1. Though Woodward reports there was no evidence the election registration system malware had been activated, this sounds scary. Should people be worried?
Yes, we should be worried. Four years ago, Russia managed to penetrate systems in several states but there’s no evidence that they “pulled the trigger” to take advantage of their penetration. One possibility is that they simply saw no need, having successfully “hacked the electorate” by damaging Hillary Clinton’s candidacy through selective dumps of hacked documents on Wikileaks.
We know that VR Systems, a contractor that worked for several Florida counties, was hacked, and we know that there were serious problems in Durham County, North Carolina, during the 2016 election, including software glitches that caused poll workers to turn away voters during parts of Election Day. Durham county was also a VR Systems customer.
I know of no post-election investigation of the problems in Durham County that was conducted with sufficient depth to assure me that Russia was not involved. It remains possible that they did pull the trigger on that county, but it is also possible that the problems there were entirely the result of “normal incompetence.” Continue reading.