The 'Vast Majority' of America's Voting Machines Use Windows 7 or Older Systems (apnews.com) 152
Many of America's voting machines are depending on an outdated Microsoft operating system, reports the Associated Press. "The vast majority of 10,000 election jurisdictions nationwide use Windows 7 or an older operating system to create ballots, program voting machines, tally votes and report counts."
That's significant because Windows 7 reaches its "end of life" on Jan. 14, meaning Microsoft stops providing technical support and producing "patches" to fix software vulnerabilities, which hackers can exploit. In a statement to the AP, Microsoft said Friday it would offer continued Windows 7 security updates for a fee through 2023.
Critics say the situation is an example of what happens when private companies ultimately determine the security level of election systems with a lack of federal requirements or oversight....
It's unclear whether the often hefty expense of security updates would be paid by vendors operating on razor-thin profit margins or cash-strapped jurisdictions. It's also uncertain if a version running on Windows 10, which has more security features, can be certified and rolled out in time for primaries.
The Associated Press contacted the Coalition for Good Governance, an election integrity advocacy organization, and received this comment from the group's the executive director.
"Is this a bad joke?"
Critics say the situation is an example of what happens when private companies ultimately determine the security level of election systems with a lack of federal requirements or oversight....
It's unclear whether the often hefty expense of security updates would be paid by vendors operating on razor-thin profit margins or cash-strapped jurisdictions. It's also uncertain if a version running on Windows 10, which has more security features, can be certified and rolled out in time for primaries.
The Associated Press contacted the Coalition for Good Governance, an election integrity advocacy organization, and received this comment from the group's the executive director.
"Is this a bad joke?"
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No? Get over it.
In many cases voting machines are connected to the Internet [wikipedia.org].
Even when they are not connected during balloting, they are often connected during configuration and/or tallying.
Re: Connected to the internet? (Score:2)
Bugs in the voting software is probably a higher risk anyway.
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Then there is still hope for the future.
Forced reboots and telemetry (Score:5, Insightful)
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this!
Once my windows 7 "expires" next year it's all linux all the way. The machines, hardwarewise, are totally fine so no need to replace much for next 5-10 years. Already dual boot on all of them. I wish I could put the Windows in a VM though for programs that require Windows. No touchy touchy anything above Windows 7 for me. Even Windows 7 is locked down heavily and only security patches applied. Even after the security patches I have to constantly go over and remove a few things that get "bundled" with n
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I'm curious - Win7 won't stop working, it just won't get regular patches - unless something really serious turns up, then MS will issue a patch like they recently did for XP/Vista.
If you're talking about flaws that aren't unearthed and/or exploited until after the cutoff, those flaws are there now - you're operating with those flaws.
Yes, someone might find a way to exploit them after the cutoff, but still.
Now, as to election machines - are they running vanilla Win7, or embedded, or a special cut-down versio
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However, ANY operating system should be sufficient as long as it's properly isolated. Basically, your OS is *ALWAYS* insecure so it should be isolated as such. It's not possible
Re:And you know what? (Score:5, Interesting)
The idea is that any tiny barrier to voting is bad. If a person can't afford to take the time to take off work or cannot get to a place to jump through more hoops to vote, it's bad.
If you want to talk about voting problems, how about that gerrymanding?
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It is fascinating to be that the very same people that insisted, nay DEMANDED, that the federal government provide funding to states to pay for electronic voting machines in response to losing the 2000 Presidential election are now insisting, nay DEMANDING, that we return to paper ballots!
I can't wait to see what they demand we do after they lose the 2020 Presidential Election!
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we use "because poor people" as an argument against universal IDs like we don't have the resources to just hand out free federal voter ID cards to every poor person who can provide the basic paperwork that you'd use to get a federal job or public trust clearance.
In every instance I remember, IDs were always available for free, but the arguments took the positions:
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Right. Definitely one of the lesser problems. Like Hillary Clinton won the popular vote yes? But the Electoral College voted Donald J Trump in instead, overriding the popular vote per Constitution. The problem though? MSM is Jewish and they all ran around saying Russia hacked "the election". So, the Electoral College was hacked? How do you hack people?
People are remarkably easy to hack, or put another way, it is not especially difficult for a nation state to manipulate a few percent of the vote, and as polarized as we are, well mission accomplished. In case it wasn't obvious, you hack people by giving them deliberate misinformation. In short: You lie. You mislead. You make them afraid. They did all of the above. There is a reason Trump is holding the summit with the right wing wack jobs that push the conspiracy bullshit. He needs them to push mor
That's just not true... (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, why the hell is it OK for a small group of people in Montana to dictate what I in my city do? Why do the people of Wyoming get 46 times more voting power than people in California?
Answer, the entire system is built from the ground up to favor the establishment and conservatives (real conservatives, e.g people that oppose change). This is not surprising. Our gov't was built by wealthy land owners, for wealthy landowners. The good parts were mostly either accidents, Tom Jefferson and a mild fear of oligarchy.
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I'm curious what your suggestion would be as an alternative to the EC ?
Going with the popular vote means only the most populated areas would have any say-so in an election. Candidates would effectively ignore everyone living outside of the most populated cities. This is great if you live in one of the most populated cities.
Not so much if you don't.
That's democracy (Score:2)
If you just focus on economics, stuff like roads, telecom, hospitals, etc. Those are by and large brought to the rural areas by well meaning city folk (and also city folk with enough foresight to understand rural people are crucial for foo
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You think that if city voters dominated rural voters, the rural voters would get MORE and BETTER stuff?
Oh, you sweet summer child, what a world awaits you when you wake up!
Take a look at, say, Virginia. The state is ruled by the iron fist of Northern Virginia - the DC suburbs - with a solid assist from Norfolk. All the money for roads, schools, etc, goes there. The rest of the state gets fucked.
"Oh, but we built a $100 million highway through the middle of your town. Don't you like your new road?" the c
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Also, why the hell is it OK for a small group of people in Montana to dictate what I in my city do? Why do the people of Wyoming get 46 times more voting power than people in California?
Fear not, the CA government is in the process of rigging the vote via getting lots of extra seats for non-citizens. The 10th amendment is the answer, unfortunately FDR was able to get it gutted with a threat to pack the Supreme Court. Liberals sure love to pack the courts when they don't get what they want. How about we compromise and split up the country? That way CA can grant citizenship to the world and the rest of the country and go about it's business. Not kidding - a peaceful breakup would reall
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As far as breaking up the country it doesn't work that well. The republican part that is building everything on lies lately would eventually implode, causing irreparable harm to the sane part, though I suppose there might be a real use for a wall there, it still wouldn't address the underlying problem, just as ignoring the causes of why people want to cross the border doesn't address the problem.
If it implodes it doesn't really harm you if it's separate. If you really think it will implode you should be suggesting that they split off before it hits the fan.
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You missed the point. There might have been more faithless electors, but Republican governors said state electors had to vote Trump or be replaced. A few did vote Clinton.
The electorates were hacked in plain view by state officials. The conversation of respecting the popular vote got stopped quickly.
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You hack people by lying to them. Now you know.
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How do you hack people?
With an ax, usually.
And let's not forget (Score:5, Informative)
I know folks don't like partisanship, but, well, there are just some issues that are partisan, and this here is one of 'em.
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the head of the GOP lead Senate, Mitch McConnell, has blocked all attempts to improve voter security [youtube.com].
Sorry, Jeremy, but if that proposition were nearly that clear-cut you'd be able to present something other than an 18-minute YT video in support (and no, I'm not going to watch through it to try to guess what you think is significant about it).
[Speaking of unsupported bombast, I'm still eagerly waiting for your response on what exact words are in Comcast's SEC filings that allegedly admits that broadband only costs them $9 a month to provide. It's been around two years with several reminders, so any time n
Here you go (Score:3)
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Couldn't read much in private mode, but it appears you've shifted the goalposts from "all attempts to improve voter security" to "some recent Democratic showboating to try to keep the Mueller flame alive."
And I think you must have forgotten to paste in the Comcast materials.
It's the same thing (Score:2)
Also, how the hell did you get to your allotment of free NY Times articles in a month? Guys like you don't usually stray too far from your usual media outlets.
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Also, how the hell did you get to your allotment of free NY Times articles in a month?
You're several months behind. In private mode (as I clearly said), the "allotment" is now zero.
Guys like you don't usually stray too far from your usual media outlets.
LOL -- you know nothing about me, Jeremy. Be seeing you....
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the head of the GOP lead Senate, Mitch McConnell, has blocked all attempts to improve voter security [youtube.com].
I know folks don't like partisanship, but, well, there are just some issues that are partisan, and this here is one of 'em.
The Republicans have turned "partisanship" into this derogatory term while being the worst offenders. The FACT is that the Republicans put the party's interests above the country ALL the time.
If the Republicans TRULY cared about the country, the Constitution, the law and Free Market Capitalism, they'd be impeaching and then doing what's necessary to remove Trump from office.
The Republicans have proven themselves to be corrupt, liars and traitors to this country.
Mitch McConnell being on the payroll of Coal
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FIFY. Also
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Several Democratic and Republican members of Congress have submitted legislation to shore up election security. Proposals from Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) and Rep. John Sarbanes (D-Md.) include replacing paperless electronic voting machines with hand-marked paper ballots and optical scanners, subjecting voting equipment vendors to rigorous cybersecurity standards, and requiring vendors to report cybersecurity incidents.
But all the bills have hit a roadblock. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has reportedly told his colleagues that he will not allow the Senate to vote on election security legislation this session.
Several of the lobbyists working for ES&S and Dominion Voting Systems have recently made contributions to McConnell’s campaign and joint fundraising committee.
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You can bet they are connected to the internet, because remember, this is Windows and these are Windows admins.
What if we... (Score:5, Insightful)
... got over our "need" for immediate election results and just went back to paper ballots. They're easy to create. There's little need for there to be long lines for voters waiting to use a limited number of voting machines---just set up another table. They don't break down in the middle of an election. They don't require electricity. They don't have any backdoors to hack into. They don't cost big bucks to store and keep upgraded. Voting machines have allAh... I forgot. This is /. and it's suppoed to be all-technology-all-the-time and we're a nation of whiny Veruca "I Want It NOW!" Salts that need that instant gratification of having the election results in hand by the time the 10PM newscast airs.
Paper Ballots? (Score:1)
... got over our "need" for immediate election results and just went back to paper ballots. They're easy to create. There's little need for there to be long lines for voters waiting to use a limited number of voting machines---just set up another table. They don't break down in the middle of an election. They don't require electricity. They don't have any backdoors to hack into. They don't cost big bucks to store and keep upgraded. Voting machines have allAh... I forgot. This is /. and it's suppoed to be all-technology-all-the-time and we're a nation of whiny Veruca "I Want It NOW!" Salts that need that instant gratification of having the election results in hand by the time the 10PM newscast airs.
One answer: "Hanging chads". Google it.
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You understand Broward County Florida in 2000 used optical scanners to read the punched ballots, right?
You have a very selective memory - we went from counting votes, to inferring intention from the ballot, to out-right making up what they vote should have been. The standard applied to count votes kept changing over time, and when SCOTUS stepped in they halted YET ANOTHER recount, under yet another revised set of criteria.
The New York Times performed their own recount after the election [nytimes.com] and determined that
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One answer: "Hanging chads". Google it.
That's how we got electronic voting machines.
Re:Paper Ballots? (Score:4, Insightful)
That's an example of a mistaken obsession with getting "perfect" voting results. You can never make anything infallible. This includes voting. Statistically, a small percentage of people will vote for the wrong candidate (i.e. not the one they intended to vote for). Either they'll mis-read the ballot (google "butterfly ballot"), or they'll mistakenly punch / check / fill in the wrong box. People are human and make mistakes. Even with something as simple as reading numbers from a gauge [hawaii.edu], people will err around 0.5% of the time.
Once you understand that there will always be a small percentage of voters who make mistakes, that becomes your minimum margin of error. You can never get election results which are more accurate than that no matter how perfect the rest of the voting system is. If you go with the 0.5% failure rate above, that means that the result of any election which is closer than 0.5% will be a coin flip. If you went back in time and held the same election multiple times and everyone (thought they) voted for the same candidate each time, sometimes one candidate would win, sometimes the other candidate would win. Simply because of people misreading or mis-marking the ballots.
Once you accept that this uncertainty will always be present no matter how well you design your voting system, the obsession with minor errors like hanging chads and unreadable ballots vanishes. If their incident rate is less than the human error rate (which is fairly large), then those errors will not change the election results appreciably. The drive to invest hundreds of millions of dollars into "better" voting machines vanishes. KISS.
This is why car companies are researching self-driving cars, even though it would mean liability for accidents shifts from the owner/driver to the automaker. Because the human error rate while driving is so high that it kills about 30,000 people a year in the U.S. alone (more than 1 million/yr worldwide). Your automated driving system doesn't need to be perfect. It just needs to be better than people (a fairly low bar) in order to reduce the fatality rate.
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Actually, Slashdot has been fairly consistently against electronic voting (this very article being a case in point). If you look, most computer nerds have been, because they're so aware of all the things that can go horribly wrong.
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We also only vote on one thing at a time. Americans vote for like 50 things at election time. Sheriffs, district attorneys, county offices, state and federal offices, multiple ballot initiatives. It's awesome but kinda crazy.
Australia has preferential voting (Score:2)
You write 1, 2, 3; not just X. Avoids vote splitting issues, although it does assume that the population is capable of counting.
Polling closes 6pm (on a Saturday, not work day) and all votes are counted by hand by about 7pm. And that done in front of scrutineers that check the tally as it is happening.
We may not have the best politicians, but at least we know they were voted in.
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Air Traffic Control systems run on 50 year-old technology.
https://reason.org/commentary/... [reason.org]
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The difference is that nobody wants to let Air Traffic Control fail on purpose.
offtopic request (Score:5, Interesting)
Could there be added a way to hide posts based on a regex of their title? Certain posters have been extremely annoying, but I don't want to stop browsing at -1, because that's where the most interesting posts are.
Sorry to post off-topic, but I don't know of any other way to make this request.
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Could there be added a way to hide posts based on a regex of their title? Certain posters have been extremely annoying, but I don't want to stop browsing at -1, because that's where the most interesting posts are.
Sorry to post off-topic, but I don't know of any other way to make this request.
get in touch with user rsilvergun. he may develop an addon for mozilla that does that
Some perspective: (Score:5, Insightful)
1) For now (this year) Windows 7 is still actively supported by MS and receiving security updates
2) Extended support (for a fee) is available for a few additional years after windows 7's EOL
3) Vote tabulation & ballot creation is typically done on air-gapped equipment in physically secured locations
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Embedded Windows 7 is being supported thru 2021, non-issue.
Hackable (Score:3, Interesting)
So, easily and conveniently hackable. Republicans and their despotic friends like it that way.
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so are paper ballot elections, been ongoing art for over a century. I'm amused at the romantic notions those here have about their "security"
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Windows on voting machines is roughly akin to leaving your front door unlocked and open at night in downtown Baltimore.
There is only one solution (Score:1)
Junk the machines and bring back paper and a permanent ink marker.
It also has the advantage of being the cheapest and quickest solution.
Yes (Score:1)
Yes, let's focus on this rather than the fact that the votes themselves have no worth in the sense that the representatives represent the interests of big business rather than their constituents.
not outdated yet (Score:5, Insightful)
Windows 7 is a current patched OS. Disingenuous to claim it's "outdated". Those who pay can have patches for 4.5 more years.
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Get over it man. Once it's beyond support they don't *Really* support it any more. It's a wink wink... just so we can say we have support type deal. Only if there's a big gaping hole that is discovered, then they - MAY - patch it. Face it, it's a business. It doesn't make economical sense to spend money on it any more.
Even so, have you seen those contracts? The cost is designed to drive you towards updating.
It was a huge mistake to go with windows in the first place.
Should all be FOSS. Base it off of Fedora
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you're funny, corporations don't pick their software on the bases of "OH MUH OPEN SOURCE RELIGION".
They have job needing done, application that does that job, and whatever OS will support that they will buy support. The open source world doesn't have a solution for two-thirds of what the business world needs. The money for software support is very tiny compared to the salaries of people needing tools, they don't care.
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... The open source world doesn't have a solution for two-thirds of what the business world needs.
It's amazing that I still hear this today. Walmart runs most of their business on Linux. So does wall street. I got into investing and windows is persona non grata. They don't even make software for Windows for a lot of that stuff.
It was probably stupid managers that decided on winders. Lots of stupid people run winders. Safeway until recently was still running win 95, connected to wifi. Very easy to hack.
Got a job to get done? Don't use microsoft. If it's worth doing, do it right. I've made lots of money
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You are ignorant of how the real world works.
Walmart runs most their business on Linux, except what they run on Windows. The big fortune 1000 run a mix of Unix, Linux, Mainframe, Windows and Office 365 cloud....
Need to get a job done? Pick the right tool, which may not exist at all on Linux. That's how the real world works. Linux will never run everything, it can't.
Voting machines running Windows 7 can cause delays (Score:2)
OpenBSD would be so much better (Score:2)
Free, secure and stable. Upgrades don't break anything.
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OpenBSD from the time Windows 7 was released was OpenBSD 4.5, which had its support end-of-life on May 19, 2010, and last OpenBSD 4.x ended support on May 1, 2012. So, how exactly it would have been better? Before you think "just upgrade to the latest", for all its flaws, nothing beats Windows as far as backwards compatibility - Windows 10 can still run programs written for MS-DOS!
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OpenBSD can still run programs written for MS-DOS, in the same way that windows 10 does - through emulation. The difference is that the emulation is an optional extra that's not forced upon every installation because the vast majority of users have no need for it.
Re:Strange politics of security (Score:5, Informative)
Typical lunatic right wing fringe rhetoric. There is no credible evidence of so called "illegals" voting but there is plenty of credible evidence of voting machines being hacked, including by your Russian buddies.
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Typical lunatic right wing fringe rhetoric. There is no credible evidence of so called "illegals" voting but there is plenty of credible evidence of voting machines being hacked, including by your Russian buddies.
I put multiple citations, how about you?
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Multiple confirmation of your lunatic right wing dementia, good job.
Forget voting machines being hacked (Score:3)
Voter suppression far outweighs any other type of interference, and it always benefits t
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so many techies on /. are still in the right wing pro corporate camp
Slashdot is popular with Russian techies, for one thing. It's free, you see.
Re:Strange politics of security (Score:4, Informative)
DeSantis: Russians accessed 2 Florida voting databases [apnews.com]
If this does not concern you then it is because you are Russian or you are a rightwing lunatic willing to sell out your country to Russians.
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Let me explain and hope you browse replies at 0 moderation.
The modern left is progressive. Progressivism is based on the theory of progress. It's a bunk theory but people want to believe it. In short, there is a necessary progression society, governments, cultures, and so on go through. One phase to the next, each one bettering the human condition. Easy to see how this is wrong. Throwing away what works is a bad idea. Communism, or "not reallly communism" did not make the human condition better. Still, peop
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Security tape? That's secure? How about a steel plate over all of the important stuff. You can't get to squat and there should be two keys so neither side can have access without the other one there. Those keys have to be controlled as well. I remember the 1960s voting booths that Maryland had. They were getting rid of them in the 1980s. I asked why? An official that I knew said - everyone had the keys to them and they knew people were changing the numbers.
The other problem is voter fraud. I remember in the