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Speaker 1: Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from how

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Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. Hey there, and welcome to Tech Stuff.

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Speaker 1: I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer at

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Speaker 1: how Stuff Works in a love all things tech usually,

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Speaker 1: but today we're gonna talk about a type of technology

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Speaker 1: that can have either positive or negative effect depending upon

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Speaker 1: how it's implemented. And joining me today is someone that, uh,

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Speaker 1: I'm really excited could join us on the show. I'm

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Speaker 1: talking about Bob Sullivan, a founding member of MSNBC, the

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Speaker 1: guy behind Bob Sullivan dot net ak the Red Tape Chronicles.

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Speaker 1: He's also a co host on a show called The Breach.

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Speaker 1: It's All about Data Breaches. Season one, which is phenomenal,

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Speaker 1: is all about the massive data breach that happened with

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Speaker 1: Yahoo with three billion accounts exposed as a result of

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Speaker 1: that data breach. And now they're gearing up. Season two

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Speaker 1: is starting, and you're here to talk to us about

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Speaker 1: voting machines, elect and and elections and how technology intersects

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Speaker 1: with that and how that how that can be somewhat

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Speaker 1: terrifying in some ways. Welcome to the show, Bob, Sure,

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Speaker 1: thanks for having me. Really important topic, right now, so

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Speaker 1: I'm glad we're talking about it. Yeah, me too. And

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Speaker 1: for interest of full disclosure, I live in the state

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Speaker 1: of Georgia here in the United States, and Georgia is

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Speaker 1: a state that adopted touchscreen electronic voting machines very early,

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Speaker 1: back in two thousand two, I think is when we started,

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Speaker 1: and it's statewide here at Georgia and UH we we

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Speaker 1: have a lot of things that I hesitate to use

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Speaker 1: the word distinguish, but really kind of highlight some of

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Speaker 1: the shoes I have with UH direct recording devices like this,

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Speaker 1: the biggest one being that in Georgia, there's no associated

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Speaker 1: paper trail with any of the voting record, So when

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Speaker 1: a voter goes in and casts his or her ballot,

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Speaker 1: there's no paper receipt where they can check that the

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Speaker 1: results showing up on screen are reflected on paper, and

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Speaker 1: therefore there's no real way to do a full audit afterward.

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Speaker 1: And I think best case scenario, and Bob you can,

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Speaker 1: I want to hear your input as well, but best

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Speaker 1: case scenario for me is that even assuming there's no

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Speaker 1: hanky panky going on, there's no interference in the election process.

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Speaker 1: It it hurts the the appearance of the democratic process

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Speaker 1: because it inserts the concept of doubt without being able

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Speaker 1: to audit those results and say yes, in fact, the

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Speaker 1: votes that were cast are the votes that were recorded.

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Speaker 1: What what's your point of view on that particular topic. Well,

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Speaker 1: that's the most important point at all. You've started at

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Speaker 1: the punch line, which is fine. Um. Vote hacking is

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Speaker 1: a complicated subject. In Georgia, you're very intimate with it

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Speaker 1: at the moment, but all around the country there are Um,

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Speaker 1: it's not just the machines, there's a whole life cycle

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Speaker 1: of how your vote might be hacked or um suede

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Speaker 1: or made to disappear. There's lots of different ways that

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Speaker 1: votes can be manipulated. But something that's just the most

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Speaker 1: fundamental thing about voting and about democracy is that when

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Speaker 1: the election is over and the results are posted, that

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Speaker 1: the losers believe in the legitimacy of the election. And

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Speaker 1: when they don't, that creates a tremendous governance problem. So

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Speaker 1: faith in the institution of voting itself is fundamental to America.

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Speaker 1: And faith isn't an on off switch. And we're seeing

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Speaker 1: this right now in lots of different ways, right, Um,

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Speaker 1: But whether or not people believe in the integrity of

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Speaker 1: the voting process itself. We'll say a lot about how

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Speaker 1: we're governed. And in Georgia you mentioned paper. Um, the

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Speaker 1: irony here we are on a tech podcast and we're

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Speaker 1: talking about the latest and greatest technology, and we're here

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Speaker 1: in the country with the latest and greatest entrepreneurs and

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Speaker 1: the latest and greatest inventions, and anyone you talked to

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Speaker 1: in the the voting hacking space will tell you the

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Speaker 1: most important thing is paper. So we're going backwards here

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Speaker 1: in some ways, but it all comes down to paper

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Speaker 1: because there has to be some way to audit a

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Speaker 1: vote afterwards. And if there's not, then you have a

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Speaker 1: black box and people are walking up to it and

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Speaker 1: touching a screen and you just trust that is going

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Speaker 1: to work. And anybody who works in the technology world,

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Speaker 1: we we're just having this conversation before we started this podcast.

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Speaker 1: Tech often breaks everybody. Who's I mean, in the simplest example,

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Speaker 1: how many times have you walked up to an a

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Speaker 1: t M and tried to get forty dollars out of

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Speaker 1: the machine and you accidentally hit the sixty button. Happens

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Speaker 1: all the time. That's that can be a calibration thing.

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Speaker 1: It can even be an angle thing. So that's just

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Speaker 1: one of you know, fifty ways that things can go

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Speaker 1: wrong just on the one kind of voting machine that

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Speaker 1: we started talking about. So this is a big, rich topic.

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Speaker 1: But legitimacy is the most important thing. And it's it's

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Speaker 1: interesting that you bring up the A t M example

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Speaker 1: because obviously there was the the it became somewhat infamous

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Speaker 1: in text circles. But die Bald, the company that makes

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Speaker 1: a lot of A t M s for a long time,

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Speaker 1: was in the business of making these voting machines for

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Speaker 1: various places, and uh in two thousand and four it

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Speaker 1: was a huge story. The CEO of Diebald, Walden w Adell,

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Speaker 1: had written a letter to various wealthy acquaintances he had

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Speaker 1: in and a fundraising effort for the Republican Party and

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Speaker 1: said that he was looking forward to delivering the electoral

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Speaker 1: votes to get the president back into office. And a

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Speaker 1: lot of people said, well, whether he intended it to

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Speaker 1: be we're going to make sure this happens versus I

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Speaker 1: want to, you know, support this candidate I believe in

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Speaker 1: is kind of beside the point, because again, it brought

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Speaker 1: that doubt into the democratic process. If if people point

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Speaker 1: to him and say, but you make the machines that

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Speaker 1: count the votes, and you say you plan on delivering

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Speaker 1: these votes to a specific candidate, that kind of has

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Speaker 1: a very dangerous implication in it. And as you say

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Speaker 1: it's this, it's you already have this level of this

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Speaker 1: hurdle that you have to overcome when you're designing any

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Speaker 1: kind of system for voting. To make sure that the

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Speaker 1: process is as straightforward and as difficult to mess up

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Speaker 1: on the users side as possible. The whole keep it simple,

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Speaker 1: stupid kind of approach really would be a huge benefit

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Speaker 1: when you're designing any sort of voting system. Two give

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Speaker 1: confidence to the voter that whatever choices they want to

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Speaker 1: make are actually reflected in the votes that they're casting.

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Speaker 1: And uh, as you say, with a T M S,

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Speaker 1: it's easy enough to make a mistake. Those same companies

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Speaker 1: are designing some of these electronic voting systems. And anyone

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Speaker 1: who's worked with engineers for a long time understands that

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Speaker 1: engineers are very good at building systems that make sense

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Speaker 1: to engineers. Sometimes they build systems that are not so

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Speaker 1: transparent to the end user. Sure, and the other thing

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Speaker 1: that engineers, um some engineers do is they like to

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Speaker 1: keep their code to themselves. So another problem with Dibuld

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Speaker 1: and another voting machine companies has been, okay, so you

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Speaker 1: have this who knows what he meant, I'm going to

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Speaker 1: deliver the votes that. You can hear that in an

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Speaker 1: innocent way. You can hear that in a suspicious way.

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Speaker 1: But then when in this computer security world, what often

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Speaker 1: happens is if you want to prove that you're a

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Speaker 1: very secure piece of software, you offer it up to

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Speaker 1: the open source community and let it let it be reviewed,

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Speaker 1: and you submit yourself to vulnerability testing. You even vulnerability

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Speaker 1: bounties and the voting machine industry in general has been

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Speaker 1: very late to this entire process of of inviting hackers

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Speaker 1: in and helping them, letting the hackers help them secure

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Speaker 1: their machines. For the most part, the entire sort of

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Speaker 1: voting complex has been very defensive about this process. And

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Speaker 1: that's another reason for another layer of suspicion. So there's

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Speaker 1: there's that black box behind what's going on in these

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Speaker 1: voting machines. Until fairly recently, it was for the most

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Speaker 1: part illegal to tinker with voting machine software because of

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Speaker 1: Digital Rights management rules. UM, the Library of Congress recently

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Speaker 1: changed rules, and that's why we're seeing and been hearing

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Speaker 1: so much more about machine hacking because they've temporarily temporarily

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Speaker 1: created this research window whereby hackers can actually buy machines

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Speaker 1: if they can buy them on eBay or whatnot, and

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Speaker 1: then try to hack them. And that's why you might

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Speaker 1: recall that in the summer at the big Las Vegas

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Speaker 1: Hacker Convention def Con, they had something called the Voting

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Speaker 1: Village and last year was the first time. This member

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Speaker 1: was the second time they did it, all because of

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Speaker 1: this Library of Congress ruling. They bought a bunch of machines,

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Speaker 1: They invited a bunch of packers into the room, and

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Speaker 1: they said go to town. And of course the results

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Speaker 1: were probably what you are are guessing. Lots of these

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Speaker 1: machines are hackable. UM. I want to take one step back, though.

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Speaker 1: You mentioned that your machines are from two thousand two,

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Speaker 1: and that's not an accident, that's on purpose. UM. All

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Speaker 1: of the country, all over the country are these fifteen

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Speaker 1: year old voting machines that are essentially the byproduct of

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Speaker 1: something called the Help America Vote Act and that was

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Speaker 1: the result of the Bush v. Gore uh controversy in

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Speaker 1: the year two thousand. Remember the hanging chads and people

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Speaker 1: staring at screens all the time, and America at that

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Speaker 1: point said, oh, we have to update our voting technology.

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Speaker 1: Why are we using this nineteen seventies era machines with

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Speaker 1: these big levers in these punch cards that you know,

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Speaker 1: are like from an IBM basement computer. In the fifties,

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Speaker 1: so the federal government made a bunch of money available

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Speaker 1: for localities, for states and counties to buy new voting machines,

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Speaker 1: and so there was a gold rush. Everybody went to

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Speaker 1: buy what was then the latest technology, which looked something

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Speaker 1: like an a t M machine. Um. But the problem is,

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Speaker 1: and I think this is the point I'd really like

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Speaker 1: to stress more than any the federal government can't tell

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Speaker 1: jurisdictions how to collect votes. And there are something like

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Speaker 1: ten thousand different entities all across America and overseas that

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Speaker 1: can collect votes in America, ten thousand, and all of

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Speaker 1: them decide on their own what kind of machine, what

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Speaker 1: kind of procedures they're going to use. So anybody who's

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Speaker 1: ever moved and gone to vote realizes, wait, this process

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Speaker 1: is totally different from the last process that I used. Now,

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Speaker 1: think about how how hard it is for a billion

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Speaker 1: dollar company to secure its systems. And now I want

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Speaker 1: you to think about ten thousand voting jurisdictions, all of

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Speaker 1: whom need to have some cybersecurity expert connected to their process.

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Speaker 1: There aren't ten thousand qualified people in the world period

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Speaker 1: to do that, let alone that these jurisdictions have the

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Speaker 1: money to pay for that. So it's a very very

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Speaker 1: tricky problem, and we're only to beginning to come scratch

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Speaker 1: the surface of how we fix it. Yes, and in

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Speaker 1: the United States it is incredibly complicated. I mean in Georgia,

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Speaker 1: for the longest time, the the responsibility of getting the

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Speaker 1: infrastructure in place to even cast votes was left up

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Speaker 1: to the county level. It was only later that it

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Speaker 1: became a state level thing, which was largely to install

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Speaker 1: these these electronic voting machines. We've obviously, again not to

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Speaker 1: harangue my home state, but we've also had a recent

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Speaker 1: controversy about the the the the central server for a

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Speaker 1: counting up the votes and whether or not it was

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Speaker 1: the target of Russian hackers a few years ago, and

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Speaker 1: the story unfolded that the main server that was being

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Speaker 1: tested was over in Kinnesaw State University, was part of

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Speaker 1: the overall system that was in charge of tabulating all

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Speaker 1: these votes up run by Center for Election Systems here

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Speaker 1: in Georgia. And there was a lawsuit that was brought

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Speaker 1: together to get more access to this technology to understand

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Speaker 1: what potential vulnerabilities there might be, whether or not any

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Speaker 1: hackers had actually managed to penetrate that, And then the

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Speaker 1: word got out that the server had been wiped, and

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Speaker 1: then a month later the backup servers had been wiped, which, again,

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Speaker 1: even if nothing bad happened, casts doubt on legitimacy. And

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Speaker 1: it is you some could argue a method of voter suppression,

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Speaker 1: it ends up demoralizing the voting base. Uh. And it

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Speaker 1: is incredibly complicated, and not just from it. This is

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Speaker 1: a psychology thing, not just a technology thing. And it

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Speaker 1: does not help that we know that Russian hackers were

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Speaker 1: targeting various election systems, or at least probing election systems

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Speaker 1: throughout the United States and two thousand you know, fourteen

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Speaker 1: fifteen through two thousand sixteen, right right, I think this

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Speaker 1: is a really important point, and we're racing out a

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Speaker 1: mini version of the Breach podcast to deal with this,

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Speaker 1: and and I actually would just like to stress one thing.

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Speaker 1: Of course, when you think about voting hacking, you think

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Speaker 1: about somebody switching a vote in a machine. I've voted

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Speaker 1: for Bush, the machine thinks score and and so on.

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Speaker 1: But but voting hacking, air quotes hacking actually has a

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Speaker 1: much much wider life cycle than that, And it begins

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Speaker 1: all the way with you already suggested it with voter suppression,

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Speaker 1: with you deciding you're going to vote or not and

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Speaker 1: who you're going to vote for, so that process can

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Speaker 1: be hacked. And again we have evidence of this from

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Speaker 1: that outsidentities can can create false news stories that say

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Speaker 1: the the Pope has endorsed Donald Trump, for example, or

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Speaker 1: one of a thousand other fake news stories that that

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Speaker 1: you utilize this propaganda too, is to do one of

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Speaker 1: two things. Either confuse the electorate or depress the electric

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Speaker 1: so people don't bother to vote or don't bother to register.

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Speaker 1: That's only one step. The next step is you actually register,

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Speaker 1: and how does that happen, How does the registration process

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Speaker 1: take place, and whether or not the information is lost

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Speaker 1: or somehow manipulated. When you register on online or or

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Speaker 1: over paper, and then that registration stays in a computer somewhere,

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Speaker 1: and as long as it's in a computer, something bad

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Speaker 1: can happen to it, right and magically, when you the

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Speaker 1: day you show up to vote, there has to be

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Speaker 1: a way that the person sitting across the table from

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Speaker 1: you can verify that you're entitled to vote where you are.

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Speaker 1: Um that used to be done with paper. A lot

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Speaker 1: of these states now use something called e poll books.

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Speaker 1: They're usually iPads, and on the fly, those poll books

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Speaker 1: are downloading voter registration data to make sure that Bob

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Speaker 1: Sullivan really lives in this voting precinct and belongs there.

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Speaker 1: Um that the information gets there, sometimes wirelessly, sometimes over

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Speaker 1: over an old network, But that's another opportunity where the

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Speaker 1: information could be altered and and from the file of

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Speaker 1: voter suppression. Imagine if they either erase it or just

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Speaker 1: move it, move you to another district. So you show

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Speaker 1: up to vote, and this happens all the time without hacking.

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Speaker 1: You shop to vote and the person says, no, no, no no,

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Speaker 1: you're not registered in this district. You have to vote

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Speaker 1: over there, and maybe over there is an hour away,

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Speaker 1: and maybe your lunch hour is gone, and now you're

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Speaker 1: not voting. So a lot of times we think about

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Speaker 1: vote hacking is somebody switching a million votes for some candidate,

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Speaker 1: But it can happen in these smaller ways too. So

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Speaker 1: and then after you vote on the machine, the machine

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Speaker 1: has to tabulate, so maybe it registers the vote correctly,

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Speaker 1: but the tabulation is done wrong. After that local machine

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Speaker 1: tabulates and all the precinct votes are added up using

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Speaker 1: some process. And then I think this is the trickiest part.

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Speaker 1: All those results have to be transmitted eventually to the

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Speaker 1: Secretary of State's office. Sometimes it's a sneaker net. Somebody

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Speaker 1: puts a memory card in our pocket and drives it

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Speaker 1: across the state. More often than not, now it's it's

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Speaker 1: wirelessly transmitted over a mobile network or whatnot, And those

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Speaker 1: are opportunities for hacking. And then just to put one

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Speaker 1: more thought in your head, because this is something that

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Speaker 1: has happened. The Russian government has done this in other nations.

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Speaker 1: Let's say everything goes smoothly, everything is on the up

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Speaker 1: and up, no hacking anywhere, but the moment the results

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Speaker 1: come out, the secretary of State's website is hacked. So

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Speaker 1: for just an instant, the results are the wrong results,

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Speaker 1: and then they're switched back. The Secretary of State figures

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Speaker 1: out all that's that's a mistake. Now all the people

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Speaker 1: who lost are going to have screenshots of this hacked

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Speaker 1: page that's say they want, And once again you can

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Speaker 1: create domat in flament doubt and uncertainty and illegitimacy an election,

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Speaker 1: not by doing any of this other sci fi stuff

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Speaker 1: we're talking about, but simply one website hack. So protecting

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Speaker 1: the vote requires you to protect every single one of

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Speaker 1: these stages, and it's a mammoth task. Guys, Mr Sullivan

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Speaker 1: and I continued our conversation about data secure and elections,

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Speaker 1: but before we get into that, let's take a quick

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Speaker 1: break to thank our sponsor. I'm so glad that I

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Speaker 1: have you on here too, because it also it reinforces

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Speaker 1: this idea that I have said in previous episodes when

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Speaker 1: it comes to talking about hacking, because we all have

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Speaker 1: the image in our heads of the Hollywood version of hacking,

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Speaker 1: where it's the the either the super too cool for

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Speaker 1: you person or the incredibly nerdy person sitting down at

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Speaker 1: a computer terminal, typing in and on the third attempt

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Speaker 1: gets through the password and then you see a bunch

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Speaker 1: of meaningless characters on the screen and they say whoa

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Speaker 1: or something along those lines, which is not at all,

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Speaker 1: not at all close to reality. One of the biggest

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Speaker 1: tools in any hackers toolbox, and it's one that you've

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Speaker 1: you've mentioned, is social engineering. This idea of manipulating people

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Speaker 1: to get what you want, which doesn't even involve you

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Speaker 1: necessarily having contact with a device. It is an age

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Speaker 1: old trick of hackers because it's it goes all the

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Speaker 1: way back to confidence. Man. I mean, this is something

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Speaker 1: that has been around for ages. If you know how

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Speaker 1: people think, and you know what people react to, and

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Speaker 1: you leverage that, you can get what you want. And

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Speaker 1: it may only involve very light technology and the sense

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Speaker 1: of hacking that one website that's enough to to really

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Speaker 1: put things into a turmoil. Uh, it doesn't require having

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Speaker 1: physical access to these voting machines. I see that often

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Speaker 1: people pointing that out, that a lot of these machines

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Speaker 1: would require someone to get physical access and that the

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Speaker 1: likelihood of that is very low. And again all of

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Speaker 1: that may very well be true, but ultimately, if the

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Speaker 1: perception that it's possible these machines have been uh tam

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Speaker 1: bread with is enough to cause problems. It's kind of

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Speaker 1: a moot point, so uh. I've also seen one of

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Speaker 1: the first articles I ever worked on when I was

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Speaker 1: hired by how Stuff Works, was about electronic voting machines,

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Speaker 1: and there was a section that they wanted me to

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Speaker 1: do about the concept of casting votes over the internet,

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Speaker 1: because the idea of giving accessibility, widespread accessibility, improving that

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Speaker 1: maybe maybe improving the number of people who actually participate

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Speaker 1: in the voting process. Things like that are very important

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Speaker 1: and it's you can't just dismiss them. However, I'm curious

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Speaker 1: what you think. Is there a is there a way

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Speaker 1: do you think of implementing such a system that would

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Speaker 1: be secure, or at least not just secure, but appear

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Speaker 1: secure enough that people would have faith in it, or

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Speaker 1: do you think that that's a non starter. I'm gonna

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Speaker 1: give you two answers that are a bit contradictory. Um

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Speaker 1: I I'm one who believes that the integrity of the

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Speaker 1: voting process visa v hacking is incredibly important. That's in

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Speaker 1: my cybrus curty friends are going to take out their

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Speaker 1: pose and arrows on me right now, but that's probably

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Speaker 1: third or fourth on the list of things that are

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Speaker 1: wrong with American elections. You know, things like jerrymandering and

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Speaker 1: just voter disinterest are even bigger. In fact, one of

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Speaker 1: the conclusions not to give away the punch line to

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Speaker 1: my podcast, but my conclusion at the end of it

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Speaker 1: is the thing that makes America's voting system the most vulnerable,

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Speaker 1: Like our biggest vulnerability in our voting process is the

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Speaker 1: disinterest of our voters, who you know, half the people

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Speaker 1: don't vote even for presidential campaigns, and that creates this

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Speaker 1: massive opening that makes it easy for a hacker. Again,

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Speaker 1: who wouldn't have to change a million votes, that could

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Speaker 1: just change thirty votes in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania and Ohio

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Speaker 1: and tip an election. Right. So so it's on us

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Speaker 1: to participate. And as a result of that, you know,

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Speaker 1: I am one, I am interested in internet voting somewhere

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Speaker 1: along the line because it would increase increased participate. Patian Um,

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Speaker 1: all of the cybersecurity people who respected me thirty seconds

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Speaker 1: ago don't respect me anymore. All of them, in one

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Speaker 1: voice would say to you know, what we need is

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Speaker 1: paper and we never need internet voting. That that they're

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Speaker 1: all terrified of internet voting and just really don't think

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Speaker 1: that there's a way to make it secure. And they

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Speaker 1: they do know, at least from the security standpoint, even

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Speaker 1: better than I do. Like all the reporting says, we're

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Speaker 1: nowhere near that there are. There are very limited examples

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Speaker 1: even in the US of people voting over the internet.

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Speaker 1: Soldiers at sea sometimes can do it overseas um, but

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Speaker 1: there's a critical difference there in that they surrender their

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Speaker 1: right to anonymity um and just to uh throw another

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Speaker 1: concept to you and your listeners. One of the reasons

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Speaker 1: this is also difficult is because we have to secure

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Speaker 1: these votes but at the same time preserve the anonymity

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Speaker 1: of the voter. The secret ballot box is an important

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Speaker 1: part of our process and an important part of democracy,

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Speaker 1: and as a result of the fact that vote is

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Speaker 1: a secret, it's very hard to authenticate the vote and

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Speaker 1: not identify the voter, so they do. The exception that's

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Speaker 1: made for overseas voting over the internet is the soldier

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Speaker 1: will actually allow for a verification of the vote that's

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Speaker 1: outside of the someone someone will call or otherwise contact

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Speaker 1: the voter and verify the vote itself. So there's a

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Speaker 1: process for that, but in general, um, the fact that

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Speaker 1: there is no real positive way to identify a person

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Speaker 1: on the internet. We see this every day with spam

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Speaker 1: mail and everything else. The mix of that lack of

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Speaker 1: real authentication with with voting is just a toxic combination

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Speaker 1: that seems like a really hard problem to solve. Well

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Speaker 1: and and again that has become the a central point

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Speaker 1: in in things like voter suppression, where that ends up

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Speaker 1: being the the defense of those who would use more

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Speaker 1: and more restrictive means of verifying of a ter's identity

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Speaker 1: before allowing them to vote because of the perceived fear

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Speaker 1: of people misrepresenting themselves and casting what would amount to

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Speaker 1: a false vote. Uh. That that's a very popular narrative

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Speaker 1: I've seen that doesn't seem to have that much evidence

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Speaker 1: to support the fear, right. It's it's one of those

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Speaker 1: things where it says, well, you know, we have to

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Speaker 1: have these systems in place, otherwise we're going to have

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Speaker 1: fraudulent votes, and apart from some small stories that you'll

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Speaker 1: hear that end up being exaggerated a great deal, you know,

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Speaker 1: like dead people in Chicago casting votes for the mayor,

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Speaker 1: kind of thing. You don't really see it, but it

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Speaker 1: ends up becoming the central argument for putting systems into

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Speaker 1: place that effectively tell people, uh that their vote isn't welcome.

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Speaker 1: And I certainly have a lot of empathy for people

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Speaker 1: who maybe it's not that they're disinterested in voting necessarily,

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Speaker 1: but it's more that they've been actively discouraged from participating

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Speaker 1: in the process. And you couple that with anyone who

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Speaker 1: has this sensation that perhaps their vote wouldn't even count

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Speaker 1: in the first place, you can definitely see why there

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Speaker 1: are some real problems. Um. I've seen a lot of

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Speaker 1: people argue for things like a mandated voter registration, maybe

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Speaker 1: go in Australia's direction and have mandated voting as well.

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Speaker 1: I've also seen people who who don't necessarily have a

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Speaker 1: solution in mind, but they say we need to make

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Speaker 1: voting as easy for elections as it is to vote

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Speaker 1: for American Idol. That that's like a common meme on

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Speaker 1: the internet as well. And I don't I don't necessarily

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Speaker 1: disagree with any of that. I think encouraging participation is

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Speaker 1: really is really key. As you point out, the more

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Speaker 1: people who are participates who participate, the harder it would

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Speaker 1: be to really skew the outcome for one thing. Uh,

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Speaker 1: it would be much more noticeable if any one word,

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Speaker 1: to try and skew an outcome where you've got a

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Speaker 1: very large participation unless things are just you know, super

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Speaker 1: close all the way down the line among the entire

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Speaker 1: population of whatever region it is that's holding the election. Uh.

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Speaker 1: What do you think is a solution or perhaps the

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Speaker 1: best way to move forward given all these different problems,

434
00:25:27,560 --> 00:25:31,320
Speaker 1: not just the technological ones but the psychological ones. Sure well,

435
00:25:31,520 --> 00:25:36,040
Speaker 1: the solution a lot of folks agree on is actually

436
00:25:36,080 --> 00:25:40,360
Speaker 1: not in more technology. Um. You love technology, Evan writing

437
00:25:40,359 --> 00:25:42,520
Speaker 1: about technology for twenty years, But I think all of

438
00:25:42,600 --> 00:25:44,960
Speaker 1: us have a really bad habit of thinking whenever there's

439
00:25:44,960 --> 00:25:47,439
Speaker 1: a problem that more technology is going to take care

440
00:25:47,480 --> 00:25:49,880
Speaker 1: of it, it's a silver bullet somehow, Like a better

441
00:25:49,960 --> 00:25:52,440
Speaker 1: voting machine is not going to take care of this. Um,

442
00:25:52,440 --> 00:25:55,159
Speaker 1: there's a bunch of solutions, but the most important solution

443
00:25:55,320 --> 00:25:58,880
Speaker 1: is the auditing of elections themselves. So, um, there has

444
00:25:58,920 --> 00:26:01,840
Speaker 1: to be some sort of process s that's automatic after

445
00:26:01,880 --> 00:26:05,080
Speaker 1: every election where we figure out whether or not the

446
00:26:05,160 --> 00:26:07,359
Speaker 1: votes that were cast are actually the votes that were counted,

447
00:26:07,400 --> 00:26:09,720
Speaker 1: and we're presented to us later. And now I'm going

448
00:26:09,760 --> 00:26:12,360
Speaker 1: to tell you why that hasn't happened yet, even though

449
00:26:12,400 --> 00:26:15,200
Speaker 1: pretty much everybody agrees on the election. And I'm going

450
00:26:15,240 --> 00:26:17,639
Speaker 1: to draw on my first five years as a I

451
00:26:17,760 --> 00:26:20,639
Speaker 1: was a reporter in small town newspapers in New Jersey,

452
00:26:20,720 --> 00:26:23,479
Speaker 1: covering school boards and planning boards in the city council

453
00:26:23,520 --> 00:26:26,760
Speaker 1: and mayor and all that, and elections of course, local elections.

454
00:26:27,240 --> 00:26:30,040
Speaker 1: And when you're running from mayor of Pompton Planes, you know,

455
00:26:30,080 --> 00:26:33,159
Speaker 1: the vote is five hundred to four every time, and

456
00:26:33,200 --> 00:26:36,359
Speaker 1: the loser always demands a recount. What does the winner

457
00:26:36,400 --> 00:26:40,080
Speaker 1: say when the loser demands a recount? This has happened

458
00:26:40,119 --> 00:26:42,600
Speaker 1: over over in American history. Winners never want to recount.

459
00:26:42,680 --> 00:26:44,879
Speaker 1: Only bad things can happen if you're a winner and

460
00:26:44,880 --> 00:26:49,040
Speaker 1: there's a recount. So the people have spoken, that's it. Yeah,

461
00:26:49,160 --> 00:26:51,600
Speaker 1: And because you know what, there's a there's a chance

462
00:26:51,640 --> 00:26:53,920
Speaker 1: that you might lose the recount, so stop the recount.

463
00:26:54,520 --> 00:26:57,600
Speaker 1: Um and Audit sounds a lot like recounts to people.

464
00:26:57,960 --> 00:27:02,880
Speaker 1: So in general, here's what happens. Some election, however legitimate

465
00:27:03,000 --> 00:27:05,000
Speaker 1: or not legitimate, it is again, it's it's not like

466
00:27:05,000 --> 00:27:06,560
Speaker 1: a yes or no it's more of a scale of

467
00:27:06,560 --> 00:27:09,399
Speaker 1: one to ten. Thing. Some election occurs, some group of

468
00:27:09,440 --> 00:27:12,159
Speaker 1: people win, and that group of people has no interest

469
00:27:12,200 --> 00:27:15,320
Speaker 1: whatsoever in changing whatever it was before that had them win.

470
00:27:16,000 --> 00:27:18,239
Speaker 1: So if you were to implement a new process like

471
00:27:18,600 --> 00:27:20,760
Speaker 1: they do, they do these sample audits. They're called risk

472
00:27:20,880 --> 00:27:23,280
Speaker 1: limiting audits, and this is generally agreed to be the

473
00:27:23,320 --> 00:27:25,440
Speaker 1: best way to approach this. You take a sample of

474
00:27:25,480 --> 00:27:28,400
Speaker 1: the ballots that's very carefully picked, and you make sure

475
00:27:28,440 --> 00:27:31,439
Speaker 1: that the results match the published results, and that's just

476
00:27:31,880 --> 00:27:34,600
Speaker 1: away with like a confidence level that you see if

477
00:27:34,600 --> 00:27:37,400
Speaker 1: the election was manipulated or not. The winners never want

478
00:27:37,400 --> 00:27:39,760
Speaker 1: to do this because again, if you're in office now,

479
00:27:39,760 --> 00:27:41,400
Speaker 1: why would you want to do something that might raise

480
00:27:41,400 --> 00:27:44,200
Speaker 1: the possibility of somebody saying, oh, no, you didn't win.

481
00:27:44,840 --> 00:27:49,000
Speaker 1: So it's very very hard to get get elected officials

482
00:27:49,040 --> 00:27:51,600
Speaker 1: to spend the money and the focus on this problem.

483
00:27:51,640 --> 00:27:53,520
Speaker 1: And then the other problem is attention span. We care

484
00:27:53,560 --> 00:27:57,520
Speaker 1: about this because it's two weeks before an election in December.

485
00:27:57,520 --> 00:28:00,160
Speaker 1: We'll stop talking about election security until two years from

486
00:28:00,160 --> 00:28:01,960
Speaker 1: now when we talk about it again. This is a

487
00:28:02,000 --> 00:28:04,320
Speaker 1: cycle that we've been through over and over again. I'm

488
00:28:04,400 --> 00:28:07,159
Speaker 1: hoping because of what happened in and all the Russian

489
00:28:07,160 --> 00:28:09,000
Speaker 1: news that's in the year. There might be a little

490
00:28:09,040 --> 00:28:11,160
Speaker 1: more staying power this time around, but it's a very

491
00:28:11,200 --> 00:28:15,840
Speaker 1: hard problem to attack. It's certainly again in my home state,

492
00:28:16,040 --> 00:28:19,679
Speaker 1: it's it's front and center, in no small part because

493
00:28:19,720 --> 00:28:24,320
Speaker 1: we have a governor's race this election in which one

494
00:28:24,480 --> 00:28:28,000
Speaker 1: of the two candidates is the current Secretary of State,

495
00:28:28,680 --> 00:28:34,000
Speaker 1: which has raised all sorts of interesting questions about processes

496
00:28:34,000 --> 00:28:40,360
Speaker 1: and technologies and motivations for not changing systems even after

497
00:28:41,440 --> 00:28:45,400
Speaker 1: these various controversies have happened. Uh, it almost always comes

498
00:28:45,400 --> 00:28:49,600
Speaker 1: down to cost, which is I mean, that's a legitimate factor.

499
00:28:49,760 --> 00:28:52,640
Speaker 1: It's you can't just wave your hand away at that,

500
00:28:52,760 --> 00:28:56,560
Speaker 1: but it also becomes a very convenient one. Uh. And

501
00:28:56,640 --> 00:29:00,600
Speaker 1: so again it ends up having that effect of potentially

502
00:29:00,600 --> 00:29:04,640
Speaker 1: demoralizing people who otherwise would come out and perhaps support

503
00:29:04,640 --> 00:29:07,600
Speaker 1: an opponent. But it's very much in front of us

504
00:29:07,640 --> 00:29:11,240
Speaker 1: here in Georgia. But obviously there are other areas across

505
00:29:11,280 --> 00:29:15,720
Speaker 1: the United States that have maybe not a similar situation,

506
00:29:15,760 --> 00:29:21,280
Speaker 1: but just as passionate a discussion about these processes as

507
00:29:21,320 --> 00:29:25,520
Speaker 1: in my home state. UM, I really appreciate you coming

508
00:29:25,560 --> 00:29:28,320
Speaker 1: on my show and talking about this. I'm very much

509
00:29:28,360 --> 00:29:32,600
Speaker 1: looking forward to your episode of The Breach. Season one

510
00:29:33,040 --> 00:29:38,200
Speaker 1: was phenomenal, going over in great detail the Yahoo hack.

511
00:29:38,640 --> 00:29:42,080
Speaker 1: If you guys out there haven't listened to the Breach,

512
00:29:42,480 --> 00:29:45,160
Speaker 1: please go and do that because you're going to learn

513
00:29:45,680 --> 00:29:50,880
Speaker 1: a lot. Uh. The episodes are informative and they go

514
00:29:50,920 --> 00:29:56,520
Speaker 1: into great detail, and it really stresses how incredibly complicated

515
00:29:56,600 --> 00:30:01,480
Speaker 1: and important and potentially scary information secure already really is.

516
00:30:02,080 --> 00:30:05,160
Speaker 1: And uh, it's nice to have a journalist on to

517
00:30:05,240 --> 00:30:07,960
Speaker 1: talk about this, someone who investigates this sort of stuff.

518
00:30:08,200 --> 00:30:11,560
Speaker 1: I've had hackers on before. They have a very interesting

519
00:30:12,200 --> 00:30:19,280
Speaker 1: philosophy and attitude that I sometimes cannot resolve. So fair enough, Yeah,

520
00:30:19,480 --> 00:30:20,720
Speaker 1: I feel like I would like to if I could

521
00:30:20,720 --> 00:30:23,600
Speaker 1: just throw one quick thing out to you. Though, all

522
00:30:23,840 --> 00:30:27,240
Speaker 1: the election security people stressed this to me, however pessimistic

523
00:30:27,240 --> 00:30:29,440
Speaker 1: they are about the state of affairs today, they all

524
00:30:29,440 --> 00:30:31,560
Speaker 1: are very convinced it can be fixed and that there

525
00:30:31,680 --> 00:30:35,080
Speaker 1: is a solution that that with enough energy and will,

526
00:30:35,600 --> 00:30:37,959
Speaker 1: we can overcome and we can straighten on our voting process.

527
00:30:38,040 --> 00:30:41,560
Speaker 1: Voting is a very very limited specific task as opposed

528
00:30:41,600 --> 00:30:44,680
Speaker 1: to saying something like banking, and it can be secured

529
00:30:44,720 --> 00:30:47,200
Speaker 1: and so one of the messages I don't want to

530
00:30:47,240 --> 00:30:49,440
Speaker 1: leave people with is the vote can be hacked. I

531
00:30:49,440 --> 00:30:52,880
Speaker 1: don't bother voting quite the opposite, right right, It's it's

532
00:30:52,920 --> 00:30:55,720
Speaker 1: this is something we can fix, and it's it's it's

533
00:30:55,880 --> 00:31:01,680
Speaker 1: very important that we do it, and that all it really, ultimately,

534
00:31:01,720 --> 00:31:04,680
Speaker 1: all it really takes is the willpower and the support

535
00:31:04,760 --> 00:31:07,560
Speaker 1: for it to go forward. And and I certainly think

536
00:31:07,600 --> 00:31:10,320
Speaker 1: that we're getting into a a climate where that's going

537
00:31:10,360 --> 00:31:14,240
Speaker 1: to become more and more of an issue, where there's

538
00:31:14,240 --> 00:31:16,440
Speaker 1: just gonna be a demand for that. I mean, it's

539
00:31:16,600 --> 00:31:21,200
Speaker 1: it cannot stand to continue, Um, as long as there

540
00:31:21,320 --> 00:31:24,840
Speaker 1: is this doubt in the process. It's it's so fundamental

541
00:31:25,320 --> 00:31:27,560
Speaker 1: to who we are as a nation. In order for

542
00:31:27,640 --> 00:31:32,000
Speaker 1: that too, uh, it has to be addressed on a

543
00:31:32,120 --> 00:31:35,920
Speaker 1: very real level and not just given lip service. I

544
00:31:36,200 --> 00:31:40,720
Speaker 1: actually am fairly optimistic about this, and um, I think

545
00:31:40,760 --> 00:31:43,400
Speaker 1: that maybe in the short term it may not be

546
00:31:44,440 --> 00:31:47,400
Speaker 1: the smoothest ride, but I think we are going to

547
00:31:47,440 --> 00:31:51,720
Speaker 1: see a lot more advocacy and movement on this front.

548
00:31:52,080 --> 00:31:55,560
Speaker 1: So I have high hopes and I do look forward

549
00:31:55,720 --> 00:31:58,200
Speaker 1: to hearing that episode of the Breach once it publishes.

550
00:31:58,240 --> 00:32:01,680
Speaker 1: I believe it's coming out November five. Yeah, maybe a

551
00:32:01,680 --> 00:32:03,760
Speaker 1: couple of days sooner than that, but right before the election.

552
00:32:03,800 --> 00:32:06,760
Speaker 1: Just excellent to get your stirred up. All right, well,

553
00:32:06,800 --> 00:32:09,200
Speaker 1: I look forward to hearing that. Bob, thank you so

554
00:32:09,320 --> 00:32:13,320
Speaker 1: much for joining our show. Thanks for having me. I

555
00:32:13,360 --> 00:32:17,320
Speaker 1: have a bit more to say about the technology of voting,

556
00:32:17,400 --> 00:32:19,880
Speaker 1: so stick around, but first let's take a quick break

557
00:32:20,000 --> 00:32:30,640
Speaker 1: to thank our sponsor again. I want to thank Bob

558
00:32:30,680 --> 00:32:35,120
Speaker 1: Sullivan for joining us on the show and his insight

559
00:32:35,360 --> 00:32:42,080
Speaker 1: into the dangers of hacking and voting. We realize, of

560
00:32:42,120 --> 00:32:45,800
Speaker 1: course that you know, just the appearance of that danger

561
00:32:45,920 --> 00:32:49,080
Speaker 1: is enough to influence people because we we are human beings,

562
00:32:49,120 --> 00:32:53,520
Speaker 1: were affected by our emotions, and if you introduce the

563
00:32:53,600 --> 00:32:59,440
Speaker 1: thought that perhaps the system is broken, that has real consequences.

564
00:32:59,800 --> 00:33:02,520
Speaker 1: But before I go, I wanted to give a quick rundown,

565
00:33:02,600 --> 00:33:07,239
Speaker 1: sort of a uh an overview of the advance of

566
00:33:07,320 --> 00:33:10,760
Speaker 1: technology when it comes to voting and how that has

567
00:33:10,880 --> 00:33:15,360
Speaker 1: changed over the years. The mechanical lever machines that have

568
00:33:15,440 --> 00:33:20,240
Speaker 1: been used in voting first debuted back in eighteen eighty nine.

569
00:33:20,280 --> 00:33:23,320
Speaker 1: They were patented by a guy named Jacob H. Myers,

570
00:33:23,760 --> 00:33:27,040
Speaker 1: and the technology actually became known as the Myers Automatic Booth.

571
00:33:27,560 --> 00:33:29,520
Speaker 1: The first time it would actually be used in an

572
00:33:29,520 --> 00:33:33,360
Speaker 1: election was eighteen ninety two in Lockport, New York, and

573
00:33:33,400 --> 00:33:37,760
Speaker 1: then you started to see other lever based voting machines

574
00:33:38,120 --> 00:33:43,760
Speaker 1: arise in the decades following. Optical scans wouldn't be a

575
00:33:43,800 --> 00:33:48,040
Speaker 1: thing until nineteen sixty two. The first optical scan voting

576
00:33:48,040 --> 00:33:52,040
Speaker 1: ballot was used in Karn's City, California. This would be

577
00:33:52,120 --> 00:33:54,280
Speaker 1: the sort of scans that you would see in in

578
00:33:54,760 --> 00:33:56,720
Speaker 1: something like an s a t in a way where

579
00:33:57,080 --> 00:33:59,560
Speaker 1: you've got or a standardized test where you have to

580
00:33:59,600 --> 00:34:02,520
Speaker 1: fill in bubbles. The idea being that you're using a

581
00:34:02,600 --> 00:34:07,400
Speaker 1: ballot and you're using a system that relies upon light

582
00:34:07,720 --> 00:34:11,600
Speaker 1: to read that ballot and to detect which votes have

583
00:34:11,719 --> 00:34:15,880
Speaker 1: been cast and then record them. Uh. Then the next

584
00:34:16,680 --> 00:34:20,720
Speaker 1: moment in tech comes from my hometown in Atlanta, Georgia.

585
00:34:20,880 --> 00:34:24,320
Speaker 1: We have lots of counties that make up the metro

586
00:34:24,400 --> 00:34:28,520
Speaker 1: Atlanta area, but the two main ones are Fulton into

587
00:34:28,560 --> 00:34:31,279
Speaker 1: cab for the heart of the city. Those were the

588
00:34:31,320 --> 00:34:34,560
Speaker 1: first two counties in the United States to use punch

589
00:34:34,640 --> 00:34:38,240
Speaker 1: cards with computer tally machines. That was in nineteen sixty four.

590
00:34:38,960 --> 00:34:43,320
Speaker 1: The following year, Joseph P. Harris and William ruverall patented

591
00:34:43,360 --> 00:34:47,600
Speaker 1: the votomatic punch card system. That was a system where

592
00:34:47,640 --> 00:34:51,600
Speaker 1: you would actually have two things to to reference. You

593
00:34:51,600 --> 00:34:53,600
Speaker 1: had your ballot, but you also had to have a

594
00:34:53,600 --> 00:34:57,680
Speaker 1: little booklet that told you which numbers on the ballot

595
00:34:57,719 --> 00:35:02,279
Speaker 1: would correspond with which candidates in the election. So you

596
00:35:02,360 --> 00:35:06,720
Speaker 1: might say Choice one represents one candidate, Choice to represents

597
00:35:06,760 --> 00:35:09,120
Speaker 1: another candidate. You look at the ballot. The ballot would

598
00:35:09,160 --> 00:35:11,759
Speaker 1: not have the names of the candidates on there, just

599
00:35:11,840 --> 00:35:14,759
Speaker 1: the numbers, and you would punch the corresponding numbers out.

600
00:35:15,200 --> 00:35:17,759
Speaker 1: This was considered to actually be a superior system in

601
00:35:17,800 --> 00:35:20,879
Speaker 1: the that the computer tally machines could handle these sort

602
00:35:20,880 --> 00:35:25,440
Speaker 1: of ballots much more easily than earlier ones. However, you

603
00:35:26,120 --> 00:35:30,640
Speaker 1: could imagine that that also introduced a bit of a

604
00:35:30,680 --> 00:35:33,520
Speaker 1: barrier for people who are trying to use the system

605
00:35:33,640 --> 00:35:36,200
Speaker 1: to make sure that the number that they are punching

606
00:35:36,239 --> 00:35:38,680
Speaker 1: out actually corresponds with the choice they wanted to make.

607
00:35:39,160 --> 00:35:44,600
Speaker 1: In ninety four, a group of inventors got a patent

608
00:35:44,719 --> 00:35:47,480
Speaker 1: for a system they called video Voter, which was a

609
00:35:47,520 --> 00:35:51,200
Speaker 1: direct recording electronic voting machine or d R e UH

610
00:35:51,320 --> 00:35:53,680
Speaker 1: This was likely the first design of a d r

611
00:35:53,719 --> 00:35:55,960
Speaker 1: E that was used in a real election. It was

612
00:35:56,000 --> 00:35:57,840
Speaker 1: first used in nineteen seventy five and a couple of

613
00:35:57,880 --> 00:36:02,160
Speaker 1: Illinois locations, all in the United States, would conduct a

614
00:36:02,160 --> 00:36:04,760
Speaker 1: study and would issue a report that had the title

615
00:36:05,040 --> 00:36:09,160
Speaker 1: Effective Use of Computing Technology and Vote Tallying. And in

616
00:36:09,200 --> 00:36:15,239
Speaker 1: that report they investigated concepts like security, UH system functionality,

617
00:36:15,280 --> 00:36:19,520
Speaker 1: system design, and also the ability to audit systems, which

618
00:36:19,719 --> 00:36:22,400
Speaker 1: if you were listening to Mr Sullivan you realize is

619
00:36:22,440 --> 00:36:25,439
Speaker 1: a very very important part of the process in order

620
00:36:25,440 --> 00:36:29,160
Speaker 1: for people to have confidence that the system works. The

621
00:36:29,320 --> 00:36:32,759
Speaker 1: r F Shoop or Shop Corporation I actually don't know

622
00:36:32,760 --> 00:36:35,439
Speaker 1: how to pronounce it, s h o u P would

623
00:36:35,480 --> 00:36:41,400
Speaker 1: produce the Shoop or Shop Tronic elect ironic voting machine.

624
00:36:41,560 --> 00:36:45,719
Speaker 1: I say elect that way because the elect and electronic

625
00:36:45,880 --> 00:36:48,520
Speaker 1: is all in capital letters. It was a push button

626
00:36:48,600 --> 00:36:50,879
Speaker 1: d r E voting machine, so not a touch screen

627
00:36:50,920 --> 00:36:54,000
Speaker 1: but a push button machine, but it was electronic. It

628
00:36:54,040 --> 00:36:58,160
Speaker 1: was the first to achieve real commercial success. In another

629
00:36:58,200 --> 00:37:00,960
Speaker 1: report comes out. This one's called at Your See Integrity

630
00:37:00,960 --> 00:37:04,920
Speaker 1: and Security and Computerized Vote Tallying was written by Roy Saltman,

631
00:37:05,280 --> 00:37:08,400
Speaker 1: and it warned that punch cards with pre scored sections.

632
00:37:08,400 --> 00:37:09,880
Speaker 1: You know, a punch card that sort of has a

633
00:37:09,920 --> 00:37:13,120
Speaker 1: little perforated areas for you to punch out. Uh, could

634
00:37:13,200 --> 00:37:16,600
Speaker 1: be unreliable and that would come into sharp focus in

635
00:37:16,640 --> 00:37:19,279
Speaker 1: the wake of the two thousand US presidential election. You

636
00:37:19,360 --> 00:37:23,160
Speaker 1: heard Mr Sullivan reference that with the hanging Chad's that's

637
00:37:23,200 --> 00:37:27,960
Speaker 1: what that refers to. In the Federal Election Commission released

638
00:37:28,040 --> 00:37:31,080
Speaker 1: the first set of standards for computer based voting. This

639
00:37:31,160 --> 00:37:33,960
Speaker 1: was called Performance and Test Standards for Punch Card mark

640
00:37:34,040 --> 00:37:37,840
Speaker 1: Sense and Direct Recording Electronic Voting Systems. Marks Sense, by

641
00:37:37,840 --> 00:37:41,560
Speaker 1: the way, referred to U an optical scanning technology, and

642
00:37:41,600 --> 00:37:44,520
Speaker 1: those standards would receive updates in two thousand two with

643
00:37:44,640 --> 00:37:49,400
Speaker 1: the Help America Vote Act. In nineteen six the Reformed

644
00:37:49,440 --> 00:37:54,719
Speaker 1: Party was able to vote in their presidential primary over

645
00:37:54,760 --> 00:37:58,360
Speaker 1: the internet. This was, you know, a small third party,

646
00:37:58,760 --> 00:38:02,680
Speaker 1: small in comparison to other parties, and but it did

647
00:38:02,680 --> 00:38:06,040
Speaker 1: show someone trying to make use of the Internet as

648
00:38:06,280 --> 00:38:11,080
Speaker 1: a tool for elections. But again just a just a primary,

649
00:38:11,160 --> 00:38:15,080
Speaker 1: not a an actual election election. In two thousand three,

650
00:38:15,360 --> 00:38:17,479
Speaker 1: there was a group of computer scientists who would release

651
00:38:17,480 --> 00:38:19,880
Speaker 1: a report after analyzing a specific model of a d

652
00:38:20,000 --> 00:38:23,360
Speaker 1: R e voting machine and finding vulnerabilities that could potentially

653
00:38:23,360 --> 00:38:26,920
Speaker 1: be exploited. So at least as early as two thousand three,

654
00:38:27,320 --> 00:38:33,799
Speaker 1: you had concerned data security experts raising this possibility. Uh

655
00:38:33,840 --> 00:38:36,520
Speaker 1: In in two thousand four, we had that moment where

656
00:38:36,760 --> 00:38:40,640
Speaker 1: the CEO of die Bald wrote that letter that again

657
00:38:40,760 --> 00:38:44,640
Speaker 1: raised more doubt about the system. UH. Die Bald would

658
00:38:44,640 --> 00:38:46,759
Speaker 1: get out of the voting machine business in two thousand nine.

659
00:38:46,800 --> 00:38:49,800
Speaker 1: They sold off their division to a company called Election

660
00:38:49,920 --> 00:38:53,279
Speaker 1: Systems and Software, Incorporated, which today controls more than so

661
00:38:53,360 --> 00:38:55,800
Speaker 1: many five percent of the voting machine market in the

662
00:38:55,880 --> 00:39:00,799
Speaker 1: United States. Kevin Shelley, the Secretary of State of California,

663
00:39:00,840 --> 00:39:04,440
Speaker 1: would ban touchscreen electronic voting machines in four counties in

664
00:39:04,440 --> 00:39:09,080
Speaker 1: California and de certify all existing systems pending security improvements.

665
00:39:09,080 --> 00:39:11,759
Speaker 1: This also happened in two thousand four. That same year,

666
00:39:12,000 --> 00:39:14,960
Speaker 1: Nevada would pass a mandate that would require all electronic

667
00:39:15,000 --> 00:39:18,400
Speaker 1: voting machines used in federal elections to produce a paper

668
00:39:18,440 --> 00:39:23,160
Speaker 1: audit trail um, something again that Mr Sullivan argued. Two

669
00:39:23,160 --> 00:39:27,520
Speaker 1: thousand four, a company called Unileect got into some trouble.

670
00:39:27,600 --> 00:39:31,560
Speaker 1: They manufactured some voting machines that were used at Carteret

671
00:39:31,640 --> 00:39:35,439
Speaker 1: County in North Carolina, and according to the company, each

672
00:39:35,520 --> 00:39:38,600
Speaker 1: voting machine could store up to ten thousand five d votes,

673
00:39:39,000 --> 00:39:41,960
Speaker 1: but in fact they could only store three thousand five votes,

674
00:39:42,600 --> 00:39:47,200
Speaker 1: and worse than that, they appeared to accept votes beyond

675
00:39:47,480 --> 00:39:51,640
Speaker 1: three thousand and five, but those weren't actually recorded, so

676
00:39:51,760 --> 00:39:54,360
Speaker 1: the machine did not give any indication that its memory

677
00:39:54,480 --> 00:39:58,160
Speaker 1: was full, and ultimately four thousand, four hundred thirty eight

678
00:39:58,239 --> 00:40:01,120
Speaker 1: votes were lost, and when you think about it, that

679
00:40:01,160 --> 00:40:05,440
Speaker 1: means that more than half of all votes were lost.

680
00:40:06,160 --> 00:40:09,640
Speaker 1: Only only less than half in that voting precinct were recorded,

681
00:40:10,080 --> 00:40:13,080
Speaker 1: and that's pretty terrible. Two thousand five, a company called

682
00:40:13,320 --> 00:40:15,880
Speaker 1: black Box Voting would set up a mock election in

683
00:40:15,960 --> 00:40:19,640
Speaker 1: Florida and to security experts were invited to try and

684
00:40:19,719 --> 00:40:23,240
Speaker 1: hack the voting machine system that they were using, and

685
00:40:23,680 --> 00:40:26,359
Speaker 1: they were able to change the outcome of this mock

686
00:40:26,480 --> 00:40:30,359
Speaker 1: election and leave no trace of their presence behind, and

687
00:40:30,400 --> 00:40:33,439
Speaker 1: it demonstrated how some systems can be vulnerable. The same

688
00:40:33,440 --> 00:40:36,040
Speaker 1: company would demonstrate the following year how some systems have

689
00:40:36,120 --> 00:40:39,920
Speaker 1: backdoor vulnerabilities which can be exploited and software can be

690
00:40:39,960 --> 00:40:44,680
Speaker 1: injected to activate months or years later to alter election results.

691
00:40:45,280 --> 00:40:47,439
Speaker 1: So if you were able to get access to these

692
00:40:47,480 --> 00:40:50,920
Speaker 1: machines half a year or a year before an election,

693
00:40:51,400 --> 00:40:54,719
Speaker 1: then you could actually make the alterations, and in the

694
00:40:54,880 --> 00:40:58,040
Speaker 1: time span in between, when security starts to increase the

695
00:40:58,080 --> 00:41:01,160
Speaker 1: elections are coming up, no knows that the machine has

696
00:41:01,160 --> 00:41:05,080
Speaker 1: already been compromised. In two thousand six, Dr Edward Felton

697
00:41:05,200 --> 00:41:07,560
Speaker 1: showed that if you really know what you're doing, you

698
00:41:07,600 --> 00:41:11,120
Speaker 1: could install malware on a Diebold electronic voting machine in

699
00:41:11,200 --> 00:41:14,120
Speaker 1: less than a minute. Now, you had to have physical

700
00:41:14,120 --> 00:41:17,640
Speaker 1: access to the machine, so that does make it more challenging.

701
00:41:17,680 --> 00:41:19,360
Speaker 1: You do have to get that access. But if you

702
00:41:19,440 --> 00:41:22,120
Speaker 1: knew what you were doing and you had the physical access,

703
00:41:22,160 --> 00:41:24,960
Speaker 1: in less than sixty seconds, you could put malware that

704
00:41:25,000 --> 00:41:28,359
Speaker 1: would alter votes, could steal votes from one candidate, give

705
00:41:28,360 --> 00:41:30,080
Speaker 1: it to another, and it could also act as a

706
00:41:30,160 --> 00:41:33,480
Speaker 1: virus and spread to other machines if they were sharing

707
00:41:33,520 --> 00:41:37,200
Speaker 1: a network. So pretty nasty stuff. In two thousand seven,

708
00:41:37,239 --> 00:41:40,480
Speaker 1: the Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer L. Brunner would authorize

709
00:41:40,480 --> 00:41:44,960
Speaker 1: a study of these direct electronic voting systems in Ohio,

710
00:41:45,239 --> 00:41:48,560
Speaker 1: and the report would conclude that none of the computer

711
00:41:48,640 --> 00:41:51,839
Speaker 1: based systems in that state met security standards and all

712
00:41:51,880 --> 00:41:56,720
Speaker 1: were susceptible to breaches. In two thousand eleven, Argon National

713
00:41:56,840 --> 00:42:00,200
Speaker 1: Laboratory security experts would demonstrate that they could hack a

714
00:42:00,320 --> 00:42:03,600
Speaker 1: d r E machine via remote control, but that hack,

715
00:42:03,640 --> 00:42:05,960
Speaker 1: again would require getting physical access to the machine. You

716
00:42:05,960 --> 00:42:08,400
Speaker 1: had to install a component in the machine. Once the

717
00:42:08,400 --> 00:42:11,719
Speaker 1: component was in there and connected to the system, then

718
00:42:11,760 --> 00:42:14,560
Speaker 1: you could access the system from up to half a

719
00:42:14,600 --> 00:42:19,040
Speaker 1: mile away and change things around using a remote control.

720
00:42:19,480 --> 00:42:24,000
Speaker 1: In June two thousand seventeen, that's when the first hackathon

721
00:42:24,160 --> 00:42:28,720
Speaker 1: at Defcon really focused on on voter machines, and according

722
00:42:28,760 --> 00:42:33,000
Speaker 1: to the story I was reading, a Danish hacker was

723
00:42:33,040 --> 00:42:36,920
Speaker 1: able to compromise one of the machines that were there

724
00:42:36,960 --> 00:42:39,919
Speaker 1: for the hackers to work on while the presenters were

725
00:42:39,920 --> 00:42:44,080
Speaker 1: still introducing the event, so they hadn't even concluded their

726
00:42:44,080 --> 00:42:47,760
Speaker 1: introductory comments when one of the hackers had already managed

727
00:42:47,800 --> 00:42:49,799
Speaker 1: to compromise one of the machines. By the end of

728
00:42:49,800 --> 00:42:54,320
Speaker 1: the day, the various hackers had discovered and exploited eighteen

729
00:42:54,400 --> 00:42:59,280
Speaker 1: new vulnerabilities in various e voting and epole book systems.

730
00:42:59,320 --> 00:43:04,760
Speaker 1: So this is obviously a matter of major concern, and

731
00:43:05,080 --> 00:43:10,680
Speaker 1: the Russian hacking scandal has done nothing but make that

732
00:43:10,760 --> 00:43:15,200
Speaker 1: even more apparent. And UH, the Department of Homeland Security

733
00:43:15,200 --> 00:43:18,719
Speaker 1: initially stated that twenty one different states voting systems were

734
00:43:18,719 --> 00:43:22,560
Speaker 1: targeted by Russian hackers in two thousand sixteen. UH. Georgia

735
00:43:22,680 --> 00:43:25,000
Speaker 1: was not among them in that report, according to the

736
00:43:25,080 --> 00:43:29,680
Speaker 1: Secretary of State. But then the investigation that Robert Mueller

737
00:43:30,080 --> 00:43:34,240
Speaker 1: conducts is conducting in the in Russian hacking. It included

738
00:43:34,280 --> 00:43:38,280
Speaker 1: the indictment of twelve Russian military officers that were connected

739
00:43:38,360 --> 00:43:43,640
Speaker 1: to election tampering allegations, and that indictment revealed that the

740
00:43:43,719 --> 00:43:47,520
Speaker 1: charges included probing attacks on county websites in Georgia, thus

741
00:43:48,239 --> 00:43:51,320
Speaker 1: showing that perhaps Georgia did not get away scott free

742
00:43:51,520 --> 00:43:55,040
Speaker 1: during that election and that was possibly targeted. This is

743
00:43:55,080 --> 00:43:59,799
Speaker 1: what led to that investigation revolving around the server in

744
00:44:00,000 --> 00:44:04,160
Speaker 1: Georgia that may have been targeted and tampered with, but

745
00:44:04,239 --> 00:44:09,320
Speaker 1: then was subsequently wiped and then the backups were also wiped. UH.

746
00:44:09,320 --> 00:44:12,200
Speaker 1: And there's a whole scandal about that. I'm not going

747
00:44:12,239 --> 00:44:13,719
Speaker 1: to go into that because I know you guys have

748
00:44:13,800 --> 00:44:16,719
Speaker 1: heard way too much about Georgia and a show that's

749
00:44:16,719 --> 00:44:20,680
Speaker 1: just about technology in general. I want to leave off

750
00:44:20,760 --> 00:44:24,080
Speaker 1: with echoing something that Mr Sullivan said, which is that

751
00:44:24,200 --> 00:44:29,879
Speaker 1: this process is incredibly important. And while there are real

752
00:44:30,320 --> 00:44:33,520
Speaker 1: problems here, challenges that we need to overcome, they are

753
00:44:34,080 --> 00:44:40,680
Speaker 1: totally solvable problems. These are not insurmountable. There's the things

754
00:44:40,719 --> 00:44:43,440
Speaker 1: that are standing in our way are willpower and money.

755
00:44:43,520 --> 00:44:48,760
Speaker 1: So we have to have legislations that are are willing

756
00:44:48,800 --> 00:44:52,920
Speaker 1: to budget the money necessary to put the proper systems

757
00:44:52,920 --> 00:44:55,439
Speaker 1: in place. We need to have the willpower to make

758
00:44:55,480 --> 00:45:00,600
Speaker 1: sure that those are done responsibly and that no one

759
00:45:00,760 --> 00:45:03,640
Speaker 1: is being told not to vote, that we aren't suppressing

760
00:45:03,680 --> 00:45:08,759
Speaker 1: anyone's vote. And that goes for any political side. It

761
00:45:08,800 --> 00:45:13,080
Speaker 1: doesn't matter to me whether you share my personal political

762
00:45:13,080 --> 00:45:16,200
Speaker 1: philosophy or not. What matters to me is that you

763
00:45:16,239 --> 00:45:19,240
Speaker 1: are able to express that in the manner of voting,

764
00:45:19,320 --> 00:45:24,560
Speaker 1: and that you are not, you know, kept from that activity,

765
00:45:24,600 --> 00:45:27,920
Speaker 1: that you are able to participate fully in the democratic process.

766
00:45:28,120 --> 00:45:31,760
Speaker 1: That to me is the most important part. And uh,

767
00:45:31,800 --> 00:45:36,480
Speaker 1: and I'm well, if it comes out where the political

768
00:45:36,480 --> 00:45:39,719
Speaker 1: philosophy I believe in is on the losing side, if

769
00:45:39,800 --> 00:45:42,719
Speaker 1: the election appears to be completely legitimate, and that's the

770
00:45:42,719 --> 00:45:44,760
Speaker 1: will power that you know, it's the will of the people,

771
00:45:45,160 --> 00:45:46,960
Speaker 1: and I just happen to be on the losing side.

772
00:45:47,719 --> 00:45:51,080
Speaker 1: I can reconcile that a lot more easily than I

773
00:45:51,160 --> 00:45:55,640
Speaker 1: can thinking I'll never know if the system reflects what

774
00:45:55,680 --> 00:45:58,560
Speaker 1: the people really wanted, or if the system failed us

775
00:45:58,640 --> 00:46:03,680
Speaker 1: because of either inherent vulnerabilities in that system or the

776
00:46:03,760 --> 00:46:08,719
Speaker 1: perception of those vulnerabilities. And uh, it's a complicated thing.

777
00:46:08,920 --> 00:46:11,400
Speaker 1: But again, I want to thank Mr Sullivan for joining

778
00:46:11,719 --> 00:46:15,279
Speaker 1: the podcast and sharing his expertise and his thoughts on

779
00:46:15,320 --> 00:46:18,719
Speaker 1: the matter. I recommend you check out the Breach podcast.

780
00:46:18,719 --> 00:46:21,040
Speaker 1: I think you will really enjoy it. If you, guys

781
00:46:21,040 --> 00:46:23,279
Speaker 1: have suggestions for future episodes of tech Stuff, you should

782
00:46:23,280 --> 00:46:25,640
Speaker 1: send me an email. The addresses tech Stuff at how

783
00:46:25,719 --> 00:46:27,880
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com, or you can drop me a

784
00:46:27,920 --> 00:46:29,719
Speaker 1: line on Facebook or Twitter. The handle at both of

785
00:46:29,760 --> 00:46:33,280
Speaker 1: those is text Stuff hs W. You can go over

786
00:46:33,320 --> 00:46:36,600
Speaker 1: to our merchandsise store that's at t public dot com

787
00:46:36,640 --> 00:46:39,800
Speaker 1: slash tech Stuff. Check that out. Don't forget to follow

788
00:46:39,920 --> 00:46:43,960
Speaker 1: us on Instagram and help talk to you again really

789
00:46:44,040 --> 00:46:52,200
Speaker 1: soon for more on this and thousands of other topics.

790
00:46:52,280 --> 00:47:01,080
Speaker 1: Because it how stuff works dot com. Eight