The midterms are already hacked. You just don't know it yet.

[babylonsister]

VOTE!!!!!


The midterms are already hacked. You just don’t know it yet.
An investigation into the US election system reveals frightening vulnerabilities at almost every level.
By Benjamin Wofford Oct 25, 2018, 5:00am EDT


One evening last May in Knoxville, Tennessee, during the night of the local primary election, Dave Ball, the assistant IT director for Knox County, settled into the Naugahyde chair of his dusty home office and punched away at his desktop computer. Ball’s IT staff had finished a 14-hour day, running dress rehearsals to prepare for the ritual chaos of election night.

In a few minutes, at exactly 8 pm, the county’s incoming precinct results would become visible to the public online. Curious, Ball typed in the address for the Knox County election website.

At 7:53, the website abruptly crashed. Staring back at Ball was a proxy error notice, a gray message plastered against a screen of purgatorial white. It read simply, “Service Unavailable.” Across East Tennessee, thousands of Knox County residents who eagerly awaited the results saw the same error message — including at the late-night election parties for various county candidates, where supporters gathered around computers at Knoxville’s Crowne Plaza Hotel and the nearby Clarion Inn and Suites.

Ball was scowling at the screen when the phone on his table buzzed. It was a message from a staffer, still on duty at the IT department: “We’ve got a problem here,” it read. “Looks like a DDOS.” Ball still remembers his next, involuntary exclamation: “Oh, shit.”

Technicians recognized the attack: a distributed denial of service, or DDOS, in which a server is overwhelmed by a crushing wave of requests, slowing it to a halt. Over at the county’s IT center, “the error logs were coming so fast that you couldn’t even see what anything said,” recalled Ball.

One county technician, dumbfounded by the whoosh of code rocketing across the screen, somberly took out his phone and began to film it. The assault was being launched from 65 countries, a legion of zombie computers pressed into service by the attack’s architects. Finally, the barrage intensified so much that after 15 minutes, the server succumbed and crashed.

more...

https://www.vox.com/2018/10/25/18001684/2018-midterms-hacked-russia-election-security-voting

[Brainstormy]

1. well, fuck. That made

my day.

[babylonsister]

2. Yea, mine, too.

But the more we know...

[Va Lefty]

3. Yep, mine too.

v

[Crutchez_CuiBono]

10. HAhahahahaha. Omg.

that's funny. i needed a laugh.

[BSdetect]

4. Don't worry 17 ICs are on to it....Oh wait....We are fucked.

[democratisphere]

5. Knew it in 2016.

2020 has already been hacked too!

[louis c]

7. Well, we all might as well stop working to GOTV

since the election is fixed.

I don't know why we keep posting this shit. It only discourages our side. Post this shit on RW sites, so you can discourage them from voting.

[democratisphere]

9. We can't put our head in the sand.

You can ignore it, but it certainly isn't going away. HUGE awareness and exposure is required.

[louis c]

16. Ya, now I'm aware that you think my vote doesn't matter

I get it. This is a hell of a strategy to maximize our votes.

[democratisphere]

17. No one said anything like that!

[louis c]

19. What does a hacked election imply?

That every vote counts?

Come on. You know that the more people who are convinced that an election is hacked (a euphemism for fixed), the more likely they are not to vote.

[democratisphere]

20. Don't think that is true at all.

There is absolutely no excuse for any voting machine to be hackable. If a voting machine is hackable, it should be permanently taken out of service and replaced with a voting machine that isn't. This is not being done!

[Autumn]

31. How on earth does an article like this discourage people so they don't vote?

This shit needs to be posted so people are aware of the fucking bullshit that is going on. I will never understand Dems who are afraid of discussions on the problems we have had with our votes.

Honest question. Does knowing that they are and have been hacking our elections make you want to not vote? It's the exact opposite for me. I pay more attention and press more people that I know to vote. I would imagine it would be that way for anyone on our side.

[questionseverything]

32. it makes me more determined than ever to vote

I believe they can only flip so many votes before the program spits out ridiculous impossible results (remember gores negative 16,000 votes in Volusia county?)

Obama said," we have to beat em so bad their is no doubt",

and he was right

[Autumn]

34. Exactly so!

[louis c]

35. Oh ya, now I understand

The election is hacked so somebody is manipulating the totals for a desired outcome, and my vote counts more.

Oh, ya. How stupid of me.

[Autumn]

37. You seem to be able to understand what is NOT said. If Dems find out

that the other side is manipulating the vote it makes me feel that my vote, and getting others to vote is even more important. And getting their dirty tricks out there is even more important. Hence the appreciation to OP for triggering a discussion. Voters need to be aware.

[louis c]

42. No no, you've convinced me

It's like knowing that a poker game is fixed and you tell your friend it's fixed against him and you try to convince him to play.

That's sounds easy.

Don't you get it? I work on GOTV as part of my job. 50% of the eligible voters I work with need no coaxing. It's the next 20% who we have to convince. They need child care for that time, they may be working. They don't think their vote matters. These folks are just looking for an excuse to not come out. It's our job to get them out. Any ready made excuse like, " I read the vote's fixed anyway. I'm not wasting my time" makes my job twice as hard.

[Sneederbunk]

6. Hope we can access DU on Nov 6.

[C Moon]

15. Right? That's probably going to happen again.

[PDittie]

41. Obviously as critical as our

electronic voting infrastructure.

[Javaman]

11. I said to my GF a few weeks ago...

don't be the least bit surprised if the blue wave turns out to be a ripple due to hacking.

I'd like to believe that I'm fully prepared mentally to deal with it, but reality usually dictates its own set of rules.

brace for impact.

Dr. Orange Asshole or How I have learned to love fascism.

[calimary]

12. And the reasons WHY the party in power does nothing? Simple. And obvious.

Because they want that “help” AGAIN.

[BigmanPigman]

13. They encourage the hacking.

It IS going on right now...nothing has changed and nothing will as long as this party is in control. They want to stay in control at any cost. MSNBC said hacking still was going on over the past few weeks in various forms.

[Baltimike]

23. This is so true. nt

[C Moon]

14. I've been screaming about this since the last fraud of an election we had. The U.S. has done NOTHING

to protect our voting system.
No surprise, because the thieves are in control.
Rinse and repeat.

[h2ebits]

18. When the going gets tough; the tough get going

KNOWLEDGE IS POWER.

We can't fix something if we put our heads in the sand.

I posted this article on FB for everyone to read because it is frightening to see the ease of access to our right to vote and how we have been blindsided in our ignorance. We can no longer just vote and assume we have done our part. Please share this article far and wide. We can fix our problems but it will take time and it needs to be fixed at every level including the local level.

We now have not only voter suppression going on big time along with massive gerrymandering by the political crooks in the country; but also other actors trying to disrupt the country.

VOTE VOTE VOTE

Get involved with your local governments to ensure that they are doing the best they can to serve us and our needs--not the corporations and oligarchs.

There is much to be done.

[Baltimike]

24. + 100 nt

[louis c]

36. How about if it's not true, and we discourage the vote?

[Hekate]

21. Knowledge

[louis c]

43. Knowledge: The vote is fixed, why bother. Great GOTV technique

or, as your trying to convince a casual voter, the vote is hacked against you, but we still need your vote.

Wow, that makes sense.

[orleans]

22. this shit has been going on since...

before 2004

and this is exactly why we need that blue wave--so there can be no doubt who the majority of people voted for

it's easier to hack & switch numbers when the numbers are close. but when it's a landslide? different story.

?1521243706

[RussBLib]

26. I hope you're right. Great gif there. n/t

[qwlauren35]

25. For the life of me,

I cannot understand how an article like this would persuade people not to vote.

We just need to know how to fight this. We can donate money to organizations like the naacp who are trying to fight voting fraud. Not sure what else.

But not voting is not a solution to the problem.

[louis c]

44. we are giving the casual voter an excuse not to vote. And when it appears on this site, they're ours

[qwlauren35]

45. I stand corrected.

A friend of mine who is Very Blue in NC is saying that she is encountering too many people who are too discouraged to vote. Apparently it doesn't take much.

[cp]

27. Really good article, read whole thing and sent to my town clerk

Will always vote and will always fight to keep our elections safe.

Thank you, babylonsister, for posting this. Vital information!

[Garrett78]

28. Members of Congress and former Intel are "baffled," eh?

More consequential are the White House’s lesser-known administrative moves. In the past two years, the administration has eliminated three vital positions in cyberdefense: cybersecurity coordinators at the State Department and Homeland Security Council, and, most critically, its White House cybersecurity coordinator.

The moves have baffled members of Congress and former intelligence officials.

Maybe that was just the journalist's choice of words, but if not, nobody should be baffled by what are clearly intentional acts to hurt Democrats.

And to those who have said here on DU that nobody was turned away from their polling place in 2016, read the article.

[Blue Owl]

29. Paper. Ballots.

When will we learn?

[colsohlibgal]

38. Yes Yes Yes!

How long will democrats be fine with always potentially bring swindled?

Canada does it and does it quickly.

[jeffreyi]

30. Vote anyway, peeps.

[questionseverything]

33. of course vote and take everyone you know to vote

Obama brought out big enough numbers to over come the rig and we can do it again but

vote on paper where you can, watch the results closely

and encourage your local candidates to recount if necessary

[FM123]

39. Yes, suit up show up and vote anyway!

[ck4829]

40. If we don't at the least take the house, it will be because of this.