GOP "Election Integrity" Plan: Tinfoil Hats For Voting Machines!

10 thoughts on “GOP “Election Integrity” Plan: Tinfoil Hats For Voting Machines!”

1. Interesting. Can tinfoil also stop unauthorized people from entering county facilities and improperly accessing equipment and data? Asking for a friend.

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2. I dunno … someone claiming "I have cybersecurity as my, as my background," ought to have some clue about needing to consider overall systems. 

   In effect, he's claiming none of the people in the Secretary of States' office and no one involved in elections in every Colorado county thought of defending against bad actors with a wifi or cellular data connection.   That the leading firm for elections – especially voting machine tabulators – has overlooked the issue.  And last, even if there were such security breaches — how would such a program NOT be caught in tests conducted before each election, small test runs while the election is going on, and in a risk-limiting audit conducted before certification of the election?

   If this is the person chosen in the primary process, I volunteer to help do origami and fold some tin foil boxes to stop election machine tampering, handing them out at debates between candidates for the general election.

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3. Actually, a Faraday cage is not that ridiculous.
   I would not use "tin foil" though. A copper mesh would be my choice.

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   1. I don't know what voting equipment is packaged in these days, but a nice metal case is a strong start. But he's suggesting that the machines have a wireless connection that's somehow gone undetected in the certification process and is being actively exploited on a large scale; that's… interesting.

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      1. Re: wireless election hacking.

         Possible, but unproven

         The Brad blog, a few years back, showed that it is ( or was)  in fact fairly easy to tamper with Diebold election machines via a thumb drive inserted into a USB hub. In other words, a physical connection.

         A Princeton professor also showed how to swap a memory card and hack into a machine. (physical connection) Call me crazy, but that would seem to be a kind of not-subtle way to hack an election: No, Mr. Election Judge, I'm just sitting here with my screwdriver and needlenose pliers with the back panel off the machine, but there's nothing funny going on here, nope nope nope!"

         So nobody has demonstrated capability of wireless hacking that I know of. There are rumors that hackers battled over the 2012 Ohio election results, leading to Karl Rove's on screen meltdown when Obama won. Anonymous claimed credit. ??

         Marilyn Marks (yes, that Marilyn Marks) – she who forecast doom for Colorado's mail in ballot elections, and she who engineered the OutHouse scandal – is now a frequent guest on the BradBlog, criticizing Dominion voting machines. She seems to have successfully infiltrated what was a fairly reliable source of election information. That's sad to see, but since "Brad" grants her credibility as an election expert, Brad himself has lost credibility in my book.

          

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   2. It is ridiculous because even a cursory investigation shows that the type of attack described would be useless and easily detected. Nevermind it wouldn't alter physical ballots. 

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      1. That's why physical mail in ballots that can be hand recounted are the gold standard for fraud-and-tamper-proof elections. Which is why some Republicans hate them so.

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4. He has "cybersecurity" in his background?  Perhaps.  But what did he move on to once he was fired?

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5. Needs a check up from the neck up

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6. He’s an IT guy at a cyber security company. So he should actually be competent to speak to this. And he comes up with this nonsense?

   His manager at work should be evaluating if he’s competent to hold his job.

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