{"id":8685,"date":"2011-08-20T14:37:14","date_gmt":"2011-08-20T21:37:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bradblog.com\/?p=8685"},"modified":"2011-08-21T04:31:44","modified_gmt":"2011-08-21T11:31:44","slug":"wisconsin-state-elections-board-website-hacked","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/?p=8685","title":{"rendered":"HACKED: Wisconsin State Elections Board Website"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Wisconsin&#8217;s old State Elections Board website (<a href=\"http:\/\/elections.state.wi.us\/\">http:\/\/elections.state.wi.us\/<\/a>)  appears to have been &#8220;hacked by Sovalye&#8221;&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><center><img decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" src=\"https:\/\/BradBlog.com\/Images\/WIElectionsBoard_HackedBySovalye_082011_WhyWorry.jpg\"><\/center><\/p>\n[<i>Hat-tip Election Integrity advocates <a href=\"http:\/\/www.twitter.com\/jeanniedean\">Jeannie Dean<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.twitter.com\/GBNeal59\">Neal Schulz<\/a> and the folks at the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/home.php?sk=group_197815633590513#!\/home.php?sk=group_197815633590513\">Facebook Election Integrity group<\/a>.<\/i>]\n[<i>Update 7:19p CT: It looks as if officials have now restored <a href=\"http:\/\/elections.state.wi.us\/\">the site<\/a>. Sort of. Hat-tip again to Neal Schulz.<\/i>]\n<p>The State Elections Board was replaced by the WI Government Accountability Board (G.A.B.) in 2008 as the state&#8217;s top election authority, combining responsibilities of both the Elections Board and the State Ethics Board into the agency. The G.A.B.&#8217;s website (<a href=\"http:\/\/gab.wi.gov\/\">http:\/\/gab.wi.gov\/<\/a>) does <i>not<\/i> appear to be hacked. For now.<\/p>\n<p>Of course, that&#8217;s just a website, not an actual election or e-voting database. So just because the state&#8217;s Elections Board website proved to be insecure and was hacked does <i>not<\/i> mean their actual elections are vulnerable to hacking in any way, shape or form, right? That, even though the state, shamefully, does not bother to check even <i>a single ballot<\/i> to make sure it has been tallied accurately during an election by its computer op-scanners made by Diebold, Sequoia, and ES&#038;S.<\/p>\n<p>Why worry?<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.BradBlog.com\">The BRAD BLOG<\/a> has been warning about the manipulation of e-voting systems for years, along with members of the world&#8217;s computer science and cyber security communities, and even the CIA, as our own <a href=\"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/?p=8668\">Ernie Canning noted just last week<\/a>. And yet, our nation continues to use the same vulnerable e-voting systems to tally our elections, rather than bothering to count them with our own, far more reliable and verifiable, hands and eyes, as per <a href=\"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/?p=7417\">Democracy&#8217;s Gold Standard<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>I could link back to all sorts of e-voting hacks we&#8217;ve reported on over the years here, like <a href=\"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/?p=3467\">this one from Princeton in 2006<\/a> or <a href=\"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/?p=8118\">this one from the U. of MI in 2010<\/a> or <a href=\"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/?p=7021\">this bone-chilling warning from the CIA in 2009<\/a>, but they&#8217;ll mostly likely just be ignored. Again.<\/p>\n<p>Instead, we&#8217;ll just tease you for now with news of yet another <i>new<\/i> e-voting hack &#8212; perhaps the most disturbing one yet in a number of ways &#8212; that we&#8217;ll be reporting on very soon. Let&#8217;s call that one a special delivery for election officials like Jones County, MS, Circuit Clerk Bart Gavin,  who <a href=\"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/?p=8682\">reportedly told his county Board of Supervisors this past week<\/a> that the Diebold touch-screen voting machines used by the entire county &#8220;record every vote and there is no way for them to be tampered with.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Really, Bart? You&#8217;re gonna stick with that, are ya?<\/p>\n<p><center><i><b>* * *<\/b><\/i><\/center><!--BB-DONATEPITCH-START--><\/p>\n<div style=\"background:#f5f0e0; border:2px solid #6b5a2e; border-radius:6px; padding:10px 14px; text-align:center; font-family:Georgia,serif;\"><span style=\"display:block; margin:0 0 8px 0; color:#3a2e0e; font-size:0.95em; line-height:1.5;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.BradBlog.com\">The BRAD BLOG<\/a> covers your electoral system, fiercely and independently, like no other media outlet in the nation. Please support our work with <a href=\"https:\/\/BradBlog.com\/Donate\">a donation<\/a> to help us keep going.<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/Donate\" style=\"display:inline-block; background:#6b5a2e; color:#ffffff; padding:6px 18px; border-radius:4px; font-weight:bold; text-decoration:none; font-family:Georgia,serif; font-size:0.9em;\">Please CLICK HERE to help support our work today!<\/a><\/div>\n<p><!--BB-DONATEPITCH-END--><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Wisconsin&#8217;s old State Elections Board website (http:\/\/elections.state.wi.us\/) appears to have been &#8220;hacked by Sovalye&#8221;&#8230; [Hat-tip Election Integrity advocates Jeannie Dean, Neal Schulz and the folks at the Facebook Election Integrity group.] [Update 7:19p CT: It looks as if officials have now restored the site. Sort of. Hat-tip again to Neal Schulz.] The State Elections Board [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,5,39,488,478,143],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-8685","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dieboldpremier","category-ess","category-sequoia-voting-systems","category-wisconsin-recall-elections","category-wi-supreme-court-election","category-wisconsin"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8685"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8685\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8685"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8685"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8685"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcoauthors&post=8685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}