[HN Gopher] Head of election worker management company arrested ... ___________________________________________________________________ Head of election worker management company arrested for theft of personal data Author : happyopossum Score : 136 points Date : 2022-10-05 18:49 UTC (4 hours ago) (HTM) web link (da.lacounty.gov) (TXT) w3m dump (da.lacounty.gov) | petsormeat wrote: | In some counties, this could lead to physical harm to those poll | workers: https://archive.ph/fGn0r | Wistar wrote: | Including, ever more likely, the U.S. | sva_ wrote: | Ah yeah, counties like the US. | MichaelCollins wrote: | It endangered poll workers in America. | | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33050320 | | https://safeguarddefenders.com/en/blog/230000-policing-expan... | md2020 wrote: | Just a note to you and the other commenter with a similar | comment, they said "counties", not "countries" and linked to | a piece about a county in the US. | Mezzie wrote: | I just signed up to be a poll worker in the East Lansing area. | | This is going to be fun... | carom wrote: | Yet my voter records are public with my name, address, and phone | number. Curious. Also the DMV sells my information. Also the post | office forwards my information to companies who have my previous | address when I file a change of address form. Also my property | records are public. | | I would love if the government gave me the ability to opt out (or | better, opt in) to these practices. They are a huge source of | data leaks. | advisedwang wrote: | 35 states do have some kind of program for protecting addresses | if you are at risk of stalking, DV etc. See | https://www.sos.wa.gov/acp/about.aspx for an example and the 35 | state number. | mistrial9 wrote: | those USA records are huge sources for local law enforcement, | credit card companies, anyone in consumer credit, private | detectives, insurance industry and more.. anyone with property | is being tracked since the 1960s at least. You just didnt get | the memo. | uoaei wrote: | The USPS sent my phone number to scammers as soon as I signed | up for SMS package notifications. I'm hoping the FTC cares | enough to investigate my report... | sudden_dystopia wrote: | The DAY after the NYT called it a "right wing conspiracy theory". | tootie wrote: | This is absolutely unrelated to the right wing conspiracy | theory which is 100% a propaganda campaign. | ejb999 wrote: | The 'right wing conspiracy theory' that you say this is | unrelated to was this: | | * _Using threadbare evidence, or none at all, the group | suggested that a small American election software company, | Konnech, had secret ties to the Chinese Communist Party and | had given the Chinese government backdoor access to personal | data about two million poll workers in the United States, | according to online accounts from several people at the | conference.*_ | | which is _exactly_ what happened, and thus the arrest - so in | this case, the 'theory' was spot on. | | Tell us again how this is unrelated? | smallerfish wrote: | Where's your evidence that they had secret ties to the | Chinese Communist Party and/or gave them backdoor access, | as opposed to, say, hiring a dev team in China on Upwork | because they were cheap, and had a poor understanding of | compliant data handling? | thepasswordis wrote: | I'm sorry but this is actually kind of funny. | | You're saying, basically: where are the secret ties? The | ties are right there in the open! | | (Well now they are at least) | | "Hey they got caught. They're not being so secretive | anymore" is not really evidence suggesting that there was | nothing nefarious occurring. | smallerfish wrote: | The article says: "District Attorney investigators found | that in contradiction to the contract, information was | stored on servers in the People's Republic of China." | | It doesn't say the communist party breached those | servers, that there were deliberate ties, etc. There | could well be. I'm just not seeing it in the article | we're discussing, hence my question to you. | kthejoker2 wrote: | There's no evidence presented in this arrest warrant that | CCCP had access to this data or was even aware of its | existence. | | The only charge is storing the data on servers in China. | | Slow your roll. | adolph wrote: | _Under its $2.9 million, five-year contract with the county, | Konnech was supposed to securely maintain the data and that only | United States citizens and permanent residents have access to | it._ | | _District Attorney investigators found that in contradiction to | the contract, information was stored on servers in the People's | Republic of China._ | | Maybe there are additional facts not claimed in the press | release, but at face value the two above statements are not | mutually exclusive. If the PRC wanted access and the company was | willing, it is hardly necessary for the data to reside in any | geographic location. | mercy_dude wrote: | > In this case, the alleged conduct had no impact on the | tabulation of votes and did not alter election results | | Would be curious how they asserted that. A contractor in the last | election dumped ballots in garbage in Pennsylvania. Justice | department maintained it didn't alter election integrity. | | https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/temporary-contractor-threw-t... | tootie wrote: | Read it. The alleged crime was related to PII of election | workers. Not voters. The assertion is that nothing in their | investigation indicated trouble with votes which isn't the same | as guaranteeing nothing happened. | ceejayoz wrote: | > A contractor in the last election dumped ballots in garbage | in Pennsylvania. Justice department maintained it didn't alter | election integrity. | | Given that it was _nine_ ballots, that seems rational. | eej71 wrote: | The NYT might need to update their article from yesterday. | | https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/03/technology/konnech-electi... | thepasswordis wrote: | >Using threadbare evidence, or none at all, the group suggested | that a small American election software company, Konnech, had | secret ties to the Chinese Communist Party and had given the | Chinese government backdoor access to personal data about two | million poll workers in the United States, according to online | accounts from several people at the conference. | | Unreal that they published this. | tootie wrote: | > In the ensuing weeks, the conspiracy theory grew as it shot | around the internet. To believers, the claims showed how | China had gained near complete control of America's | elections. | | That part is still valid. And really we don't actually know | what evidence the DA has or if the scope of the arrest | warrant matches the theory. All they've said is that some | data was stored in China. | ceejayoz wrote: | They did. | | > Update, Oct. 5: After this article was published, the chief | executive of Konnech was arrested on suspicion of theft of | personal information about poll workers. | hn_throwaway_99 wrote: | That is the most bullshit "update" I have ever seen. NYT | shouldn't just "update" that article, they should issue a | retraction and a major apology, and fire people involved with | the story. Maybe if the update had said this I'd be OK with | it: | | > Update, Oct. 5: After this article was published, the chief | executive of Konnech was arrested on suspicion of theft of | personal information about poll workers. Prosecutors asserted | that the chief executive had poll worker information stored | on servers in the People's Republic of China, which in our | original article we disparaged as an "unfounded conspiracy | theory", and the statement in our article, "It said that all | the data for its American customers were stored on servers in | the United States and that it had no ties to the Chinese | government." is likely totally false. | adamrezich wrote: | retractions and major apologies have not been a thing in | mainstream journalism for some time now. | | "journal of record" my fucking ass | pnf wrote: | Why would they fire anyone? These aren't mistakes. | Wowfunhappy wrote: | What does the theft of personal data have to do with claims | of widespread voter fraud? | anon291 wrote: | In the article, the right-leaning groups (that the Times | called 'election deniers', despite not offering evidence) | claimed the company stored data in China. That is likely | true. Or at least it's true enough that a judge issued a | warrant. | | Nothing in the article says these groups are claiming | this company participated in fraud. Only that they are | stealing american data. | | The article lays out exactly what True the Vote claimed: | | > Ms. Engelbrecht and Mr. Phillips claimed at the | conference and in livestreams that they investigated | Konnech in early 2021. Eventually, they said, the group's | team gained access to Konnech's database by guessing the | password, which was "password," according to the online | accounts from people who attended the conference. Once | inside, they told attendees, the team downloaded personal | information on about 1.8 million poll workers. | | Based on the case notes, I think this allegation is | merited and not a conspiracy theory at all. | [deleted] | pyuser583 wrote: | Ouch. I take a perverse pleasure when journalists screw up, but | this is bad. | anon291 wrote: | I fully support this action, but I also think county bureaucrats | and elected officials who allowed this software to be used | despite clearly having no ability to audit it, should also be | held accountable. | mise_en_place wrote: | Even if this was a case of incompetence, it's highly unusual to | store sensitive government data on an offshore server. | MichaelCollins wrote: | > _incompetence_ | | _Oopsie, I accidentally provisioned a server in communist | China._ | | Yeah right. | ironchief wrote: | I thought your comment was a joke until I read the link. Wow | | "District Attorney investigators found that in contradiction | to the contract, information was stored on servers in the | People's Republic of China." | mikeyouse wrote: | They had a software development subsidiary with a testing | server / database in China that apparently received some | actual poll-worker PII. | transcriptase wrote: | Why did a company with 20 employees have a subsidiary | with a server in China? | MichaelCollins wrote: | Because they're spies. | rglover wrote: | The incredibly important punchline: | | > District Attorney investigators found that in contradiction to | the contract, information was stored on servers in the People's | Republic of China. | | It's shocking how effective the CCP has been at infiltrating | Western governments and institutions. | | My favorite turn to date has to be Charles Lieber from Harvard | [1]. He's got some fun patents [2] floating around. | | [1] https://www.justice.gov/usao-ma/pr/harvard-university- | profes... | | [2] https://patents.google.com/patent/WO2015199784A2/en | woodruffw wrote: | There is no evidence of "infiltration" here. The reality is | that, in its march to privatize everything it can, the US | government has incentivized a race to the bottom. If Chinese | companies provide the cheapest services, then American data is | going to end up on Chinese servers until the incentives are | fixed. | | Is this good? No. But it also isn't CCP infiltration; it's the | logical consequence of trying to channel public money into | private economies, public money that is meant to fund our most | basic civic activity. | rglover wrote: | > it's the logical consequence of trying to channel public | money into private economies, public money that is meant to | fund our most basic civic activity. | | Yes, and that logical consequence is being exploited by | foreign governments. By "infiltrate" I mean "taking advantage | of our shortsightedness," similar to how we ignorantly | offshored pharmaceutical sourcing/production to China [1]. | | There's plenty [2] of loose threads that warrant my "only the | paranoid survive" POV on stuff like this. | | Hell, there's even a book that goes into detail about the | strategy [3]: | | > "If one party is at war with another, and the other party | does not realize it is at war, the party who knows it is at | war almost always has the advantage and usually wins." And | this is the strategy set forth in Unrestricted Warfare: | waging a war on an adversary with methods so covert at first | and seemingly so benign that the party being attacked does | not realize it's being attacked." - Qiao Liang | | --- | | [1] https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-care/u-s-officials- | wor... | | [2] https://www.businessinsider.com/china-houston-consulate- | docu... | | [3] https://www.amazon.com/Unrestricted-Warfare-Chinas- | Destroy-A... | woodruffw wrote: | This is quibbling, but I don't think that's "infiltration." | We don't get to pawn out incompetencies off on other | countries; they don't owe us anything in particular. | | More to the point: there's no evidence that China _actually | did_ anything here, other than provide a service and get | some overeager DA to interpret that in the worst possible | light. Which, if you're China, is a win-win: you didn't | have to do anything at all besides provide a quality | product to get the Americans to doubt their election! | rglover wrote: | Not to be rude but this exact response is why this | strategy has been and will continue to be successful. | | Americans cannot believe that a foreign government who's | fundamental values are counter to theirs would take | advantage of their naivety for both financial and | geopolitical gain. | | I mean they say it overtly: make it subtle so they don't | realize it's happening. | woodruffw wrote: | No, I believe it. I just refuse to call it "infiltration" | when it's not evidenced as such. | rglover wrote: | I clarified my usage of the term above. | shubb wrote: | To be fair, this is probably a guy going to jail because he | used a text message sending API that used tencent cloud | somewhere in their backend or something... | rglover wrote: | I wish that were true but considering his ties, expertise, | and the general theme of his patents I'd say that's a naive | interpretation. That said I certainly hope you're right and I | only say "naive" to discourage people shrugging it off as a | nothing burger. | IG_Semmelweiss wrote: | This has white hat "tip" fingerprints all over it. Local and | state will have no way to effectively police this sort of | contract breach. | didgetmaster wrote: | Wow. We actually found a crime that Gascon thinks is worth | prosecuting! | jimcavel888 wrote: | tristor wrote: | Literally the day after the NY Times accused people talking about | this issue of being right-wing conspiracy theorists. Why does | that not surprise me? | | https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/03/technology/konnech-electi... | usernomdeguerre wrote: | Are they vindicated if "Selling/Improperly Storing poll worker | data" and "Forcing poll workers to change election outcomes" | are two wildly separate claims? Or does the former prove the | latter in your mind? | ummonk wrote: | That update is glorious. Doesn't seem like the conspiracy | theorists had any actual reason for suspicion of this | particular firm other than xenophobia though. I wonder if they | caught this guy because the firm conducted an audit in response | to the conspiracy theories. | jeffbee wrote: | It's a bit ridiculous that the county would even outsource this | function specifically. What's so difficult about payroll for a | transient workforce, above and beyond the complexities that a | jurisdiction of 10 million people already faces? | ceejayoz wrote: | It (http://www.pollchief.com/) appears to do quite a bit more | than just payroll, quite a bit of it fairly specialized. | rdxm wrote: | ceejayoz wrote: | > Konnech distributes and sells its proprietary PollChief | software, which is an election worker management system that was | utilized by the county in the last California election. The | software assists with poll worker assignments, communications and | payroll. PollChief requires that workers submit personal | identifying information, which is retained by the Konnech. | | I'm so very tired of proprietary software made by tiny little | outfits being critical to elections. | hotpotamus wrote: | Elections are too important to be left up to an entity as | incompetent as the federal government. I'm not sure if that's | sarcasm, but I did think it. | anonymousiam wrote: | Fortunately, elections are managed by the states. | Unfortunately, the Federal Government is trying to take them | over. | | https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/senate- | bill/274... | | https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house- | bill/1/te... | lern_too_spel wrote: | If those bills pass, elections would still be run by state | and local governments. There would simply be additional | restrictions on how they choose to run elections. | usernomdeguerre wrote: | These seem to be altering rules around federal elections in | particular. Can you detail where state elections are being | 'taken over'? | batch12 wrote: | Some federal elections, like presidential elections are | run by the states. With the current system, one doesn't | vote directly for president, but instead who they would | like their state (via the electoral college) to cast a | vote for. As such they are state-run federal elections. | Some people don't like this system. Not sure if this was | where you were going with your comment. If not, my | apologies. | anonymousiam wrote: | Perhaps I wasn't clear enough. No elections are run by | the Federal Government. They are all run by the states, | per the US Constitution. The bills referenced above are | "altering rules" as you put it, and that is a form of | control. | usernomdeguerre wrote: | How does your statement align with the Constitution's | Article 1 Section 4 which seems to explicitly allow for | congress to alter federal rules at the federal level? | | "The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for | Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each | State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at | any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as | to the Places of chusing Senators." | caycep wrote: | railing against the federal government in a response to an | article saying a private company was at fault? | lern_too_spel wrote: | They aren't run by the federal government. They are run by | states and counties. | ransom1538 wrote: | The feds are good at taxing and weapons. Anything else they | screw up. Turns out you only need to be good at those two | things anyway. | pyuser583 wrote: | They're not very good at taxing. | bushbaba wrote: | National security wise better to avoid the risk of nation | wide vote hacking by having many separate systems. Yes it | increases the likelihood of a successful hacking event, but | it decreases expected damage. | bscphil wrote: | If that was a concern, surely the only reasonable thing to | do would be to move to a popular vote as soon as possible. | As things stand, an entity that could reliably hack 2 or 3 | states would have a better than even chance of controlling | the election outcome. | ejb999 wrote: | that doesn't help at all, and in fact makes it worse - | with a popular vote you can just hack one or two | communities with very large populations (i.e. LA and | NYC), and change or cast enough votes to cancel out about | 30 other states in total. | vkou wrote: | This particular role of the software doesn't sound particularly | critical, in the sense that if it caught fire tomorrow, | elections would still happen in the same way, maybe with more | human labour involved on the planning side. | | But sure, I agree that it's stupid to have every municipality | and polity, down to the five mud farmers living in | unincorporated East Mudsville, Nowhere figuring out how to do | their elections in their own special way. Perhaps it would be | good to look into how Elections Canada[1] does things? | | [1] It has the unfortunate side effect of providing federal | oversight over elections, which is not something that | republicans seem to be interested in this year. | danielodievich wrote: | in my previous/previous/previous career I was heavily involved | with various states election systems (juicily enough starting | in hanging chads Florida). The field is full of tiny little | outfits AND huge consultancies (Accenture in my personal | example) doing stuff. The quality varies tremendously from | amazing to amazingly atrocious. When I did all this work the | cloud was not yet a big thing so no servers were provisioned in | anything other than well known data centers, but it's you get | what you pay for. Since it's secretaries of state paying for | some, and then tons of random counties paying for some others, | these are not incredibly lucrative contracts, and it does | attract just random small software firms. | pyuser583 wrote: | Is "the cloud" really a good idea for high integrity | software? | CobrastanJorji wrote: | I wonder what an ideal solution might look like. I kind of | envision the Federal government funding a small organization | overseeing an open source "election software" system, which | would be run on some sort of well-defined stock hardware. The | government would periodically pay for the hardware and software | combination to be audited against a variety of attacks. The | machines would produce standardized audit logs, published as | openly as possible (someone smarter than me should figure out | whether it's safe or good to publish the times or votes or the | votes themselves. I'm leaning towards yes to both, but I'm | concerned that you could figure out someone's vote if you knew | the timestamps of the individual votes). Security researchers | could purchase the hardware, install the software on it, and | analyze it on their own. Then you'd do the same thing for the | vote tabulators or whatever hardware and software exists asides | from the voting machines themselves. | | Then I think about what might look like a nice halfway point. | Voting machine software is still written by companies, but we | require that all software running on a voting machine be | published and hermetically reproducible. They don't have to | take pull requests, they still own it, but we should be able to | open one up and be 100% sure that the software running on it is | exactly what they've documented. | adamrezich wrote: | I'm just tired of the rhetoric that 100% of such software is | 100% unassailable and 100% utilized by 100% honest actors with | 100% honest motives, 100% of the time, and anything else is a | "conspiracy theory." | zuminator wrote: | Can you point to a single person who has asserted even one | prong of that supposed rhetoric? All anyone reasonable is | saying, is if there's widespread or systemic wrongdoing, | where's the evidence? | thepasswordis wrote: | >widespread systemic | | I am so frustrated that the discussion space is so often | forced around this topic. | | The claim is not that there was "widespread systemic" | wrongdoing, the claim is that it would only take a very | _tiny_ amount of weight to push an election in direction | that benefits the one doing the pushing. | ajross wrote: | That's sort of a specious point, though. In two party | systems, elections are always close more or less by | definition. If you want to show wrongdoing, you need to | show actual wrongdoing and not just that it's possible. | I'd argue that the fact that no single | group/party/cabal/whatever has managed to | disproportionately cheat stands are very good evidence | that this is not, in fact, happening. | thepasswordis wrote: | Okay fine, but that is a different argument. | | This obsession with the phrase "widespread systemic" is a | distraction that prevents people from actually talking to | one another. | ajross wrote: | I submit that a still bigger problem preventing people | from actually talking to one another about this is the | lack of evidence of an actual stolen election. | thepasswordis wrote: | https://hereistheevidence.com/ | ajross wrote: | And of course I got trolled into engaging. But fine: | | https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/here-is-the-evidence/ http | s://www.brennancenter.org/sites/default/files/analysis/B. | .. | https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/16/technology/a-website- | fund... https://www.hoover.org/research/no-evidence- | voter-fraud-guid... | | All that stuff is just junk, you realize. And you can | tell because none of it makes sense! It's got a bunch of | numbers and a long list of links to click on that makes | you feel like there must be evience (which is the whole | point), but when you actually drill down... there's | nothing there. It's all argumentation of the form "Why | would X be true if we know Y?", leading you to suspect | that the "real" reason must be "Z" without saying it. | That's not argument, it's a gish gallop. And it's fooled | you. | | I mean, just to make a point using the same logic[1]: if | elections were this easy to cheat, then why aren't the | cheaters winning all the time? Why do both sides share | power at all? How does it not devolve into a single party | illuminati running everything? I submit that it doesn't | because elections aren't being stolen. | | [1] But in favor of bland conservatism about "stuff works | normally" and not a particular criminal conspiracy. | narrator wrote: | Since you asked: http://www.hereistheevidence.com | | Yup, this exact talking point has been made so many times | in so many ways on so many forums that somebody made a site | just to rebut it. | woodruffw wrote: | Much like lengthen-your-manhood.info, the domain name is | not a seal of quality. | | In this case, the index appears to be a mash of | conspiracy Twitter accounts, fringe blogs, and links to | itself. Ho hum. | batch12 wrote: | ~ $ whois lengthen-your-manhood.info | | Domain not found. | | YC23 anyone? | usernomdeguerre wrote: | Really unfortunate that these are disorganized and don't | make clear statements as to what was improper. Two years | on I would have hoped for more clarity from detractors. | ajross wrote: | This is a kind of strawman fallacy. You're starting with an | argument (of the form "this particular idea about election | software is a conspiracy theory"), and then pretending that | it was actually an argument for the maximal refutation of the | original, which you then show to be "wrong". But that's not | an argument in favor of the original contention! | | No one serious argues that election management systems are | bug free or that their operators can't possibly make | mistakes. We're just saying that nothing has broken yet. | vkou wrote: | Oh, I agree that elections are not 100% unassailable. In | fact, I strongly believe that they _are_ being assailed. | Mostly through voter suppression and disenfranchisement. | | A good example of this is when the state tells you that you | can vote, and then arrests you and charges you with voter | fraud, because you actually can't. [1] | | Or, alternatively, when the state bars you from voting until | you pay all outstanding court fees and fines, but also | refuses to tell you whether or not you actually owe any | outstanding court fees or fines. | | You can't have a free and fair election when you secretly | disqualify people from voting, but refuse to tell them that | until _after_ they vote. | | [1] https://www.clickorlando.com/news/local/2022/08/27/2-peop | le-... | woodruffw wrote: | Nobody believes this: there's a reason why DEF CON has had a | voting village for years. | | What people believe is that, _in spite_ of numerous flaws in | voting software, the integrity of the vote is not seriously | in question. And there are good reasons for believing this: | physical backups, consistency with exit polling and, well, | the fact that no party in this godforsaken country has been | able to hold onto the presidency for more than 2 terms in | nearly 30 years. | [deleted] | rmason wrote: | I am from the East Lansing area and went to high school in | Okemos. I know both communities very well. I've spent 30 years in | developer and founder circles and never knew a single person from | this company. The company's original headquarters is near my old | high school in what was once a lumber yard. They were getting | ready to move into an old department store that is owned by the | city of East Lansing. | | This company was exceedingly good at getting money from both the | local economic development people as well as the state. Told | someone today that I felt like I was in the middle of a spy novel | ;<). | | It is also the first time to my knowledge the little village of | Okemos was ever mentioned in the old grey lady (aka NYT). | | Here's how local media covered the story: | https://www.lansingstatejournal.com/story/news/2022/10/05/ea... | willcipriano wrote: | "We fortified the election boss, it's now behind the great wall." | MichaelCollins wrote: | aschearer wrote: | I'm confused why you're bringing up regicide in the 21st | century, about a country that's never had a king, on a site for | technologists. | | Anyway, let's throw the book at the perpetrator. | MichaelCollins wrote: | Because that penalty is fitting. | Alupis wrote: | I think you're likely better served by using the word and | punishment for treason. Although I admit that word has been | casually tossed around for cheap political gain recently | and has lost it's severe connotation for many. | MichaelCollins wrote: | jjulius wrote: | >Treason cannot apply due to the way it is narrowly | defined by the US Constitution. | | So, you _don 't_ want to punish them for treason because | of how narrowly it's defined under the US Constitution, | but you _do_ want to punish them for regicide, which... | isn 't even a law in the US? | ejb999 wrote: | Read the post again, the OP said: | | "should be _comparable_ to the traditional penalty for | regicide. " | adamrezich wrote: | yet nobody read that because they were hung up on | "regicide", and now all of his posts are [flagged] [dead] | even though he has a completely 100% valid point. | jjulius wrote: | Well, yeah. This is a perfect example of how a valid | point can be completely undermined by how you communicate | it. Those are [flagged][dead] because of the rhetoric | used within. There was no attempt to have a nuanced | discussion on their part. | MichaelCollins wrote: | Alupis wrote: | I think the point the parent was making was there is no | current law that affords death as a punishment for this | crime - but there should be. Or at least that is my take. | aschearer wrote: | I 100% agree the crime is serious and the perpetrator | should meet swift justice -- as should anyone interfering | with our elections. Including those who accessed voting | machines in Colorado, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and | Georgia.[1][2] | | That said I sincerely hope we have not regressed as a | civilizatoin that public execution is making a comeback. | | [1]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2022/0 | 8/15/sid... [2]: https://www.brennancenter.org/our- | work/analysis-opinion/ille... | Alupis wrote: | Your overall point is solid, but your last statement and | links are up for severe political debate. It's not as | much of a solid fact yet as some might believe or want to | believe, with a lot of hand-waving in both articles. I | think you're better served by removing them. | klyrs wrote: | I think you've missed the point: isn't the American | tradition to _celebrate_ regicide? | mistrial9 wrote: | no it is not a tradition in the USA to celebrate regicide | labster wrote: | I don't know if I'd be quite so barbaric. How about civil | forfeiture of all of their assets? I'm sure his home was used | in the commission of a crime, right? | | Though a day in the stocks sure seems attractive too. | munk-a wrote: | The good news about civil forfeiture is that it doesn't even | matter if their home was used in the commission of a crime - | you can just seize it now and sort out all those pesky | details later! | naillo wrote: | That penalty seems a bit excessive | MichaelCollins wrote: | jjulius wrote: | >They should be charged with espionage and executed like | the Rosenbergs. | | Ah, cool, jumping to conclusions and wishing death upon | people instead of waiting to see how this plays out. Don't | confuse this with me saying that espionage isn't possible | here, I'm just saying - cool your jets and breathe before | pulling any triggers. Yikes. | adamrezich wrote: | is Democracy and the integrity thereof _not_ the single | most sacred and important thing everyone cares about with | regards to government in the West? that 's what everyone | says all the time, "we're not a constitutional republic, | or if we are I don't really like care or whatever--what | matters is, we're a Democracy, Democracy is what matters, | Democracy is all that matters." | | well okay then, if it's so damn important, what the hell | is this complete unwillingness to do everything humanly | possible to protect it? you can't have it both ways, if | you don't ruthlessly defend the institutions that are | supposed to be the cornerstone of contemporary Western | society, what do you expect will happen? | | foreign powers are all too happy to ruthlessly exploit | what we delude ourselves into believing isn't worth | defending. | jjulius wrote: | >well okay then, if it's so damn important, what the hell | is this complete unwillingness to do everything humanly | possible to protect it? | | For having chastised people in another post for focusing | too much on "regicide" and not on OP's "completely 100% | valid point", I am a bit surprised that you're ignoring | my own comments, such as: | | >Don't confuse this with me saying that espionage isn't | possible here | | I'm saying, hold the fucking phone before you call for | someone's murder, especially before you abdicate for | their public dismemberment. Let's see what the facts of | the case are before we determine how far to go with | punishment (and I say this as someone being fully open to | this being an act against the US that should be punished | accordingly). At _no point_ have I suggested we take on a | "complete unwillingness to do everything humanly possible | to protect it". | | Is nuance dead? Must things be all or nothing? "KILL THEM | NOW, and if you dare disagree with that sentiment then | surely you are unwilling to defend the US at all"? | Seriously? | adamrezich wrote: | > I'm saying, hold the fucking phone before you call for | someone's murder | | what is a trial | | EDIT: where are you from where people get executed for | crimes without a trial, why would anyone need to | explicitly state that? I'm breathing fine thanks | jjulius wrote: | Something you didn't mention in your posts, nor asked me | if I was in favor of doing, prior to you demanding that I | defend the US and implying that I'm unwilling to do so. | | I think you need to go outside and take a few deep | breathes. | MichaelCollins wrote: | > _Ah, cool, jumping to conclusions_ | | I never suggested denying them a trial. I want them tried | and executed for espionage. Preferably in a public and | awful manner. | jjulius wrote: | >I never suggested denying them a trial. | | This is the first time I've seen you suggest it, every | other post was essentially, "Kill them". Even the post | I'm replying to suggests that your mind is made up and | you want them dead or - at the very least - miserable as | all hell, whatever the reality of the details of the case | may be. | Alupis wrote: | While I agree death is a bit extreme, we do need to craft a | system where knowingly providing data on American Citizens to | enemies of this nation carries severe and unfair | consequences. The punishment does need to be oversized, to | serve as a deterrent. | | Do we know if this was deliberate or accidental? If the | contract was explicit, and this individual knowingly violated | it, then the intent is pretty clear even if the goal was not | to aid China but rather to save money or similar. | | We see how pitiful punishments are for malfeasant corporate | executives - and we see how often they recid or are copied by | others cleaver enough to calculate the punishment does not | outweigh the crime. | | The consequences for giving sensitive citizen data to China, | Russia or any other nation should be severe enough to make | folks think very hard before trying it. | | Our election meddling problem will only grow worse in the | future as our adversaries grow more and more sophisticated... | best we don't help them along. | esoterica wrote: | If you think provisioning a server in the wrong country is | grounds for the death penalty then I think you might be | unsuited to living in a first world country. Have you | considered Saudi Arabia or North Korea? You might find those | places a better cultural fit for you. | anonymousiam wrote: | Maybe you would feel differently if it was your PII that made | it into the hands of the CCP. Unfortunately this has already | happened to me. | | The CCP now has all of my employment history, education | history, banking information, and all contact info for my | friends and family. | | https://www.opm.gov/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-incidents/ | [deleted] | shubb wrote: | So what, they have a zoom info subscription? | | I'm deeply worried about CPP + Tiktok, because it's | potentially a huge database of people doing things that | they can be blackmailed for. Your resume content is | basically public information at this point. | anonymousiam wrote: | My PII is not public information in the USA, and it | should not be in the hands of the CCP. Although it's not | the case in my situation, many completed SF86 forms | contain information that could be used to blackmail the | applicant, such as DUI convictions, mental breakdowns, | credit problems, bankruptcy, drug use, etc. The USG | collects the information to "protect" the applicant from | being exploited by the enemy, but such information could | still be embarrassing if publicly disclosed. | | Aside from the problems that publicizing information can | cause, there's also the risk of a bad actor using the | information to fraudulently obtain credit. The SF86 | contains everything that anyone would need to obtain | credit using somebody else's identity. At a minimum, the | information could be used as a form of harassment. | | A worst-case real-world example of how such information | could cost lives is what the Mossad has been doing with | Iranian nuclear scientists over the past two decades. | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Iranian_nu | cle... | Whatboard wrote: | "Konnech was required to keep the data in the United States and | only provide access to citizens and permanent residents but | instead stored it on servers in the People's Republic of China." | | I think we'll soon learn that his ties to China run far deeper | than simply storing data. | mercy_dude wrote: | And wouldn't be surprised if China used or continue to use | these covet tactics to alter election results. | V-eHGsd_ wrote: | alter? | [deleted] | barbazoo wrote: | Maybe Hanlon's razor applies here and hopefully someone simply | created a cloud resource in the wrong region. | jameshart wrote: | You can't just accidentally create resources in one of AWS's | mainland China regions. ap-east-1 in Hong Kong, maybe, but | the AWS china Beijing and Ningxia regions are not just a | misclick away. | pyuser583 wrote: | I've noticed this! The China regions are really their own | thing. | | They have much better documentation. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-10-05 23:01 UTC)