(Reuters) – An 11-year-old boy managed to hack into a replica of Florida’s election results website in 10 minutes and change names and tallies during a hackers convention, organizers said, stoking concerns about security ahead of nationwide votes.
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The boy was the quickest of 35 children, ages 6 to 17, who all eventually hacked into copies of the websites of six swing states during the three-day Def Con security convention over the weekend, the event said on Twitter on Tuesday.
Category Archives: Presidential campaign
MisInformationCom and Election Security
So, Dana Perino of Fox News/Daily Briefing had Mary Anne Marsh on the show today to discuss voting security. Mary Ann went on and on about how the Trump administration is not doing enough to ensure foreign interference/election meddling is prevented in the 2018 mid-terms and all the way to the general election in 2020.
Clearly Mary Ann has not been a part of the countless sessions that DHS has hosted for the benefit of each state to protect and harden their respective systems. Frankly, I have participated in 2 conference calls and have watched congressional hearings as well as read documents provided as to the activities on behalf of DHS and the FBI.
Then while few people know, the Justice Department produced a lengthy document by the titled ‘The Cyber Digital Task Force that speaks to all foreign intrusion operations including the matter of the election infrastructure. Pass this on to Mary Ann please. Just one of hundreds of paragraphs is below:
Covert influence operations, including disinformation operations, to influencepublic opinion and sow division.Using false U.S. personas, adversaries could covertly create and operate social media pages and other forums designed to attract U.S. audiences and spread disinformation or divisive messages. This could happen in isolation or in combination with other operations, and could be intended to foster specific narratives that advance foreign political objectives, or could be intended simply to turn citizens against each other. These messages need not relate directly to political campaigns. They could seek to depress voter turnout among particular groups, encourage third-party voting, or convince the public of widespread voter fraud to undermine confidence in election results. These messages could target discrete U.S. populations based on their politicaland demographic characteristics. They may mobilize Americans to sign online petitionsand join issue-related rallies and protests, or even to incite violence. For example, advertisements from at least 2015 to 2017 linked to a Russian organization called the Internet Research Agency focused on divisive issues, including illegal immigration and gun rights, among others, and targeted those messages to groups most likely to react.
Meanwhile, there is an external organization made up of subject matter experts collecting evidence and stories of which the Deputy Assistant Attorney General Adam S. Hickey for the National Security Division Delivered Remarks at Misinfo Con.
Thank you for the invitation to speak today, and for the important work you are doing: in organizing this conference devoted to the challenges of misinformation, and, by attending, bringing your experience and expertise to bear on the problem.It’s a privilege to help kick off this first day of MisinfoCon, focused on state-sponsored misinformation. To do that, I am going to give you an overview of how the Department of Justice views the problem, where it fits in the context of related national security threats, and how we are addressing it.
Putin’s Threat During the Press Conf with President Trump
London – The Moscow lawyer said to have promised Donald Trump’s presidential campaign dirt on his Democratic opponent worked more closely with senior Russian government officials than she previously let on, according to documents reviewed by The Associated Press.
Scores of emails, transcripts and legal documents paint a portrait of Natalia Veselnitskaya as a well-connected attorney who served as a ghostwriter for top Russian government lawyers and received assistance from senior Interior Ministry personnel in a case involving a key client.
Trade: The Pain to the Farmers Just Cost us $12 Billion
BAILOUT
Short term pain? Does that $12 billion in emergency funding come back into the Treasury at some point? Beyond farmers, will there eventually be some emergency funding for those in the energy industry or to the fisherman? China is waiting it out….but was all this thought out?
Anyone remember BRICS?
“the BRICS bloc – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – are expected to band together in defense of the multilateralism the United States once championed.”
Putin vs. McFaul, DHS, Browder and Why
It all comes down to the Magnitsky Act. In short Vladimir Putin is furious over this law and other countries are slowly setting it as law as well, most recently it appears, Spain.
When President Trump met with Putin in Helsinki, that was part of the discussion, repeal the law or apply waivers and allow Moscow access to key people, such as Bill Browder, a British citizen, former Ambassador McFaul, a few DHS investigators and two others, a fellow named Parker and other named Otto. Finally the Trump White House said NYET.