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matt blaze Profile picture
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13 Apr, 4 tweets, 2 min read
For the record:

- Internet voting is a terrible idea. No reputable election security expert advocates it.

- Experts (including me) recommend paper ballots and post-election audits.

- Click the "download free PDF" link here for more: nap.edu/catalog/25120/…
Also, no, I'm not trying to charge you $50 to read my book. It's not my book and you don't have to pay anything to read it. If you want to read something I wrote, read this (also free): georgetownlawtechreview.org/wp-content/upl…
And also, no, I'm not a paid shill for some voting machine company (exactly the opposite). No, I don't advocate for paperless voting machines (exactly the opposite). No, I'm not trying to sell you anything. Yes, that's my lawn you're on.
Also, while everything I've linked to is free, I don't think the mere idea that a book might cost money is an outrage. Most books cost money. It's great that the best book on election security can be had for free, but that's not some kind of law of nature.

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More from @mattblaze

matt blaze Profile picture
25 Mar
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.
Read 4 tweets
matt blaze Profile picture
23 Mar
@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.
Read 7 tweets
matt blaze Profile picture
20 Mar
@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).
Read 6 tweets
matt blaze Profile picture
12 Mar
The least productive (& loudest) election security activism focuses on criticizing vendors for building flawed systems. The reality is ALL complex systems have flaws. That's why experts advocate "software independent" voting that doesn't depend on perfect components to be secure.
The concept of Software Independence was a HUGE breakthrough in election security. Read more about how this can be achieved in this excellent National Academies study: nap.edu/catalog/25120/…
What's sad and infuriating is so much yelling about completely irrelevant "debates" like "ES&S vs Dominion". Both vendors produce some systems that can be used in a software independent way and others that can't. The important thing is not the vendor, but the design.
Read 7 tweets
matt blaze Profile picture
6 Mar
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.
Read 4 tweets
matt blaze Profile picture
25 Feb
Voting security involves a difficult and complex set of problems.

Now that November is finally over, I hope (and am cautiously optimistic) that we can more calmly discuss making US voting more accessible and secure.

A REALLY great place to start is here: nap.edu/catalog/25120/…
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).
Read 5 tweets

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