"Anonymous" Claims to have hacked and thwarted massive GOP vote-fraud attempt

Started by Cyrano Johnson, November 17, 2012, 10:35:00 PM

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Cyrano Johnson

The story is here.

There are reasons not to automatically accept this, beyond the obvious. Many states tacked away from electronic voting machines in the wake of the extremely suspicious debacle of Ohio 2004. So the question remains: were there enough electronic votes in play -- or was there some electronic counting mechanism upstream of enough paper ballots -- for the ORCA scheme alleged herein to work?

I don't know. OTOH I'm not inclined to dismiss it out of hand. For one thing, the GOP spent enough time leading up to the elections bleating about supposed (and to all appearances fictional) Democratic "vote fraud" to raise the suspicion that they were trying to preemptively divert attention from their own activities. For another, the "Anonymous" narrative fits well with the palpable shock shown by GOP operatives, Rove in particular, at the actual results... as if they deeply believed they had it utterly sown up and something had broken spectacularly behind the scenes.

Plenty of fodder, draw your own conclusions. I'm staying agnostic for now. If the story does prove to be true, it's quite troubling if it means elections are largely subject to the whims of competing teams of hackers.
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Lux12

You know it really wouldn't surprise me.I'm not ready to accept this statement as truth, but with some of the things that have been happening in the world lately, it would not surprise me.

Oniya

I know we had paper ballots here.  The little Oni got to see me be very careful about filling in the blocks completely as one of the two acceptable ways of marking it. (An X was the minimum required)
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Beguile's Mistress

We've been using electronic voting machines for a while now.  The setup allows for some issues with privacy but I do trust them.

Ironwolf85

I don't think they were actually going to tamper, but were musing over it, then again Rove's reaction to not winning ohio was interisting.
this is likely going to be conspericy fodder for years to come.
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Stattick

Wow. I don't know whether this is true, or just a publicity stunt by Anonymous. But if it turns out to be true, I hope that Anonymous turns over their evidence to the DOJ, FBI, and other authorities, so Rove and culpable parties can be prosecuted.

Oh, and if this is true, Thank You Anonymous.
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Lux12

Ah that would be lovely.There's nothing I would like more than for Bush and all his buddies from the previous administration to finally be put on trial for their crimes against the people and convicted.

FireflyWhisper

It seems like if it were true, they'd have already exposed them with direct evidence, considering they claim to have hacked their way into the system in advance.

Oniya

Quote from: FireflyWhisper on November 19, 2012, 11:58:30 PM
It seems like if it were true, they'd have already exposed them with direct evidence, considering they claim to have hacked their way into the system in advance.

Except that would be working for 'The Man' (*heavy eyeroll*) and how could they trust an obviously corrupt government with such clear evidence of its own corruption?

Don't get me wrong - if they actually shot this stuff down, I'd raise the individuals responsible for the fraud prevention up on my shoulders and parade them around town.  (Cheap, I know, but I'm on a budget!)  Unfortunately, 'Anonymous' has this annoying tendency of spouting off this Great Thing We've DoneTM with absolutely nothing to show in Exhibit A.
"Language was invented for one reason, boys - to woo women.~*~*~Don't think it's all been done before
And in that endeavor, laziness will not do." ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think we're never gonna win this war
Robin Williams-Dead Poets Society ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think your world's gonna fall apart
I do have a cause, though.  It's obscenity.  I'm for it.  - Tom Lehrer~*~All you need is your beautiful heart
O/O's Updated 5/11/21 - A/A's - Current Status! - Writing a novel - all draws for Fool of Fire up!
Requests updated March 17

Lux12

That is part of anonymous's appeal in a way. They gain influence by building their own mystery no reference to Sarah McLachlan intended. I'm not certain that we even know what anonymous's goals are or even if they have any, but their secrets give them a sort of power.

Chris Brady

Honestly, given Anonymous, I'd be suspect of this.  Until actual proof from a proper agency (yes, yes, I know it would require the Man, that nebulous organization marginalizing your life right now!) appears, I have my doubts this isn't like some terrorist organization taking claim for an act that they didn't do, just for the notoriety it would bring them,
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Lux12

Quote from: Chris Brady on November 20, 2012, 12:28:36 AM
Honestly, given Anonymous, I'd be suspect of this.  Until actual proof from a proper agency (yes, yes, I know it would require the Man, that nebulous organization marginalizing your life right now!) appears, I have my doubts this isn't like some terrorist organization taking claim for an act that they didn't do, just for the notoriety it would bring them,

That would not surprise me. The net like everywhere else, is filled with attention seekers. Even this grants them a certain power though even if they can't exactly set national policy.

Serephino

I would say the shock of Obama winning was more likely because of the huge amounts of money spent.  Karl Rove had that Crossroads Super Pac that was making Democrats nervous.  My inbox was flooded with emails from Democratic candidates pointing out how much more their opponents were spending, and if I didn't donate, they could lose.  The Republicans were airing ads like crazy a few days before the election here because of that belief of repeating a lie over and over again enough will get people to believe it.  I swear, no matter what channel I, Cartoon Network being the exception, every add for like 4 days was political.  I'm sure Ohio got it worse.  That, and poor Rove knew that if Romney lost he'd have lots of very pissed off rich people to deal with.  That was more likely why he freaked out like he did.

Callie Del Noire

I agree with Serephino. Rove failed to perform big time.  As for the app crash first question I asked when I heard about it was: "What sorta system load did they beta test it with?"

If the events happened the way Anon said, we would have seen proof pop up with the announcement.

Vekseid

There are a lot of security issues and potential fraud incidents involving electronic voting and crap like this. However, statistics suggests that it doesn't occur at scale, if it is happening. That there is insufficient oversight that this is possible is a shame, but crafting too big of a conspiracy means just that - all it takes is two people willing to speak up and suddenly you have a giant fucking problem.

Chris Brady

Quote from: Vekseid on November 21, 2012, 11:47:44 AM
There are a lot of security issues and potential fraud incidents involving electronic voting and crap like this. However, statistics suggests that it doesn't occur at scale, if it is happening. That there is insufficient oversight that this is possible is a shame, but crafting too big of a conspiracy means just that - all it takes is two people willing to speak up and suddenly you have a giant fucking problem.
Even if they are lying through their teeth.
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Cyrano Johnson

Quote from: Vekseid on November 21, 2012, 11:47:44 AMThere are a lot of security issues and potential fraud incidents involving electronic voting and crap like this. However, statistics suggests that it doesn't occur at scale, if it is happening. That there is insufficient oversight that this is possible is a shame, but crafting too big of a conspiracy means just that - all it takes is two people willing to speak up and suddenly you have a giant fucking problem.

In fairness to Anonymous, the vote-rigging in Ohio in 2004 (alleged to be a parallel to this attempt) did not require too big of a conspiracy - and all it took was offing a key witness (okay, a key witness "having a(n) [convenient] accident") to put the major players out of reach of effective prosecution. Successful medium-scale conspiracies are actually quite common, they're largely how organized crime and espionage work at all. (To hear some people tell it, no pyramid scheme or unethical clandestine project in history should ever have worked because all it would take was two people willing to speak about it. In reality it's not quite that simple. The Tuskegee syphilis experiments ran for four decades before they acquired even one whistleblower; the Church of Scientology has successfully weathered multiple attempts to expose the fraudulence of its practices and its abuse of many adherents.)
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Moraline

My issue with this topic is that I don't trust Anonymous to tell me anything.

I think Anonymous is nothing more then a juvenile fraternity styled joke.

Anonymous lacks any form of credibility and is an internet meme at this point.


Chris Brady

Anon is a title that any cyber terrorist group likes to use when claiming that their screwing over of everyone is for the 'good' of the 'little guy'.  When in reality, all it does is hurt us.

Because who do you think pays for the extra security that Anon's little escapades cause?  The customer.
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Also, I now come with Kung-Fu Blog action.  Here:  Where I talk about comics and all sorts of gaming

Lux12

Perhaps their only real goal is to troll the world while dressing it up as some noble endeavor?

Cyrano Johnson

Quote from: Moraline on November 22, 2012, 10:34:10 AM
My issue with this topic is that I don't trust Anonymous to tell me anything.

I think Anonymous is nothing more then a juvenile fraternity styled joke.

Anonymous lacks any form of credibility and is an internet meme at this point.

I think it's wise not to necessarily believe everything Anonymous claims. Nor do I necessarily agree with their politics or ethics; essentially they reflect hacker culture, which by and large is pitched to the maturity level of 4chan, and that shows (they can ditch the Guy Fawkes masks any time now, really).

However, it seems to me to vastly overshoot the mark to claim they "lack any form of credibility." In terms of demonstrated technical capability and the various attacks and actions they've been associated with, Anonymous most certainly have achieved considerable credibility over the past decade -- enough so to draw serious law enforcement counter-campaigns. (To what extent that capability has been impacted by the arrests of close to a hundred Anonymous hackers worldwide in the past couple of years, though, I don't know. I have no good sense of how large a pool of "hacktivists" they really have to draw on.)
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Cyrano Johnson

Quote from: Chris Brady on November 22, 2012, 01:41:41 PMBecause who do you think pays for the extra security that Anon's little escapades cause?  The customer.

Meh. I'm willing to bet that botnets and malware unrelated to Anonymous play a way larger role in driving up security costs than the handful of spectacular instances of "hacktivism."
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Chris Brady

Actually no, Hacktivism, as you call it, do drive up he costs.  Because the affected companies often make a big show of it.  And how they now have to 'change' their infrastructure to a more secure one, and whatever excuse they think their customer base will buy into.

In the end, groups that use the Anon label are helping the big companies more than they doing any good.
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So I make a A&A thread but do I put it here?  No.  Of course not.

Also, I now come with Kung-Fu Blog action.  Here:  Where I talk about comics and all sorts of gaming

Cyrano Johnson

Quote from: Chris Brady on November 22, 2012, 04:21:35 PMActually no, Hacktivism, as you call it, do drive up he costs.  Because the affected companies often make a big show of it.

Sure, but this tells us little about what excuses the companies would use absent the activities of Anonymous. I can pretty much guarantee you -- based on the behaviour of companies from long before any such thing as "Anonymous" existed -- they'd still be screwing the customer as hard as they can get away with, "hacktivists" or no. ("Hacktivism" is a better term than "cyber-terrorism." Anonymous do not have an extensive track record of blowing people up or kidnapping them.)

Whether Anonymous is actually "helping" the big corporate machine would have more to do with the outcome of their specific attacks. Which brings us back to the main story of this thread: because if they did in fact forestall another GOP-run robbers' paradise in the White House, that's a politically significant mark on their ledger in favour of helping -- or at least mitigating harm to* -- "the little guy." It would of course still be sobering from "the little guy's" perspective if a bunch of hacker twerps had proved to be decisive in such a way.

* Notwithstanding far-left perspectives that want to see the GOP and Dems as essentially interchangeable. The Bush presidency disproved this pretty conclusively for anyone who was still in doubt, or is not in denial.
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ulthakptah

Anonymous does not exist. They are not a group. Saying Anonymous is a group is like saying vegans are a group. Sure while these people may like and do the same things, they do not gather in shadowy cabals and make sinister plots. The person who is claiming to be from Anonymous probably just worked alone, or maybe with a close friend. The closest thing to communicating as a group Anonymous does is talk big on 4chan.