It's also OK to roll one's eyes at the "Look how stupid they are doing <thing I assume they're doing from looking at a photo> instead of <thing I just made up off the top of my head>" crowd.
Seriously, learning about complex stuff like this is great. Disparaging and minimizing actual expertise is, well, stupid.
All of which is a roundabout way of getting to where I always end up, which is to urge you to read the NASEM “Securing the Vote” report if you want to learn about election security. And volunteer as a poll worker in your local jurisdiction if you can.
@InfosecErnesto@yoz First 45 minutes or so, he didn’t recognize me and I pretended not to recognize him. I didn’t take out my laptop for fear of it serving as a conversation starter. So I sat that there and listened as he increasingly frequently complained to the flight attendant.
@InfosecErnesto@yoz Then he started getting louder and abusive. It was clear that the direction this was going would culminate in the plane returning to the terminal to have him removed, which would further delay us. So I took one for the team and said “are you Richard Stallman?”
@InfosecErnesto@yoz He took that has his invitation to berate me for having noise canceling headphones (something to do with them not being based on free software). He spent the whole time telling me about software freedom and how my headphones were a symbol of oppression or some such.
@emptywheel It’s in a frequency band used in the US by either two-way land mobile radios or TV stations depending on city (which is why some walkie talkies can be programmed to use it). In DC, it’s is used by a local TV station, which the out-of-towner insurrectionists might not have known.
@emptywheel This is made more confusing by the way digital TV channels are split between a “virtual” channel number (which you set your TV to) and an “RF” channel (which is the actual frequency but is invisible to the user). This station is on a different virtual channel from its RF channel.
@emptywheel Anyway, 476-482 MHz is TV RF channel 15 (used by a DC TV station on virtual channel 14, which would be 470-476 MHz if that were also its RF channel).
Radio nerditry: Pirate on 4030 AM. Playing classic rock, IDing as "Ballsmacker Radio". Very strong signal in DC.
ATTENTION FUN POLICE: Yes, operating an unlicensed shortwave broadcaster is illegal. Yes, the authorities know about these stations and can easily find them if they want. It's not a priority, which is very sensible. Stand down.
And 4030 is either off the air or the HF propagation gods, fickle as the are, have disfavored me.
Some of it is counterintuitive. Most voting machines are, frankly, pretty crappy. We COULD try to make them better, but we'll never make them good enough to rely on. Fortunately, there are rigorous auditing methods that let us get reliable elections with UNRELIABLE machines.
So election security experts are focused less on improving the software and hardware (ultimately a fool's errand) and more on improving the election process (e.g., by incorporating audits as a routine part of the election certification process).
Putting my (extremely well-worn) election security hat back on for a moment: it’s important to understand that the objections raised by 140-odd members of congress to various states’ election results were utterly and completely unsupported by serious or credible evidence. Period.
The violence at the Capitol yesterday will rightly be a source of outrage that we should remember. But we also must not forget the lies being told to cast doubt on the outcome by elected officials who should know better. They have forfeited our trust.
When I teach election integrity, I always take some time to discuss the fragility of the foundations of trust on which our democratic institutions are based. It’s always been hypothetical. Now it’s sadly far more concrete.