WEBVTT - The Scary World of EVMs, Part Two 0:00:04.200 --> 0:00:07.560 Get in tests with technology with tech Stuff from stuff 0:00:07.560 --> 0:00:14.000 works dot com. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. 0:00:14.080 --> 0:00:17.360 I am your host, Jonathan Strickland, and I am thinking 0:00:17.440 --> 0:00:20.959 this amount of enthusiasm and energy because I've been in 0:00:21.040 --> 0:00:24.720 the booth with Ben Boland for nearly two hours. Oh 0:00:24.960 --> 0:00:29.360 what a time we're having, buddy. Yeah. We recorded this 0:00:29.520 --> 0:00:33.839 epic episode about electronic voting machines and then talked about 0:00:34.040 --> 0:00:40.400 confidence in political systems, which ties very closely in with 0:00:40.520 --> 0:00:42.919 the topic of electronic voting machines. If you can't have 0:00:43.000 --> 0:00:46.320 confidence in the outcome of an election, then really the 0:00:46.360 --> 0:00:49.560 whole system starts to crumble. And we cast our votes 0:00:49.800 --> 0:00:53.000 during this uh at the close of our conversation, we 0:00:53.120 --> 0:00:56.720 cast our votes, and we decided democratically that this would 0:00:56.760 --> 0:00:59.480 be better as a two part series than a single 0:01:00.080 --> 0:01:05.200 bic length episode that would have stretched the patience of 0:01:05.240 --> 0:01:10.880 the most uh most forgiving of listeners. Now we have 0:01:11.040 --> 0:01:12.880 broken it up into two parts, so what you are 0:01:12.920 --> 0:01:16.520 about to hear is the conclusion of that two parts. Also, 0:01:16.600 --> 0:01:18.200 I should add that when we get to the end 0:01:18.400 --> 0:01:22.120 and we sign off, we did not know at that 0:01:22.200 --> 0:01:23.800 point that it was going to be a two parter, 0:01:24.120 --> 0:01:27.119 so we actually have already recorded the end of the 0:01:27.160 --> 0:01:29.800 episode that I'm recording the beginning of now, and yes, 0:01:29.880 --> 0:01:33.680 time travel does confuse me. So let's just segue in 0:01:33.760 --> 0:01:36.520 to part two of how electronic voting machines are going 0:01:36.560 --> 0:01:40.240 to ruin everything. Remember we mentioned that in two thousand two, 0:01:40.240 --> 0:01:42.240 that's when they started to appear on the scene. That's 0:01:42.240 --> 0:01:45.680 when Georgia. Actually they started to appear before two thousand two, 0:01:45.720 --> 0:01:47.600 but two thousand two is when Georgia became the first 0:01:47.640 --> 0:01:51.559 state to have just the electronic voting machines out there 0:01:51.600 --> 0:01:56.120 in the polling places. Um, many of those machines have 0:01:56.240 --> 0:01:59.120 not been updated since, and almost all of them are 0:01:59.200 --> 0:02:02.440 running on her vision of Windows XP, which hasn't been 0:02:02.520 --> 0:02:06.840 updated since April two thousan fourteen. So that means any 0:02:06.920 --> 0:02:10.239 security vulnerability that has been discovered since two thousand and 0:02:10.280 --> 0:02:13.720 fourteen is still there. Chances are some of the ones 0:02:13.800 --> 0:02:16.799 before two thousand fourteen are still there because I bet 0:02:16.800 --> 0:02:19.600 a lot of those machines have never received a patch. 0:02:20.120 --> 0:02:23.760 Right there, just these big, these machines that are being 0:02:23.800 --> 0:02:27.320 overseen by the government, and uh, you know it, Chances 0:02:27.360 --> 0:02:29.960 are a lot of them are unpatched. So there's a 0:02:29.960 --> 0:02:32.519 lot of potential for people to tamper. And not only that, 0:02:33.160 --> 0:02:36.600 you know, I mentioned the idea of either unconsciously or 0:02:36.600 --> 0:02:41.000 purposefully inserting a bias. That's a real concern too, right, 0:02:41.040 --> 0:02:45.320 because private companies are the ones designing these machines, they 0:02:45.360 --> 0:02:51.359 do so with using proprietary software that is not visible 0:02:51.440 --> 0:02:56.000 to the general public. Nor is it uh what's what's word, 0:02:56.040 --> 0:02:59.840 nor is it in any way compelled to answer to 0:03:00.000 --> 0:03:03.560 the general public, Like the public doesn't have a the 0:03:03.960 --> 0:03:09.280 quote unquote capital p public doesn't have a vote regarding 0:03:09.400 --> 0:03:13.440 which companies run these machines. You look at this and 0:03:13.960 --> 0:03:17.720 you see that everyone says, well, we can't reveal our 0:03:17.760 --> 0:03:21.640 code because if we did, uh, then our competitors would 0:03:21.639 --> 0:03:23.560 see how we do things, and then we can't compete 0:03:23.560 --> 0:03:27.640 in the marketplace anymore. And so meanwhile you've got security 0:03:27.639 --> 0:03:30.600 experts saying this should all be open source. And the 0:03:30.639 --> 0:03:32.760 reason it should be open source is so that the 0:03:32.800 --> 0:03:36.080 community at large would have the opportunity to look at 0:03:36.080 --> 0:03:39.920 the code and see if there are any vulnerabilities, and 0:03:39.960 --> 0:03:42.920 if so, make sure that those get patched before you 0:03:42.920 --> 0:03:44.680 get to a point where the code is being put 0:03:44.760 --> 0:03:49.559 into play in an actual election. So that those vulnerabilities 0:03:49.600 --> 0:03:52.920 can't be exploited because if something is proprietary and someone 0:03:52.960 --> 0:03:56.720 figures out an exploit to that software, then it's all 0:03:56.720 --> 0:03:59.320 behind closed doors. There's no way to address it, and 0:03:59.640 --> 0:04:03.040 you up with a huge problem. But but beyond that, 0:04:03.800 --> 0:04:06.360 you have companies that could insert a bias into the 0:04:06.400 --> 0:04:10.080 programming itself. And this kind of stems from an interesting 0:04:10.080 --> 0:04:14.320 story that happened in the early two thousand's. So two 0:04:14.360 --> 0:04:18.600 thousand three, Walden Wally O'Dell and I'm not making up 0:04:18.640 --> 0:04:21.320 the nickname Wally, that is what he would go by. 0:04:21.800 --> 0:04:26.719 Wally O'Dell was at that time the CEO and chairman 0:04:26.839 --> 0:04:29.240 of die Bald. Now di Bald is best known for 0:04:29.400 --> 0:04:34.080 making a t M S. But Dival yeah, well, they 0:04:34.120 --> 0:04:37.800 also for a while made electronic voting machines. There was 0:04:37.800 --> 0:04:41.600 a subsidiary called Diebold Election Systems, which the company has 0:04:41.600 --> 0:04:46.080 since divested itself of that particular property. But Diebold Election 0:04:46.120 --> 0:04:49.200 Systems made a lot of electronic voting machines and die Bald, 0:04:49.200 --> 0:04:53.800 by the way, is headquartered in Ohio, a very important 0:04:53.920 --> 0:04:58.880 state in national elections here in the United States States. 0:04:59.600 --> 0:05:02.560 It up swinging some meeting swing states for you know, 0:05:02.720 --> 0:05:05.000 there's probably I've got some listeners who are outside the US. 0:05:05.080 --> 0:05:06.720 You may have heard the term swing state, and you 0:05:06.760 --> 0:05:09.920 don't know what that means. So the way elections work 0:05:09.960 --> 0:05:13.120 in the US, you know, you've got your major two 0:05:13.160 --> 0:05:17.080 party system, and nine percent of the time that's the 0:05:17.240 --> 0:05:19.839 those are the only parties that really make an impact. 0:05:20.080 --> 0:05:22.840 So you've got your Republicans and your Democrats, and you've 0:05:22.880 --> 0:05:25.920 got a lot of states that that lean toward one 0:05:26.120 --> 0:05:28.920 or the other, and it is almost unheard of for 0:05:29.000 --> 0:05:32.880 them to support a candidate of the opposite party. Sure, 0:05:32.960 --> 0:05:37.040 like uh for one example of this would be UH 0:05:37.040 --> 0:05:43.040 state like Utah would be legendarily not voting Democratic, in 0:05:43.080 --> 0:05:47.240 a state like Vermont would be legendarily not voting Republicans. Right, 0:05:47.240 --> 0:05:50.000 So it would be an incredibly strange set of circumstances 0:05:50.000 --> 0:05:53.120 to see one of these states support a candidate of 0:05:53.200 --> 0:05:56.359 the opposite party that it tends to support. So for 0:05:56.400 --> 0:05:59.599 the most part, we just assume those electors in the 0:05:59.600 --> 0:06:05.320 elector oral College will support the traditional candidates that those 0:06:05.360 --> 0:06:08.640 states would support. But there's some states that could go 0:06:09.520 --> 0:06:13.160 either way. They could swing towards the Republican side one 0:06:13.200 --> 0:06:16.400 election and swing towards the Democratic side and another Florida 0:06:16.760 --> 0:06:22.520 Florida Pennsylvania. So the the electors in these states, uh, 0:06:22.560 --> 0:06:24.839 it may be that they are the ones that are 0:06:24.920 --> 0:06:28.279 chosen are the ones for Republican uh in one one 0:06:28.279 --> 0:06:32.000 election our Democrat and another election. So Ohio is one 0:06:32.000 --> 0:06:34.760 of those states, which means it's incredibly valuable, right. It 0:06:34.800 --> 0:06:37.680 means it's a battleground state. You want to win that 0:06:37.800 --> 0:06:42.520 state because you know you've got your your foundation that's 0:06:42.520 --> 0:06:47.320 almost guaranteed. Nothing's ever a guarantee, but it's almost a guarantee. 0:06:48.000 --> 0:06:50.479 And uh so you need to really concentrate on the 0:06:50.520 --> 0:06:53.200 states where you have the potential to flip it so 0:06:53.320 --> 0:06:56.279 it's on your side and not your opponents side. Well, 0:06:56.320 --> 0:06:59.479 Ohio is one of those states. Die Bald has its 0:06:59.520 --> 0:07:04.520 headquarters in Ohio, and Wally, the CEO of Diebold at 0:07:04.560 --> 0:07:10.720 that time, wrote a letter where he was uh committing 0:07:10.800 --> 0:07:14.320 himself to quote helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to 0:07:14.360 --> 0:07:18.080 the president end quote, president being George W. Bush at 0:07:18.120 --> 0:07:24.600 that time Sook, the CEO of a company that makes 0:07:24.720 --> 0:07:28.280 voting machine saying he's committed to delivering Ohio's electoral votes 0:07:28.320 --> 0:07:31.920 to the president. Now, the company was quick to say, hey, 0:07:32.160 --> 0:07:37.000 he's not talking about using our products to push the 0:07:37.040 --> 0:07:41.800 elections personal fundraiser donor right, he's talking about campaigning. And 0:07:42.000 --> 0:07:43.960 but a lot of people said, hey, isn't there a 0:07:44.000 --> 0:07:47.280 conflict of interests if you've got the head of a 0:07:47.320 --> 0:07:51.960 company making the voting technology that people depend upon also 0:07:52.200 --> 0:07:57.040 openly supporting a specific candidate in the race. It's very 0:07:57.080 --> 0:08:01.080 It's very close to a member of the Supreme Court 0:08:01.520 --> 0:08:04.640 saying like, I will do anything I can to get 0:08:04.640 --> 0:08:09.200 you elected, George, and then and then saying, oh, fiddle 0:08:09.280 --> 0:08:12.160 D D. We don't have time to recount the votes 0:08:12.200 --> 0:08:15.240 from Florida. We look, there's some things that are more 0:08:15.280 --> 0:08:18.600 important than making absolutely certain that the people's vote was 0:08:19.240 --> 0:08:25.080 reflected in the actual election. Like reasons. I just like 0:08:25.160 --> 0:08:27.360 saying fiddle D D. But I don't think the Supremes 0:08:27.400 --> 0:08:32.440 say that, But you're raised. I referred to them as 0:08:33.760 --> 0:08:37.559 I like that John robertson the Supremes. So many wonderful 0:08:37.679 --> 0:08:40.719 visions going through my head right now. Oh man, you 0:08:40.760 --> 0:08:43.200 should have seen the comedy show we did with that 0:08:43.360 --> 0:08:47.400 with that sketch presently well, but anyway that at that 0:08:47.440 --> 0:08:50.800 point inside, like what you're saying is really important here 0:08:50.880 --> 0:08:54.280 because let's assume if we were to take Wally at 0:08:54.320 --> 0:09:00.800 his word, then even with that, a PR firm would 0:09:00.800 --> 0:09:04.760 say the optics look bad. So when you when you 0:09:04.840 --> 0:09:08.080 make those sorts of statements, you have to be very conscious, 0:09:08.559 --> 0:09:11.600 conscious of what is going to happen. This is, uh, 0:09:11.679 --> 0:09:15.040 this is an environment wherein let's see what year was this, 0:09:15.080 --> 0:09:17.240 two thousand three, right, two thousand three was when you 0:09:17.280 --> 0:09:19.920 wrote the letter. Thousand four was the election. So people 0:09:19.920 --> 0:09:24.520 are already very sore off of the two thousand election, 0:09:24.960 --> 0:09:29.360 and we have seen an accelerating distrust in the American 0:09:29.400 --> 0:09:35.600 political system or sometime you know, and this this thing 0:09:35.760 --> 0:09:40.079 is just making it, exacerbating it. And I think in 0:09:40.200 --> 0:09:41.960 one of the Wired pieces I read it might have 0:09:42.040 --> 0:09:45.079 even been the one you just referenced. Uh there, the 0:09:45.160 --> 0:09:47.960 author of the piece made a really great point, which 0:09:48.000 --> 0:09:52.000 was that you don't need any case of tampering or bias. 0:09:52.160 --> 0:09:56.320 It doesn't have to exist, but the possibility of it 0:09:56.720 --> 0:10:00.640 of it existing is enough to cause turmoil. Right, you 0:10:00.640 --> 0:10:04.800 can cause real world turmoil just from the possibility of 0:10:04.800 --> 0:10:08.840 this being a thing without any evidence of it actually happening. 0:10:09.000 --> 0:10:12.400 So you don't need to have evidence of someone purposefully 0:10:12.480 --> 0:10:14.680 trying to rig the system in order for people to 0:10:14.800 --> 0:10:18.240 not trust the system. As long as it's clear that 0:10:18.440 --> 0:10:21.720 it's a possibility. That's enough to have people say like, well, 0:10:21.760 --> 0:10:24.400 how can I trust anything? How can I trust the results? 0:10:24.480 --> 0:10:27.680 Because you know you're telling me there's no evidence, But 0:10:27.720 --> 0:10:31.440 how do I know there's no evidence? I know it's possible. Twice, 0:10:32.120 --> 0:10:36.160 you can't get fooled agein Yeah, thanks, it's a that's 0:10:36.200 --> 0:10:37.920 a that's a great quote that I'm not gonna make 0:10:37.960 --> 0:10:40.040 any fun of. All right, So then we've got the 0:10:40.160 --> 0:10:42.679 fear of hackers. We've got the fear of bias from 0:10:42.760 --> 0:10:46.679 the standpoint of the manufacturers of the voting machines themselves, 0:10:46.880 --> 0:10:48.880 and then we got the fear of hackers third parties 0:10:48.920 --> 0:10:52.600 that want to rig the results or prevent people from voting. 0:10:52.880 --> 0:10:59.360 Completely possible, absolutely, completely possible, because again, these systems are 0:10:59.360 --> 0:11:02.599 not terribly cure. Um. Now you've got a couple of 0:11:02.600 --> 0:11:05.400 different arguments about this. Right, You've got people who support 0:11:05.480 --> 0:11:10.640 d r s and they say, listen, hacking trying to 0:11:10.720 --> 0:11:14.079 trying to affect politics on a national level here in 0:11:14.080 --> 0:11:18.439 the United States is a fool's errand for multiple reasons, 0:11:18.440 --> 0:11:21.160 and a big one is that we have so many 0:11:21.200 --> 0:11:25.439 different types of electronic voting machines out there, and they 0:11:25.480 --> 0:11:28.559 are proprietary. They don't all work on the same software, 0:11:28.960 --> 0:11:32.680 so you can't develop a universal approach to affect all 0:11:32.760 --> 0:11:36.080 the machines. Now, if the entire United States, if all 0:11:36.120 --> 0:11:39.560 of us use the exact same kind of machine across 0:11:39.640 --> 0:11:43.320 all the states and the territories, then that could be 0:11:43.720 --> 0:11:47.880 a potential vulnerability. If in fact they were also connected 0:11:47.920 --> 0:11:51.120 to like the Internet, right, you would have an amazing 0:11:51.160 --> 0:11:53.640 target because you think, well, if I developed the right 0:11:53.679 --> 0:11:56.760 kind of software, I can affect every single vote cast 0:11:56.840 --> 0:11:59.280 in the United States. But that's not the reality of 0:11:59.280 --> 0:12:02.120 our situation. We have all these different types of machines, 0:12:02.360 --> 0:12:04.280 some of which are connected to the Internet, some of 0:12:04.320 --> 0:12:08.400 which aren't. You have running on different types of software, 0:12:08.440 --> 0:12:11.880 so you cannot create that one size fits all approach 0:12:11.960 --> 0:12:14.400 to affecting all of them. That being said, you could 0:12:14.400 --> 0:12:18.520 still affect specific ones, like you could target specific regions 0:12:18.600 --> 0:12:23.080 that you think are particularly important and and try to 0:12:23.160 --> 0:12:28.200 affect voting that way. But in fact, critics say that 0:12:28.760 --> 0:12:32.760 because the return on investment is so high, it's an 0:12:32.800 --> 0:12:36.360 incredibly tempting target for hackers. Like you might say, yeah, 0:12:36.400 --> 0:12:38.880 it's a lot of work, but look at the outcome. 0:12:38.960 --> 0:12:42.439 The outcome is the effect of a national election. It's 0:12:42.440 --> 0:12:45.240 it's harder to have a bigger set of stakes than that. 0:12:46.240 --> 0:12:50.360 So you can say like, yeah, it's hard, but the 0:12:50.360 --> 0:12:54.240 the goal is so huge that justifies the hard work 0:12:54.559 --> 0:13:06.000 on the part of the hackers. Here's the thing. Yeah, 0:13:06.440 --> 0:13:10.360 you don't have to be like the Liam Neeson taken 0:13:10.559 --> 0:13:14.560 level of hacker. You don't have to be anonymous or 0:13:15.080 --> 0:13:17.680 you know, some faction set operations. You don't have to 0:13:17.679 --> 0:13:21.000 have a particular set of skills. Yeah, exactly, And that 0:13:21.080 --> 0:13:23.760 was that was not very bad. I've had a little 0:13:24.120 --> 0:13:27.960 thing stuck in my teeth, that's all. But but yeah, 0:13:28.000 --> 0:13:33.680 you you don't have to be some amazing savant hacker 0:13:34.760 --> 0:13:40.280 with these crazy credentials and qualifications. You don't even have 0:13:40.360 --> 0:13:43.480 to be states a state sponsored hacker, like a you 0:13:43.480 --> 0:13:48.160 know from the Chinese military, right, No, you can if 0:13:48.160 --> 0:13:50.920 you're talking about systems runing on Windows XP that haven't 0:13:50.920 --> 0:13:55.280 been patched in two years at the very at best, 0:13:55.559 --> 0:13:57.880 they haven't been patched in two years. At worst, it's 0:13:57.880 --> 0:14:01.360 been much longer than that. Uh, And if there is 0:14:01.400 --> 0:14:04.240 a way to access the machines, either over the Internet 0:14:04.360 --> 0:14:08.560 or through physical contact with the machines. It's entirely possible 0:14:08.640 --> 0:14:12.880 for someone to use code developed by somebody else and 0:14:12.920 --> 0:14:18.760 infect that machine. So yeah, so the diminutive term for 0:14:18.920 --> 0:14:22.280 these people, uh and my friend Shannon hates this term 0:14:22.360 --> 0:14:25.560 would be script kitties. Script kitties meaning a type of 0:14:25.600 --> 0:14:30.440 person who uh profits off of malicious code. But they 0:14:30.480 --> 0:14:33.520 didn't develop the code themselves. They went to some place 0:14:34.280 --> 0:14:38.320 that where that code is available. They either purchase the 0:14:38.360 --> 0:14:40.760 code or they download the code for free, depending upon 0:14:40.800 --> 0:14:43.800 the place that they're going to, and then they deploy 0:14:43.920 --> 0:14:47.400 that code. And in some cases the code is pretty 0:14:47.440 --> 0:14:49.960 much automated. It does everything for you. You just have 0:14:50.040 --> 0:14:51.520 to be the one. You just have to be able 0:14:51.520 --> 0:14:55.200 to deploy it somehow right, and you don't have to 0:14:55.240 --> 0:14:58.040 have any knowledge of how it works. All you need 0:14:58.080 --> 0:15:00.080 to do is just make sure the code gets the 0:15:00.120 --> 0:15:03.120 machine that you wanted to get on in the right direction. Yeah. 0:15:03.120 --> 0:15:05.320 So imagine that you've got a thumb drive with this 0:15:05.400 --> 0:15:07.800 code and it's in a file, so it will auto 0:15:07.880 --> 0:15:11.040 execute once it connects to a USB drive on a machine. 0:15:11.560 --> 0:15:13.800 You come out to a voting machine that happens at 0:15:13.880 --> 0:15:16.800 USB drive, which would be a terrible idea. I'm not 0:15:16.840 --> 0:15:19.560 even suggesting that there are electronic voting machines that have 0:15:19.720 --> 0:15:22.320 USB ports. I don't know if there are. If there are, 0:15:22.400 --> 0:15:25.480 that's a terrible idea. You plug in the thumb drive 0:15:26.360 --> 0:15:29.480 automatically executes runs the malicious code that has become part 0:15:29.520 --> 0:15:32.880 of the voting machines programming from that point forward, and 0:15:32.920 --> 0:15:36.360 you can no longer trust the results generates. Uh, that 0:15:36.520 --> 0:15:39.800 is entirely possible, assuming that, again, you have some way 0:15:39.800 --> 0:15:43.600 of of injecting the code into the machine. So if 0:15:43.640 --> 0:15:47.720 you do have that possibility, that would be bad um. 0:15:48.680 --> 0:15:52.760 And also you don't even necessarily have to set out 0:15:52.760 --> 0:15:55.360 to change votes, right like that, that's the way we 0:15:55.400 --> 0:15:57.240 mostly think of it. Like again, going back to the 0:15:57.240 --> 0:16:00.680 Reagan Carter example, we would think, oh, well, they programmed 0:16:00.680 --> 0:16:02.640 it so that it took that Reagan vote and flipped 0:16:02.640 --> 0:16:06.400 it to Carter. You could also just try and overload 0:16:06.880 --> 0:16:09.920 the voting machine so that no votes could be cast 0:16:09.960 --> 0:16:12.680 on it at all. You can take it down. Yeah, 0:16:12.800 --> 0:16:15.600 you're just taking down the machine you just wanted to 0:16:15.600 --> 0:16:19.440 to crash and be unrecoverable. And then you you really 0:16:19.480 --> 0:16:23.120 impact that the ability for people to cast votes. If 0:16:23.120 --> 0:16:26.600 you do that in enough places that have very particular 0:16:27.960 --> 0:16:31.840 political leanings, you can affect the outcome of an election 0:16:32.120 --> 0:16:35.080 simply because the people who wanted to vote were physically 0:16:35.160 --> 0:16:38.920 unable to do so. And unless you make special allowances 0:16:38.960 --> 0:16:44.200 for that, then those those votes will never happen. Uh. 0:16:44.240 --> 0:16:48.480 So that's kind of ugly too. Um. And also finally, 0:16:48.680 --> 0:16:51.600 uh turns out a lot of the results are unencrypted, 0:16:51.720 --> 0:16:56.560 which is crazy to me, Which is bizarre. Yeah, it 0:16:56.760 --> 0:17:00.280 doesn't make any sense. Votes recorded in plain t next 0:17:00.480 --> 0:17:04.040 in a file where you're not you haven't even encrypted 0:17:04.200 --> 0:17:08.879 the results, so there's no protection there. Like if someone 0:17:08.960 --> 0:17:12.320 does get access to that data somehow, no matter you know, 0:17:12.359 --> 0:17:17.080 whatever methodology you might need, they can make changes. And 0:17:17.480 --> 0:17:21.720 you know, this is not just theoretical. And the state 0:17:21.720 --> 0:17:24.600 of Virginia de certified hundreds of wind vote e v 0:17:24.920 --> 0:17:28.760 m s because they were insecure and according to the officials, 0:17:29.240 --> 0:17:33.879 you could change the votes in these wind vote machines 0:17:34.520 --> 0:17:38.240 undetected if you were anywhere within a half mile radius 0:17:38.240 --> 0:17:41.920 of the machine, even if you weren't like a knowledgeable 0:17:41.920 --> 0:17:43.400 hack like you don't want to have to get out 0:17:43.440 --> 0:17:51.080 of the car it's like Pokemon Go, but for election. Yeah. Um, 0:17:51.119 --> 0:17:54.440 that's crazy. Now. I should also add that according to 0:17:54.520 --> 0:17:57.080 the Wired article where I've pulled that from, uh, they 0:17:57.119 --> 0:18:01.399 never found any evidence that someone had tampered with the votes, 0:18:01.760 --> 0:18:04.160 but they did discover that the vulnerability was there, which 0:18:04.160 --> 0:18:06.760 meant that there was always the possibility someone could tamper 0:18:06.840 --> 0:18:09.960 with the votes, which is why they were de certified. Um. Luckily, 0:18:10.480 --> 0:18:14.040 at least according to the officials, it doesn't look like 0:18:14.080 --> 0:18:17.119 anyone actually managed to do that or took the time 0:18:17.160 --> 0:18:21.360 to do that, but that's that's a possibility that has 0:18:21.400 --> 0:18:24.680 to be addressed, right um. And that kind of brings 0:18:24.720 --> 0:18:28.280 us up to the hacking threat. So I don't know 0:18:28.320 --> 0:18:30.200 if you guys have been paying attention here in the 0:18:30.240 --> 0:18:35.159 United States. Earlier in hackers gained access to the Democratic 0:18:35.280 --> 0:18:38.320 National Convention databases and they stole a whole bunch of 0:18:38.359 --> 0:18:42.080 emails and files, more than twenty thousand of them, and 0:18:42.240 --> 0:18:44.600 UH a lot of them were released by wiki leaks. 0:18:45.080 --> 0:18:47.399 Around twenty thousand were released by wiki leaks, but that 0:18:47.480 --> 0:18:50.520 doesn't mean that that's all of them. And there were 0:18:50.520 --> 0:18:53.040 a lot of questions like who the heck hacked into 0:18:53.080 --> 0:18:56.600 the d N C. Yeah, and we were pointing out 0:18:56.640 --> 0:19:01.640 a specific country, and that country is Russia. Thank you, 0:19:01.960 --> 0:19:08.080 but but it's okay, yeah, all right, Well, so here's 0:19:08.160 --> 0:19:11.560 here's one of the things that makes this an interesting story. 0:19:11.680 --> 0:19:15.600 And into some degree the reports of it remind me 0:19:15.760 --> 0:19:20.000 a little bit of the famous Sony hack, right where 0:19:20.000 --> 0:19:23.960 they talking about North Korea being and you and I 0:19:24.040 --> 0:19:27.600 explored that together as well. So one of the big 0:19:27.680 --> 0:19:33.200 questions is to what end, to what what value would 0:19:34.280 --> 0:19:40.960 Russia's state sponsored hacking branch, which does exist, what what 0:19:41.080 --> 0:19:47.720 value would it see in interfering on such a minimal 0:19:47.840 --> 0:19:50.919 level at this point? Is this a buy in for blackmail? 0:19:51.240 --> 0:19:56.280 Further down the line, is this to discredit something? Because 0:19:56.440 --> 0:20:03.640 the d n C is a domestic facing organization, so 0:20:03.680 --> 0:20:07.720 it's a lot, it's much more. Um, it's entirely different 0:20:07.760 --> 0:20:11.399 animal in comparison to something like a State Department server 0:20:11.920 --> 0:20:14.760 which would have stuff about Russia. Yeah, yeah, any of 0:20:14.800 --> 0:20:19.000 those things like c I A are you know that 0:20:19.040 --> 0:20:21.399 would be another or n s A right, like the 0:20:21.720 --> 0:20:23.840 targets that you would think of if you wanted to 0:20:23.880 --> 0:20:27.159 gather a lot of intelligence. Yeah, And so the issue 0:20:27.240 --> 0:20:29.960 here initially, I I don't know about you. But initially 0:20:29.960 --> 0:20:33.200 I was skeptical because I thought this, all this bear 0:20:33.280 --> 0:20:38.840 poking that's going on now is not gonna it's not. Yeah, yeah, 0:20:38.880 --> 0:20:41.639 it's not. It's not gonna it's not gonna pay off. 0:20:41.680 --> 0:20:46.040 Because there is a reason that the Putin government has 0:20:46.040 --> 0:20:48.679 been in power for as long as it has, and 0:20:48.760 --> 0:20:52.800 it's it's because you know, this this government is seen. 0:20:52.840 --> 0:20:57.960 American presidents come and go, and they have a maybe 0:20:58.000 --> 0:21:01.879 a longer horizon politically sure when they contemplate these things. 0:21:02.440 --> 0:21:05.840 So I it's strange to see what appears to be 0:21:05.880 --> 0:21:09.359 harmless rhetoric trotted out against them. However, I had to 0:21:09.400 --> 0:21:14.400 rethink my skepticism on this when more than one security 0:21:14.440 --> 0:21:19.320 firm came out saying evidence indicates it's probably these guys. Yeah. 0:21:19.400 --> 0:21:24.840 As it turns out, a security firm immediately, pretty much 0:21:25.359 --> 0:21:29.320 shortly after the leak was was made public, said that 0:21:29.880 --> 0:21:34.000 the signs were pointing towards a Russian actor. Um that 0:21:34.080 --> 0:21:38.280 the methodologies and software used were the same that had 0:21:38.320 --> 0:21:42.399 been employed by Russian state sponsored hacking groups in the past. 0:21:43.080 --> 0:21:46.040 And uh, there are some folks who said, I don't 0:21:46.040 --> 0:21:47.840 I'm you know, I don't think so. In fact, one 0:21:48.000 --> 0:21:53.919 um jusipher two point Oh hacker came out and said, no, no, no, 0:21:54.080 --> 0:21:55.879 it was me. I'm a lone wolf. I did it. 0:21:56.040 --> 0:21:58.320 It wasn't. I was the one who stole all that 0:21:58.400 --> 0:22:01.879 and gave it over to Wickilli and uh, although they 0:22:01.920 --> 0:22:04.840 also claimed that he was Romanian or he or she 0:22:05.200 --> 0:22:08.119 the hacker claimed that he or she was Romanian, but 0:22:08.200 --> 0:22:11.480 then when people were trying to communicate with him or 0:22:11.520 --> 0:22:16.280 her in Romanian, UH, the responses did not seem particularly coherent, 0:22:16.880 --> 0:22:19.040 which seems to give the lie that they are in 0:22:19.080 --> 0:22:24.600 fact Romanian. But other security firms ended up corroborating the 0:22:24.640 --> 0:22:27.719 findings of the first one. They said, yeah, the the 0:22:27.760 --> 0:22:30.080 exploits that were used, the malware that was used is 0:22:30.119 --> 0:22:33.000 identical to the type of malware that has been used 0:22:33.000 --> 0:22:36.679 by this Russian hacking group. It is exactly the m 0:22:36.680 --> 0:22:39.960 O that we've seen in other cases, including a case 0:22:40.040 --> 0:22:47.160 that involved the German parliament in so UH, either it's 0:22:47.680 --> 0:22:51.560 again another Russian hacking group, or it's someone who learned 0:22:51.560 --> 0:22:54.800 everything they know from a Russian hacking group because it 0:22:54.840 --> 0:22:59.480 was identical in nature. So why would Russia want to interfere? 0:22:59.560 --> 0:23:02.479 Interfere with the DNC? And I think the most distinct 0:23:02.480 --> 0:23:07.160 way of putting that is that Pewton doesn't like Clinton. Huh. 0:23:07.680 --> 0:23:09.560 Kind of kind of what it boils down to is 0:23:09.600 --> 0:23:15.240 that Pewton uh and would not want Clinton and the 0:23:15.240 --> 0:23:19.840 White House. Yeah. Also as an active secretary of State 0:23:19.960 --> 0:23:24.920 at times when NATO and NATO and Russia as well 0:23:24.960 --> 0:23:30.800 as its allies were engaged in geopolitical tensions that sparked 0:23:30.800 --> 0:23:34.680 into Right now, there's an ongoing proxy war in Syria 0:23:35.359 --> 0:23:38.199 and it's between Russia and between the US. No, of 0:23:38.200 --> 0:23:42.400 course it's not being reported that way or marketed that way, 0:23:42.440 --> 0:23:47.840 but unless you're reading any media outside of the US 0:23:47.960 --> 0:23:50.480 or right, in which case everyone says Russia who backs 0:23:50.520 --> 0:23:53.959 the Syrian government, and the US that backs the rebels, like, 0:23:54.560 --> 0:23:57.719 and that goes across political spectrum. I'm glad you pointed 0:23:57.760 --> 0:24:01.679 that out. So you know, a very very um historically 0:24:01.680 --> 0:24:07.480 conservative papers of note in England, like like the magazine 0:24:07.520 --> 0:24:11.320 The Economist or the much more liberal paper The Independent, 0:24:11.640 --> 0:24:14.960 will both pretty much say what it is. It's just 0:24:15.080 --> 0:24:18.240 we don't talk about it here on CNN. Uh. There 0:24:18.480 --> 0:24:21.560 is there is an antagonistic thing, So I would say 0:24:21.600 --> 0:24:26.000 there's probably resentment or concern about having a commander of 0:24:26.080 --> 0:24:30.879 chief who knows all the state departments skeletons and including 0:24:30.920 --> 0:24:35.679 the Russian ones. And then additionally, and there always has 0:24:35.720 --> 0:24:38.760 to be a question when there's this level of nepotism 0:24:38.800 --> 0:24:41.760 in American politics, where the because we had the son 0:24:41.800 --> 0:24:45.240 of a former president become president somehow in a meritocracy, 0:24:45.560 --> 0:24:49.359 and then multiple right right, multiple times, and then having 0:24:49.400 --> 0:24:54.240 them the spouse of a former president be in the 0:24:54.320 --> 0:24:57.080 running for president. What's really crazy is if you ever 0:24:57.080 --> 0:24:59.480 see a family tree of all the presidents and see 0:24:59.480 --> 0:25:03.000 how much except for that one, there's like one guy. Yeah, 0:25:03.040 --> 0:25:06.399 but everyone is pretty much everyone else's cousin at at most. 0:25:07.119 --> 0:25:10.520 And there's an interesting mathematical aspect to that because if 0:25:10.560 --> 0:25:14.199 you go for far enough out or the further you go, 0:25:14.320 --> 0:25:18.520