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chaski On March 28, 2024
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Tree at Floydgirrl's Window,
#16New Post! Jun 29, 2017 @ 15:25:26
@Electric_Banana Said


And to jeopardize the machine directly would suggest the Russians weren't operating out of Russia.


This statement is completely incorrect.

I am not trying to insult you here, but if you believe this you clearly know nothing about hacking>

@Electric_Banana Said

Awhile back a friend linked me a series of threads on 4chan featuring a few guys pretending to be intelligence rambling on, out of character, about the Clinton's as if they were organized crimmies.

I suspect, what's happened, is what has always happened throughout time: people trusted social media, media, words of others rather than making the effort to investigate themselves.


Except on the one hand (using your comparison) there is not and was not any evidence that the Clintons were/are and organized crime family. The closest it comes to "evidence" is hyperbole....while (on the other hand) Putin has actually acknowledge that there was hacking by Russians. He just hasn't admitted that they were following his orders.
mrmhead On March 27, 2024




NE, Ohio
#17New Post! Jun 29, 2017 @ 15:47:14
@Electric_Banana Said

I don't know about all that'; I wouldn't trust votes anywhere near a digital system with a modem.
And to jeopardize the machine directly would suggest the Russians weren't operating out of Russia.



@chaski Said

This statement is completely incorrect.

I am not trying to insult you here, but if you believe this you clearly know nothing about hacking>


I took EBs 2nd sentence as meaning Physical tampering - in contrast to the first sentence

chaski On March 28, 2024
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Tree at Floydgirrl's Window,
#18New Post! Jun 29, 2017 @ 15:58:58
@mrmhead Said

I took EBs 2nd sentence as meaning Physical tampering - in contrast to the first sentence




Like

1. Walking up to a voting machine and smashing it with a club?

Or

2. walking up to a voting machine and installing some sort of malware?

Or

3. Something else...



Option #1 would be vandalism not hacking.

Option #2 would be a form of hacking, and while it would mean the Russians were not in Russia, it would not indicate that Russia was not involved and/or not "operating out of Russia". It would just mean that that Russia might have had an agent/operative doing their work in person but still operationally controlled "out of Russia", something that is done in the spy world all the time.

Option #3...
mrmhead On March 27, 2024




NE, Ohio
#19New Post! Jun 29, 2017 @ 16:56:55
@chaski Said

Like

1. Walking up to a voting machine and smashing it with a club?

Or

2. walking up to a voting machine and installing some sort of malware?

Or

3. Something else...



Option #1 would be vandalism not hacking.

Option #2 would be a form of hacking, and while it would mean the Russians were not in Russia, it would not indicate that Russia was not involved and/or not "operating out of Russia". It would just mean that that Russia might have had an agent/operative doing their work in person but still operationally controlled "out of Russia", something that is done in the spy world all the time.

Option #3...



#2 - Stuxnet for Diebold
Where I vote, I'm handed a little card to slip into the voting machine. Use a touch screen to cast my votes, and hand the card back to the attendant.
What if I brought in my own little magic card to infect the machine?
How far could that infection spread?
I would think there are plenty of checks and balances, and air-gaps to minimize any kind of data corruption.
So it would still take an enormous amount of "boots on the ground" to have an impact at a national level.
And not every place uses the same type of voting equipment.
So I don't see that as even feasible.
chaski On March 28, 2024
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Tree at Floydgirrl's Window,
#20New Post! Jun 29, 2017 @ 17:38:42
@mrmhead Said

#2 - Stuxnet for Diebold
Where I vote, I'm handed a little card to slip into the voting machine. Use a touch screen to cast my votes, and hand the card back to the attendant.
What if I brought in my own little magic card to infect the machine?


Actually this is a great example of how it could happen.

Now, let's take your scenario and add in that "you" got to the voting station very early....1st thing as one of the earliest voters so that "your" machine was now hacked so early that nearly everyone's vote on "your" machine was altered...

Or let's say that you were actually one of the people working at the polling station and you swapped out faulty cards so that all the machines in "your" polling station were manipulated....or let's say that you worked for the voting booth vendor and added "malware" to the coding of all voting cards...

And, let's say that you were part of a group doing this...and your group was sponsored by Russians...



@mrmhead Said

How far could that infection spread?

So I don't see that as even feasible.


As unlikely as it may seem, one of the most common early hacks was to physically go up to a computer and add some "malware" that collected passwords to people's accounts. A single computer hacker was able to hack thousands of computers...

Physically up close hacking is not uncommon.

Is it "feasible"? Yes.

The "bad guys" don't have to do it to the point of a landslide victory. In fact, they wouldn't want to as that would cause too much attention....too much attention = possible scrutiny.

As the bad guys, you would only want/need to do it in a limited number of places...just enough to sway the vote by a little bit... especially in a system like the USA that doesn't go with the majority popular vote anyway.

Granted, the best option would be to not waste too much time and effort on dozens or hundreds specific machines. The "best" option would be to manipulate the voting machines by way of the machines' "operating system". A few people working for a select few number of voting booth venders could turn a US election with a minimal amount of effort.

Admittedly that doesn't actually seem to be what happened.

What seems to have happened is that Russia used their hacking to obtain information, which was used more like propaganda to sway the American voter, who is notoriously fickle and unconcerned with verifiable facts.

In our elections we Americans are "low hanging fruit".
chaski On March 28, 2024
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Tree at Floydgirrl's Window,
#21New Post! Jun 29, 2017 @ 17:52:34
As an aside, the best hacking techniques are normally the simplest.

Prime example:

While we "normal" people typically use either Windows or Apple OS's. Computer networks, however, are typically run on the Unix OS. In the Unix system there is a thing called "telnet". Telnet used to be a common way to access computer to computer. There is a fair amount of security related to telnetting...use it you are protected. Don't use it, your computer is wide open.

Now to the simple part:

The telnet port (think of it as a doorway to your computer) is #23. Let's say you have great network security protecting port 23...you're safe...right?

Hmmm.... there is a little know "backdoor" port up around Port 1600. If you told your computer that you wanted to telnet to this 1600 port instead of normal the port 23, guess what happened? Yep, you got complete control of the computer.

Now you install your malware and.... you essentially own the computer and its network. And, the code you install wouldn't even fill up a standard sheet of paper....not even close. Super simple. Even more simple than physically walking up to a stand alone computer and hacking it (or infecting it with a virus)....though that is pretty simple also.

And the fun thing about computer vulnerabilities:

They keep getting resurrected. "We" fix them, and damn if they are reincarnated in a future version of the OS that we though we fixed.
nooneinparticular On March 16, 2023




, Hawaii
#22New Post! Jul 04, 2017 @ 07:02:30
Hacking, like most things, favors simplicity. The more simple you can make it the less of a chance there is to f*** up along the way.
Electric_Banana On February 05, 2024




, New Zealand
#23New Post! Jul 04, 2017 @ 09:20:55
@chaski Said

This statement is completely incorrect.

I am not trying to insult you here, but if you believe this you clearly know nothing about hacking>


I don't know much about hacking at all but I know it requires a connection of some sort if you're hacking from a different country.

No one can take possession of my Texas Instruments Speak N Spell and if they did they would had to get hands on the device physically meaning they were in the same country as me.


@chaski Said

Except on the one hand (using your comparison) there is not and was not any evidence that the Clintons were/are and organized crime family. The closest it comes to "evidence" is hyperbole....while (on the other hand) Putin has actually acknowledge that there was hacking by Russians. He just hasn't admitted that they were following his orders.


I'm wondering what 'type' of hacking - 'Social Engineering'?

Because if he's suggesting they took possession of ballot records then the USA is not very clever with how the go about counting and recording ballots.

Risking ballots on a machine with a modem is similar to surgeons installing wifi controlled pacemakers and introducing new keyboards with a heart on/off function key.
chaski On March 28, 2024
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Tree at Floydgirrl's Window,
#24New Post! Jul 04, 2017 @ 15:14:00
@Electric_Banana Said

Because if he's suggesting they took possession of ballot records then the USA is not very clever with how the go about counting and recording ballots.


If hackers "took possession" of ballot records it wouldn't say anything about "how" the U.S. goes about counting and recording ballots.

It might indicate a lot about, the security of the network on which the ballot records are maintained.


@Electric_Banana Said

Risking ballots on a machine with a modem is similar to surgeons installing wifi controlled pacemakers and introducing new keyboards with a heart on/off function key.


I can't imagine that any voting machines are connected to modems, nor connected to the internet by either hard lines or Wifi.

While those things might afford hackers the ability to hack into a machine, the would also leave evidence of the hacking.

As I indicated before, the best way to manipulate a U.S. election by way of cyber technology, would be to hack into the computer network of the companies that make the software/operating systems of the voting machines. In this scenario, a voting machine would look like no one did anything to it. The voting manipulation would be by, most likely, algorithms in the OS.
Electric_Banana On February 05, 2024




, New Zealand
#25New Post! Jul 15, 2017 @ 04:56:56
@chaski Said

If hackers "took possession" of ballot records it wouldn't say anything about "how" the U.S. goes about counting and recording ballots.

It might indicate a lot about, the security of the network on which the ballot records are maintained.




I can't imagine that any voting machines are connected to modems, nor connected to the internet by either hard lines or Wifi.

While those things might afford hackers the ability to hack into a machine, the would also leave evidence of the hacking.

As I indicated before, the best way to manipulate a U.S. election by way of cyber technology, would be to hack into the computer network of the companies that make the software/operating systems of the voting machines. In this scenario, a voting machine would look like no one did anything to it. The voting manipulation would be by, most likely, algorithms in the OS.



I see what you're getting at

Unless even the final counts are recorded pen and paper only those records will have to be kept on a PC dependent on an OS and the OS could've been rigged to autonomously fidget the records shortly after they had been recorded.

Still - I don't believe it anything that clever or elaborate - these are Christ's humans we're talking about...

I think a lot of people just simply believed the interwebs and media without investigating themselves...it's that whole 'going only on the words of others' phail in 97% of people that the world is the mess that it is.
mrmhead On March 27, 2024




NE, Ohio
#26New Post! Jul 15, 2017 @ 13:05:59
@Electric_Banana Said


I think a lot of people just simply believed the interwebs and media without investigating themselves...it's that whole 'going only on the words of others' phail in 97% of people that the world is the mess that it is.


And many of the other 3% are the hucksters taking advantage of that and rise to the top financially ... and politically
Electric_Banana On February 05, 2024




, New Zealand
#27New Post! Jul 15, 2017 @ 13:16:51
@mrmhead Said

And many of the other 3% are the hucksters taking advantage of that and rise to the top financially ... and politically


lol

Well under that assumption - Trump might've been a better engineer than what was witnessed to the naked eye

But he IS the world's richest man so has probably done a lot of selling during his lifetime.
chaski On March 28, 2024
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Tree at Floydgirrl's Window,
#28New Post! Jul 15, 2017 @ 15:30:18
@Electric_Banana Said


Still - I don't believe it anything that clever or elaborate -



Oh don't get me wrong....

In spite of the fact that even though he won Trump and his followers keep claiming voter fraud, I don't believe that there was any voting fraud nor any hacking that impacted the US 2017 election in any substantive way.

The hacking, which apparently did occur, was:

1. damaging to Hillary & the democrats
2. resulted in some U.S. voter's personal information being compromised on some lever.

But some real impact on the U.S. 2017 presidential election.... not likely.

As to Russian involvement: IMO the story isn't really about Team Trump...it is about what did Russia do or try to do & how successful were they?
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