cypherpunks Digest, Vol 120, Issue 160

[Douglas Lucas]

Replying to two points form Karl.

First, Karl writes: "Given we have seen chip manufacturers placing
hidden hardware backdoors in common microcontrollers, it seems like the
use of almost any voting machine would severely undermine the intent of
democracy, unless the contents are presented for full public review."

Just to clarify a factual matter. The breach of the Coffee County
elections building consisted of multiple intrusions in Jan 2021, each
performed by a different operative or operatives. The very first
intrusion, on January 7, 2021, involved (among others) four employees of
Atlanta-based cyber forensics firm Sullivan Strickler. I confirmed with
computer security expert for the plaintiffs Kevin Skoglund that THAT
team -- I'm unsure about the later operatives -- did NOT copy any
firmware from the voting computers. Seems to me ALL the operatives were
moreso after operating systems, software, higher-level code, but I've
only confirmed that for SullivanStrickler and their Jan 7 2021
intrusion.

Second, Karl writes: "The cryptographic software communities have
developed working examples of transparent voting protocols for decades
now, in the hopes of these things being adopted by governments."

I would appreciate any hyperlinks to these communities. I think the
source code for any voting computers -- say, robustly audited optical
scanners processing handmarked paper ballots -- needs to be free/open
software, fully available to public inspection, always. How to get from
where we are now, to there, is a difficult question.

Doug

> Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2023 14:54:46 -0400
> From: "Undescribed Horrific Abuse, One Victim & Survivor of Many"
> 	<gmkarl at gmail.com>
> Cc: Cypherpunks <cypherpunks at lists.cpunks.org>
> Subject: Re: New by me at BradBlog/BradCast: Elections breach cover-up
> 	in rural town with national implications
> Message-ID:
> 	<CALL-=e6RefaD6mEfVqkVM2jtPmxEonQs8KRb6DLeS-eFeO4oDg at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
> 
> My attempt at my conventional thoughts and opinions:
> 
> - Given we have seen chip manufacturers placing hidden hardware
> backdoors in common microcontrollers, it seems like the use of almost
> any voting machine would severely undermine the intent of democracy,
> unless the contents are presented for full public review.
> 
> - The cryptographic software communities have developed working
> examples of transparent voting protocols for decades now, in the hopes
> of these things being adopted by governments. These are some of the
> same groups that have struggled as politics have heaved.
> 
> [sorry, i had a couple more items but I've forgotten them. i've only
> read a little bit of the article, it's intense, it's great to see]
> 
> It's notable that there are a number of different severely important
> things here. Many different important and dangerous topics are
> involved here at once. This can make it hard to integrate the material
> and possibly easier for partisan influences to change the story.