WEBVTT - TechStuff Flashback: The Scary World of EVMs Part Two 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:07.760 Welcome to text Stuff, a production from my Heart Radio. 0:00:12.000 --> 0:00:14.280 Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, 0:00:14.400 --> 0:00:17.400 Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio 0:00:17.440 --> 0:00:19.639 and a love of all things tech. And if you 0:00:19.720 --> 0:00:23.119 listened to last Wednesday's episode, you heard a classic episode 0:00:23.160 --> 0:00:27.080 of tech Stuff about electronic voting machines. The episode published 0:00:27.080 --> 0:00:31.440 back in October twenty six and Mr Ben Bolan of 0:00:31.480 --> 0:00:33.880 Stuff They Don't Want You to Know and Ridiculous History 0:00:33.960 --> 0:00:37.400 Fame joined me for that discussion. We are going to 0:00:37.479 --> 0:00:42.080 continue that discussion today. This is part two of that episode, 0:00:42.680 --> 0:00:47.360 and we are going to continue to dive down the 0:00:47.440 --> 0:00:55.680 tricky and potentially disastrous pathway to creating voting systems. The 0:00:55.760 --> 0:00:58.760 idea that if you create a voting system that is 0:00:58.880 --> 0:01:04.280 perceived to be unfair, then you're really undermining the entire 0:01:04.600 --> 0:01:10.160 foundation of democracy. And I know that sounds like I'm exaggerating, 0:01:10.200 --> 0:01:12.920 but I'm not because if we lose faith in the system, 0:01:12.920 --> 0:01:16.880 if we do not believe the system works, then it 0:01:16.920 --> 0:01:19.600 becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. Of course, we have to 0:01:19.640 --> 0:01:22.039 make sure that the system does work. If the system 0:01:22.080 --> 0:01:24.200 is not working, then we absolutely have to fix it. 0:01:24.200 --> 0:01:27.280 So it is a very tricky subject, Ben and I 0:01:27.319 --> 0:01:30.880 will go into much more detail that I hope you 0:01:30.880 --> 0:01:32.960 guys are doing well. I know this is still a 0:01:33.040 --> 0:01:37.080 very trying and challenging time for so many reasons. I 0:01:37.120 --> 0:01:39.600 want you guys to know I believe in you. I 0:01:39.640 --> 0:01:43.000 think that you guys are awesome. Uh you all have 0:01:43.200 --> 0:01:46.680 proven that over and over. So let's sit back and 0:01:46.720 --> 0:01:49.960 listen to this classic episode about the scary world of 0:01:50.080 --> 0:01:53.960 e v M S Part two. At the close of 0:01:53.960 --> 0:01:57.640 our conversation, we has our votes and we decided democratically 0:01:58.080 --> 0:02:00.640 that this would be better as a two part series 0:02:00.640 --> 0:02:05.040 than a single epic length episode that would have stretched 0:02:05.200 --> 0:02:11.520 the patience of the most uh most forgiving of listeners. 0:02:12.040 --> 0:02:14.280 Now we have broken it up into two parts, so 0:02:14.360 --> 0:02:17.600 what you are about to hear is the conclusion of 0:02:17.639 --> 0:02:19.360 that two parts. Also, I should add that when we 0:02:19.400 --> 0:02:22.799 get to the end and we sign off, we did 0:02:22.840 --> 0:02:25.040 not know at that point that it was going to 0:02:25.080 --> 0:02:28.000 be a two parter, so we actually have already recorded 0:02:28.040 --> 0:02:30.720 the end of the episode that I'm recording the beginning 0:02:30.720 --> 0:02:33.360 of now. And yes, time travel does confuse me. So 0:02:33.440 --> 0:02:37.560 let's just segue in to part two of how electronic 0:02:37.639 --> 0:02:41.200 voting machines are going to ruin everything. Remember we mentioned 0:02:41.240 --> 0:02:43.200 that in two thousand two, that's when they started to 0:02:43.240 --> 0:02:46.120 appear on the scene. That's when Georgia. Actually they started 0:02:46.160 --> 0:02:48.320 to appear before two thousand two, but two thousand two 0:02:48.320 --> 0:02:51.119 is when Georgia became the first state to have just 0:02:51.400 --> 0:02:56.440 the electronic voting machines out there in the polling places. Um, 0:02:56.480 --> 0:02:59.800 many of those machines have not been updated since, and 0:03:00.200 --> 0:03:02.160 almost all of them are running on a version of 0:03:02.200 --> 0:03:06.080 Windows XP which hasn't been updated since April two thou fourteen. 0:03:07.280 --> 0:03:11.160 So that means any security vulnerability that has been discovered 0:03:11.200 --> 0:03:15.040 since two thousand and fourteen is still there. Chances are 0:03:15.080 --> 0:03:17.840 some of the ones before two thousand fourteen are still 0:03:17.880 --> 0:03:19.680 there because I bet a lot of those machines have 0:03:19.840 --> 0:03:23.560 never received a patch, right, They're just these big there, 0:03:23.720 --> 0:03:27.560 these machines that are being overseen by the government, and uh, 0:03:27.720 --> 0:03:30.680 you know it, Chances are a lot of them are unpatched. 0:03:30.800 --> 0:03:33.640 So there's a lot of potential for people to tamper. 0:03:33.760 --> 0:03:36.200 And not only that, you know, I mentioned the idea 0:03:36.320 --> 0:03:41.280 of either unconsciously or purposefully inserting a bias. That's a 0:03:41.320 --> 0:03:45.040 real concern too, right, because private companies are the ones 0:03:45.120 --> 0:03:50.280 designing these machines. They do so with using proprietary software 0:03:50.680 --> 0:03:55.280 that is not visible to the general public, nor is 0:03:55.480 --> 0:03:59.320 it uh what's what's word, nor is it in any 0:03:59.320 --> 0:04:03.160 way compelled to answer to the general public, Like the 0:04:03.200 --> 0:04:08.040 public doesn't have a the quote unquote Capital p public 0:04:08.400 --> 0:04:13.400 doesn't have a vote regarding which companies run these machines. 0:04:14.320 --> 0:04:18.680 You look at this and you see that everyone says, well, 0:04:18.720 --> 0:04:21.760 we can't reveal our code because if we did, uh, 0:04:21.880 --> 0:04:24.479 then our competitors would see how we do things, and 0:04:24.520 --> 0:04:27.839 then we can't compete in the marketplace anymore. And so 0:04:28.400 --> 0:04:31.159 meanwhile you've got security experts saying this should all be 0:04:31.240 --> 0:04:33.760 open source. And the reason it should be open source 0:04:33.920 --> 0:04:36.719 is so that the community at large would have the 0:04:36.720 --> 0:04:39.479 opportunity to look at the code and see if there 0:04:39.520 --> 0:04:43.599 are any vulnerabilities and if so, make sure that those 0:04:43.640 --> 0:04:45.760 get patched before you get to a point where the 0:04:45.760 --> 0:04:49.440 code is being put into play in an actual election, 0:04:50.000 --> 0:04:53.599 so that those vulnerabilities can't be exploited. Because if something 0:04:53.680 --> 0:04:56.800 is proprietary and someone figures out an exploit to that software, 0:04:57.440 --> 0:05:00.080 then it's all behind closed doors. There's no way to 0:05:00.120 --> 0:05:03.560 address it, and you end up with a huge problem. 0:05:03.720 --> 0:05:07.200 But but beyond that, you have companies that could insert 0:05:07.240 --> 0:05:10.240 a bias into the programming itself. And this kind of 0:05:10.279 --> 0:05:13.560 stems from an interesting story that happened in the early 0:05:13.560 --> 0:05:19.400 two thousand's. So two thousand three, Walden Wally O'Dell and 0:05:19.440 --> 0:05:22.039 I'm not making up the nickname Wally, that is what 0:05:22.200 --> 0:05:27.000 he would go by. Wally O'Dell was at that time 0:05:27.160 --> 0:05:30.599 the CEO and chairman of die Bald. Now Diebald's best 0:05:30.640 --> 0:05:35.800 known for making a t M S but dial, Yeah, well, 0:05:35.839 --> 0:05:39.560 they also for a while made electronic voting machines. There 0:05:39.600 --> 0:05:43.320 was a subsidiary called Diebold Election Systems, which the company 0:05:43.360 --> 0:05:47.640 has since divested itself of that particular property. But Diebold 0:05:47.640 --> 0:05:50.599 Election Systems made a lot of electronic voting machines. And 0:05:50.640 --> 0:05:54.400 die Bald, by the way, is headquartered in Ohio, a 0:05:54.640 --> 0:06:00.000 very important state in national elections here in the United States. 0:06:00.040 --> 0:06:02.520 Swing states, that's what we call it, yep swing some 0:06:02.600 --> 0:06:05.640 meeting swing states for you know, there's probably I've got 0:06:05.640 --> 0:06:07.279 some listeners who are outside the US. You may have 0:06:07.360 --> 0:06:09.080 heard the term swing state, and you don't know what 0:06:09.120 --> 0:06:12.480 that means. So the way elections work in the US. 0:06:12.839 --> 0:06:16.640 You know, you've got your major two party system, and 0:06:17.200 --> 0:06:19.400 ninety five percent of the time that's the those are 0:06:19.400 --> 0:06:22.240 the only parties that really make an impact. So you've 0:06:22.240 --> 0:06:24.920 got your Republicans and your Democrats, and you've got a 0:06:24.960 --> 0:06:28.640 lot of states that that lean toward one or the other, 0:06:28.760 --> 0:06:32.080 and it is almost unheard of for them to support 0:06:32.640 --> 0:06:35.880 a candidate of the opposite party, sure like uh for 0:06:36.000 --> 0:06:40.239 one example of this would be UH state like Utah 0:06:40.400 --> 0:06:45.440 would be legendarily not voting Democratic, and a state like 0:06:45.640 --> 0:06:49.240 Vermont would be legendarily not voting Republicans. Right, So it 0:06:49.240 --> 0:06:52.200 would be an incredibly strange set of circumstances to see 0:06:52.200 --> 0:06:55.760 one of these states support a candidate of the opposite 0:06:55.760 --> 0:06:58.880 party that it tends to support. So for the most part, 0:06:58.920 --> 0:07:03.200 we just assume those electors in the electoral college will 0:07:03.240 --> 0:07:08.400 support the traditional candidates that those states would support. But 0:07:08.440 --> 0:07:13.080 there's some states that could go either way. They could 0:07:13.160 --> 0:07:16.240 swing towards the Republican side one election and swing towards 0:07:16.240 --> 0:07:22.040 the Democratic side and another Florida, Pennsylvaniaia. So the the 0:07:22.080 --> 0:07:25.520 electors in these states, UH, it may be that they 0:07:25.640 --> 0:07:27.680 are the ones that are chosen are the ones for 0:07:27.920 --> 0:07:32.239 Republican uh in one one election our Democrat and another election. 0:07:33.000 --> 0:07:35.440 So Ohio is one of those states, which means it's 0:07:35.440 --> 0:07:38.440 incredibly valuable. Right. It means it's a battleground state. You 0:07:38.480 --> 0:07:42.880 want to win that state because you know you've got 0:07:42.920 --> 0:07:47.600 your your foundation, that's almost guaranteed. Nothing's ever a guarantee, 0:07:47.600 --> 0:07:51.280 but it's almost a guarantee. And uh so you need 0:07:51.320 --> 0:07:53.520 to really concentrate on the states where you have the 0:07:53.520 --> 0:07:56.080 potential to flip it. So that's on your side and 0:07:56.120 --> 0:07:59.440 not your opponents side. Well, Ohio is one of those states. 0:08:00.000 --> 0:08:04.880 Eyebold has its headquarters in Ohio, and Wally, the CEO 0:08:05.640 --> 0:08:09.720 of Diebold at that time, wrote a letter where he 0:08:09.880 --> 0:08:15.280 was uh committing himself to quote helping Ohio deliver its 0:08:15.280 --> 0:08:18.920 electoral votes to the president end quote, president being George W. 0:08:19.120 --> 0:08:25.760 Bush at that time. So the CEO of a company 0:08:25.800 --> 0:08:29.440 that makes voting machine saying he's committed to delivering Ohio's 0:08:29.440 --> 0:08:32.760 electoral votes to the president. Now, the company was quick 0:08:32.800 --> 0:08:37.800 to say, hey, he's not talking about using our products 0:08:37.880 --> 0:08:42.280 to push the elections a personal fundraiser dotor, right, he's 0:08:42.280 --> 0:08:45.120 talking about campaigning and but a lot of people said, hey, 0:08:45.360 --> 0:08:48.600 isn't there a conflict of interests if you've got the 0:08:48.640 --> 0:08:52.160 head of a company making the voting technology that people 0:08:52.200 --> 0:08:57.160 depend upon also openly supporting a specific candidate in the race. 0:08:57.320 --> 0:09:02.080 It's very It's very close to a member of the 0:09:02.120 --> 0:09:05.760 Supreme Court saying like, I will do anything I can 0:09:06.120 --> 0:09:10.560 to get you elected, George, and then and then saying, oh, 0:09:10.760 --> 0:09:13.679 fiddle D D. We don't have time to recount the 0:09:13.760 --> 0:09:16.800 votes from Florida, and we look, there's some things that 0:09:16.840 --> 0:09:19.880 are more important than making absolutely certain that the people's 0:09:20.000 --> 0:09:26.240 vote was reflected in the actual election. Like reasons. I 0:09:26.400 --> 0:09:28.640 just like saying fiddle D D. But I don't think 0:09:28.640 --> 0:09:31.600 the Supremes say that. But you're you're raised the supremest 0:09:31.640 --> 0:09:35.800 they sing, I referred to them as the Supremes. I 0:09:35.840 --> 0:09:39.959 like that. John robertson the Supremes. So many wonderful visions 0:09:40.000 --> 0:09:42.920 going through my head right now. Oh man, you should 0:09:42.920 --> 0:09:45.320 have seen the comedy show we did with that with 0:09:45.440 --> 0:09:49.959 that sketch. Well, but anyway that at that point inside 0:09:50.000 --> 0:09:54.280 like what you're saying is really important here because let's 0:09:54.280 --> 0:09:56.560 assume if we were to take Wally at his word, 0:09:57.720 --> 0:10:02.920 then even is that a PR firm would say, the 0:10:02.960 --> 0:10:07.240 optics look bad. So when you when you make those 0:10:07.280 --> 0:10:11.000 sorts of statements, you have to be very conscious, conscious 0:10:11.120 --> 0:10:13.800 of what is going to happen. This is uh, this 0:10:13.880 --> 0:10:16.920 is an environment wherein uh, let's see what year was this, 0:10:16.960 --> 0:10:19.160 two thousand three, right, two thousand three was when you 0:10:19.200 --> 0:10:21.800 wrote the letter. Thousand four was the election. So people 0:10:21.840 --> 0:10:26.400 are already very sore off of the two thousand election, 0:10:26.840 --> 0:10:31.240 and we have seen an accelerating distrust in the American 0:10:31.280 --> 0:10:37.520 political system or sometime you know, and this this thing 0:10:37.640 --> 0:10:41.959 is just making it, exacerbating it. And I think in 0:10:42.120 --> 0:10:43.840 one of the Wired pieces I read it might have 0:10:43.920 --> 0:10:46.959 even been the one you just referenced. Uh. The the 0:10:47.040 --> 0:10:49.840 author of the piece made a really great point, which 0:10:49.880 --> 0:10:53.880 was that you don't need any case of tampering or bias. 0:10:54.040 --> 0:10:58.199 It doesn't have to exist, but the possibility of it 0:10:58.600 --> 0:11:02.240 of it existing is an off to cause turmoil. Right, 0:11:02.440 --> 0:11:06.559 you can cause real world turmoil just from the possibility 0:11:06.559 --> 0:11:09.640 of this being a thing without any evidence of it 0:11:09.720 --> 0:11:12.640 actually happening. So you don't need to have evidence of 0:11:12.760 --> 0:11:16.120 someone purposefully trying to rig the system in order for 0:11:16.160 --> 0:11:19.600 people to not trust the system. As long as it's 0:11:19.679 --> 0:11:23.079 clear that it's a possibility. That's enough to have people 0:11:23.120 --> 0:11:25.200 say like, well, how can I trust anything? How can 0:11:25.240 --> 0:11:28.640 I trust the results? Because you know you're telling me 0:11:28.679 --> 0:11:31.120 there's no evidence, But how do I know there's no evidence? 0:11:31.280 --> 0:11:36.079 I know it's possible. Twice you can't get fooled aget. Yeah, thanks, 0:11:36.280 --> 0:11:39.600 it's a it's a great quote that I'm not gonna 0:11:39.679 --> 0:11:41.840 make any fun of. All Right, So then we've got 0:11:41.880 --> 0:11:44.360 the fear of hackers. We've got the fear of bias 0:11:44.440 --> 0:11:48.559 from the standpoint of the manufacturers of the voting machines themselves, 0:11:48.800 --> 0:11:50.760 and then we get the fear of hackers third parties 0:11:50.800 --> 0:11:54.480 that want to rig the results or prevent people from voting. 0:11:54.760 --> 0:12:01.240 Completely possible, absolutely, completely possible, because again, these systems are 0:12:01.280 --> 0:12:04.480 not terribly secure. Um. Now you've got a couple of 0:12:04.480 --> 0:12:07.240 different arguments about this, Right, You've got people who support 0:12:07.360 --> 0:12:12.520 d r S and they say, listen, hacking trying to 0:12:12.640 --> 0:12:15.959 trying to affect politics on a national level here in 0:12:15.960 --> 0:12:20.319 the United States is a fool's errand for multiple reasons, 0:12:20.320 --> 0:12:23.040 and a big one is that we have so many 0:12:23.080 --> 0:12:27.280 different types of electronic voting machines out there, and they 0:12:27.360 --> 0:12:30.439 are proprietary. They don't all work on the same software, 0:12:30.840 --> 0:12:34.560 so you can't develop a universal approach to affect all 0:12:34.679 --> 0:12:37.960 the machines. Now, if the entire United States, if all 0:12:38.000 --> 0:12:41.440 of us use the exact same kind of machine across 0:12:41.520 --> 0:12:45.200 all the states and the territories, then that could be 0:12:45.600 --> 0:12:49.760 a potential vulnerability. If in fact they were also connected 0:12:49.800 --> 0:12:53.000 to like the Internet, right, you would have an amazing 0:12:53.040 --> 0:12:55.520 target because you think, well, if I developed the right 0:12:55.559 --> 0:12:58.640 kind of software, I can affect every single vote cast 0:12:58.720 --> 0:13:01.160 in the United States. But that's not the reality of 0:13:01.160 --> 0:13:04.000 our situation. We have all these different types of machines, 0:13:04.280 --> 0:13:06.160 some of which are connected to the Internet, some of 0:13:06.200 --> 0:13:10.280 which aren't. You have running on different types of software, 0:13:10.320 --> 0:13:13.800 so you cannot create that one size fits all approach 0:13:13.880 --> 0:13:16.280 to affecting all of them. That being said, you could 0:13:16.280 --> 0:13:20.440 still affect specific ones, like you could target specific regions 0:13:20.480 --> 0:13:24.960 that you think are particularly important and and try to 0:13:25.040 --> 0:13:31.120 affect voting that way. In fact, critics say that because 0:13:31.240 --> 0:13:35.239 the return on investment is so high, it's an incredibly 0:13:35.280 --> 0:13:38.440 tempting target for hackers. Like you might say, yeah, it's 0:13:38.480 --> 0:13:40.960 a lot of work, but look at the outcome. The 0:13:41.000 --> 0:13:44.560 outcome is the effect of a national election. It's it's 0:13:44.600 --> 0:13:47.160 harder to have a bigger set of stakes than that, 0:13:48.120 --> 0:13:52.240 So you can say like, yeah, it's hard, but the 0:13:52.240 --> 0:13:56.120 the goal is so huge that justifies the hard work 0:13:56.440 --> 0:13:59.040 on the part of the hackers. Ben and I have 0:13:59.080 --> 0:14:01.920 a little bit more to say about the scary world 0:14:02.120 --> 0:14:05.720 of e v ms, but first let's take a quick break. 0:14:14.800 --> 0:14:18.560 Here's the thing. Yeah, you don't have to be like 0:14:18.920 --> 0:14:22.640 the Liam Neeson taken level of hacker. You don't have 0:14:22.720 --> 0:14:27.280 to be anonymous or you know, some faction set operations. 0:14:27.320 --> 0:14:30.359 You don't have to have a particular set of skills. Yeah, exactly, 0:14:30.440 --> 0:14:33.480 And that was that was not very bad. I've had 0:14:33.520 --> 0:14:37.640 a little thing stuck in my teeth, that's all. But 0:14:37.640 --> 0:14:41.880 but yeah, you you don't have to be some amazing 0:14:42.360 --> 0:14:50.000 savvant hacker with these crazy credentials and qualifications. You don't 0:14:50.040 --> 0:14:53.160 even have to be states a state sponsored hacker like 0:14:53.200 --> 0:14:55.880 a you know from the Chinese military, right, No, you 0:14:55.960 --> 0:15:00.200 can if you're talking about systems running on when nose 0:15:00.320 --> 0:15:02.520 XP that haven't been patched in two years at the 0:15:02.720 --> 0:15:07.080 very at at best, they haven't been patched in two years. 0:15:07.360 --> 0:15:10.720 At worst, it's been much longer than that. Uh, and 0:15:10.840 --> 0:15:13.440 if there is a way to access the machines, either 0:15:13.560 --> 0:15:16.840 over the Internet or through physical contact with the machines, 0:15:17.560 --> 0:15:21.200 it's entirely possible for someone to use code developed by 0:15:21.360 --> 0:15:26.760 somebody else and infect that machine. So yeah, so the 0:15:26.800 --> 0:15:31.040 diminutive term for these people, uh, and my friend Shannon 0:15:31.080 --> 0:15:35.200 hates this term would be script kitties. Script kitties meaning 0:15:35.200 --> 0:15:40.280 a type of person who uh profits off of malicious code. 0:15:40.280 --> 0:15:42.920 But they didn't develop the code themselves. They went to 0:15:43.040 --> 0:15:47.840 some place that where that code is available. They either 0:15:47.920 --> 0:15:50.160 purchase the code or they download the code for free, 0:15:50.200 --> 0:15:53.240 depending upon the place that they're going to, and then 0:15:53.280 --> 0:15:57.000 they deploy that code. And in some cases the code 0:15:57.160 --> 0:15:59.600 is pretty much automated. It does everything for you. You 0:15:59.720 --> 0:16:01.280 just have to be the one. You just have to 0:16:01.280 --> 0:16:05.000 be able to deploy it somehow right, and you don't 0:16:05.040 --> 0:16:07.800 have to have any knowledge of how it works. All 0:16:07.840 --> 0:16:09.800 you need to do is just make sure the code 0:16:09.800 --> 0:16:11.520 gets on the machine that you wanted to get on 0:16:12.200 --> 0:16:14.040 in the right direction. Yeah. So, imagine that you've got 0:16:14.080 --> 0:16:17.160 a thumb drive with this code and it's in a file, 0:16:17.200 --> 0:16:19.720 so it will auto execute once it connects to a 0:16:19.880 --> 0:16:22.320 USB drive on a machine. You come out to a 0:16:22.760 --> 0:16:25.040 voting machine that happens at USB drive, which would be 0:16:25.080 --> 0:16:28.200 a terrible idea. I'm not even suggesting that there are 0:16:28.320 --> 0:16:31.320 electronic voting machines that have USB ports. I don't know 0:16:31.400 --> 0:16:33.680 if there are. If there are, that's a terrible idea. 0:16:34.280 --> 0:16:38.000 You plug in the thumb drive, automatically executes runs the 0:16:38.000 --> 0:16:40.680 malicious code that has become part of the voting machines 0:16:41.080 --> 0:16:43.720 programming from that point forward, and you can no longer 0:16:43.760 --> 0:16:49.160 trust the results generates. Uh, that is entirely possible, assuming that, again, 0:16:49.200 --> 0:16:51.960 you have some way of of injecting the code into 0:16:52.000 --> 0:16:56.000 the machine. So if you do have that possibility, that 0:16:56.040 --> 0:17:01.479 would be bad um. And also you don't even necessarily 0:17:01.760 --> 0:17:04.760 have to set out to change votes. Right like that, 0:17:04.880 --> 0:17:06.760 that's the way we mostly think of it. Like again, 0:17:06.840 --> 0:17:09.960 going back to the Reagan Carter example, we would think, oh, well, 0:17:09.960 --> 0:17:12.320 they've programmed it so that it took that Reagan vote 0:17:12.320 --> 0:17:15.320 and flipped it to Carter. You could also just try 0:17:15.520 --> 0:17:19.520 and overload the voting machine so that no votes could 0:17:19.560 --> 0:17:22.760 be cast on it at all. You can take it down. Yeah, 0:17:22.880 --> 0:17:25.680 you're just taking down the machine you just wanted to 0:17:25.680 --> 0:17:29.520 to crash and be unrecoverable, and then you you really 0:17:29.560 --> 0:17:33.199 impact that the ability for people to cast votes. If 0:17:33.240 --> 0:17:36.679 you do that in enough places that have very particular 0:17:38.080 --> 0:17:41.920 political leanings, you can affect the outcome of an election 0:17:42.240 --> 0:17:45.200 simply because the people who wanted to vote were physically 0:17:45.280 --> 0:17:49.040 unable to do so. And unless you make special allowances 0:17:49.080 --> 0:17:54.280 for that, then those those votes will never happen. Uh. 0:17:54.320 --> 0:17:58.600 So that's kind of ugly to um. And also finally, 0:17:58.760 --> 0:18:02.239 uh turns out at the results are unencrypted, which is 0:18:02.440 --> 0:18:07.240 crazy to me, which yeah, is bizarre. Yeah, it doesn't 0:18:07.280 --> 0:18:10.840 make any sense. Votes recorded in plain text in a 0:18:10.920 --> 0:18:14.960 file where you're not you haven't even encrypted the results, 0:18:15.720 --> 0:18:19.520 so there's no protection there. Like if someone does get 0:18:19.560 --> 0:18:22.840 access to that data somehow, no matter you know, whatever 0:18:23.000 --> 0:18:27.639 methodology you might need, they can make changes. And you 0:18:27.680 --> 0:18:31.879 know this is not just theoretical. And the state of 0:18:31.920 --> 0:18:35.040 Virginia de certified hundreds of wind vote e v m 0:18:35.160 --> 0:18:38.840 s because they were insecure, and according to the officials, 0:18:39.359 --> 0:18:44.000 you could change the votes in these wind vote machines 0:18:44.600 --> 0:18:48.320 undetected if you were anywhere within a half mile radius 0:18:48.320 --> 0:18:51.960 of the machine, even if you weren't like a knowledgeable 0:18:52.000 --> 0:18:53.520 hack like you don't want to have to get out 0:18:53.520 --> 0:19:01.200 of the car. It's like Pokemon go, but for election. Yeah. Um, 0:19:01.240 --> 0:19:04.600 that's crazy. Now. I should also add that according to 0:19:04.640 --> 0:19:07.160 the Wired article where I've pulled that from, UH, they 0:19:07.200 --> 0:19:11.520 never found any evidence that someone had tampered with the votes, 0:19:11.840 --> 0:19:14.200 but they did discover that the vulnerability was there, which 0:19:14.280 --> 0:19:16.879 meant that there was always the possibility someone could tamper 0:19:16.920 --> 0:19:20.080 with the votes, which is why they were de certified. Um. Luckily, 0:19:20.600 --> 0:19:24.119 at least according to the officials, it doesn't look like 0:19:24.160 --> 0:19:27.200 anyone actually managed to do that or took the time 0:19:27.280 --> 0:19:31.480 to do that, But that's that's a possibility that has 0:19:31.520 --> 0:19:34.800 to be addressed, right um. And that kind of brings 0:19:34.840 --> 0:19:38.359 us up to the hacking threat. So I don't know 0:19:38.400 --> 0:19:40.280 if you guys have been paying attention here in the 0:19:40.359 --> 0:19:45.280 United States. Earlier in hackers gained access to the Democratic 0:19:45.359 --> 0:19:48.439 National Convention databases and they stole a whole bunch of 0:19:48.440 --> 0:19:52.639 emails and files, more than twenty thousand of them, and UH, 0:19:52.680 --> 0:19:55.480 a lot of them were released by wiki leaks. Around 0:19:55.520 --> 0:19:57.879 twenty thousand were released by wiki leaks, but that doesn't 0:19:57.920 --> 0:20:00.639 mean that that's all of them. And there were a 0:20:00.680 --> 0:20:03.240 lot of questions like who the heck hacked into the 0:20:03.320 --> 0:20:06.800 d n C. Yeah, and we were pointing out a 0:20:06.800 --> 0:20:12.480 specific country and that country is Russia, thank you, but 0:20:12.480 --> 0:20:18.200 but it's want okay, yeah, all right, Well, so here's 0:20:18.240 --> 0:20:21.639 here's one of the things that makes this an interesting story, 0:20:21.760 --> 0:20:25.720 and into some degree the reports of it remind me 0:20:25.880 --> 0:20:30.120 a little bit of the famous Sony hack, right where 0:20:30.119 --> 0:20:33.119 they talking about North Korea being the culprit and you 0:20:33.200 --> 0:20:37.359 and I explored that together as well. So one of 0:20:37.400 --> 0:20:42.000 the big questions is to what end, to what what 0:20:42.119 --> 0:20:50.000 value would Russia's state sponsored hacking branch, which does exist, 0:20:50.400 --> 0:20:54.760 what what value would it see in interfering on such 0:20:54.880 --> 0:20:59.800 a minimal level at this point? Is this a buy 0:21:00.000 --> 0:21:03.560 in for blackmail? Further down the line, is this to 0:21:04.320 --> 0:21:11.639 discredit something? Because the d n C is a domestic 0:21:11.720 --> 0:21:16.720 facing organization, so it's a lot, it's much more. Um, 0:21:16.760 --> 0:21:19.680 it's an entirely different animal in comparison to something like 0:21:20.080 --> 0:21:24.440 a State Department server which would have stuff about Russia. Yeah, yeah, 0:21:24.440 --> 0:21:28.680 any of those things like c I A are you 0:21:28.760 --> 0:21:31.240 know that would be another or n s A. Right, 0:21:31.280 --> 0:21:33.399 like the targets that you would think of if you 0:21:33.400 --> 0:21:36.000 wanted to gather a lot of intelligence yeah, and so 0:21:36.440 --> 0:21:39.520 the issue here. Initially, I I don't know about you, 0:21:39.560 --> 0:21:42.640 but initially I was skeptical because I thought, this, all 0:21:42.680 --> 0:21:45.879 this bear poking that's going on now is not gonna 0:21:45.960 --> 0:21:50.760 it's not. Yeah, yeah, it's not. It's not gonna. It's 0:21:50.800 --> 0:21:54.040 not gonna pay off. Because there is a reason that 0:21:54.160 --> 0:21:57.440 the Putin government has been in power for as long 0:21:57.560 --> 0:22:00.600 as it has, and it's it's because, as you know, 0:22:01.280 --> 0:22:05.240 this this government is seen. American presidents come and go, 0:22:05.960 --> 0:22:10.360 and they have a maybe a longer horizon politically sure 0:22:10.440 --> 0:22:14.919 when they contemplate these things. So I it's strange to 0:22:14.920 --> 0:22:18.480 see what appears to be harmless rhetoric trotted out against them. However, 0:22:19.119 --> 0:22:23.400 I had to rethink my skepticism on this when more 0:22:23.480 --> 0:22:28.120 than one security firm came out saying evidence indicates it's 0:22:28.160 --> 0:22:32.600 probably these guys. Yeah. As it turns out, a security 0:22:32.640 --> 0:22:37.359 firm immediately, pretty much shortly after the leak was was 0:22:37.640 --> 0:22:41.600 made public, said that the signs were pointing towards a 0:22:41.720 --> 0:22:47.400 Russian actor, um that the methodologies and software used were 0:22:47.440 --> 0:22:50.680 the same that had been employed by Russian state sponsored 0:22:50.720 --> 0:22:54.680 hacking groups in the past. And uh, there are some 0:22:54.720 --> 0:22:57.359 folks who said I'm you know, I don't think so. 0:22:57.400 --> 0:23:02.440 In fact, one um jusipher to point, oh hacker came 0:23:02.480 --> 0:23:04.760 out and said, no, no, no, it was me. I'm 0:23:04.800 --> 0:23:07.200 a lone wolf. I did it. It wasn't. I was 0:23:07.240 --> 0:23:08.879 the one who who stole all that and gave it 0:23:08.920 --> 0:23:12.600 over to Wiki leaks and uh. Although they also claimed 0:23:12.640 --> 0:23:15.720 that he was Romanian or he or she the hacker 0:23:15.760 --> 0:23:18.760 claimed that he or she was Romanian, but then when 0:23:19.240 --> 0:23:23.760 people were trying to communicate with him or her in Romanian, Uh, 0:23:23.840 --> 0:23:27.720 the responses did not seem particularly coherent, which seems to 0:23:27.760 --> 0:23:31.040 give the lie that they are in fact Romanian. But 0:23:31.720 --> 0:23:35.439 other security firms ended up corroborating the findings of the 0:23:35.480 --> 0:23:38.880 first one. They said, yeah, the exploits that were used, 0:23:38.880 --> 0:23:41.679 the malware that was used is identical to the type 0:23:41.680 --> 0:23:44.399 of malware that has been used by this Russian hacking group. 0:23:45.000 --> 0:23:48.199 It is exactly the m O that we've seen in 0:23:48.320 --> 0:23:52.320 other cases, including a case that involved the German parliament. 0:23:52.320 --> 0:23:59.600 In so uh, either it's again another Russian hacking group, 0:23:59.800 --> 0:24:02.800 or it's someone who learned everything they know from a 0:24:02.920 --> 0:24:07.480 Russian hacking group because it was identical in nature. Yes, 0:24:08.040 --> 0:24:10.560 So why would Russia want to infere interfere with the DNC. 0:24:10.760 --> 0:24:13.240 And I think the most distinct way of putting that 0:24:13.320 --> 0:24:18.320 is that Pewton doesn't like Clinton, huh. Kind of kind 0:24:18.320 --> 0:24:21.000 of what it boils down to is that Pewton uh 0:24:21.040 --> 0:24:26.600 and would not want Clinton and the White House well 0:24:26.680 --> 0:24:29.960 as president. Yeah, also as an active Secretary of State 0:24:30.080 --> 0:24:35.000 at times when NATO and NATO and Russia as well 0:24:35.040 --> 0:24:40.880 as its allies were engaged in geopolitical tensions that sparked 0:24:40.880 --> 0:24:44.760 into Right now, there's an ongoing proxy war in Syria 0:24:45.440 --> 0:24:48.159 and it's between Russia and between the U S. No, 0:24:48.200 --> 0:24:51.520 of course it's not being reported that way or marketed 0:24:51.560 --> 0:24:57.359 that way, but unless you're reading any media outside of 0:24:57.400 --> 0:25:00.000 the US or Russia, in which case everyone says RUSSI 0:25:00.000 --> 0:25:02.320 and who backs the Syrian government and the US that 0:25:02.359 --> 0:25:06.639