[Cryptography] Have you seen...

[Allen Schaaf]

On 4/4/2016 12:53 AM, John Gilmore wrote:
>> Excellent article on an Latin American election hacker in Bloomberg.
>> http://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-how-to-hack-an-election/
> It is a good article, though short on independent confirmations.
>
>> Perhaps the election security is worse in Latin America, but I would
>> not bet on it given the aging balloting machines in the US and a
>> very long history of stuffing ballot boxes and Yellow journalism.
> Hmm, the article doesn't mention stuffing ballot boxes at all.
[snip]

The intention was to point out that there is a history of a 
variety of ways of rigging elections in the US, not that he used 
that particular method.

As to independent verification, true, but I figure that since he 
was speaking in an attempt to get a lesser sentence in his 
current case is likely validation enough. Sure, he could be 
lying, but that might get him in worse trouble if one of people 
whom he claimed to have worked for was to seriously oppose his 
allegations. Sometimes independent verification is extremely 
tough to get so you have to analyze who says what and what their 
motives might be and then make a WAG until evidence turns up many 
years down the road.

Examples include the Snowden documents and now the "Panama" 
documents. Having myself demonstrated to a class I was teaching 
how easy it was to meld two documents to create a false one I 
know that documents alone are not verification and that 
independent verification might never come in our lifetime. We 
have to take our best judgement, confer with others to see if 
they have different views and by combining the intelligence of 
crowds make a best guess. Doesn't mean we won't get it wrong, 
however.

I was listening to a tape of Kim Philby talking to the Stasi 
about how to respond when questioned about being a spy on NPR 
yesterday. We all (I think) agree he was a spy, but the full 
nature of his level and skills is only now coming out as the BBC 
rakes through the Stasi files 25 years later.

Best,

Allen