Cyberattack on Florida election is first known attempt

[DonViejo]

Experts analyzing last year's election found rejected "phantom requests" for absentee ballots
BY NATASHA LENNARD

In what experts have called the first reported attempt to cyberattack a U.S. election, more than 2,500 “phantom requests” for absentee ballots were sent to Miami-Dade County elections website according to a grand jury report flagged by NBC News Monday.

All the requests were detected and rejected, but the incident has nonetheless raised concerns about cyberthreats to online voting systems. The improper requests came from a small number of computer IP addresses overseas, which drew the attention of election workers. As NBC noted, “it is not clear whether the bogus requests were an attempt to influence a specific race, test the system or simply interfere with the voting.” The originators of the phantom requests could not be traced, the grand jury report noted, as they used proxy servers that make Internet activity untraceable.

NBC noted that while there have been allegations of U.S. election system rigging in the past, experts believe this incident to be the first (although long-anticipated) documented cyberattack attempt. Via NBC:

“It’s the first documented attack I know of on an online U.S. election-related system that’s not (involving) a mock election,” said David Jefferson, a computer scientist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory who is on the board of directors of the Verified Voting Foundation and the California Voter Foundation.

Other experts contacted by NBC News agreed that the attempt to obtain the ballots is the first known case of a cyberattack on voting, though they noted that there are so many local elections systems in use that it’s possible that a similar attempt has gone unnoticed.

more
http://www.salon.com/2013/03/18/cyberattack_on_florida_election_is_first_known_attempt/

[davidpdx]

1. The Chinese or the Republicans

Take your pick....

[muriel_volestrangler]

2. My guess would be that asshole O'Keefe

He was attempting election fraud elsewhere, hoping he could show there were problems in the system.

[winter is coming]

6. Wouldn't surprise me. n/t

[Proud Liberal Dem]

3. The Chinese? Ya, that's it......

[davidpdx]

4. Well they are good at hacking

So it could be a possibility.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

5. Possible (I suppose)

However, when I hear the word "hacking" paired with "Florida", well, my next immediate thought is "Republican (esp. after 2000).

[davidpdx]

7. Could be both

I suppose that is getting a little bit into the conspiracy theory/tin foil hat area.