AS HEARD ON - The Jim Polito Show - WTAG 580 AM: First in the Nation New Hampshire Primary Day and Election Hacking

Welcome!

Good morning, everybody. I was on with Mr. Jim Polito this morning and as you know today is Primary Day in New Hampshire it is the Big Day for our State Sport - Politics.  That means it is the day to address voter manipulation, voter fraud, low tech solutions and why apps are not the answer. So, here we go with Mr. Polito.

For more tech tips, news, and updates visit - CraigPeterson.com

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Automated Machine Generated Transcript:

Craig
You know, they don't release their source code, they hold everything close to the chest. They say, Well, you know, it's obscure people don't know what we're doing or how we're doing it; therefore, it's safe. That is never the case, and things are starting to turn around. So there are so many mistakes we could put a whole quarter together and how that poor people about it. Here's how not to do a deployment of software.

Craig
Hey, good morning, everybody. Craig Peterson here, of course, on with Mr. Jim Polito. How could we be here on New Hampshire voting day without talking about politics and whether or not voting machines are hackable? So let's get into it.

Jim Polito
There are multiple levels to this one in New Hampshire. But this is important because We're going to Iowa. And we're going to the polls, the technical and have an election joining us now, our tech talk guru and good friend, Craig Peterson. Good morning, sir.

Craig
Good morning. It sounds like you're going to hit for that Bernie screen there. Yeah.

Jim
Yeah, yeah. You were not going to do one of those. Hey, can we talk about election technology? I mean, what the heck happened in Iowa? I mean, really? Yeah, I know. We talked about it before, but what the heck happened?

Craig
Yeah, this is an excellent example of everything you should not do when it comes to launching an app when it comes to rolling out new software, whatever it is. The Iowa Democratic Party man, everybody in there. Should be Jeff can there's no question about it. You know, I work with the FBI, and I'm part of the FBI infragard program. And the FBI is excellent about trying to make sure that everybody's safe. Did you know that Homeland Security, the FBI reached out to the Iowa Democratic Party saying, "Hey, guys, we know you have an app, we know that you're looking to use this for all of the results and we are here to help." What you had in Iowa was a bunch of people that have never rolled out an app before. They built it quickly. Jim, I am talking about hastily built, it wasn't load tested. We already talked about the fact that it was made entirely by insiders of Democratic Party higher-ups inside. It's everything you wouldn't want. You know, if I were them, I would have had a completely dry run on this thing, which they kind of did. They had little test logins for people. And the way they did their dry run was minimal. And this is a dry run, use different account different ways of logging in a different place to log in than the real one. It was just a total disaster.

Jim
I'll tell you, you know, this is the second time that the Democrats have had a problem with something it refused the help of the FBI. Remember, you know, Debbie Wasserman Schultz and the hacking of the DNC and John Podesta's emails being leaked, okay. They didn't want any help with that, either. Then we have this happening. Now the first one, I think, might have been Russian hackers (phishers). This one, they hacked it up all by themselves and still didn't ask for help from the FBI. And here's the question, Could someone, a bad player from another country, have hacked into that app screwed the whole thing up? I mean, we don't have any evidence yet that it did happen. But the question is, could it have happened?

Craig
Well, and the answer to that is obviously, yes. One of the big things that we've been doing for years here in the application development business remember, I built some of the most prominent internet properties that ever existed.

Jim
You helped to invent the internet. That's not a joke, people. He wrote code that is still in use.

Craig
Yeah, exactly. And some of the big ones like the Big Yellow Super Pages, you've probably heard about that. Yeah. You know that these important things and one of the things that we do to help make sure The safe software systems are secure are we use something called open-source software. And open-source software is software where everyone can look at the code. So, for instance, the best application out there, if you want an end to end security is called signal app. It's free. The source code for this thing is available freely on the internet for anyone to inspect. And that's the opposite of what again, the Democratic Party did in Iowa, which is the used what would be called closed source, something in the industry we call security through obscurity.

Jim
And look at how well that's worked for Microsoft. Right.

Craig
You know, they, they don't release their source code but hold everything close. They say, Well, you know, it's obscure. People don't know what we're doing or how we're doing it. Therefore it says that is Never the case, and things are starting to turn around. So there are so many mistakes that we could put a whole course together at Harvard, for people about here's how not to do deploy software.

Jim
We're talking with our good friend Tech Talk Guru Craig Peterson. At the end of the segment, we're going to tell you how you can get your hands on some of his stuff. Craig will not bother you, so don't worry. So, Craig, that could have happened. They didn't use open source stuff. What about the rest of our election? I mean, they're, they're going to the polls in New Hampshire right now. I mean, can our election be hacked?

Craig
Yeah, that's a great question. And I think everybody's minds right now. I'm going to be on a TV station up in Burlington, Vermont. Speaking of obscure

Jim
Very good. Very good.

Craig
I wonder if the Soviet flag is still on the wall? I doubt it.

Jim
I wouldn't doubt it. Oh.

Craig
That's what we're going delve into because I think it's a question everybody's mind. There are multiple levels of hacks or numerous targets for hacks when it comes to our systems in the election. Now, I have to say, New Hampshire is what many people would call a Luddite. New Hampshire says, Hey, listen, we're going to go low tech. And you know what, that's my answer. They have resisted all these fancy computer systems, all of these new-fangled machines. In New Hampshire, when you vote, you use a pencil or a felt tip pen on a piece of paper. Yeah. And that's the only thing that they could hack. Then those ballots are kept so they a manual count can be done if needed. Back in 2000, New Hampshire had the option of using the the the hanging chads technique that used in Florida and New Hampshire avoided that. And now so here are the different levels you could hack the voting machines themselves and New Hampshire, again, is doing a great job. The not connected networked, let alone the internet. So that's step one. The FBI has been warning about is how Secretary of State's offices, websites, because what's been happening is a that is just crazy here. But those websites are being compromised by places like Ukraine, Russia. And others over the years and obviously, China. How are those used? For the ultimate reporting in some states, the local county chairs performing the counts, upload them directly to the website. The data goes on there. That is another place for hacks to occur. And then here's yet another opportunity for hacking, and that is those websites show faults resolved because nationally, their parties are going to the website to the sector state offices and pulling the final results. Then they can also be hacked up on the federal level because, again, they're also using computers. There are so many ways for hacking to happen, but I can feel comfortable in saying that the FBI is keeping a very close eye on this, Homeland Security is keeping a very close eye on this. And, you know, I think we can be moderately comfortable. Those types of hacks aren't happening. But then there's the non-hack hack, which is they buy advertising and try and get people to change their minds. Now, that happened last time around, but the Russians managed to buy ads to try and get your change your vote after the election occurred. Right. So it's right left and center in this day and age, Jim.

Jim
It is just crazy that the people, the democrats, in this case, won't take the help of the FBI. In protecting these things. I agree with you low tech is the best. Low tech is the best. Sure. You could have some person working in a clerk's office stuff the ballot box, okay, but you couldn't have a political hack that would overturn a question. The Presidential election it would be more difficult to coordinate that many people to do it.

Craig
Yes. And it's way more difficult today than it was just two years ago or four years ago because they're starting to figure it out. And many states are ditching those completely electronic voting machines. By the way, here, here's something we got to get changed. We have a federal law that requires every state to have electronic voting machines that can be used by the, you know, hearing impaired, sight impaired, etc. I agree we have to provide something that allows these people to vote, but again why not a low tech solution. We should assign a poll worker to help them fill out the ballot, as opposed to having a machine that essentially has a touchpad, which is hackable. Just last year, we had our black hat conference in Vegas. There they had a bunch of voting machines sitting there for hackers to try their skills. Within minutes, they were able to hack into every one of them, and even a high schooler was able to hack them.

Jim
Well, that's what you get, you know? I mean, there's, there are people like you who get it, you know, when they're very talented, but then we've got these kids who are growing up in a world where they can figure this out.

Craig
Yes, yeah. And, and it's a feather in their cap to their career. You know, we just had a bill passed in the Senate. That was, I think it's started in the Senate and then sent to the house. It called for white hat hackers. Good guys to try and hack federal government systems. Well, where do you get your chomps to be a white hat hacker? A lot of these kids will look at it and say all I was just a kid. Yeah, I was hacking businesses and government websites and, and I was able to do all of this. Now all of a sudden they get a job in the federal government that's well paid because they were bad guys when they were, you know, young. I get it.

Jim
All right. So, where can folks get more information from you? I take it that they text my name, Jim, to this number.

Craig
Absolutely. Couple of ways to do it. You can just go to Craig Peterson calm, or you can text Jim to 855-385-5553. That's just text, Jim to 855-385-5553, standard data and text rates apply.

Jim
Craig will not try to hack you. And Craig, we love having you every Tuesday at this time.

Craig
Hey, thanks, Jim.

Jim
All right. Have a good one, buddy. When we return a fight Word. You're listening,

Craig
Thanks for being with us. I have been so busy along with my team. You know, I've been saying this for about a month and, and it's right. We have some fantastic free training coming up. We have a course also coming up. It is going to be a killer month. Yes, indeed. That's kind of a hint, a killer month. All right, anyway, take care, everybody. We will be back. Just don't expect as much output from me this week with lives and everything else. Take care. Bye-bye.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

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