[EL] Direct Foreign Influence on Elections

[Paul Lehto]

Ancillary to the risk of foreign interference via political ad
"persuasion", is the specter of *direct* foreign *interference* in US
elections.

For example, in the news of the last couple days, it's been revealed that
Iran recently captured a top-secret unmanned RQ-170 drone while it was on a
sensitive reconaissance mission over Iran.  According to CBS news links
below, US officials as of today have "high confidence" the drone is indeed
the missing US drone, and its near perfect condition suggests a controlled
descent of the drone (not being shot down).

Iran claims a cyberattack for the successful capture of the apparently
undamaged drone.

If Iran can successfully cyberattack a sophisticated drone, and if US
teenagers can periodically penetrate the Pentagon's security systems, it
ought to go without saying that Iran can cyberattack US elections if it
wishes to.

On request, several demonstration video links can be sent on how to change
a US election in five minutes or less.  They are freely available on the
web.

Of course, attempting to protect elections from insiders like election
officials (or whoever has "admin" privileges) is no more possible than
protecting the laptop I'm tying on, or the computer you are reading on,
from YOURSELF -- if you are the sole owner or otherwise have "admin" level
privileges.

This kind of direct interference in elections,whether foreign or domestic,
is something that we all ought to strongly oppose, but the computerization
of elections is what makes LARGE-scale fraud and interference by very small
numbers of persons possible.

Of course, fraud happens with paper ballots, too, but at least with
physical balloting systems, they generate more evidence of being
compromised by far than computerized systems do.  All a voting system can
do for us is in terms of fraud is *generate evidence* of security breaches,
it is up to humans and election law to generate the complaints and the
remedies.  Ironically, those who tell tales of paper ballot fraud prove
that the paper ballot voting system worked -- *if the election was not
corrected and the culprits brought to justice that is a failure of election
law and/or election administrators, not a failure of the voting system*.

The problem is not just one of altering election results within the "margin
of believability" for pundits (which is fairly large), but also of a
destructive attack, rendering an election void and requiring a "do over"
election.  This gives attackers a form of veto power over US election
results, whether they be foreign or domestic.

Iran downs US Drone, boasts of cyberattack
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503543_162-57339407-503543/iran-shows-intact-drone-boasts-of-cyberattack/?tag=contentMain;contentBody

US Confirms: Iran Does indeed have [Nearly Intact] Drone
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18563_162-57339834/u.s-official-iran-does-have-our-drone/


Paul Lehto, J.D.

-- 
Paul R Lehto, J.D.
P.O. Box 1
Ishpeming, MI  49849
lehto.paul at gmail.com
906-204-4026 (cell)
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