Speaker 1: Welcome to text Stuff, a production from my Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio
Speaker 1: and a love of all things tech. And if you
Speaker 1: listened to last Wednesday's episode, you heard a classic episode
Speaker 1: of tech Stuff about electronic voting machines. The episode published
Speaker 1: back in October twenty six and Mr Ben Bolan of
Speaker 1: Stuff They Don't Want You to Know and Ridiculous History
Speaker 1: Fame joined me for that discussion. We are going to
Speaker 1: continue that discussion today. This is part two of that episode,
Speaker 1: and we are going to continue to dive down the
Speaker 1: tricky and potentially disastrous pathway to creating voting systems. The
Speaker 1: idea that if you create a voting system that is
Speaker 1: perceived to be unfair, then you're really undermining the entire
Speaker 1: foundation of democracy. And I know that sounds like I'm exaggerating,
Speaker 1: but I'm not because if we lose faith in the system,
Speaker 1: if we do not believe the system works, then it
Speaker 1: becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. Of course, we have to
Speaker 1: make sure that the system does work. If the system
Speaker 1: is not working, then we absolutely have to fix it.
Speaker 1: So it is a very tricky subject, Ben and I
Speaker 1: will go into much more detail that I hope you
Speaker 1: guys are doing well. I know this is still a
Speaker 1: very trying and challenging time for so many reasons. I
Speaker 1: want you guys to know I believe in you. I
Speaker 1: think that you guys are awesome. Uh you all have
Speaker 1: proven that over and over. So let's sit back and
Speaker 1: listen to this classic episode about the scary world of
Speaker 1: e v M S Part two. At the close of
Speaker 1: our conversation, we has our votes and we decided democratically
Speaker 1: that this would be better as a two part series
Speaker 1: than a single epic length episode that would have stretched
Speaker 1: the patience of the most uh most forgiving of listeners.
Speaker 1: Now we have broken it up into two parts, so
Speaker 1: what you are about to hear is the conclusion of
Speaker 1: that two parts. Also, I should add that when we
Speaker 1: get to the end and we sign off, we did
Speaker 1: not know at that point that it was going to
Speaker 1: be a two parter, so we actually have already recorded
Speaker 1: the end of the episode that I'm recording the beginning
Speaker 1: of now. And yes, time travel does confuse me. So
Speaker 1: let's just segue in to part two of how electronic
Speaker 1: voting machines are going to ruin everything. Remember we mentioned
Speaker 1: that in two thousand two, that's when they started to
Speaker 1: appear on the scene. That's when Georgia. Actually they started
Speaker 1: to appear before two thousand two, but two thousand two
Speaker 1: is when Georgia became the first state to have just
Speaker 1: the electronic voting machines out there in the polling places. Um,
Speaker 1: many of those machines have not been updated since, and
Speaker 1: almost all of them are running on a version of
Speaker 1: Windows XP which hasn't been updated since April two thou fourteen.
Speaker 1: So that means any security vulnerability that has been discovered
Speaker 1: since two thousand and fourteen is still there. Chances are
Speaker 1: some of the ones before two thousand fourteen are still
Speaker 1: there because I bet a lot of those machines have
Speaker 1: never received a patch, right, They're just these big there,
Speaker 1: these machines that are being overseen by the government, and uh,
Speaker 1: you know it, Chances are a lot of them are unpatched.
Speaker 1: So there's a lot of potential for people to tamper.
Speaker 1: And not only that, you know, I mentioned the idea
Speaker 1: of either unconsciously or purposefully inserting a bias. That's a
Speaker 1: real concern too, right, because private companies are the ones
Speaker 1: designing these machines. They do so with using proprietary software
Speaker 1: that is not visible to the general public, nor is
Speaker 1: it uh what's what's word, nor is it in any
Speaker 1: way compelled to answer to the general public, Like the
Speaker 1: public doesn't have a the quote unquote Capital p public
Speaker 1: doesn't have a vote regarding which companies run these machines.
Speaker 1: You look at this and you see that everyone says, well,
Speaker 1: we can't reveal our code because if we did, uh,
Speaker 1: then our competitors would see how we do things, and
Speaker 1: then we can't compete in the marketplace anymore. And so
Speaker 1: meanwhile you've got security experts saying this should all be
Speaker 1: open source. And the reason it should be open source
Speaker 1: is so that the community at large would have the
Speaker 1: opportunity to look at the code and see if there
Speaker 1: are any vulnerabilities and if so, make sure that those
Speaker 1: get patched before you get to a point where the
Speaker 1: code is being put into play in an actual election,
Speaker 1: so that those vulnerabilities can't be exploited. Because if something
Speaker 1: is proprietary and someone figures out an exploit to that software,
Speaker 1: then it's all behind closed doors. There's no way to
Speaker 1: address it, and you end up with a huge problem.
Speaker 1: But but beyond that, you have companies that could insert
Speaker 1: a bias into the programming itself. And this kind of
Speaker 1: stems from an interesting story that happened in the early
Speaker 1: two thousand's. So two thousand three, Walden Wally O'Dell and
Speaker 1: I'm not making up the nickname Wally, that is what
Speaker 1: he would go by. Wally O'Dell was at that time
Speaker 1: the CEO and chairman of die Bald. Now Diebald's best
Speaker 1: known for making a t M S but dial, Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: they also for a while made electronic voting machines. There
Speaker 1: was a subsidiary called Diebold Election Systems, which the company
Speaker 1: has since divested itself of that particular property. But Diebold
Speaker 1: Election Systems made a lot of electronic voting machines. And
Speaker 1: die Bald, by the way, is headquartered in Ohio, a
Speaker 1: very important state in national elections here in the United States.
Speaker 1: Swing states, that's what we call it, yep swing some
Speaker 1: meeting swing states for you know, there's probably I've got
Speaker 1: some listeners who are outside the US. You may have
Speaker 1: heard the term swing state, and you don't know what
Speaker 1: that means. So the way elections work in the US.
Speaker 1: You know, you've got your major two party system, and
Speaker 1: ninety five percent of the time that's the those are
Speaker 1: the only parties that really make an impact. So you've
Speaker 1: got your Republicans and your Democrats, and you've got a
Speaker 1: lot of states that that lean toward one or the other,
Speaker 1: and it is almost unheard of for them to support
Speaker 1: a candidate of the opposite party, sure like uh for
Speaker 1: one example of this would be UH state like Utah
Speaker 1: would be legendarily not voting Democratic, and a state like
Speaker 1: Vermont would be legendarily not voting Republicans. Right, So it
Speaker 1: would be an incredibly strange set of circumstances to see
Speaker 1: one of these states support a candidate of the opposite
Speaker 1: party that it tends to support. So for the most part,
Speaker 1: we just assume those electors in the electoral college will
Speaker 1: support the traditional candidates that those states would support. But
Speaker 1: there's some states that could go either way. They could
Speaker 1: swing towards the Republican side one election and swing towards
Speaker 1: the Democratic side and another Florida, Pennsylvaniaia. So the the
Speaker 1: electors in these states, UH, it may be that they
Speaker 1: are the ones that are chosen are the ones for
Speaker 1: Republican uh in one one election our Democrat and another election.
Speaker 1: So Ohio is one of those states, which means it's
Speaker 1: incredibly valuable. Right. It means it's a battleground state. You
Speaker 1: want to win that state because you know you've got
Speaker 1: your your foundation, that's almost guaranteed. Nothing's ever a guarantee,
Speaker 1: but it's almost a guarantee. And uh so you need
Speaker 1: to really concentrate on the states where you have the
Speaker 1: potential to flip it. So that's on your side and
Speaker 1: not your opponents side. Well, Ohio is one of those states.
Speaker 1: Eyebold has its headquarters in Ohio, and Wally, the CEO
Speaker 1: of Diebold at that time, wrote a letter where he
Speaker 1: was uh committing himself to quote helping Ohio deliver its
Speaker 1: electoral votes to the president end quote, president being George W.
Speaker 1: Bush at that time. So the CEO of a company
Speaker 1: that makes voting machine saying he's committed to delivering Ohio's
Speaker 1: electoral votes to the president. Now, the company was quick
Speaker 1: to say, hey, he's not talking about using our products
Speaker 1: to push the elections a personal fundraiser dotor, right, he's
Speaker 1: talking about campaigning and but a lot of people said, hey,
Speaker 1: isn't there a conflict of interests if you've got the
Speaker 1: head of a company making the voting technology that people
Speaker 1: depend upon also openly supporting a specific candidate in the race.
Speaker 1: It's very It's very close to a member of the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court saying like, I will do anything I can
Speaker 1: to get you elected, George, and then and then saying, oh,
Speaker 1: fiddle D D. We don't have time to recount the
Speaker 1: votes from Florida, and we look, there's some things that
Speaker 1: are more important than making absolutely certain that the people's
Speaker 1: vote was reflected in the actual election. Like reasons. I
Speaker 1: just like saying fiddle D D. But I don't think
Speaker 1: the Supremes say that. But you're you're raised the supremest
Speaker 1: they sing, I referred to them as the Supremes. I
Speaker 1: like that. John robertson the Supremes. So many wonderful visions
Speaker 1: going through my head right now. Oh man, you should
Speaker 1: have seen the comedy show we did with that with
Speaker 1: that sketch. Well, but anyway that at that point inside
Speaker 1: like what you're saying is really important here because let's
Speaker 1: assume if we were to take Wally at his word,
Speaker 1: then even is that a PR firm would say, the
Speaker 1: optics look bad. So when you when you make those
Speaker 1: sorts of statements, you have to be very conscious, conscious
Speaker 1: of what is going to happen. This is uh, this
Speaker 1: is an environment wherein uh, let's see what year was this,
Speaker 1: two thousand three, right, two thousand three was when you
Speaker 1: wrote the letter. Thousand four was the election. So people
Speaker 1: are already very sore off of the two thousand election,
Speaker 1: and we have seen an accelerating distrust in the American
Speaker 1: political system or sometime you know, and this this thing
Speaker 1: is just making it, exacerbating it. And I think in
Speaker 1: one of the Wired pieces I read it might have
Speaker 1: even been the one you just referenced. Uh. The the
Speaker 1: author of the piece made a really great point, which
Speaker 1: was that you don't need any case of tampering or bias.
Speaker 1: It doesn't have to exist, but the possibility of it
Speaker 1: of it existing is an off to cause turmoil. Right,
Speaker 1: you can cause real world turmoil just from the possibility
Speaker 1: of this being a thing without any evidence of it
Speaker 1: actually happening. So you don't need to have evidence of
Speaker 1: someone purposefully trying to rig the system in order for
Speaker 1: people to not trust the system. As long as it's
Speaker 1: clear that it's a possibility. That's enough to have people
Speaker 1: say like, well, how can I trust anything? How can
Speaker 1: I trust the results? Because you know you're telling me
Speaker 1: there's no evidence, But how do I know there's no evidence?
Speaker 1: I know it's possible. Twice you can't get fooled aget. Yeah, thanks,
Speaker 1: it's a it's a great quote that I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: make any fun of. All Right, So then we've got
Speaker 1: the fear of hackers. We've got the fear of bias
Speaker 1: from the standpoint of the manufacturers of the voting machines themselves,
Speaker 1: and then we get the fear of hackers third parties
Speaker 1: that want to rig the results or prevent people from voting.
Speaker 1: Completely possible, absolutely, completely possible, because again, these systems are
Speaker 1: not terribly secure. Um. Now you've got a couple of
Speaker 1: different arguments about this, Right, You've got people who support
Speaker 1: d r S and they say, listen, hacking trying to
Speaker 1: trying to affect politics on a national level here in
Speaker 1: the United States is a fool's errand for multiple reasons,
Speaker 1: and a big one is that we have so many
Speaker 1: different types of electronic voting machines out there, and they
Speaker 1: are proprietary. They don't all work on the same software,
Speaker 1: so you can't develop a universal approach to affect all
Speaker 1: the machines. Now, if the entire United States, if all
Speaker 1: of us use the exact same kind of machine across
Speaker 1: all the states and the territories, then that could be
Speaker 1: a potential vulnerability. If in fact they were also connected
Speaker 1: to like the Internet, right, you would have an amazing
Speaker 1: target because you think, well, if I developed the right
Speaker 1: kind of software, I can affect every single vote cast
Speaker 1: in the United States. But that's not the reality of
Speaker 1: our situation. We have all these different types of machines,
Speaker 1: some of which are connected to the Internet, some of
Speaker 1: which aren't. You have running on different types of software,
Speaker 1: so you cannot create that one size fits all approach
Speaker 1: to affecting all of them. That being said, you could
Speaker 1: still affect specific ones, like you could target specific regions
Speaker 1: that you think are particularly important and and try to
Speaker 1: affect voting that way. In fact, critics say that because
Speaker 1: the return on investment is so high, it's an incredibly
Speaker 1: tempting target for hackers. Like you might say, yeah, it's
Speaker 1: a lot of work, but look at the outcome. The
Speaker 1: outcome is the effect of a national election. It's it's
Speaker 1: harder to have a bigger set of stakes than that,
Speaker 1: So you can say like, yeah, it's hard, but the
Speaker 1: the goal is so huge that justifies the hard work
Speaker 1: on the part of the hackers. Ben and I have
Speaker 1: a little bit more to say about the scary world
Speaker 1: of e v ms, but first let's take a quick break.
Speaker 1: Here's the thing. Yeah, you don't have to be like
Speaker 1: the Liam Neeson taken level of hacker. You don't have
Speaker 1: to be anonymous or you know, some faction set operations.
Speaker 1: You don't have to have a particular set of skills. Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: And that was that was not very bad. I've had
Speaker 1: a little thing stuck in my teeth, that's all. But
Speaker 1: but yeah, you you don't have to be some amazing
Speaker 1: savvant hacker with these crazy credentials and qualifications. You don't
Speaker 1: even have to be states a state sponsored hacker like
Speaker 1: a you know from the Chinese military, right, No, you
Speaker 1: can if you're talking about systems running on when nose
Speaker 1: XP that haven't been patched in two years at the
Speaker 1: very at at best, they haven't been patched in two years.
Speaker 1: At worst, it's been much longer than that. Uh, and
Speaker 1: if there is a way to access the machines, either
Speaker 1: over the Internet or through physical contact with the machines,
Speaker 1: it's entirely possible for someone to use code developed by
Speaker 1: somebody else and infect that machine. So yeah, so the
Speaker 1: diminutive term for these people, uh, and my friend Shannon
Speaker 1: hates this term would be script kitties. Script kitties meaning
Speaker 1: a type of person who uh profits off of malicious code.
Speaker 1: But they didn't develop the code themselves. They went to
Speaker 1: some place that where that code is available. They either
Speaker 1: purchase the code or they download the code for free,
Speaker 1: depending upon the place that they're going to, and then
Speaker 1: they deploy that code. And in some cases the code
Speaker 1: is pretty much automated. It does everything for you. You
Speaker 1: just have to be the one. You just have to
Speaker 1: be able to deploy it somehow right, and you don't
Speaker 1: have to have any knowledge of how it works. All
Speaker 1: you need to do is just make sure the code
Speaker 1: gets on the machine that you wanted to get on
Speaker 1: in the right direction. Yeah. So, imagine that you've got
Speaker 1: a thumb drive with this code and it's in a file,
Speaker 1: so it will auto execute once it connects to a
Speaker 1: USB drive on a machine. You come out to a
Speaker 1: voting machine that happens at USB drive, which would be
Speaker 1: a terrible idea. I'm not even suggesting that there are
Speaker 1: electronic voting machines that have USB ports. I don't know
Speaker 1: if there are. If there are, that's a terrible idea.
Speaker 1: You plug in the thumb drive, automatically executes runs the
Speaker 1: malicious code that has become part of the voting machines
Speaker 1: programming from that point forward, and you can no longer
Speaker 1: trust the results generates. Uh, that is entirely possible, assuming that, again,
Speaker 1: you have some way of of injecting the code into
Speaker 1: the machine. So if you do have that possibility, that
Speaker 1: would be bad um. And also you don't even necessarily
Speaker 1: have to set out to change votes. Right like that,
Speaker 1: that's the way we mostly think of it. Like again,
Speaker 1: going back to the Reagan Carter example, we would think, oh, well,
Speaker 1: they've programmed it so that it took that Reagan vote
Speaker 1: and flipped it to Carter. You could also just try
Speaker 1: and overload the voting machine so that no votes could
Speaker 1: be cast on it at all. You can take it down. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're just taking down the machine you just wanted to
Speaker 1: to crash and be unrecoverable, and then you you really
Speaker 1: impact that the ability for people to cast votes. If
Speaker 1: you do that in enough places that have very particular
Speaker 1: political leanings, you can affect the outcome of an election
Speaker 1: simply because the people who wanted to vote were physically
Speaker 1: unable to do so. And unless you make special allowances
Speaker 1: for that, then those those votes will never happen. Uh.
Speaker 1: So that's kind of ugly to um. And also finally,
Speaker 1: uh turns out at the results are unencrypted, which is
Speaker 1: crazy to me, which yeah, is bizarre. Yeah, it doesn't
Speaker 1: make any sense. Votes recorded in plain text in a
Speaker 1: file where you're not you haven't even encrypted the results,
Speaker 1: so there's no protection there. Like if someone does get
Speaker 1: access to that data somehow, no matter you know, whatever
Speaker 1: methodology you might need, they can make changes. And you
Speaker 1: know this is not just theoretical. And the state of
Speaker 1: Virginia de certified hundreds of wind vote e v m
Speaker 1: s because they were insecure, and according to the officials,
Speaker 1: you could change the votes in these wind vote machines
Speaker 1: undetected if you were anywhere within a half mile radius
Speaker 1: of the machine, even if you weren't like a knowledgeable
Speaker 1: hack like you don't want to have to get out
Speaker 1: of the car. It's like Pokemon go, but for election. Yeah. Um,
Speaker 1: that's crazy. Now. I should also add that according to
Speaker 1: the Wired article where I've pulled that from, UH, they
Speaker 1: never found any evidence that someone had tampered with the votes,
Speaker 1: but they did discover that the vulnerability was there, which
Speaker 1: meant that there was always the possibility someone could tamper
Speaker 1: with the votes, which is why they were de certified. Um. Luckily,
Speaker 1: at least according to the officials, it doesn't look like
Speaker 1: anyone actually managed to do that or took the time
Speaker 1: to do that, But that's that's a possibility that has
Speaker 1: to be addressed, right um. And that kind of brings
Speaker 1: us up to the hacking threat. So I don't know
Speaker 1: if you guys have been paying attention here in the
Speaker 1: United States. Earlier in hackers gained access to the Democratic
Speaker 1: National Convention databases and they stole a whole bunch of
Speaker 1: emails and files, more than twenty thousand of them, and UH,
Speaker 1: a lot of them were released by wiki leaks. Around
Speaker 1: twenty thousand were released by wiki leaks, but that doesn't
Speaker 1: mean that that's all of them. And there were a
Speaker 1: lot of questions like who the heck hacked into the
Speaker 1: d n C. Yeah, and we were pointing out a
Speaker 1: specific country and that country is Russia, thank you, but
Speaker 1: but it's want okay, yeah, all right, Well, so here's
Speaker 1: here's one of the things that makes this an interesting story,
Speaker 1: and into some degree the reports of it remind me
Speaker 1: a little bit of the famous Sony hack, right where
Speaker 1: they talking about North Korea being the culprit and you
Speaker 1: and I explored that together as well. So one of
Speaker 1: the big questions is to what end, to what what
Speaker 1: value would Russia's state sponsored hacking branch, which does exist,
Speaker 1: what what value would it see in interfering on such
Speaker 1: a minimal level at this point? Is this a buy
Speaker 1: in for blackmail? Further down the line, is this to
Speaker 1: discredit something? Because the d n C is a domestic
Speaker 1: facing organization, so it's a lot, it's much more. Um,
Speaker 1: it's an entirely different animal in comparison to something like
Speaker 1: a State Department server which would have stuff about Russia. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: any of those things like c I A are you
Speaker 1: know that would be another or n s A. Right,
Speaker 1: like the targets that you would think of if you
Speaker 1: wanted to gather a lot of intelligence yeah, and so
Speaker 1: the issue here. Initially, I I don't know about you,
Speaker 1: but initially I was skeptical because I thought, this, all
Speaker 1: this bear poking that's going on now is not gonna
Speaker 1: it's not. Yeah, yeah, it's not. It's not gonna. It's
Speaker 1: not gonna pay off. Because there is a reason that
Speaker 1: the Putin government has been in power for as long
Speaker 1: as it has, and it's it's because, as you know,
Speaker 1: this this government is seen. American presidents come and go,
Speaker 1: and they have a maybe a longer horizon politically sure
Speaker 1: when they contemplate these things. So I it's strange to
Speaker 1: see what appears to be harmless rhetoric trotted out against them. However,
Speaker 1: I had to rethink my skepticism on this when more
Speaker 1: than one security firm came out saying evidence indicates it's
Speaker 1: probably these guys. Yeah. As it turns out, a security
Speaker 1: firm immediately, pretty much shortly after the leak was was
Speaker 1: made public, said that the signs were pointing towards a
Speaker 1: Russian actor, um that the methodologies and software used were
Speaker 1: the same that had been employed by Russian state sponsored
Speaker 1: hacking groups in the past. And uh, there are some
Speaker 1: folks who said I'm you know, I don't think so.
Speaker 1: In fact, one um jusipher to point, oh hacker came
Speaker 1: out and said, no, no, no, it was me. I'm
Speaker 1: a lone wolf. I did it. It wasn't. I was
Speaker 1: the one who who stole all that and gave it
Speaker 1: over to Wiki leaks and uh. Although they also claimed
Speaker 1: that he was Romanian or he or she the hacker
Speaker 1: claimed that he or she was Romanian, but then when
Speaker 1: people were trying to communicate with him or her in Romanian, Uh,
Speaker 1: the responses did not seem particularly coherent, which seems to
Speaker 1: give the lie that they are in fact Romanian. But
Speaker 1: other security firms ended up corroborating the findings of the
Speaker 1: first one. They said, yeah, the exploits that were used,
Speaker 1: the malware that was used is identical to the type
Speaker 1: of malware that has been used by this Russian hacking group.
Speaker 1: It is exactly the m O that we've seen in
Speaker 1: other cases, including a case that involved the German parliament.
Speaker 1: In so uh, either it's again another Russian hacking group,
Speaker 1: or it's someone who learned everything they know from a
Speaker 1: Russian hacking group because it was identical in nature. Yes,
Speaker 1: So why would Russia want to infere interfere with the DNC.
Speaker 1: And I think the most distinct way of putting that
Speaker 1: is that Pewton doesn't like Clinton, huh. Kind of kind
Speaker 1: of what it boils down to is that Pewton uh
Speaker 1: and would not want Clinton and the White House well
Speaker 1: as president. Yeah, also as an active Secretary of State
Speaker 1: at times when NATO and NATO and Russia as well
Speaker 1: as its allies were engaged in geopolitical tensions that sparked
Speaker 1: into Right now, there's an ongoing proxy war in Syria
Speaker 1: and it's between Russia and between the U S. No,
Speaker 1: of course it's not being reported that way or marketed
Speaker 1: that way, but unless you're reading any media outside of
Speaker 1: the US or Russia, in which case everyone says RUSSI
Speaker 1: and who backs the Syrian government and the US that
Speaker 1: backs the rebels like, and that goes across political spectrum.
Speaker 1: I'm glad you pointed that out. So you know, a
Speaker 1: very very um historically conservative papers of note in England,
Speaker 1: like like the magazine The Economist or the much more
Speaker 1: liberal paper The Independent, will both pretty much say what
Speaker 1: it is. It's just we don't talk about it here
Speaker 1: on CNN. Uh. There is, there is an antagonistic thing.
Speaker 1: So I would say there's probably resentment or concern about
Speaker 1: having a commander of chief who knows all the State
Speaker 1: Department's skeletons and including the Russian ones. And then additionally,
Speaker 1: and there always has to be a question when there's
Speaker 1: this level of nepotism in American politics, where the because
Speaker 1: we had the son of a former president become president
Speaker 1: somehow in a meritocracy, and then actually right right multiple times,
Speaker 1: and then having the um the spouse of a former
Speaker 1: president be in the running for president. What's really crazy
Speaker 1: is if you ever see a family tree of all
Speaker 1: the presidents and see how much except for that one,
Speaker 1: there's like one guy. Yeah, but everyone is pretty much
Speaker 1: everyone else's cousin at at most. And there's an interesting
Speaker 1: mathematical aspect to that, because if you go for far
Speaker 1: enough out or the further you go, the more people
Speaker 1: you're related to us, like I've probably you're probably sixteen
Speaker 1: cousins with someone that would completely it would completely baffle you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and so that I mean, that's true, but I could
Speaker 1: see that it. I could see the Russian government having
Speaker 1: that kind of concern, but also funding wise, uh, funding wise,
Speaker 1: and infrastructural wise, they're pretty strapped for cash right now
Speaker 1: and strapped for manpower as well, So it's a question
Speaker 1: of how well quick they are as well as how
Speaker 1: motivated they are. Right and and let's also point out
Speaker 1: that hacking the d n C is different than hacking
Speaker 1: an election, because, like I said earlier, with the electronic
Speaker 1: voting machines, you have all these different targets, with all
Speaker 1: these different softwares, Whereas hacking the d n C means
Speaker 1: focusing on a single target, not looking at a bunch
Speaker 1: of different targets across the United States. So that requires
Speaker 1: less of an investment. I mean, it's still, you know,
Speaker 1: obviously requires a great deal deal of work in order
Speaker 1: to find to create a vulnerability or to exploit a vulnerability,
Speaker 1: But it's different than having to target whole bunch of
Speaker 1: different machines. But it has raised the question a lot
Speaker 1: of people have asked, well, if they hacked the DNC,
Speaker 1: could Russia also interfere with the actual election of sixteen
Speaker 1: uh And Wired's Brian Barrett, who wrote one of the
Speaker 1: articles I read for this episode, specifically says he does
Speaker 1: not think so. Uh most because if in fact Russia
Speaker 1: wanted to interfere with the election, it would not have
Speaker 1: also targeted the DNC database and hacked into it, because
Speaker 1: once everyone finds out about that, then you are on
Speaker 1: high alert for the election. Uh And so if you
Speaker 1: wanted to hack the election, you would not want people
Speaker 1: to know that you were capable of doing something on
Speaker 1: that scale before you did it. You don't want to
Speaker 1: You don't don't monologue in front of James Bond before
Speaker 1: you push the button exactly exactly. And it's not the
Speaker 1: first time at the geopolitical rodeo. So they've done this
Speaker 1: if Yeah, they're they're old hands at uh and as
Speaker 1: as is the United States. I'm not giving the US
Speaker 1: a pass. Yeah, we've got any major player in geopolitics.
Speaker 1: There's some dark stuff going on, which in regimes the
Speaker 1: way that people named Chad changed cargo pants right, So
Speaker 1: probably Russia has not gone to be uh involved. And
Speaker 1: plus again it would it would require a much broader
Speaker 1: attack that would require multiple strategies and where for you
Speaker 1: to play it out. So but the fact that the
Speaker 1: possibility has been raised again creates uncertainty among the US public,
Speaker 1: and that alone is enough to cause a lack of
Speaker 1: confidence and results. Right, we've already seen I mean Trump
Speaker 1: has even said, like I expect there's gonna be a
Speaker 1: lot of tampering involved in this, uh in this election,
Speaker 1: already bringing into question the results which haven't happened yet.
Speaker 1: It's like he's it's like he's already said we can't
Speaker 1: trust what the results will say. And we haven't even
Speaker 1: gone into the voting booths. We're just about to wrap
Speaker 1: up this discussion about electronic voting machines. But before we
Speaker 1: get to that, let's take another quick break. What do
Speaker 1: we think how do we wrap this wall up? Well,
Speaker 1: first we should remember that while in Georgia it's hard,
Speaker 1: it's easy for us to forget we're in the minority,
Speaker 1: not everyone is using an electronic voting machine to cast
Speaker 1: their vote. In fact, according to uh UM Pamela Smith
Speaker 1: of Verified Voting, about the nation will vote on some
Speaker 1: form of paper ballot in the two thousand sixteen election,
Speaker 1: only us using other methods. So there's not some maniacal
Speaker 1: corporate super villain who's out to rig the election across
Speaker 1: the nation for the Clinton campaign, the Trump campaign, or
Speaker 1: Gary Busey, right right, Gary Busey can try and infect
Speaker 1: as many computers as he wants, but as it turns out,
Speaker 1: unless he's figured out away to replace all the choices
Speaker 1: on a paper ballot with Gary Busey, which would be amazing,
Speaker 1: I kind of want to see an official ballot that
Speaker 1: just as Gary Busey as all the different options, like
Speaker 1: including including the resolutions that are exactly Unless he's able
Speaker 1: to do that, then it's not going to have that
Speaker 1: big of a scale of impact. So so this is
Speaker 1: also some of that fear uncertainty in doubt, right, Like,
Speaker 1: on the one hand, yes, these systems are not as
Speaker 1: secure as they should be. They aren't encrypting data, which
Speaker 1: they should be, or at least not all of them are. Um,
Speaker 1: they not all of them have paper trails. Even the
Speaker 1: ones that do have paper trails may not the state
Speaker 1: may not require a post election audit, which they absolutely
Speaker 1: lee should. Also, the paper trails may not be voter
Speaker 1: or verifiable, which they absolutely should be, so that we
Speaker 1: can be well, so that we can have confidence that
Speaker 1: the results announced are in fact reflective of the actual
Speaker 1: choices that people made. Whether it's in favor of your
Speaker 1: candidate or against your candidate, you want to know that
Speaker 1: the results it happened. We're real and not reflective of
Speaker 1: someone else's machiavellian plan to put put a specific person
Speaker 1: in power, or specific group in power, or specific set
Speaker 1: of laws into play. You want to feel like the
Speaker 1: process works, and in order to do that, you need
Speaker 1: this verifiable voter trail. You need to have these post
Speaker 1: election audits. And not everywhere has that ability or option.
Speaker 1: So now that's one thing. Um. Another thing to remember
Speaker 1: is that, uh, it's hard to get these systems up
Speaker 1: to date and at that level where we could be
Speaker 1: confident in their results, because again, it costs money, and
Speaker 1: it's politically difficult to convince groups to spend that money,
Speaker 1: specifically to upgrade election equipment. Keeping in mind that this
Speaker 1: is stuff that's used only a couple of times a
Speaker 1: year at most, right, Like you might have to if
Speaker 1: you are very active in your local community, you may
Speaker 1: be voting maybe a couple of times per year, depending
Speaker 1: upon how things are run in your area. Uh, some
Speaker 1: people only come out to vote for the presidential elections.
Speaker 1: They don't vote for any of the other ones. And
Speaker 1: so it's hard to justify like you're gonna spend X
Speaker 1: million dollars this year for equipment that you're gonna be
Speaker 1: able to use maybe in two elections before you need
Speaker 1: to like to general elections before you need to upgrade
Speaker 1: the equipment again. And there's a great argument about open
Speaker 1: sourcing yware exactly. So I mean, I think I would
Speaker 1: love to see more transparency both on that open source approach,
Speaker 1: so people can make sure there's no inherent bias in
Speaker 1: the code again, conscious or not, because there there are
Speaker 1: times where people can insert of by us without even
Speaker 1: thinking they are right like that that just happens because
Speaker 1: we're human. You don't have to be making a conscious
Speaker 1: decision to be a jerk to create. Yeah, And there's
Speaker 1: also there's also a perception problem that comes out post event,
Speaker 1: which is, you know, humans are intensely tribalistic. It's we're
Speaker 1: not particularly fact based creatures, unfortunately, and because we were,
Speaker 1: we evolved to live off of perceptions. So what what
Speaker 1: inevitably happens is no matter what side of the political
Speaker 1: aisle you find yourself kicking it on the people who
Speaker 1: feel that their candidate has one or when a candidate wins,
Speaker 1: the supporters will say the system works. These people who
Speaker 1: object to my candidate are just total Yeah, just sour grapes,
Speaker 1: these n income poops. They don't understand. And of course
Speaker 1: I would be I would be a dignified, a dignified,
Speaker 1: dissenting voice if I, you know, if I didn't pick
Speaker 1: the obviously the best candidate, which if the other and
Speaker 1: it had one, which they didn't, but if they had,
Speaker 1: then I would have been a gracious loser. However, in
Speaker 1: the alternative, in the alternative, university schrod Injur's cat this
Speaker 1: for a second, what what would happen if the same
Speaker 1: people lost? They would say, well, the systems rigged. It
Speaker 1: was rigged from the beginning. It was rigged because the media.
Speaker 1: The media reported things in such a way as to
Speaker 1: minimize the the opponents flaws and maximize my candidates flaws
Speaker 1: which didn't even really exist. They manufactured flaws and then
Speaker 1: they maximize them and etcetera, etcetera. And this this is
Speaker 1: like a natural sort of thing that happens. We're not
Speaker 1: trying to vilify anyone in particular or any political party,
Speaker 1: to be honest, we've already seen it here in the
Speaker 1: US this year, just through the primaries. Primaries happened. You
Speaker 1: saw people who were like progressives, who were supporting Bernie Sanders. Uh,
Speaker 1: refusing to believe that Clinton had won the primary. Now
Speaker 1: there's another Uh, there's another Wally Adell situation there. However, Yes,
Speaker 1: where you had the the chairwoman of the Democratic Convention
Speaker 1: who in some of those leaked messages that Wiki Leaks released, Uh,
Speaker 1: it was clear that she was favoring She she personally
Speaker 1: favored Clinton over Sanders. Whether that actually ever had any
Speaker 1: effect beyond her personal beliefs is less clear. In fact,
Speaker 1: the evidence doesn't really support that there was like a
Speaker 1: a concentrated effort to diminish Sanders to a point where
Speaker 1: he would be he would not be allowed to be
Speaker 1: a candidate. Um. That doesn't mean that it didn't happen.
Speaker 1: It just means that there wasn't like a smoking gun
Speaker 1: from that Wiki Leaks release. Yeah. But again, just like
Speaker 1: a PR company would see Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who was
Speaker 1: the head of that who was the head of the
Speaker 1: convention at the time, did write and vociferously supported, uh,
Speaker 1: the Clinton campaign. So whether or not there was any shenaniganry, yeah,
Speaker 1: I just barely stumbled through that word. Whether or not
Speaker 1: there was the fact of the matter is that it
Speaker 1: increases Uh, distrust and fear and uncertainty you said earlier, Right,
Speaker 1: so you get this lack of confidence in the system. Uh.
Speaker 1: And obviously that's not the direction we want to move in.
Speaker 1: We want to move in a direction where everyone is
Speaker 1: at least confident that their voices being heard. It may
Speaker 1: turn out that their voice does isn't powerful enough to
Speaker 1: make the change they want, which is frustrating obviously, but
Speaker 1: less so than feeling like you are being ignored or
Speaker 1: purposefully silenced. Right, you don't want that at all. But
Speaker 1: so is the direct democracy really an answer, because if
Speaker 1: we define direct democracy as well, let's see, for example,
Speaker 1: one of the best arguments against direct democracy. Alright, ch okay,
Speaker 1: anyone with anyone with an Internet connection can go on
Speaker 1: there and say whatever they want. And now we're starting
Speaker 1: to see the priorities of a massive people without some
Speaker 1: kind of structure to their interaction. Well, uh I, I'm
Speaker 1: really in favor of um approaching this from a plurality standpoint,
Speaker 1: where at least in most areas of government, where you
Speaker 1: make sure that the representatives of government reflect the levels
Speaker 1: of support in the general population. So instead instead of
Speaker 1: it being like every single position is determined by a majority.
Speaker 1: If you have a plurality, then you say, all right,
Speaker 1: well X percentage of Congress must be made up of
Speaker 1: this party because that reflects the American the American voters.
Speaker 1: And then this why percentage must be of this other
Speaker 1: party because that represents and then these independents also won
Speaker 1: this amount, so they should take up these seats. But
Speaker 1: that would be a totally different approach to government than
Speaker 1: the way the United States is structured, and it could
Speaker 1: get complicated. Who from where, from what? But this is
Speaker 1: already complicated. Could I could I plug some stuff real quickly? Alright, So,
Speaker 1: first off, thank you so much for having me on,
Speaker 1: and ladies and gentlemen, uh off the Jury, I almost
Speaker 1: said of the podcast Jury, thank you so thank you
Speaker 1: so much for checking out this episode. If you're interested
Speaker 1: in this. In this process, um, Jonathan and I have
Speaker 1: looked at some other some other tech related conspiracy theories,
Speaker 1: including that Sony hack, and you've been on several episodes together.
Speaker 1: So you can find all of those in either one
Speaker 1: of our various internet uh presences. There are videos or
Speaker 1: podcasts or you know sometimes the mad scribblings on a
Speaker 1: blog somewhere. Yes, yes, uh, the whispers of the whispers
Speaker 1: of a a person passing you buy on a moonless
Speaker 1: night at the crossroads. Occasionally you'll just be in the
Speaker 1: woods and you'll hear the sound of a baby laughing.
Speaker 1: And if you listen very carefully, just before the blair
Speaker 1: witch gets you, you'll hear at any rate. Right, yes, uh,
Speaker 1: that's uh, that's how we met. So there's another There
Speaker 1: are another couple of things that I think would be
Speaker 1: worth your time to check out if you're interested in
Speaker 1: this subject that's specifically applied to uh, the U S.
Speaker 1: Voting system and stuff they want you to know. Has
Speaker 1: a couple of videos about this. We have one about
Speaker 1: the Federal Election Commission, one that's a grab bag of
Speaker 1: political conspiracies for seen, and then one thing called five
Speaker 1: things you should know about primary elections. So do check
Speaker 1: this out. They are free on the internet. Well, I
Speaker 1: mean they're free, you know, assuming that you have an
Speaker 1: Internet connection, right, Yeah, the content is free. The manner
Speaker 1: of trans mission may be uh, somewhat less so depending
Speaker 1: on whether or not you're at the local library. And
Speaker 1: no wonder this is maybe a forward thinking question that
Speaker 1: you know. Jonathan has another show called forward Thinking the
Speaker 1: Future of voting. So go ahead and hit me. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a future it's a future facing show about the
Speaker 1: evolution of tech. Did you Did you touch on anything
Speaker 1: about machine consciousness or artificial intelligence and voting a couple
Speaker 1: of times. Actually, we did an episode specifically about what
Speaker 1: it would be like to have a robot as president?
Speaker 1: Would you ever want a future where a robot could
Speaker 1: be president? Uh? The idea being that if you had
Speaker 1: a truly impartial, artificially intelligent creature that would be able
Speaker 1: to make choices that are the greatest benefit and the
Speaker 1: least detriment to the population. Would you want to do that?
Speaker 1: Or do you think humanity is absolutely essential in order
Speaker 1: for you to have a leader? We did an episode
Speaker 1: about that. We also did an episode about the future
Speaker 1: of voting and some of the pitfalls, including things like
Speaker 1: machine intelligence, Uh in the future. That one was not
Speaker 1: too long ago. That that published, probably was about a
Speaker 1: month or two ago maybe, So, Yeah, we've got some
Speaker 1: stuff that we've talked about. I personally think that there
Speaker 1: are a lot of problems we need to solve in
Speaker 1: the immediate future that uh, some of which would would
Speaker 1: avoid the machine learning artificial intelligence question for quite some time,
Speaker 1: because um, like there there have been people who have asked, well,
Speaker 1: what about the possibility of voting via the internet, the
Speaker 1: idea being that if you could vote via in an internet,
Speaker 1: you could drive up voter participation dramatically. You've you, the
Speaker 1: more you reduce the investment required to participate, the more
Speaker 1: people will participate. That's the idea, right, So if you
Speaker 1: make it less of a chore to vote, more people
Speaker 1: will vote. Because that that's one of those ongoing narratives
Speaker 1: in the United States, right, that's such a small, relatively
Speaker 1: small percentage of our population actually participates in the process,
Speaker 1: particularly if it's not a presidential election. Yeah, I think though,
Speaker 1: I think that people should I know this is controversial,
Speaker 1: but I think people should be required to vote. I
Speaker 1: think it should be part of the stuff you have
Speaker 1: to do, and there's not there's not very much stuff
Speaker 1: you have to do. Uh, if you were born here
Speaker 1: to be a citizen's services, there's actually way more stuff
Speaker 1: that you aren't supposed to do. Yeah, there's a much
Speaker 1: bigger list of do not. But I think it's While
Speaker 1: it's controversial, it's a good system to consider because then
Speaker 1: we will see all of the people who for one
Speaker 1: reason or another. We're not able to get time off
Speaker 1: to vote. We're not able to get which is which is,
Speaker 1: by the way, illegal. You are supposed to be your
Speaker 1: employer is supposed to allow you the time to vote.
Speaker 1: That's it's illegal in theory. It's a legal in theory
Speaker 1: and practice it is much different, right, Yeah, I mean again,
Speaker 1: just like we were talking about with the electronic voting machines.
Speaker 1: Ideally it works one way. In reality it may work
Speaker 1: a totally different way. There are countries that have compulsory voting.
Speaker 1: Because often when you see the United States the voting numbers,
Speaker 1: the percentage of people participating, it will be compared against
Speaker 1: other nations and say, look, how terrible the US turnout
Speaker 1: is compared to these countries. And then you start looking like, yeah,
Speaker 1: but four of those countries you listed require everyone to vote.
Speaker 1: So therefore, first of all, that none of them are
Speaker 1: at a ent, so someone slacken. And secondly, that's not
Speaker 1: fair to to hold up a country that doesn't have
Speaker 1: compulsory voting against ones that do. Um, I don't know
Speaker 1: that I whoever go with compulsory I kind of I
Speaker 1: kind of feel you, I mean, I kind of I
Speaker 1: want I want to see more people involved in it,
Speaker 1: whether it's but I also don't know the reasons behind
Speaker 1: people not voting, right, If they're not voting because there
Speaker 1: is an uh a hardship on them in order to
Speaker 1: participate in the system, It's not like I can blame them, right,
Speaker 1: if there's some form of hardship, whether it's economic or
Speaker 1: it's just you know, practical, like how do I get
Speaker 1: to the voting station, whatever it may be. I have
Speaker 1: a lot of sympathy for those people. And I even
Speaker 1: have sympathy for people who have lost confidence in the
Speaker 1: system and the reason they don't vote is because they
Speaker 1: feel like their vote doesn't really have um an impact.
Speaker 1: And I can certainly see, especially based upon the rhetoric
Speaker 1: that you tend to be subjected to in the election seasons,
Speaker 1: how you can get disillusioned and sad and therefore you're like,
Speaker 1: I kind of just want to disappear until this is over. UM.
Speaker 1: Although this every time there's an election, it's really important,
Speaker 1: very very important, including at the local level, maybe especially
Speaker 1: at the local level. UM. Here in the US, we
Speaker 1: give a lot of attention to the presidential elections. Truth
Speaker 1: to be known, your local elections are going to have
Speaker 1: a much larger impact on your day to day life
Speaker 1: than your national ones. Um, but obviously that's not the
Speaker 1: big story. You're looking at who Who's who's sitting on
Speaker 1: the on the throne I'm sorry in the oval office.
Speaker 1: I'm the Royalist, so I have a little bit of
Speaker 1: a different view on things. Um, I'm not really a royalist.
Speaker 1: So well that that was a great discussion about it.
Speaker 1: Obviously we got a little philosophical and um, you know,
Speaker 1: I don't want anyone to base their political opinion on
Speaker 1: anything I say. I think it's very important for you
Speaker 1: to form your own even if I fully disagree with it,
Speaker 1: I respect the fact that you guys have a political opinion.
Speaker 1: So I'm not trying to sway anyone to my side. Um,
Speaker 1: which is good because your side is crazy. My side
Speaker 1: votes Reagan uh in this election. Yeah, he's he's he's
Speaker 1: passed on and yet I write it in. Also, by
Speaker 1: the way, you may not be able to write in
Speaker 1: a president presidential candidate. Not all states allow it. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a bummer. I think it's like forty seven states
Speaker 1: allow it, so there's like three that do not. Something
Speaker 1: like that. You know what probably happens somebody was screwing
Speaker 1: around too much with what they thought was a great bit,
Speaker 1: and they were like, guys, we cannot make we cannot
Speaker 1: make the pink panther the state senator or build a cat,
Speaker 1: or build a cat. Bloom County has run the presidential
Speaker 1: candidacy quite a few times, right, Yeah, so, uh, maybe
Speaker 1: it's just the joke gone wrong. But if you're in
Speaker 1: one of the vast majority of states and you want
Speaker 1: to write a vote in, then civic Seneca right as
Speaker 1: a citizen of the United States. Some would argue your
Speaker 1: moral responsibility depends on your on your perspective on the candidates,
Speaker 1: I suppose, but I didn't the rate there we go
Speaker 1: see at any rate. That's how you know it's me
Speaker 1: when you hear that voice in the woods. Uh. Thank
Speaker 1: you again Ben for being on the show. And that
Speaker 1: wraps up this pair of classic episodes. Thank you so
Speaker 1: much for listening. I think these are very important things
Speaker 1: for us to be aware of, things that we need
Speaker 1: to pay very close attention to. We can't just take
Speaker 1: for granted that the systems that we have in place
Speaker 1: to allow us to to participate in the democratic process
Speaker 1: just work or that they just don't work. We need
Speaker 1: to really examine them, ask questions, make ourselves accountable, and
Speaker 1: make certain that we still have a system that people
Speaker 1: can believe in. It's hard enough out there right now
Speaker 1: to find representatives sometimes that actually reflect our own values.
Speaker 1: That can be a real challenge. We don't need to
Speaker 1: make it even harder by making the process one that
Speaker 1: we feel we cannot rely upon. We need that process
Speaker 1: to be rock solid. I hope you guys enjoyed these
Speaker 1: classic episodes. Will be back with a new episode in
Speaker 1: Wednesday's show, so stick around for that. And uh yeah,
Speaker 1: I apologize for running reruns in a way, but at
Speaker 1: the same time, I just felt like this is something
Speaker 1: that we need to think about, especially in the advance
Speaker 1: of another election year here in the United States. We
Speaker 1: really need to pay attention to this stuff and be
Speaker 1: active participants if we want to make any real substantive change.
Speaker 1: All right, guys, if you want to reach out to me,
Speaker 1: you can do so on Facebook or Twitter. The handle
Speaker 1: for both of those is text stuff hs W and
Speaker 1: I'll talk to you again really soon. Text Stuff is
Speaker 1: an I Heart Radio production. For more podcasts from My
Speaker 1: Heart Radio, visit the I heart radio, app, Apple podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.