• eicker@lemmy.worldOP
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    174
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    9 days ago

    The administration wanted a voting machine hacked, but DOGE had already fired the experts capable of doing it. Apparently the one thing stopping a potential election conspiracy was Elon Musk’s ability to make government incompetent at absolutely everything. Task failed successfully.

        • saltesc@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          31
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          9 days ago

          They think it helps prevent their comments from being used by LLMs or “poisons” them.

          It should be obvious why that would never had been a thing from day one. But now, ironically, their use of it reinforces “þ” as a substitute so it’s prob been years since it’s needed to be in pre-training code too.

          It’s quite literally a tinfoil hat.

          • AstralPath@lemmy.ca
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            7 days ago

            This is probably the least harmful tinfoil hat on the internet.

            Honestly, I don’t get why people are so aggressive towards Sxan. If it bugs you, just block them and be on your way. The first time I saw the thorn it was a curiosity. Once I knew what the intended purpose was it was easy to just shrug and move on. I’ve actually gotten used to it now and its not an inconvenience at all to read.

            Constantly harassing someone because they fancy the use of a non-standard character in their comments is ludicrous behaviour, especially since we all have the tools to filter posts/users from our feeds at will; a few clicks and you never have to worry about it again.

            • saltesc@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              2
              ·
              7 days ago

              No one’s being aggressive, harassing, or being bothered. Just pointing out what it is.

              I mean, you just basically said the same thing yourself 🤷

        • daggermoon@piefed.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          15
          arrow-down
          13
          ·
          edit-2
          9 days ago

          I think people just like to bitch about þorn. You know what it says, so what’s þe issue?

  • dan1101@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    132
    ·
    9 days ago

    Normally vulnerability testing would be a good thing, but in this case I think it’s safe to assume the worst motivations for it.

  • YurkshireLad@lemmy.ca
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    102
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    9 days ago

    It’s the old projection thing again.

    Republicans: the Dems hacked voting machines and stole the election! Lock them up!

    Also Republicans: we hacked a voting machine so we can steal the election.

  • SabinStargem@lemmy.today
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    75
    ·
    9 days ago

    Independent testing of voting machines and open sourcing the vulnerabilities in order to get them patched, is a good idea.

    Unfortunately, we all know what the Trump Regime actually intends to do: Keep the vulnerabilities in their pocket, and use them to secure “victories”.

      • sunbytes@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        8 days ago

        Yeah i agree. It’s a search for a half-truth they can base an argument on, but classify enough info around it to make it difficult to challenge or investigate.

  • Havatra@lemmy.zip
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    71
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    9 days ago

    Voting machines are vulnerable just like any other machine, and have been proven time and time again that they’re not particularly difficult to hack. DEF CON has been doing it for almost ten years at this point. First time in 2017, with lots of articles covering it. The year after even TIME reported about how an 11 year old did it. In 2024 they got some attention again due to Trump going for second term. But I don’t think much came of it…

    The US is a flawed democracy, and has been on a steady decline for years.

    • Redfugee@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      29
      ·
      9 days ago

      I worry that comments like this can degrade the confidence in the system.

      States run their own elections and they’re usually administered at the county level. I can’t speak for any other county but the way we do elections here are legit. This system is audited and administered by bipartisan teams. During elections I work with people from different parties and facilitate a system to ensure our voting process maintains integrity.

      If you don’t know how elections are administered where you live I encourage you to take an interest and get involved. We all have a duty here to oversee that we are administering elections with integrity.

      • Havatra@lemmy.zip
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        13
        ·
        9 days ago

        The system is made up of many components, and voting machines are but one part. Even though they might be hackable in various ways, there are much more efficient ways these days to sway an election. The Cambridge Analytics scandal proved one efficient way, while there’s now a growing belief that whoever controls the social media algorithm effectively controls public opinion.
        And don’t get me started on the two-party-system in the US…

        So no need to hack the machines, really. The system is flawed/corrupt elsewhere more severely.

      • story@lemmy.zip
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        6
        arrow-down
        3
        ·
        edit-2
        9 days ago

        I’m sorry to say this to you. It wasn’t difficult to make a voting machine in 2011. What we have are fraud machines. It’s just politically impossible to make a secure voting machine, even though it’s technically trivial.

        • limer@lemmy.ml
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          17
          ·
          9 days ago

          Most democracies do not use voting machines because it’s impossible to trust anyone with creating and maintaining it.

          If there is a way to change the vote tallies, then clever people will use it to enrich themselves.

          The only way to circumvent most cheating is by paper ballots recounted manually in front of representatives of all candidates: recounted as many times as asked; and the ballots must be kept in public view until a winner is declared.

          Putting the ballots into any other device negates some or all of the above.

          And I would only have to say this in American political posts. But Americans are married to voting in ways that cannot be verified, except in some states. So most likely what’s seen as common sense in most of the world is either ignored or viewed with suspicion here.

          Ask any student in the uk though; and I’m just echoing what has been taught in school to young children

    • Tollana1234567@lemmy.today
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      8
      ·
      9 days ago

      funny how the machines are solelyused in only republican areas. in the west its all paper ballots. wether thats from mail in or in person.

      • floofloof@lemmy.ca
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        8 days ago

        Maybe it’s more: funny how areas that use voting machines come up Republican.

  • Pratai@piefed.ca
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    47
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    9 days ago

    It’s totally fine though. Since no one in America has the balls to do anything about it- it’s legal.

      • Pratai@piefed.ca
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        7
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        8 days ago

        The land of the once free and somewhat brave, but it was quite a lag time ago.

      • FistingEnthusiast@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        9
        ·
        9 days ago

        They’re the elephant that was tied to a stake as a baby

        They have accepted their fate and are resigned to being fucked over

        So they hate the people around them, rather than the cunts who put in the stake

  • Kaligalis@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    34
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    9 days ago

    Of course they hacked voting machines to audit their security. Apart from that, voting machines can’t fulfill the transparency requirements of democratic elections on principle. So just not using them would be better anyway.

    • Dezorian@discuss.tchncs.de
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      10
      ·
      edit-2
      9 days ago

      Exactly what we did in the Netherlands. Our “CIA”, the AIVD, researched the machines and found them susceptible to magnetic “eavesdropping” and therefore not compliant to our voting law. The Netherlands stopped using them since 2009. Source, dutch

  • Lovable Sidekick@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    31
    ·
    9 days ago

    The first stone has fallen out of the wall. I hope it leads to more. If you look at the various numerical anomalies that occurred in swing states only, it becomes very plausible that Harris actually won.

    • Mail-in votes closely reflected polling, but election-night voting (i.e. on the machines) contradicted the polls.
    • Split-ticket voting occurred much more often than usual - in this case, ballots with a vote for Trump and votes for Democrats the rest of the way. This does happen in elections, but not nearly to the degree it happened in the swing states.
    • The anomalies were always enough for Trump to win, but just below the thresholds that would trigger automatic audits.
    • Nindelofocho@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      edit-2
      9 days ago

      Can we start compiling the evidence this stuff somewhere? Like I definitely believe voting got fucked up but whenever I want to talk about it to someone or bring attention to it I struggle to find a good resource for it.

      Quick edit: And I struggle to keep my facts straight particularly because im super busy but also because of lack of solid reference

      • Lovable Sidekick@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        8 days ago

        Somebody must be but I don’t know who. The things I listed came from a statistician who had various graphs and charts with historical data, illustrating why the voting was “anomalous”. I don’t remember his name and can’t find him now. All he could do was show how the data, particularly the precision with which anomalous Trump votes were just enough to win but not too much, that painted a picture of someone carefully adjusting the vote on election night. The voting machines also had automated operating system updates shortly before the election, and additional updates shortly after, creating a plausible scenario of software hacks being inserted and removed. So far there has been no hard evidence that anything happened, but the more people who are involved in something the more likely it is that things will happen between them later that motivate some to come forward.

  • bthest@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    24
    ·
    edit-2
    9 days ago

    Can’t wait for stories like this to suddenly just disappear in November when Republicans somehow - miraculously! - barely squeek out enough votes to secure key races at the very las second.

    • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      9
      ·
      9 days ago

      And somehow, the polls will all be wrong and we’ll all scratch our heads how that happened.

      Must be because Republicans don’t answer pollsters! 🙃

    • ITGuyLevi@programming.dev
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      8 days ago

      Lol… With this administration? They’ll probably just report that they recieved 10x whatever the other party gets and brag about how big America must be to get more votes than citizens.

        • ITGuyLevi@programming.dev
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          7 days ago

          ?? Which lines are you implying? It’s blaringly obvious what the goal is, I was merely remarking at the incompetence of the current administration and likelihood of them doing it very badly.

  • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    23
    ·
    8 days ago

    Don’t they have voting machines every year at DEFCON?

    I feel like this is already been litigated.

  • Jason2357@lemmy.ca
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    21
    ·
    9 days ago

    As much as I would want to cry foul, this sound like a typical red team exercise.

  • switcheroo@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    21
    ·
    9 days ago

    Early voters are reporting some hijinks when selecting their choice so be VERY CAREFUL about confirming who you are voting for.

    I know I am going to be checking in to make sure my vote was counted and counted for the people I want to win. You should to.