Saturday, February 15, 2020
MIT Warns That Voting App Used in Several States is Vulnerable for Hackers to ‘Alter, Stop or Expose’ Votes
The app used in several states can be exploited, according to researchers.
An internet-based voting app that has been used on a limited basis in West Virginia, Denver, Oregon and Utah is vulnerable to hackers, according to Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers.
The research indicates that Voatz, an app that has been mostly used for absentee voters and miitary personnel voting overseas, can be exploited to “alter, stop or expose how an individual has voted.”
Election security experts have long warned that internet-based voting is prone for hacking, but that hasn’t stopped states from attempting it.
“We all have an interest in increasing access to the ballot, but in order to maintain trust in our elections system, we must assure that voting systems meet the high technical and operation security standards before they are put in the field,” said Daniel Weitzner, an MIT scientist who helped to prepare the report, on Thursday.
Donald Kersey, a general counsel in the secretary of state’s office in West Virginia, explained that the state has to use electronic voting due to a new law that allows disabled people to vote online. He claims his state hasn’t committed to using the Voatz app.
“Obviously, integrity and security are prime, but voter confidence is equally important,” Kersey said.
Voatz disputes the MIT study, claiming that it was conducted in “bad faith,” and used an older, outdated form of their app that has since been improved. Nevertheless, the experts are crowing that this study backs what they have been saying about the dangers of electronic voting for many years.
“Not to in any way diminish this (excellent) work, but the fact that an online mobile voting scheme has serious security flaws is ultimately unsurprising,” tweeted Matt Blaze, a Georgetown University professor of computer science and law. “Every serious expert has warned against Internet voting.”
“In my view, based on MIT’s findings, no responsible jurisdiction should use Voatz in real elections any time soon,” wrote J. Alex Halderman, a University of Michigan professor. “It will take major advances in security technology before Internet voting is...
Granddaughter of Slaying Victim, 92, Backs Trump’s Fight Against Illegal-Immigrant ‘Sanctuaries’
Daria Ortiz’s voice cracked when speaking at a White House event Friday, as she described how New York City’s “sanctuary city” status let her family—and the rest of the city’s residents—down.
Her 92-year-old grandmother, Maria Fuentes, a legal immigrant from the Dominican Republic, was sexually assaulted and killed last month, and police have charged illegal immigrant and alleged repeat criminal offender Reeaz Khan, 21.
Khan, from Guyana, was previously arrested on assault charges, but the city released him, despite an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainer request.
Sanctuary jurisdictions are cities, counties, and states that provide a safe haven for illegal immigrants—in some cases, dangerous criminals—and obstruct federal immigration enforcement. That usually comes in the form of ignoring ICE detainer orders, except when there is a court order.
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“Before coming to America, [Fuentes] worked as a secretary for the president in her native country, the Dominican Republic. She is a shining example of people who come legally to this country, work hard and do the right thing, and are law-abiding citizens,” Ortiz said. “My grandmother raised her children and her grandchildren while working hard to give us a future.”
Ortiz stood with President Donald Trump in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building next to the White House, speaking to a crowd of about 220 U.S. Border Patrol agents and family members at a gathering of the National Border Patrol Council, the agents’ union.
During the event, Trump spoke about his administration’s immigration policies, the border wall, and cracking down on sanctuary jurisdictions.
The Justice Department recently filed lawsuits against the states of California and New Jersey, as well as against King County, Washington. All three lawsuits argue that the states and the county have violated the Supremacy Clause of Article VI of the Constitution, contending the jurisdictions are flouting federal immigration laws.
“Unfortunately, my grandmother had to be the example of why something like this horrific crime should never happen,” Ortiz said, adding:
What Would You Do If You Truly Believed Inaction Would Be The Apocalypse?
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They Are Dangerous.
They'll Lose, But Expect Havoc.
John Brennan Under DOJ Scrutiny, As John Durham’s Criminal Investigation Expands
U.S. Attorney John Durham – charged with the criminal probe into the FBI’s Russia investigation of the Trump campaign – has been questioning CIA officials closely involved with John Brennan’s 2017 intelligence community assessment regarding direct Russian interference in the 2016 election, according to U.S. officials.
In May 2017, Brennan denied during a hearing before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence that its agency relied on the now debunked Christopher Steele dossier for the Intelligence Community Assessment report. He told then Congressman Trey Gowdy “we didn’t” use the Steele dossier.
“It wasn’t part of the corpus of intelligence information that we had,” Brennan stated. “It was not in any way used as a basis for the Intelligence Community assessment that was done. It was — it was not.”
However, DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz confirmed in his report that the dossier was used in the Obama administration’s 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA). As stated in the IG report, there were discussions by top intelligence officials as to whether the Steele dossier should be included in the ICA report.
But upon careful inspection of Horowitz’s report, on page 179, investigators ask former FBI Director James Comey if he discussed the dossier with Brennan and whether or not it should be given to President Obama. According to the report, Comey told investigators that Brennan said it was “important” enough to include in the ICA — clearly part of the “corpus of intelligence information” they had.
According to a recent report by The New York Times, Durham’s probe is specifically looking at that January 2017 intelligence community assessment, which concluded with “high confidence” that Russian President Vladimir Putin “ordered an influence campaign in 2016.”
From the New York Times:
“Mr. Durham appears to be pursuing a theory that the C.I.A., under its former director John O. Brennan, had a preconceived notion about Russia or was trying to get to a particular result — and was nefariously trying to keep other agencies from seeing the full picture lest they interfere with that goal, the people said.”
Sources with knowledge have said CIA officials questioned by Durham’s investigative team
“are extremely concerned with the investigation and the direction it’s heading.”
Brennan’s assessment stated that Putin wanted to “undermine public faith in the U.S. democratic process, denigrate former Secretary of State [Hillary] Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency.” It also stated that Putin “developed a clear preference for...
Cambridge Academic Says Human Race Must Become Extinct to Save the Planet
And white men are first to go, obviously.
A Cambridge academic has called for the extinction of humanity to save the planet while noting that white, male, heterosexuals are to blame for all the world’s woes.
In her new book The Ahuman Manifesto, Professor Patricia MacCormack argues that the only way to prevent ecological disaster is to begin “gradually phasing out reproduction.”
Speaking to CambridgeshireLive, Professor MacCormack made it clear who would be first on the evolutionary chopping block.
“The basic premise of the book is that we’re in the age of the Anthropocene, humanity has caused mass problems and one of them is creating this hierarchal world where white, male, heterosexual and able-bodied people are succeeding, and people of different races, genders, sexualities and those with disabilities are struggling to get that,” she said.
According to CambridgeshireLive’s Alistair Ryder, despite literally calling for the entire human species to be wiped out, the book has a “joyful and optimistic tone.”
Ok, then.
MacCormack said her ideas were first inspired by her interest in “feminism and queer theory.” Imagine my shock.
The professor also wants to completely dismantle religion, although whether that would extend to her own beliefs is unclear.
MacCormack appears in a YouTube video entitled ‘Performing the Occult’ in which she discusses the crucial topic of “vulvic deamonitalia.”
She also featured in a DVD called Video Nasties: The Definitive Guide, in which she reviews a movie called The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith, which is about an “exploited Aboriginal Australian” who commits a massacre in the name of racial justice.
“Hats off to Morticia for cutting to the chase,” writes Dave Blount. “Worship of the other, hatred for your kind is at the core of liberal ideology. This has inevitably led to support for...
Buttigieg’s War and ‘The Shortest Way Home’
When Mayor Pete Buttigieg talks about his military service, his opponents fall silent, the media fall in love, and his political prospects soar. Veterans roll their eyes.
CNN’s Jake Tapper asked Mr. Buttigieg Sunday if President Trump “deserves some credit” for the strike that killed Iranian Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani. “No,” the candidate replied, “not until we know whether this was a good decision and how this decision was made.” He questioned whether “it was the right strategic move” and said his own judgment “is informed by the experience of having been on one of those planes headed into a war zone.”
But Mr. Buttigieg’s stint in the Navy isn’t as impressive as he makes it out to be. His 2019 memoir is called “Shortest Way Home,” an apt description of his military service. He entered the military through a little-used shortcut: direct commission in the reserves. The usual route to an officer’s commission includes four years at Annapolis or another military academy or months of intense training at Officer Candidate School. ROTC programs send prospective officers to far-flung summer training programs and require military drills during the academic year. Mr. Buttigieg skipped all that—no obstacle courses, no weapons training, no evaluation of his ability or willingness to lead. Paperwork, a health exam and a background check were all it took to make him a naval officer.
He writes that his reserve service “will always be one of the highlights of my life, but the price of admission was an ongoing flow of administrativia.” That’s not how it’s supposed to work. The paperwork isn’t the price of admission but the start of a long, grueling test.
Combat veterans have grumbled for decades about the direct-commission route. The politically connected and other luminaries who receive immediate commissions are disparaged as “pomeranian princes.” Former Trump chief of staff Reince Priebus became a Naval Reserve officer in 2018 at age 46. Hunter Biden, son of the former vice president, accepted a direct commission but was discharged after one month of service for failing a drug test.
Mr. Buttigieg was assigned to a comfortable corner of military life, the Naval Station in Great Lakes, Ill. Paperwork and light exercise were the order of the day. “Working eight-hour days,” he writes, was “a relaxing contrast from my day job, and spending time with sailors from all walks of civilian life, was a healthy antidote to the all absorbing work I had in South Bend.” He calls it “a forced, but welcome, change of pace from the constant activity of being mayor.”
During a November debate, Mr. Buttigieg proclaimed: “I have the experience of being commanded into a war zone by an American president.” The reality isn’t so grandiose. In 2013, he writes, he “made sure my chain of command knew that I would rather go sooner than later, and would rather go to Afghanistan than anywhere else.”
Arriving there, he “felt a sense of purpose, maybe even idealism, that can only be compared to the feeling of starting on a political campaign. I thought back to 2004 and John Kerry’s presidential run, and then remembered that it was during the campaign that I saw the iconic footage of his testimony as the spokesman for Vietnam Veterans against the War.”
The comparison is telling. Mr. Buttigieg has just started his time in a war he says he’s idealistic about, but he daydreams about John Kerry protesting Vietnam after he got back. Many veterans detest Mr. Kerry’s “iconic” 1971 testimony, in which he slandered American servicemen. But it did launch a decadeslong political career.
Mr. Buttigieg spent some five months in Afghanistan, where he writes that he remained less busy than he’d been at City Hall, with “more time for reflection and reading than I was used to back home.” He writes that he would take “a laptop and a cigar up to the roof at midnight to pick up a Wi-Fi signal and patch via Skype into a staff meeting at home.” The closest he came to combat was ferrying other staffers around in an SUV: In his campaign kickoff speech last April he referred to “119 trips I took outside the wire, driving or guarding a vehicle.” That’s a strange thing to count...
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