It's 10 a.m. at Caesar's Palace hotel and Woman Who Does as Her Oppa Wishes (2024)casino in Las Vegas, and the conference room is packed.
Scores of hackers, cybersecurity professionals, and press have gathered at the DEF CON hacker conference to hear straight from the horse's mouth just how bad things are when it comes to securing our elections. And, as Department of Homeland Security's assistant secretary for the office of cybersecurity and communications Jeanette Manfra explained, it's bad.
SEE ALSO: 6 issues with online payments that business owners need to deal with"I yearn for the days when we were just worried about the electric grid going down," she told the crowd.
Which, well, is not exactly what anyone wants to hear with the 2018 midterms on the horizon and known Russian attempts to influence the 2016 presidential election not that far in the rear-view mirror.
Manfra said that, while it's "really difficult to manipulate the actual vote count itself" without detection, there are very real concerns. For example, she painted a picture in which, on election day, registered voters turn up at their correct polling places only to find that the poll workers' documentation says they should actually vote somewhere else. And so provisional ballots are cast — again, and again, and again, as voter after voter runs into problems and the lines to vote grow.
Basically, the election system doesn't need to be totally broken to cause serious problems — clogged up will do just fine for those looking to throw a wrench into our collective faith in election integrity.
For those at DEF CON, none of this is abstract. To see first hand what Manfra was talking about, all one had to do was walk down the hall to the Vote Hacking Village — where researchers and the generally curious teamed up to tear down and hack voting machines from around the country.
The general idea? Find the flaws, before the bad guys do.
"Every voting machine in this room is in use in [the] next election [in] 2018," explained Village co-founder Harri Hursti. "Every single one, every single model, is a model still in use."
This is the Vote Hacking Village's second year at DEF CON. Last year, all the voting machines in the village were hacked within three hours. There is no reason to doubt this year will be substantially different.
Certainly, there's a big difference between a voting machine room at a hacker conference where pwning the machines is encouraged, and an actual polling place in an election. But it's enough to have DHS worried to reach out to the hacker community.
"[This is the] first time in a national security space the government is not on the front lines," said Manfra. Instead, she pointed out, private individuals or organizations often are. She wants their help. She noted that she hoped those in the crowd would, if not work forDHS, would work withthe government agency.
Manfra's message may not have been as well-received as she might have hoped. At least one heckler yelled "fake news" and "feds didn't used to give talks at DEF CON" as attendees left the conference hall. For the sake of democracy, here's hoping he didn't speak for everyone.
Topics Cybersecurity Elections
Previous:5 Affordable Last
Next:Operation Mensch
Samsung Galaxy S8 shows amazing resilience to abuse in new videoThis coding startup trains autistic people to take on the tech industryThe state with the most polluted cities probably won't surprise youThe gender pay gap starts with your college majorThis 'La La Land' mashup with a Rahman song is just so perfectFacebook F8 Day 2: AR glasses, brain typing, skin listening, and moreWe’re about to test out hacking the Earth’s climate. That should scare and inspire you.Trolls are lashing out at Christian Bale's new movie before it even premieresCelebs sent 'reminders' by FTC to disclose when they're paid to shill on InstagramNasty homophobic banner at college game gets fought with an uplifting expression of loveSamantha Bee fixes Bill O'Reilly's 'apology' in one perfect tweetI tried to join an Instagram pod and it was like high school all over againMiranda Kerr is really feeling the wrath of Spiegel's alleged India commentsThe brain interprets sarcasm in emoji the same way as verbal communication, study showsFacebook's new 360Plates are boring, so serve your tacos in a plastic dinosaur insteadInstagram will soon work offline on your Android phoneWhy Trump's latest speech is a big deal for Silicon ValleyWhat's missing from Facebook's vision of a VR futureTrolls are lashing out at Christian Bale's new movie before it even premieres Sadie Stein on Polly Bergen The Morning News Roundup for September 26, 2014 NFT creator agrees to pay $6.1 million settlement in SEC case The Morning News Roundup for October 6, 2014 Google announces date for Pixel 8 reveal event Devastatingly, Dolly Parton is not on TikTok 'Quordle' today: See each 'Quordle' answer and hints for August 30, 2023 All Aboard L’Armand The rise of the childfree movement on TikTok YouTube star KSI has made very little from Twitter aka X monetization Everybody Knows Me: An Interview with Walter Matthau by Aram Saroyan Amusing Myself: An Interview with Bob Neuwirth by Gary Lippman The Morning News Roundup for October 7, 2014 Fat Bear Junior's fat bear contestants have been revealed Your time management won't work until you realize how little time you have Learning to Swear Shark FlexStyle deal: Get a free $30 gift card at Best Buy Best telescope deal: Get the Celestron NexStar 8SE telescope for 23% off Butt dialing on Instagram is a real problem, please beware Crossroads of the World by Sadie Stein
2.4451s , 10134.7890625 kb
Copyright © 2025 Powered by 【Woman Who Does as Her Oppa Wishes (2024)】,Warmth Information Network