2018 'Hacking Attempt' Claimed By Georgia Was A Security Test They'd Requested Themselves (ajc.com) 50
An anonymous reader quotes the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:
It was a stunning accusation: Two days before the 2018 election for Georgia governor, Republican Brian Kemp used his power as secretary of state to open an investigation into what he called a "failed hacking attempt" of voter registration systems involving the Democratic Party. But newly released case files from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation reveal that there was no such hacking attempt.
The evidence from the closed investigation indicates that Kemp's office mistook planned security tests and a warning about potential election security holes for malicious hacking.
Kemp then wrongly accused his political opponents just before Election Day — a high-profile salvo that drew national media attention in one of the most closely watched races of 2018... The internet activity that Kemp's staff described as hacking attempts were actually scans by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that the secretary of state's office had agreed to, according to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. Kemp's chief information officer signed off on the DHS scans three months beforehand.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution also reports that the Democratic party's only role was apparently forwarding an email about vulnerabilities to two cybersecurity professors at Georgia Tech, who then alerted authorities: Richard Wright, a Georgia Tech graduate and Democratic voter who works for a software company...found that he could look up other voters' information by modifying the web address on the site, a flaw confirmed by ProPublica and Georgia Public Broadcasting before it was fixed....An election security vendor for the state, Fortalice Solutions, later concluded, however, that there was no evidence that voter information had been accessed, manipulated or changed by bad actors...
While publicly denying Wright's claims about vulnerabilities, behind the scenes, Kemp's staff was working to correct them.... The secretary of state's firewall hadn't been set up to block access to the locations identified by Wright, according to a Georgia Bureau of Investigation agent's report. Election officials then "set up safeguards to restrict access to the vulnerable areas" on the last two days before the 2018 general election... This type of weakness, called broken access control, is one of the 10 most critical web application security risks, according to the Open Web Application Security Project, an organization that works to improve software security.
In 2016 Kemp also accused the Department of Homeland Security of trying to breach his office's firewall.
But a later investigation revealed the activity Kemp cited "was the result of normal and automatic computer message exchanges," apparently caused by someone cutting and pasting data into a Microsoft Excel document.
The evidence from the closed investigation indicates that Kemp's office mistook planned security tests and a warning about potential election security holes for malicious hacking.
Kemp then wrongly accused his political opponents just before Election Day — a high-profile salvo that drew national media attention in one of the most closely watched races of 2018... The internet activity that Kemp's staff described as hacking attempts were actually scans by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that the secretary of state's office had agreed to, according to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. Kemp's chief information officer signed off on the DHS scans three months beforehand.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution also reports that the Democratic party's only role was apparently forwarding an email about vulnerabilities to two cybersecurity professors at Georgia Tech, who then alerted authorities: Richard Wright, a Georgia Tech graduate and Democratic voter who works for a software company...found that he could look up other voters' information by modifying the web address on the site, a flaw confirmed by ProPublica and Georgia Public Broadcasting before it was fixed....An election security vendor for the state, Fortalice Solutions, later concluded, however, that there was no evidence that voter information had been accessed, manipulated or changed by bad actors...
While publicly denying Wright's claims about vulnerabilities, behind the scenes, Kemp's staff was working to correct them.... The secretary of state's firewall hadn't been set up to block access to the locations identified by Wright, according to a Georgia Bureau of Investigation agent's report. Election officials then "set up safeguards to restrict access to the vulnerable areas" on the last two days before the 2018 general election... This type of weakness, called broken access control, is one of the 10 most critical web application security risks, according to the Open Web Application Security Project, an organization that works to improve software security.
In 2016 Kemp also accused the Department of Homeland Security of trying to breach his office's firewall.
But a later investigation revealed the activity Kemp cited "was the result of normal and automatic computer message exchanges," apparently caused by someone cutting and pasting data into a Microsoft Excel document.
Just another corrupt politician (Score:1)
Probably be reelected
Re:Just another corrupt politician (Score:5, Insightful)
Probably be reelected
This issue likely won't hurt him much, since he already has a long history of stupid unethical behavior.
So the people who care about competence and honesty in government wouldn't have voted for him anyway.
Brian Kemp [wikipedia.org]
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I believe that most the people who care about competence and honesty in government aren't voting. That's a big block that apparently nobody appeals to.
Just like all other corrupt politicians (Score:4, Informative)
This is the pathological behavior of the whole nation and its political system: Spread fears using falsified [cnet.com] or hypocritical [theguardian.com] accusations to achieve malicious goals [washingtonpost.com]. It doesn't matter if the accusations will be proven false in the future, because they are tactical weapons and there are no punishments what-so-ever for either the individuals [theintercept.com] or especially the whole country [wikipedia.org], while the wrongly accused targets [wikipedia.org] are greatly harmed [amazon.com].
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well said, another example of GOP ignorance
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How is the incident indicative of corruption? Please, explain...
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Chronic incompetence, and the man is famous
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Thank you for confirming my suspicion — that corruption has nothing to do with it.
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Chronic incompetence is corrupt
GOP (Score:5, Insightful)
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The entire Republican perspective, is full of circular reasoning. Gut public services - unemployment, healthcare, public transportation - then use the self-inflicted shittiness of it all to say "See? Government doesn't work!" And the solution is always the same - vote for more Republicans.
Then you have areas where less people buy into that shit, and Democrats come into power, and half the time they set it up in a totally wasteful or corrupt way, bottom line is they don't fix it. That creates an opening poli
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The entire Republican perspective, is full of circular reasoning. Gut public services - unemployment, healthcare, public transportation - then use the self-inflicted shittiness of it all to say "See? Government doesn't work!" And the solution is always the same - vote for more Republicans.
Then you have areas where less people buy into that shit, and Democrats come into power, and half the time they set it up in a totally wasteful or corrupt way, bottom line is they don't fix it. That creates an opening politically.
The sentiment expressed on the D/R back-and-forth that seems most accurate to me is: Democrats try to do the Right Thing (whatever that is), and Republicans just focus on beating the Democrats at whatever it is. And Republicans seems to be willing to tolerate more hypocrisy, cognitive dissonance, contradictory positions, etc. to do it, so they mostly do. For example, I've never heard how the Evangelical Right's sanctity of human life squares with the Republican embrace of capital punishment. Pro-lifers se
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About pre-existing conditions - Some time last year, there was a regulatory loophole created (I believe an executive order, it certainly wasn't legislation) letting an insurance company refuse to treat it unless you've held the policy for at least 3 years. Originally, it had been a few months. I'm guessing it was to prevent people from skipping insurance, until they realize they need $500,000 worth of chemo, then getting a plan and starting treatment the same day. They can't deny you a policy - they can jus
GOP persecution complex (Score:5, Insightful)
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"It's funny how GOP has a deep persecution complex. "
Professional criminals always have.
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Whenever the side you prefer is shown to be corrupt, you have two choices.
1) Admit that you were fooled by corrupt folks. See where you went wrong; fix it when you can, vote for others when needed. Punish the corruption and you get less corruption.
2) Decide that "both sides are the same anyways, so it's fine that I vote for corrupt people." Take credit for good things accomplished by others; blame others for bad things your side did. Reward the corruption and you get more corruption.
One way involves h
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Well, there was that entirely fake series of accusations against Trump over Russian collusion and Russian hacking of DNC emails. All of which has been repudiated under oath, by the same people who announced they had solid evidence when not under oath. As I recall, you believed that lie 110%. Are you paranoid when they really are out to get you?
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Well, there was that entirely fake series of accusations against Trump over Russian collusion
Fake? No, they were not fake. There was not enough evidence to indict a president, but any other person would have been in prison. Heck, quite a few still are.
If you want something totally fake - look up "Ken Starr" in Google. And how his probe of a real estate deal ultimately lead to investigating Monica's blowjob.
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Re:GOP persecution complex (Score:4, Interesting)
This Russian bullshit has been repeatedly debunked. It was all fake. None of the accusations were credible, which is no longer even speculation. The documents have finally been declassified thanks to actual people doing their job.
No, it has NOT been debunked. There is evidence for collusion but not enough for presidential indictment. Meanwhile, Mueller CONCLUSIVELY proved attempts at obstruction of justice which is a crime. Of course, craven cowards like you prefer to ignore that.
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Fake? No, they were not fake. There was not enough evidence to indict a president, but any other person would have been in prison. Heck, quite a few still are.
Lots of direct evidence was claimed at the time. But under oath, under penalty of perjury, everyone directly involved has said "there was no evidence". People were put in prison on false charges, with exonerating evidence hidden. Recently declassified transcripts show they were innocent, and prosecutors knew they were innocent.
Everything was fake, man. It was an op.
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Odd. I remember Donald Trump Jr admitting that he, Manafort, and Kushner met with Russians for the purpose of getting dirt on Hillary. I'm not sure how that fits into your wacky theory of "there was no evidence".
The meeting was not sufficient for criminal conspiracy. It was illegal, deeply corrupt, and fits the colloquial definition of collusion. It was also, just by itself, grounds for an investigation to see if it was mere incompetence or a major crime. Fortunately, with this administration you shoul
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I recall that their big defence was "Well, we did seek the aid of a foreign power to dig up dirt on our political opponent, but we didn't commit a crime because they didn't have anything juicy for us."
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To be fair, it's been decades since we've had an administration with even one "encourage foreign powers to interfere with our elections" scandals. With multiple such scandals it's easy to get them confused.
I mean, the last time we had an impeachment it was because of lying about a blowjob. Wow.
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Hey, if the President doesn't need evidence to throw wild criminal accusations, their neither does everybody else.
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Most never actually believed it, they just weaponized lies to foment a coup. With a willing media they knew they would get away with it.
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they just weaponized lies to foment a coup.
Shut up, Vlad. No one uses that language.
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You know your movement has lost the plot when a parody post is indistinguishable from a true believer. I still can't decide which yours is.
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A coup... so you mean that the Democrats planned to impeach Trump and seize power by raising, um, Pence to the presidency? Brilliant! That's a plan that only a Trump would think made sense.
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It comes from their fundamentalist base. They think two things a) no matter how much financial and political power we actually have, we are "oppressed" and b) the end justifies the means, so lying and cheating are perfectly ok as long as it's in service to (what they see as) the greater good. And that second one is exactly why they constantly accuse the other side of cheating somehow (regardless of there being no proof) because they way they make peace with their twisted morality is by insisting to themse
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It's funny how GOP has a deep persecution complex. Everybody is unfairly against them, including the media (of which GOP-affiliated entities own most).
If you smell shit wherever you go, check your own shoes.
Old news (Score:3)
All this was known almost two years ago. Why are we resurrecting this old news on slashdot?
Re: Old news (Score:1)
Re:Old news (Score:5, Informative)
Because the Georgia Bureau of Investigations has finished its investigation and released its findings, and it is being reported in the state's newspaper of record.
This is still a matter of controversy, because the governor's staff is still actively denying the findings of the investigation.
Re:Old news (Score:5, Insightful)
In the words of the Bard... (Score:4, Funny)
Much Ado About Nothing
OR... is it.
The Govenor is clearly clueless about what is going on in his administration. Clearly unfit for Office like the POTUS
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I think you meant "the governor is clearly presidential material!"
RICO The Entire Fucking GOP (Score:1)
That entire election was obviously stolen (Score:1)
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and I do not understand why the Dems didn't sue. All I can figure is they didn't have the money.
Sue whom for what? Kemp will simply claim miscommunications, misunderstandings, attempts to besmirch & impugn his reputation, "deep state" whatever, wild conspiracies, fake news...you name it. The burden of proof would be on the Dems. The only one who wins that pissing match is the lawyers. Best to make a big fuss in the media and see if it gets some traction.
Well, it worked. (Score:2)
The claims of a criminal conspiracy by the Democratic party were national news.
The discovery that it was a lie makes a handful of obscure tech-specialist websites.
Lie successful.
Err Oops (Score:2)
Oops, never mind. Nothing to see here. Donâ(TM)t worry about it.