Someone explain to me how voting machines can be hacked

[they don't love you like i love you]

In actual technical terms and a technical description of how it can be done, not just "The Russians/Hillary's cronies will do it!!!!"

[DrScholl]

It would most likely have to be done with a chip with programmed vote totals. That's how it was done of "Scandal", which is just a television show, but writers do have accurate research sometimes. I don't believe that the hacking can be done remotely, so someone would have to have physical access to the voting machines to hack them.

[Person Man]

If they aren't on the network, they can't. But there is something called the dark net which allows you to hack into places that you can't normally access and then you can use db injection to run queries to change the data. Basically, there are browsers available to sneak into machines that aren't explicitly connected and then you can change the code once you find a place you can.

[they don't love you like i love you]

If they aren't on the network, they can't. But there is something called the dark net which allows you to hack into places that you can't normally access and then you can use db injection to run queries to change the data. Basically, there are browsers available to sneak into machines that aren't explicitly connected and then you can change the code once you find a place you can.

Except that only works if the machine is also in some way connected to the internet. And voting machines aren't. They're basically just electronic depositories for votes and vote data.

It's a lot like how Hollywood idiocy which indicates that car/helicopter/plane engines can be hacked. No they can't. Take a car for example, how does that connect to the Internet? Only if there's some remote GPS system and even then that doesn't have access to the engine. Having dealt with the stupidity of people believing their cell phones were hacked (something which is virtually impossible to be done remotely FYI) at a previous job I tend to be kind of upset at these sort of claims.

[SirMuxALot]

You might want to check the 2004 archives on this board.

You'll be surprised at the role reversal (Trump / Kerry).  Keyword "Diebold" may help.

You'll also note that no one claimed such discussions in '04 ran the risk of "undermining democracy".

[they don't love you like i love you]

You might want to check the 2004 archives on this board.

You'll be surprised at the role reversal (Trump / Kerry).  Keyword "Diebold" may help.

You'll also note that no one claimed such discussions in '04 ran the risk of "undermining democracy".

Did someone order seafood? I just found a red herring.

[No War, but the War on Christmas]

You might want to check the 2004 archives on this board.

You'll be surprised at the role reversal (Trump / Kerry).  Keyword "Diebold" may help.

You'll also note that no one claimed such discussions in '04 ran the risk of "undermining democracy".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4Gskff94lc

Do you expect Trump to concede graciously? Really?

[they don't love you like i love you]

I think this sums up the people who talk about this in response to recent hackings very well:

[Rules for me, but not for thee]

If they ever are on the "Internet of Things" then they'll be super-easy to hack.

For now they probably would have to be hacked before shipment, unless they can be hacked by the spread of something like an auditory virus.

[SirMuxALot]

Do you expect Trump to concede graciously? Really?

Best not to put words in my mouth.  It has nothing to do with whatever you are predicting Trump will do on election night, or perhaps between election night and December 13.

I'm merely pointing out that the Kerry campaign and many Democrats raised concerns about the Diebold voting machines all through the summer of 2004.  (Possibly you don't remember.)  Which was fine.  And it didn't undermine democracy.

There were a lot of discussions that year about voting machine flaws and vulnerabilities.  They were interesting discussions. And potentially informative for someone sincerely asking the question as expressed in the title of this thread.

[they don't love you like i love you]

OMG DEMOCRATS SAID SILLY THINGS 12 YEARS AGO!

[SirMuxALot]

OMG DEMOCRATS SAID SILLY THINGS 12 YEARS AGO!

What was silly about it?

[DrScholl]

There were people online that said machines were tampered with, but John Kerry never mentioned it and conceded without making any accusations.

[yawa]

Voting machines cannot be hacked, this nonsense was invented by Trump. 

[The Other Castro]

Realistically there cannot be a widespread and systemic hack necessary to influence the election in a meaningful way.

[Gass3268]

The fear isn't hacking voting machines, but hacking voter registration databases and altering/deleting people's registration.

[Person Man]

And still you don't need to hack something that is supplied by someone who programmed not to count it right. Kerry didn't talk about this or no where near as much as Trump but liberals did. That buffer doesn't exist in today's GOP.

[Erich Maria Remarque]

If they aren't on the network, they can't. But there is something called the dark net which allows you to hack into places that you can't normally access and then you can use db injection to run queries to change the data. Basically, there are browsers available to sneak into machines that aren't explicitly connected and then you can change the code once you find a place you can.

Lol what?

[Rules for me, but not for thee]

Voting machines cannot be hacked, this nonsense was invented by Trump. 

ANYTHING can be hacked.

[PresidentTRUMP]

Voting machines cannot be hacked, this nonsense was invented by Trump. 

ANYTHING can be hacked.

Scary but 100% true.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

In actual technical terms and a technical description of how it can be done, not just "The Russians/Hillary's cronies will do it!!!!"

They can have default or no passwords, or very be vulnerable to publicly-know exploits, allowing anyone with a short time alone with the machine, such as election officials or voters, to change its programming. Typically this is done by inserting a prepared memory-card or USB drive that contains malicious programming, although some modern voting machines were vulnerable to having their firmware chips swapped out. Voting machines need such access so that election officials can program them, update them, and read results on non-networked machines.

Worse, many voting machines are networked, often using Wifi (because its convenient) with extremely insecure encryption standards (because they're old), and some are even directly connected to the Internet (again, for convenience). Meaning an attacker can gain access to the machine remotely.

Even if the voting machines themselves are secure, the machines (often computers) that tabulate and store results can be vulnerable. As can other parts of the election system, like the vulnerable voter databases that were recently hacked. And these other parts of the voting system are networked or on the internet even more often than voting machines themselves.

Once an attacker has gained access to a machine (and used an exploit to gain root or administrator privileges, assuming the machine even had any such security to begin with) they can change results, or replace code with subtly altered versions that will either alter votes as they are place, alter totals that are reported, or allow for remote access to make such changes in the future.

That's the general process. If you wanted detailed technical information on how things like privilege escalation, rootkits, backdoors, and compromised code work, you'll need to do some reading. Techdirt is probably a good place to start:

https://www.techdirt.com/blog/?tag=e-voting

[Seneca]

If they aren't on the network, they can't. But there is something called the dark net which allows you to hack into places that you can't normally access and then you can use db injection to run queries to change the data. Basically, there are browsers available to sneak into machines that aren't explicitly connected and then you can change the code once you find a place you can.

Except that only works if the machine is also in some way connected to the internet. And voting machines aren't. They're basically just electronic depositories for votes and vote data.

It's a lot like how Hollywood idiocy which indicates that car/helicopter/plane engines can be hacked. No they can't. Take a car for example, how does that connect to the Internet? Only if there's some remote GPS system and even then that doesn't have access to the engine. Having dealt with the stupidity of people believing their cell phones were hacked (something which is virtually impossible to be done remotely FYI) at a previous job I tend to be kind of upset at these sort of claims.

Actually modern cars can be hacked. [A guy with Twitter's R&D team pulled it off last year](http://www.ioactive.com/pdfs/IOActive_Remote_Car_Hacking.pdf). You'd be surprised at the number of ways that cars are vulnerable to remote hacks.

In the same way, just because electronic voting machines may not be built to connect to WiFi, I would not assume that they cannot be hacked remotely before significant testing.

[Kalimantan]

Whatever was wrong with putting a cross on a piece of paper and then counting these?

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Whatever was wrong with putting a cross on a piece of paper and then counting these?

Nothing. With appropriate processes (secured and tracked ballots and boxes with a verified paper trail, all overseen by multiple election officials and partisan observers) its the best election process there is.

But it doesn't produce results the media can report before everyone goes to bed on election night, so we make compromises in security for the sake of cool news coverage and a swift result.

[Person Man]

If they aren't on the network, they can't. But there is something called the dark net which allows you to hack into places that you can't normally access and then you can use db injection to run queries to change the data. Basically, there are browsers available to sneak into machines that aren't explicitly connected and then you can change the code once you find a place you can.

Lol what?

Look up SHODAN