Mike Lindell Gave Hackers A ‘Practice Environment’ For 2024 says Expert CNN Hired

It’s a no brainer that the Big Lie and all the attendant audits, leaking of data by Trump supporting election officials, planting the seed that elections don’t work, was a really bad idea from the beginning. Now the exact threat that is being proposed has become more tangible. Different cyber security specialists, some of whom were present at Mike Lindell’s cyber symposium earlier in the month are being specific about what we can expect in the near future. The Guardian:

Harri Hursti, an election security pioneer, was at the South Dakota event and said he and other researchers were given three separate copies of election management systems that run on the Dominion software. Data indicated they were from Antrim and Mesa counties. While it’s not clear how the copies came to be released, they were also posted online and made available for public download.

The release gives hackers a “practice environment” to probe for vulnerabilities and a road map to avoid defenses, Hursti said. All hackers would need is physical access to the systems because they are not supposed to be connected to the internet.

“The door is now wide open,” Hursti said. “The only question is, how do you sneak in the door?”

Hackers exploit vulnerabilities. And appointing oneself an expert in elections fraud became big business in 2020. Ask Mike Lindell. He forked out plenty of money to people who said they had the goods and all they really had was laughably bad material that looked like it might be something but that fell apart under the least scrutiny. Who knows how bad it could get from here, as people with an agenda either desperately continue to try to prove that the 2020 election was stolen, or that subsequent elections are tainted as well?

Hackers could sabotage the system, alter ballot design or even try to change results, said Kevin Skoglund, an election technology expert.

“This disclosure increases both the likelihood that something happens and the impact of what would happen if it does,” he said.

The effort by Republicans to examine voting equipment began soon after the November election as Trump blamed his loss on widespread fraud. Judges appointed by both Democrats and Republicans, election officials of both parties and Trump’s own attorney general dismissed the claims. A coalition of federal and state officials called the 2020 election the “most secure” in US history, and post-election audits across the country found no significant anomalies.

In Antrim county, a judge allowed a forensic exam of voting equipment after a brief mix-up of results led to a suit alleging fraud. It was dismissed in May. Hursti said the date on the software release matches the date of the forensic exam.

Calls seeking information from Antrim county’s clerk and the local prosecutor were not immediately returned; a call to the judge’s office was referred to the county clerk. The Michigan secretary of state’s office declined comment.

In Colorado, authorities are investigating whether Mesa county elections staff provided unauthorized access to systems. The county elections clerk, Tina Peters, appeared with Lindell in South Dakota and told the crowd she was being targeted by Democrats.

What happened in 2020 is that for the first time in American history a defeated incumbent refused to acknowledge defeat and gracefully allow the peaceful transition of power. Then, after January 6, the situation escalated to the point of violence and now what we have is a tribal mentality. We bash at each other in us versus them mentality. Politics is polarized like never before and the cornerstone of democracy, belief in a free and fair elections process is being undermined.

Jack Cable, a security researcher, said he assumed US adversaries already had access to the software. He said he was more concerned the release would fan distrust among the growing number of people not inclined to believe in the security of US elections.

“It is a concern that people, in the pursuit of trying to show the system is insecure, are actually making it more insecure,” said Cable, who recently joined a cybersecurity firm run by the former Cisa director Christopher Krebs and former Facebook security chief Alex Stamos.

Interesting how we never worried about “rigged” elections before the reality TV guy showed up. The rigged election is no different from Trump’s belief that his campaign was being “spied” on or his belief that the Mueller investigation was a “witch hunt.” It’s all a plot against Trump, all the time. He is the focus of the entire universe and any and everything that takes place is about him and personally directed at him. What a bubbleverse to live in.

Ryan Macias, an election technology and security expert who was in Arizona earlier this year to observe that review, was alarmed by a lack of cybersecurity protocols. There was no information about who was given access, whether those people had passed background checks or were asked to sign non-disclosure agreements. Cyber Ninjas did not respond to an email.

Macias was not surprised to hear copies of Antrim county’s system had surfaced online, given the questionable motives of the various groups conducting the reviews and the central role that voting systems have played in conspiracy theories.

“This is what I anticipated would happen, and I anticipate it will happen yet again coming out of Arizona,” Macias said. “These actors have no liability and no rules of engagement.”

If Macias is right and this keeps happening, I can’t see where that bodes well for our system of government. As it stands now, Republicans are claiming that the last election was stolen and Biden won by a decisive margin. What oh what happens when we get down to another Al Gore scenario, where we’re looking at 500 votes in one state deciding the fate of the election and the fate of America? I shudder to think.

One of the reasons we’re in the climate change mess that we’re in is because Gore lost the 2000 election. Had he been in office for even one term, wheels would have been set in motion to combat this existential crisis. Gore’s loss wasn’t just a loss for him or for the Democratic party, it affected the fate of mankind.

Gore did the right thing by stepping aside gracefully. He saw that the larger issue of faith in elections was of greater importance than the potential injustice done to him. He did the right thing then and now we’ve got this new monkey wrench thrown into the works, because the reality TV trust fund baby couldn’t handle losing. He was soundly defeated buy that doesn’t stop him or his acolytes from claiming that he “won by a landslide.” It’s anybody’s guess how crazy it will get by this time next year, before the 2022 midterms. And if hackers do figure out a way to get into voting systems next year, who knows? This has all the earmarks of a boy who cried wolf scenario, if there really is voter fraud on some tangible level somewhere, who is going to believe it’s real and not some cockamamie conspiracy theory?