From @politico: 'How wireless modems in voting machines could endanger the midterms; The modems help election officials report results quickly, but security experts say they’re too dangerous to trust.' https://t.co/vllWLtcapf pic.twitter.com/djrsbBGG3y
— Byron York (@ByronYork) October 14, 2022
Many election counting centers use cellular modems to transmit unofficial election-night results.
The modems, which send vote data from precincts to central offices using cellphone networks, help election officials satisfy the public’s demand for rapid results. But putting any networking connection on an election system opens up new ways to attack it that don’t require physical access to machines, and security experts say the risks aren’t worth the rewards.
At least six states — Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Massachusetts, Michigan and Minnesota — use modems to transmit results in a combined 36 counties, according to a POLITICO survey. Rhode Island uses them statewide, and Washington, D.C., uses them citywide.
Hackers can easily and quickly intercept these systems as their vulnerabilities are well known, and bad actors have the tools to exploit them.
Some officials argued their modems avoid security risks by using special networks set up for that purpose. But those systems are no panacea, Wallach said, because they’re still “placing a lot of trust in [telecom companies], and that’s exactly the kind of thing that nation-state adversaries can and do regularly compromise.”
More at Politico.
So what should we do about it? How about we do it the old-fashioned way like they do in countries everywhere.
Something stinks when dipping voters’ thumbs in ink is more transparent & verifiable in Afghan elections than in US fake elections where electronic voting machines with wireless cellular modems are designed to be hacked. We need 100% paper ballots counted by hand in public view. pic.twitter.com/OyJectqUmw
— Tim Canova (@Tim_Canova) January 14, 2019