 or 3 Supreme Court justices.
In short, your "analysis" is superficial and about 6 years out of date. But I guess I'm the idiot talking politics on Slashdot. So ignore the above--RON PAUL FTW!!!!111
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I wonder if your pollster background gives you an unrealistic perspective. You seem to believe that The People decide the outcome of elections. Besides the reality that voters are sheep, have no historical memory and are laughably gullible, it isn't clear that all voters will be actually able to vote, nor that all votes will count, nor that key election systems won't be hacked.
And besides all that, the winner of our last two presidential elections actual