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Do Connecticut’s Tamper-“Evident” Seals Protect Our Ballots?

Experts and amateurs have long claimed that so called, tamper-evident seals are easy to defeat.
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Experts and amateurs have long claimed that so called, tamper-evident seals are easy to defeat.
See Security Theater: Scary! Expert Outlines Physical Security Limitations.

Matt Bernhard has provided a video showing one easy method of compromising the seals commonly in use in Connecticut. Those that seal perhaps 90% of our ballots and optical scanners:
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As Matt says there is a small possibility someone could detect the resealing. I doubt it would happen and if it did it would be doubted. There are no seal protocols in Connecticut.

There is more explanation in a similar video Matt did earlier with a bit different seal:

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Don’t worry the bad guys, expert and amateur, have other ways as well. We are not helping them. We are informing those that feel our ballots are secure.

PS: Most voted ballots in Connecticut are sealed in bags or plastic boxes and stored where they can be accessed by multiple single individuals for hours, undetected.

The Big Hack: How China Used a Tiny Chip to Infiltrate U.S. Companies

Often, as a computer scientist, I forget that what a very small minority know that becomes almost intuitive, is far from obvious to others approaching magic, a deluded conspiracy, or amateur science fiction.

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. – Arthur C. Clarke

This article from Bloomberg News is a case in point.

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. – Arthur C. Clarke

This article from Bloomberg News is a case in point. When I tell many election officials that voting machines not connected to WiFi remain unsafe, I am greeted with dismissive looks of unbelief. The conversation ends quickly as they walk away, eager to put space between themselves and this crazy person. The truth is we do not know what is running inside Connecticut’s AccuVote-OS scanners. Is there some rogue code or portion of a chip there from the beginning? During maintenance did an LHS employee replace one chip with a rogue chip indistinguishable from the original? Was a chip replaced by a lowly or high-level town employee, undetected – perhaps not even a technical novice, but one who has been threatened into the deed?

The Big Hack: How China Used a Tiny Chip to Infiltrate U.S. Companies – The attack by Chinese spies reached almost 30 U.S. companies, including Amazon and Apple, by compromising America’s technology supply chain, according to extensive interviews with government and corporate sources. <read>

Nested on the servers’ motherboards, the testers found a tiny microchip, not much bigger than a grain of rice, that wasn’t part of the boards’ original design. Amazon reported the discovery to U.S. authorities, sending a shudder through the intelligence community. Elemental’s servers could be found in Department of Defense data centers, the CIA’s drone operations, and the onboard networks of Navy warships. And Elemental was just one of hundreds of Supermicro customers…

This attack was something graver than the software-based incidents the world has grown accustomed to seeing. Hardware hacks are more difficult to pull off and potentially more devastating, promising the kind of long-term, stealth access that spy agencies are willing to invest millions of dollars and many years to get…

One official says investigators found that it eventually affected almost 30 companies, including a major bank, government contractors, and the world’s most valuable company, Apple Inc.

We do not know if any of these motherboards are used for any election equipment – voting equipment, election web sites,voter registration systems, or election reporting systems. Yet, the point is this or a similar stealth attack could be lie in wait today or be installed soon in existing or new equipment.

Merrill: “likely to increase audits”

Merrill said her office will likely also increase its audits. Currently it randomly selects voting precincts to have primary results audited following elections; five percent of polling places that use optical scan machines are subject to the audit, as prescribed by Connecticut General Statutes 9-320f. Those counts are then matched against vote totals from optical scan machines.

From Westfair an extensive interview with Secretary of the State Denise Merrill on security improvements CT ramping up cybersecurity efforts ahead of election – but will it be enough? <read>

Merrill said her office will likely also increase its audits. Currently it randomly selects voting precincts to have primary results audited following elections; five percent of polling places that use optical scan machines are subject to the audit, as prescribed by Connecticut General Statutes 9-320f. Those counts are then matched against vote totals from optical scan machines.

We will applaud any substantial changes to improve the audits. There are many weaknesses in the current law and in its execution. <Citizen Audit’s latest report>

Deputy Scott Bates Selects 36 Districts for Audit

On Thursday Deputy Secretary of the State Scott Bates selected 36 districts for the post-primary audit.<press release with selected districts>

Departing from past practice, the Official Audit Procedures, and the law as it has always been interpreted, the Deputy selected three statewide races from each party to be audited in their respective primaries and then selected only one party primary to be audited in each district. The Official Audit Procedures, and the law indicate that 5% of the districts in each primary be audited with a minimum of 20% of the races randomly selected by the municipal clerk from all races on each ballot.

On Thursday Deputy Secretary of the State Scott Bates selected 36 districts for the post-primary audit.<press release with selected districts>

The “Real” Lawyers Only Need Apply Rule

As this CTNewsJunkie post implies, it will always be called The Bysiewicz Test <read>

Ambiguously defined in law and only slightly less ambiguously by the Connecticut Supreme Court. All we know for sure is that you have to be a lawyer in CT for at least ten years and have different experience than Susan Bysiewicz had in 2010. As I commented in on the article:

I always find it interesting that the AG and Judge of Probate are the only offices that have qualifications, as far as I know. They are both related to law. I wonder if the composition of the General Assembly makes the legislature realize how important qualifications are, in just these cases?

There remains no necessary training whatsoever to be Secretary of the State, while some of her employees, but not all, need to be lawyers to give advice to the public, would be candidates, and election officials. That could be going better, but of course, certification by itself does not preclude errors and incompetence, or as Jon Lender puts it Bungling

As this CTNewsJunkie post implies, it will always be called The Bysiewicz Test <read>

I always find it interesting that the AG and Judge of Probate are the only offices that have qualifications, as far as I know. They are both related to law. I wonder if the composition of the General Assembly makes the legislature realize how important qualifications are, in just these cases?

Why is there no requirement that the Comptroller be a CPA with 10 years in practice? How about the Treasurer being an MBA with 10 years managing significant funds? Or that the Secretary of the State has been a Registrar, Municipal Clerk, and served in election administration or as a pollworker for at least 10 elections?

There is no such requirement for Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.

Or perhaps there should be no qualifications for any office?

The General Assembly and Denise Merrill, agree that to be a pollworker you must be trained before every election and primary; to lead a polling place or the counting of absentee ballots you must be a Certified Moderator; there are no qualifications to be a Registrar of Voters, yet you must become a Certified Registrar to remain a Registrar and be subject to some refresher training each year.

There remains no necessary training whatsoever to be Secretary of the State, while some of her employees, but not all need to be lawyers, to give advice to the public, would be candidates, and election officials. That could be going better, but of course, certification by itself does not preclude errors and incompetence, or as Jon Lender puts it Bungling: Candidate’s Lawsuit Says Bungling By Merrill’s Office Ruined Her Chance At Primary <read>

Ex-State Rep. Vickie Orsini Nardello, D-Prospect, claims in a lawsuit that bungling by Democratic Secretary of the State Denise Merrill’s office has deprived her of running in a 16th State Senate District primary that she qualified for at a convention in May.

Nardello says two Merrill subordinates told her two different things early this month: one, that a technical problem with her primary eligibility form (she’d failed to write “16” in the “Senatorial District” space) had been “resolved” and she was “all set”; and the other that “we are unable to accept your certificate of eligibility” and it’s too late to submit one that’s filled in correctly.

One blow behind closed doors, two blows to open government

Statement from the Connecticut Freedom of Information Council: Restore public access to public hearings

To the surprise of many, the vast majority of transcripts from public hearings held during the recently adjourned 2018 legislative session are not available. Officials from the Office of Legislative Management and the House and Senate say that transcription services have fallen victim to budget cuts, with the elimination of the service expected to save about $100,000 annually. The decision apparently was made without public input and has been condemned by open-government advocates.

This directly effects me, CT Voters Count, and the Citizen Audit. It effects anyone involved in the legislative process or litigation related to Connecticut law. This effects you indirectly, and significantly.

Statement from the Connecticut Freedom of Information Council: Restore public access to public hearings <read>

To the surprise of many, the vast majority of transcripts from public hearings held during the recently adjourned 2018 legislative session are not available. Officials from the Office of Legislative Management and the House and Senate say that transcription services have fallen victim to budget cuts, with the elimination of the service expected to save about $100,000 annually. The decision apparently was made without public input and has been condemned by open-government advocates.

This is a double whammy to open government:

It was a decision made months ago behind closed doors with no notice to those effected.
It curtails public access to information and provides no public record of critical information.

Can there be any wonder why this was done in secret – It would not have survived scrutiny:

Murphy was a member of a task force that met in 2010 and was charged with making recommendations regarding the conversion of legislative records from paper to electronic form. According to the group’s final report, “the task force was presented with an overwhelming amount of testimony opposing elimination of public hearing transcriptions.”

Among those testifying were members of the legislative, judicial and executive branches, including the offices of the attorney general, chief court administrator, chief public defender and the Division of Criminal Justice. Others included the Connecticut Bar Association and the Southern New England Law Librarians Association. Ultimately, the vote to oppose elimination of the transcripts was unanimous.

Opposition has not abated and many open-government advocates view the decision by legislative leaders as yet another step in limiting accountability and curtailing transparency.

For example:

Twice this year I heard testimony which I wanted to view the transcript when it became available. Once to preserve and retain a statement of a state official in their testimony. Another time to lookup a critical reference from expert testimony for use in future years.
I have been working toward passing a civil rights bill for a couple of years. It would extend a bill passed in 2002. The first thing legislators ask for is the legislative history of the bill in 2002. Fortunately, that testimony transcribed prior to online access, is preserved and available at the State Library.
Similarly the record of another bill passed several years ago provides evidence that the Legislative intent is not being followed, resulting in the disenfranchisement of voters.

This follows the assaults on CT-N and the past refusal to provide public access to the accounting records of the UConn Foundation. Connecticut once had a Freedom of Information law that was the envy of the world. This is also consistent with unrelenting attacks chipping away at Elections Enforcement and the Citizen Election Program.

Life on the Internet “Frontier”

Today we all live on the Internet Frontier. Many of us in Connecticut had a reminder yesterday from our major communication provider Frontier Communications Corp. As reported in the Hartford Courant: Customers Blast Frontier After Internet Outage

Customers of Frontier Communications Corp. in Connecticut complained Tuesday about lost internet service that the telecommunications company said was due to a software update…

What might we learn?

We are very dependent on a very risky infrastructure.
This is costly.

Customers of Frontier Communications Corp. in Connecticut complained Tuesday about lost internet service that the telecommunications company said was due to a software update…

Spokesman Andy Malinoski said in an email that Frontier apologizes for the service interruption caused by a software update installed overnight in Frontier’s network.

“We have corrected the issue with the update. Service is now restored. Customers should not have to reboot their modems,” he said…

Complaints from customers were similar to what Frontier endured when it bought AT&T’s wire line business for $2 billion in 2014. Customers then complained about lost connections, mostly related to the bundled service formerly known as U-Verse.

Consumers then filed hundreds of complaints with the state Department of Consumer Protection, state attorney general’s office and Public Utilities Regulatory Authority.

Frontier offered a $50 credit for Frontier U-Verse customers.

I was one of those customers. The outage was from about 2:00am until sometime between 9:00am and 11:00am. The outage is over, the outrage should continue. After wasting about an hour, delaying our usual handling of emails and reading the Courant, my wife and I went to town and found our favorite coffee shop and the public green nearby, both without their usual Internet. I suggested trying Starbucks next door. My wife suggested the one at the north end of town, in case it was a local outage. The northern Starbucks Internet worked! Was it coincidental with Frontier’s recovery or not? I do not know.

What might we learn?

We are very dependent on a very risky infrastructure. Just one bad software update, hardware failure, cyberattack, or insider attack from calamity. This time we mostly dodged a bullet. Nothing terrible happened, that we know of, the whole State was out for a few hours. Meanwhile portions of the state are still recovering from a power outage last week caused by tornadoes and microbursts, that our electric utility, the so called, Eversource claims knocked out more miles of power lines than hurricane Sandy. We are lucky that a company incompetent enough to knock out a state’s Internet from a software glitch took only a few hours to notice it and recover. It could have been a hardware problem or software problem that physically broke some infrastructure or required manual software updates to routers. It could have launched a chain reaction that cause power, telephone, or public safety outages at the same time. Frontier phone systems, delivered by that same wire miraculously did not go down as they often do together.

Imagine if this were a foreign enemy, a cyber terrorist, or a frustrated Frontier employee timing their interruption at the worst possible time or aimed at a particular customer of public facility. Imagine if this was actually a test, not difficult if you try.

This is costly. $50 compensation for months of outages etc. two years ago. That is a pittance. You could say the hour we lost was worth $50 to my wife and myself in aggravation and time list. We are retired. The loss would be much worse if we were employed, a small, or a large business. It could mean lost customers. If the phone had gone down it could, and would likely have killed people unable to reach 911. They touted that customers would not have to reboot their routers. Big deal. Rebooting my router was one of the first things I tried.

Pity the business dependent on Frontier, assuming that such a large enterprise, has Internet expertise could be trusted to support websites for their customers:

Gary Choronzy, chief executive officer of Connecticut Websites, a Branford website design company, said service stopped at about 2 a.m. After a long wait on the telephone, he was only able to confirm that he paid his bill and that the service outage was due to a technical problem.

Choronzy said he could not get connected to a service representative…

“I run my business around the internet,” he said. “It’s unconscionable.”…

Choronzy and other Frontier customers tweeted their exasperation.

“The current Frontier Internet & TV outages across Connecticut, as well as the ridiculously high prices they and @comcast charge are exactly why cord-cutting has become so popular,” he said.

My websites and those I support are hosted by a company that has multiple redundant datacenters and severs across the country. To my knowledge, in over a decade they have not had anything like a four hour outage.

Testimony to the Connecticut Cybersecurity Task Force – UPDATED

I testified in my capacity as Executive Director of the Connecticut Citizen Election Audit. I was the only member of the public providing testimony.

Why are post-election audits and paper ballots a critical component of protecting our elections? “[D}data protection involves prevention, detection, and recovery”. Cybersecurity and other measures protecting voting equipment and voting systems are primarily prevention measures and to a lesser degree detection measures. No matter how much effort we put into cybersecurity, software testing, and hardware maintenance there will always be a significant level of vulnerability.

Paper ballots, sufficient post-election audits, and recounts provide a primary means of detecting cyber, software, human, and hardware failures. They also provide a means of recovery. They provide for, so called, software independent verification of election results, resulting in justified public confidence.

Today was the 2^nd and perhaps last meeting of the Connecticut Cybersecurity Task Force, aimed at recommending items for Connecticut’s share of the $5.1 million in new Federal Funding.

I testified in my capacity as Executive Director of the Connecticut Citizen Election Audit. I was the only member of the public providing testimony. In a couple of days I will pass on the video of the event, once it becomes available. For now:
Here is the Agenda: <read> and my Testimony: <read>

I largely addressed the need for paper ballot security and post-election audits and how some of the new Federal money could be used to enhance them now and in the future.

I think I raised some awareness from my testimony and the questions members asked, yet it seems that the modest items I suggested might be deemed cost prohibitive. I spoke for six minutes and addressed questions for about 10 minutes (the emboldened portion of my written testimony), so the video will be interesting. The recommendations for spending the $5.1 million will apparently closely mimic the items listed near the end of the agenda.

Here is an excerpt of some highlights:

Enhancing post-election audits was explicitly included as an appropriate use of funds in the Federal legislation. Protection of paper ballots is a necessary component of trustworthy post-election audits. I recommend initial steps that will cost, less than one-half a million dollars and outline a more comprehensive, yet efficient plan for the long run that might best protect Connecticut elections and ultimately our democracy.

Why are post-election audits and paper ballots a critical component of protecting our elections? “[D}data protection involves prevention, detection, and recovery”. Cybersecurity and other measures protecting voting equipment and voting systems are primarily prevention measures and to a lesser degree detection measures. No matter how much effort we put into cybersecurity, software testing, and hardware maintenance there will always be a significant level of vulnerability.

Paper ballots, sufficient post-election audits, and recounts provide a primary means of detecting cyber, software, human, and hardware failures. They also provide a means of recovery. They provide for, so called, software independent verification of election results, resulting in justified public confidence. I agree with Secretary Merrill that public confidence is important. I emphasize that the goal should be justified public confidence.

For post-election audits and recounts to be trusted requires strong paper ballot security and a credible chain-of-custody. Audits must also be transparent and publicly verifiable. The independent Citizen Audit reports show our ballot security is woefully inadequate.

Connecticut currently has an insufficient post-election audit. Insufficient because it only audits 5% of polling-place cast, machine counted ballots, exempting all centrally counted absentee ballots, Election Day Registration ballots, and originally hand-counted ballots from the audit. Insufficient because many of the local counting sessions are poorly conducted, with most differences in counts attributed to human counting error and left uninvestigated – a phenomenon that is, as far as I can tell, unique to Connecticut.

Fortunately, there is a straight-forward remedy close at hand. The UConn VoTeR Center in conjunction with the Secretary’s Office have developed an independent, electronic system to rescan and recount the ballots, called the Audit Station. Unfortunately, the Audit Station has not been used in a way that meets requirements for software independence or that would satisfy most election integrity activists, leading scientists, and security experts.

The good news is that the Audit Station could easily be enhanced to satisfy most experts.My written testimony details Citizen Audit recommendations for ballot security and audits. Once again, I emphasize that audits and protected paper ballots are necessary for detection and recovery from every type of attack, breakdown, and error.

The Registrars of Voters Association asked for money for electronic pollbooks and for GEMS systems to accumulate results from memory cards, presumably somehow replacing or enhancing our new, completely air-gaped Election Night Reporting System.

Without explanation the Registrars linked those systems to improved cybersecurity.

They also asked the State to pay for new computers, newer than the XP systems many registrars use and sometimes share with other town employees.

Those suggestions were apparently ignored.

For the agenda from the 1^st meeting and a list of task force members, see this press release: <read>

***********UPDATE:

Days sooner than last time, the video is available: <View>

My testimony starts at about 45 minutes in.

In reviewing the video, I note that Secretary Merrill did express interest in using some of the Federal money for some of our recommendations and considering improving some aspects of the audits.

America is still unprepared for a Russian attack on our elections

Washington Post: America is still unprepared for a Russian attack on our elections

Though these machines are not routinely connected to the Internet, NYU’s Lawrence Norden warns that there are nonetheless ways to infiltrate them…

Having paper-friendly machines is hardly enough.

Washington Post: America is still unprepared for a Russian attack on our elections <read>

Though these machines are not routinely connected to the Internet, NYU’s Lawrence Norden warns that there are nonetheless ways to infiltrate them, including through computers used to program the machines. Since 2016, only one state, Virginia, has phased out all of its paperless machines. Georgia lawmakers failed last month to pass a bill that would have upgraded the state’s voting machines. And though Pennsylvania is pushing upgrades, the transition will not finish until after November’s vote.

Having paper-friendly machines is hardly enough. Paper trails enable state officials to run statistically sound post-election audits of vote tallies. Yet only a handful of states require rigorous audits, with only a handful more considering them.

Officials are too comfortable that no connectivity is sufficient to protect our machines. Its a good idea, yet insufficient, as demonstrated by STUXNET. Many believe STUXNET was perpetrated by the U.S. and Israel, which they deny. In any case, it demonstrates that foreign interests of one faction/government or another can change our elections.

Recently Secretary of the State, Denise Merrill, convened a Connecticut Cyber Security Task Force. Many of the comments at the first meeting give assurance that our Voter Registration System will be protected, yet some seemed to ignore the risks to anything not connected to the Internet <View on CT-N>

Officials don’t get risks of election hacking

There is no panacea. As we have been saying all along, nothing can fully protect us from hacking, fraud, and errors. Maximum election security means Prevention, Detection, and Recovery. For vote totals that means that we need to protect our paper ballots and then exploit them with sufficient audits and recounts.

New Yorker: America Continues to Ignore the Risks of Election Hacking

New Yorker: America Continues to Ignore the Risks of Election Hacking <read>

One of the enduring myths about American elections, and one that persists even after the revelations of 2016, is that they are largely insulated from hacking because we have no centralized voting system—elections are overseen by roughly nine thousand counties, and voting takes place in over a hundred and fifty thousand polling places—and because most voting occurs offline. “Our diverse and locally-run election process presents serious obstacles to carrying out large-scale cyberattacks to disrupt elections, and that standalone, disconnected voting systems present a low risk,” the National Association of Secretaries of State wrote last year, in a briefing paper titled “Key Facts and Findings on Cybersecurity and Foreign Targeting of the 2016 US Elections.” Yet the intelligence community, computer scientists, and hackers themselves have found that while decentralization may be a deterrent, it is not a defense.