Expert: Georgia election server showed signs of tampering (2016)

[deminks]

https://apnews.com/39dad9d39a7533efe06e0774615a6d05

A computer security expert says he found that a forensic image of the election server central to a legal battle over the integrity of Georgia elections showed signs that the original server was hacked.

The server was left exposed to the open internet for at least six months, a problem the same expert discovered in August 2016. It was subsequently wiped clean in mid-2017 with no notice, just days after election integrity activists filed a lawsuit seeking an overhaul of what they called the state’s unreliable and negligently run election system.

In late December 2019, the plaintiffs were finally able to obtain a copy of the server’s contents that the FBI made in March 2017 and retained — after the state allegedly dragged its feet in securing the image.

State officials have said they’ve seen no evidence that any election-related data was compromised. But they also long refused to submit the server image for an independent examination.

Logan Lamb, a security expert for the plaintiffs, said in an affidavit filed in Atlanta federal court on Thursday that he found evidence suggesting the server was compromised in December 2014. Lamb said the evidence suggests an attacker exploited a bug that provided full control of the server.

(end snip)

Link to tweet

[tblue37]

1. K&R for visibility. nt

[hlthe2b]

2. Know who was a professor in Political Science at Kennesaw State for years? Newt Gingrich

and guess who hosted a Trump event at Kennesaw State in 2016.... Yup

https://www.ajc.com/blog/politics/newt-gingrich-host-town-hall-kennesaw-state-university-next-week/0CKXhbhKmq4o3Gn4Y59h0H/

[Kingofalldems]

3. I believe votes were changed.

[Eliot Rosewater]

26. In several states, as I said the DAY AFTER the election to anyone who would listen

[triron]

31. [phone]! (The ! means 'factorial', mighty big number)

[questionseverything]

34. whoever our nominee is, they need to be ready to demand a hand count!

[ElementaryPenguin]

35. They were - in many states - especially swing states. Exit polls proved this.

And though exit polls were designed to detect FRAUD - they aren't relied upon or even mentioned much anymore - having been thoroughly discredited by Republicans ever since 2000 - when Bush/Cheney were able to steal Florida and the 2000 election.

That election ushered in the installation of electronic voting machines across the U.S. - rendering our election process vulnerable and unreliable.

[lpbk2713]

4. Vulnerable for six months?

There's no excuse. It could not have been accidental.

[RT Atlanta]

5. wiped clean was under Brian Kemp* watch as Sect of State

Lotsa shenanigans going on at that time the security of the election systems at Kennesaw State.

Not unlike the cameras footage being mysteriously erased for the few minutes while J Epstein 'died'

[lostnfound]

6. The same people who were willing to use dogs and lynchings to stop POC from voting...

Have no regrets, recriminations, reluctance or compunction from using electronic means to stop their votes from counting.

[Maraya1969]

7. I fear that this is going to keep happening. I have no idea what

measures are being taken to prevent it but I think they may not be enough.

[bluestarone]

8. Feel the same way here

I think we ALL know they are going to try ANYTHING to win in 2020. We have a few months to figure it out.

[diva77]

9. Plaintiffs include coalitionforgoodgovernance.org -- very effective organization

They managed to get a ruling against the 100% nonverifiable paperless DREs in use in GA -- and are fighting to get rid of the insidious Ballot Marking Devices (BMDs) which are nothing more than hackable DREs that print nonverifiable barcodes on paper. These BMDs are being peddled by elections officials using a huge disinformation campaign and are, by coincidence(?), rapidly being purchased by many critical swing state counties.

Further info from OP:

For the 2020 election, Georgia officials are replacing antiquated touchscreen voting machines that have long been discredited by computer scientists. But the Coalition for Good Governance, one of the plaintiffs in the case, rejects the computerized ballot-marking devices the state has purchased to replace them.

It maintains, paralleling the findings last year of a National Academies of Sciences report, that the only secure voting solution are hand-marked ballots processed by scanners that leave a human-readable paper trail that can be audited later. Most U.S. voters will use systems with a voter-verifiable paper trail in November.

“The defendants have since day one tried to do everything possible to obstruct the public, the plaintiffs and the court from seeing the shambles of what they had in an incredibly compromised election system,” said the coalition’s Executive Director Marilyn Marks.

---------------
No mention of who the plaintiffs are until about 12" down in the article -- and then only 1 of the parties is mentioned-- geez!!!

[snot]

10. Every real computer expert who's been asked says electronic voting & tabulation machines

CANNOT be secured.

[diva77]

11. +1,000,000 THIS!!!!!!!

[defacto7]

12. The fact!

[patphil]

14. I have a masters degree in Computer Science and worked as a System Administrator

in a fortune 500 quality control department.
I believe an electronic voting and tabulation system CAN be secure, but it needs to be built from the ground up as a secure system.
It can't be done by for-profit private companies with a stake in who gets elected, nor can it be done, and maintained, on the cheap.

The military has safe and secure systems, it's not unreasonable that we could have the same for our elections.
What it would require is a national project to create a system that is uniformly safe, secure, and robust.
A system that is the same in every state.
A system that uses an operating system developed specifically for this purpose.
A system that has a full audit trail for any and all changes to the system; sort of like the super secret server that hides those things Trump doesn't want made public.
A system that enforces a chain of custody for each voting machine to insure responsibility for protecting the integrity of each machine.
A system that provide a record of each person's vote, using a non-traceable unique number provided to the voter at the time the vote is cast, that would allow any voter to view their vote both at the time of their vote, and days, weeks, or even months later.

There are ways to do this, it just takes money and the will to provide such a system for all our elections.

Patrick Phillips

[llmart]

17. +1

[questionseverything]

19. if you have to have special expertease to verify the vote it is still a trust system,non democratic

hand counted paper ballots, counted in full public view is the only way for transparency to flourish

counting the top federal races by hand wouldn't take that long and could serve as an audit for super long ballots...as long as recounts were easy to obtain with a tight chain of custody

[patphil]

21. I agree that paper ballots are reasonably secure in most cases.

But, they can be manipulated also.
Ballot box stuffing used to be the way elections were fixed.
Also, paper ballots can be, and often were lost, either by accident or deliberately.
And the effort to do primary counts and recounts is expensive due to the labor involved.
I don't think there is any chance that we would go back to that method.
I personally would like to see the old style mechanical voting machines brought back, but that's not going to happen either.

Realistically, this is the computer age and voting will be done on, and reported through computer systems whether we like it or not.
That said, it imperative that the computer systems used are the most reliable, accurate, and secure systems we can possible develop.

[ret5hd]

23. Paper ballots can be manipulated one at a time...One. By. One.

Electronic ballots can be changed en mass...and the perpetrator doesn't even need to be in the same precinct/county/state/country/or even fuckin' hemisphere.

[patphil]

25. True. But you will never get any state to go back to paper ballots.

The reality is that computerized voting is here to stay, and we need to make it as safe as possible.
This is what I am talking about...insuring safe secure, reliable computerized voting systems.
It can be done.
It does require a lot of effort.
It means that a lot more money needs to be spent to insure this, both to implement and maintain.
It will require a federal program to make sure it's uniformly implemented.
It can't be farmed out to private companies.
It must be independent of political parties and governmental interference at the political level.
But, it can be done.

That's where we're at.
That's the way it's going to be for the foreseeable future of voting in this country.
I have no illusion of this country turning back the clock to the days of paper ballots.
It's just not going to happen.
So, we need to deal with that reality.

[questionseverything]

29. the article the op is discussing is about georgia being forced thru a law suit to return to paper

so yes we can and will continue to try and return to a true democracy where citizens without special expertise oversee their elections

that s whr we are

[not_the_one]

36. sorry, paper ballots is the only way

If we can't be bothered to take the trouble to do it, we deserve whatever we get. ANYTHING electronic can be hacked, en masse.

A district only has to count the votes cast at that district.

When the polls open each marked ballot is put into a locked box, guarded.

When the polls close, two representatives from each party (dem and rep) sit down, while being monitored, and tally the votes. (I'm sure there would be more than enough volunteers from both sides, to get it done.) They tally only the president/vice president votes. Pass the ballots on to another set of reps to deal with the other offices/initiatives. KEEP the ballots for recount.

When the votes are all totaled for pres/vp, a verified record is made of the tally, and the state office is informed of the total.

After the state office is informed of all districts' votes, the state offices can then notify any national election office, or the news services, for a total tally.

Then an automatic recount is done, just to verify the first count.

So what if it takes a few days to find out the results, at least we KNOW that the votes weren't manipulated.

Also establish that ANY VOTE MANIPULATION OR FRAUD WILL AUTOMATICALLY RESULT IN JAIL TIME. Then offer a large reward to ANYONE that can provide proof of election fraud.

We can do this. We MUST do this.

It would also help if the turn out was so large, and our margin of victory is so large, that it can't be questioned. But how would we know our margin was that big?

Maybe for future elections there can be something designed and built from scratch. But it can't happen for 2020, and 2020 is the one that is going to count. If we allow it to be stolen, 2024 will be too late.

[questionseverything]

28. the idea that hand counting is expensive is silly

hand counting
can be done by

anyone from about 3rd grade up


we spend millions apon millions for machines and then thousands more to be programmed every election and no citizens are allowed to oversee the process

yes the winners will be reported on computer systems that is why a tight chain of custody is needed to make sure that is accurate

germany has hand counted paper ballots no reason we can't have the same here

[diva77]

32. Exactly. Hand counting paper ballots is as easy as sorting laundry.

[questionseverything]

33. way easier than matching socks!

[questionseverything]

20. ...

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100212861351

[Hermit-The-Prog]

24. electronic voting systems can NOT be verified

People can't see the actions of electrons within the device.

Paper ballots can be verified by the voter without revealing the vote; the public can verify the ballots without seeing the individual vote; the public can verify the counting of the votes.

Electronic devices fail in all three areas.

Electronic voting cannot be verified.

[patphil]

27. Of course they can.

There are thousands of verified computer systems actively used around this country every day.
They are in use in the military, pharmaceutical industry, banking industry, medical industry, and many others.
That doesn't mean they can't be attacked, but they are all verifiable as to their content and transactions.
Your credit card uses such a fully verified system.
The challenge is to also make them as close to invulnerable to attack as possible, and provide for easy recognition of any unauthorized intrusions and alteration.
This can be done...it's not going to be easy, but it can be done.

Again, electronic voting systems can definitely be verified.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

30. no it is not possible

I am not talking about the type of verification you may have learned about in CS. None of the examples you give are election systems.

With paper ballots (physical tokens):

* Paper ballots allow the voter to verify that the ballot represents the voter's vote.

* The general public can verify that the voter cast a ballot, without having to know the vote.

* The general public can verify that the paper ballots are not tampered with while waiting to be counted.

* The general public can observe and verify the count of the ballots.

In electronic voting (abstractions, not physical tokens):

- The voter cannot verify that the internal state of the device represents the voter's vote. (This is true no matter how many pre-election or post-election tests are performed on the device).

- The general public cannot observe or verify that the voter cast a ballot. (The electorate has a critical, prime responsibility to observe and verify this).

- The general public cannot observe or verify the (abstract, invisible, electronic) ballots are true to the forms (state) they were in when cast.

- The general public cannot observe or verify the (invisible, electronic) count of the (abstract, invisible, electronic) ballots.

Elections are far more important than the check-out line at the grocery store, bank or Amazon. Verification is needed by the individual voter, by the rest of the electorate, and by the general public while still maintaining a secret ballot. Physical tokens that human beings can perceive are required.

[Lonestarblue]

13. We all know that Stacey Abrams won. She was just cheated out of it.

The same way Hillary was cheated out of her win. There’s a reason Trump had lawyers crawling all over the recounts in Michigan and Wisconsin—where no one was allowed to see the servers and the computer programs. Expect more of the same in November.

[triron]

22. Yep.

[VOX]

37. Sad truth.

[LiberalLovinLug]

15. Any other country that boasts they have a democracy, would have shelved those computers long ago

And gone to paper ballots. At least until there was a proper oversight, that involved both parties.

But I guess one problem is that States have the final authority. It should never be a State only issue when it comes to a national election. That is just bizarre. I don't think any democracy works like that anywhere else. There should be national standards that every State must abide by. Traceable ballots. And automatic investigations / recounts if the exit polls are greatly different than the results.

[napi21]

16. I knew it! Brtcha they were hacked in 2018 too! nt

[llmart]

18. Why am I not surprised?

And nothing's being done about it for the 2020 elections.