Anonymous Claims It Stopped Karl Rove From Hacking The Election By Hacking ORCA

[HooptieWagon]

248. Some thoughts, a few guesses, and a conclusion.

OK, there are some interesting thoughts in this thread. I posted upthread that it was possible Anonymous blocked the attempted vote-stealing in Ohio. I still think its technically possible, but probably unlikely. Here's my reasons:

Part one of Anonymous' claim is they interfered with ORCA. Here is a conservative blogger's tale:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021835729
First, he says this was a Team Romney plan, not GOP, not Rove/Crossroads. Claims were made it was the latest, greatest, hi-tech GOTV tool, blah, blah, blah. Supposed training sessions were merely rah-rah pep talks, no training. Information/instruction packets were emailed as pdf files the night before.
OK, this just smacks of a last-minute, done on the cheap, operation. It wasn't available for training, in fact wasn't available until the night before. It wasn't tested. "latest and greatest" type of language isn't an experienced developer would use, its words a young inexperienced person hyping his product uses. Experienced guy just delivers, lets the performance speak for itself. Romney campaign was experiencing money problems the last month and a half, so this was likely done on the cheap. So, in order to hack ORCA, Anonymous had to know about the existence of a program developed at the last minute. They had to know where to find the server. And, once hacking into the server and program, surely they would have realized it was doomed to failure...no hacking necessary.

Addressing Anonymous' second claim, that of unhacking the vote tabulation hack. They said they could prove the tabulation was hacked, or they could unhack it and protect the votes. They claimed to do the latter... easy, since no proof required. Why not do both? Catching (with proof) a major election fraud, and fixing it?...they'd be freakin' heros....not to mention quite wealthy with the business gained from that fame.

So, what happened? I think a fix was in. Polls were spreading the meme that the race was close. Some states (Fl and PA) were targeted for voter suppression. I think Ohio was targeted for voter suppression and vote-fixing. The plan back-fired. The voter-suppression efforts made people even more determined to vote. Husted was under close scrutiny... there were poll-watchers, attorneys, a Federal Judge, and probably a few tech guys behind the scenes. Husted realized voter turnout was huge. Ohio was no longer critical (Obama could lose Ohio and Florida and still win). I think Husted realized it was hopeless, he was likely to get caught, and got cold feet on the vote-fix. But he didn't tell Karl...