reuters.com
www.reuters.com

White House officials have for months delayed the release of a U.S. government report that outlines what it describes as significant vulnerabilities in the nation’s voting machines ahead of the November midterms, according to three sources familiar with the matter.

The report, produced by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, concludes that voting ‌machines could be further safeguarded by, for example, updating their software, the sources said. It does not say the vulnerabilities have led to votes flipping, but examines security gaps in how the machines are used during U.S. elections.

Some White House officials have argued the report could undermine voter confidence, particularly among Republicans. Others have said they do not believe the report goes far enough in supporting Donald Trump’s false claims that the 2020 presidential election was rigged, the three sources said. Some Democrats said privately they worried Gabbard’s probe into voting machines would be used by the administration to push states to use paper ballots.

  • Prox@lemmy.world
    311·
    1 day ago

    The report, produced by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, concludes that voting ‌machines could be further safeguarded by, for example, updating their software, the sources said.

    Are voting machines connected to the internet???

    I mean, yeah, updating software is nearly always better for security, but why wouldn’t you just run the machines disconnected for max security?

    • SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world
      181·
      1 day ago

      Someone could still get isolated access to one, and it’s not a bad idea to ensure that the firmware is as robustly secure as possible.

      The last voting machines I worked on didn’t have Internet connectivity, but they did have a freely accessible PCMCIA card slot for firmware updates.

    • crunchy@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      5·
      1 day ago

      Voting machines are airgapped in polling places. Patches are most likely deployed from a centralized patch management server wherever they’re stored in the off-season, likely also on an airgapped network.

      • 4am@lemmy.zip
        111·
        1 day ago

        Likely. Maybe. Should be. Best practice. Most likely.

        So the vote goes into a black box, which few understand and which no one can observe, and we are to believe that no one was able to find a way around whatever good actors, policies, and procedures are in place to protect them from tampering?

        Right, and they’re NOT building datacenters in order to make computer components so expensive that it prices the average joe out of personal computing and forces cloud serfdom.