By Luther Weeks on July 4, 2018
Once again, we have a suggestions for the 4th of July. A Centennial address from 1876.
Posted in National
By Luther Weeks on June 28, 2018
If you think it’s unfair to Hersh to reveal all his secrets in a review, don’t worry — this is not even 1/100 of what his book contains…
“Reporter” provides detailed explications of how Hersh has used these lessons [about investigated journalism], making it one of the most compelling and significant books ever written about American journalism. Almost every page will tell you something you’ve never heard before about life on earth. Sometimes it’s Hersh elaborating on what he’s already published; sometimes it’s new stories he felt he couldn’t write about when he first learned of them; and sometimes it’s the world’s most intriguing, peculiar gossip.
There is an excellent interview with Sy Hersh just released as an Intercepted podcast
Starting at about 10min in to the interview, Sy provides his take on the evidence that Russians accessed the DNC emails in the run-up to the Nov 2016 election…
Posted in Internet Security Issues, National
By Luther Weeks on June 18, 2018
As this CTNewsJunkie post implies, it will always be called The Bysiewicz Test <read>
Ambiguously defined in law and only slightly less ambiguously by the Connecticut Supreme Court. All we know for sure is that you have to be a lawyer in CT for at least ten years and have different experience than Susan Bysiewicz had in 2010. As I commented in on the article:
I always find it interesting that the AG and Judge of Probate are the only offices that have qualifications, as far as I know. They are both related to law. I wonder if the composition of the General Assembly makes the legislature realize how important qualifications are, in just these cases?
There remains no necessary training whatsoever to be Secretary of the State, while some of her employees, but not all, need to be lawyers to give advice to the public, would be candidates, and election officials. That could be going better, but of course, certification by itself does not preclude errors and incompetence, or as Jon Lender puts it Bungling
Posted in CT, CT Law, CT Skulduggery and Errors
By Luther Weeks on June 5, 2018
Statement from the Connecticut Freedom of Information Council: Restore public access to public hearings
To the surprise of many, the vast majority of transcripts from public hearings held during the recently adjourned 2018 legislative session are not available. Officials from the Office of Legislative Management and the House and Senate say that transcription services have fallen victim to budget cuts, with the elimination of the service expected to save about $100,000 annually. The decision apparently was made without public input and has been condemned by open-government advocates.
This directly effects me, CT Voters Count, and the Citizen Audit. It effects anyone involved in the legislative process or litigation related to Connecticut law. This effects you indirectly, and significantly.
Posted in Legislature 2018
By Luther Weeks on June 1, 2018
Now I have your attention, we can discuss the NSA and Ed Snowden in a bit. Let’s start with an Editorial:
Protecting Against Russian Cyber Risks is Insufficient. The attention on Cybersecurity, election hacking and Russian interference is good. There are cyber risks and Russia is capable. We should improve our cybersecurity across the board, including elections. Every vote should be backed up by a, so called, voter verified paper ballot. Yet that is far from sufficient.
Posted in Electronic Vulnerability, Internet Security Issues, National, Our Editorials
By Luther Weeks on May 23, 2018
Today we all live on the Internet Frontier. Many of us in Connecticut had a reminder yesterday from our major communication provider Frontier Communications Corp. As reported in the Hartford Courant: Customers Blast Frontier After Internet Outage
Customers of Frontier Communications Corp. in Connecticut complained Tuesday about lost internet service that the telecommunications company said was due to a software update…
What might we learn?
- We are very dependent on a very risky infrastructure.
- This is costly.
Posted in CT, Electronic Vulnerability
By Luther Weeks on May 17, 2018
I testified in my capacity as Executive Director of the Connecticut Citizen Election Audit. I was the only member of the public providing testimony.
Why are post-election audits and paper ballots a critical component of protecting our elections? “[D}data protection involves prevention, detection, and recovery”. Cybersecurity and other measures protecting voting equipment and voting systems are primarily prevention measures and to a lesser degree detection measures. No matter how much effort we put into cybersecurity, software testing, and hardware maintenance there will always be a significant level of vulnerability.
Paper ballots, sufficient post-election audits, and recounts provide a primary means of detecting cyber, software, human, and hardware failures. They also provide a means of recovery. They provide for, so called, software independent verification of election results, resulting in justified public confidence.
Posted in Chain of Custody, CT, CT Law, Electronic Vulnerability, Internet Security Issues
By Luther Weeks on April 29, 2018
As West Virginia plans, once again, to allow Internet voting for military voters, it is a good time to remind everyone that Internet voting (web page, web application, email, fax voting etc.) are all unsafe for democracy. And that block-chains cannot solve those problems.
One of those problems is that there is no guarantee that your laptop or smart phone has not been hacked in a way that alters your vote. Another challenge is the, so called, Secret Ballot.
Posted in Blockchain, Instant Runoff Voting, Internet Voting, National
By Luther Weeks on April 24, 2018
Washington Post: America is still unprepared for a Russian attack on our elections
Though these machines are not routinely connected to the Internet, NYU’s Lawrence Norden warns that there are nonetheless ways to infiltrate them…
Having paper-friendly machines is hardly enough.
Posted in CT, Electronic Vulnerability, National
By Luther Weeks on April 19, 2018
There is no panacea. As we have been saying all along, nothing can fully protect us from hacking, fraud, and errors. Maximum election security means Prevention, Detection, and Recovery. For vote totals that means that we need to protect our paper ballots and then exploit them with sufficient audits and recounts.
New Yorker: America Continues to Ignore the Risks of Election Hacking
Posted in CT, Electronic Vulnerability
