We rush towards disaster and greet it with a smirk.
I sketched out what this disaster might look like when Bloomberg broke the story of Andrés Sepúlveda, a man who claims to have help hack elections in Nicaragua, Panama, Honduras, El Salvador, Colombia, Mexico, Costa Rica, Guatemala, and Venezuela, this spring:
Andrés Sepúlveda is a challenge that neither our political institutions nor our political philosophy have prepared us to meet…. If [the hackers] performance is done just right no one in the audience will know if the electoral victories they witness were justly won or were delivered by puppeteers in the shadows.
It is this ambiguity that makes Sepúlveda’s methods so dangerous. His is a poisoned dart aimed at the heart of liberal democracy. For the governing regimes of the Western world are built on a myth, and it is a myth that goes like this: in democracies, decisions of state are made by the will of the people. That actual policy making in democratic regimes is only tenuously connected to popular will is immaterial. A belief in the ‘consent of the governed’ preserves the peace. It allows for factions to compete for control of the state without violence. It is a useful myth (and if limited to the selection of candidates, one that has some truth to it), but one that depends of a transparent system of electioneering to sustain it. The democracy of the election hackers is not transparent. They muddy the system. The more infamous cases like this become, the muddier the system gets. It is important to understand that no team needs to consistently succeed in hacking their preferred candidates into victory for this to be true–all that is needed for democracy to lose its luster is a belief that a given electoral system could be hacked. [1]
I ended that piece with a few speculative hypotheticals:
Just what does American democracy look like when foreign syndicates and intelligence agencies can manipulate social media and internet platforms to boost the candidates they prefer? An even more important question: what does American democracy look like when Americans believe foreign syndicates and intelligence agencies are manipulating them to boost the candidates they prefer? What happens when the losing side of any electoral contest believes they lost because someone on the other side hacked the election to their advantage?
We will soon find out. [2]
At the time I feared my words were a tad too dramatic. I fear this no longer. My hypotheticals are no longer hypothetical. We now know exactly what it looks like when foreign intelligence agencies manipulate American social media and internet platforms to boost the candidates they prefer. We also now know exactly what it looks like when Americans believe that foreign intelligence agencies are manipulating our election cycles.
Welcome to the war, America.
What we do not yet know is how America responds after actual voting on election day has been manipulated. We will know soon.
Are you prepared for November 9th?
The vulnerability of voting machines to outside hacking is at this point long proven. Among many circles it is well known. Well versed tech junkies post articles like this to their Facebook and Twitter profiles with the same smugness they usually call on to ridicule lesser beings who’ve never heard of Truecrypt or password managers. With a smirk they say things like, “septuagenarian officials prove they don’t understand technology, case #2,038!”
Does their smugness prepare them any better for November 9th?
Voting machines are not just hackable—over the last week it has become clear that the infrastructure around them has already been hacked. But the important thing here isn’t how successful Russian attempts are at penetrating the vote tallying machines. All they need to accomplish their goal is to instill the fear that they might have penetrated them.
Every news report on the issue makes the situation that much more serious—every new headline is a new challenge to ambitious hackers looking for international-level lulz; every fresh dispatch is a fresh temptation to campaigns and their sympathizers to ensure that their candidate wins where he or she must; every new broadcast is a potential inspiration for the next radical or terrorist.
Hacking is not technically necessary to pull this sort of operation off. John Robb suggests that a few dozen false bomb threats would be enough to start this ball rolling. I suppose real bombs would do the trick as well.
Are we prepared for November 9th?
We live in a country on edge. Trust in political and social institutions are at historical lows. Social life is atomozied. Politics are polarized. Within the last year radicalized groups from both sides of the aisle have resorted to the force of arms to achieve their ideological agendas. In this shattered state we face a wounded but still powerful enemy who seeks revenge for America’s interference in her own internal affairs, a power who actively works across the globe for a future of diminishing American power.
The time for smugness is over. It is now time for every American of national prominence—the presidential aspirants, of course, but also party and congressional leaders, journalists and media moguls, officials up an down the executive branch—to plan what they will do if the voting of November 8th is disrupted by hidden hacking or open attack. If an hour so grim as this arrives, these careful and measured responses, planned well in advance, will be all that stand between momentary political disruption and a violent social eruption.
Now is the day to prepare for November 9th.
[1] T. Greer, “Hacking Democracy,” Scholar’s Stage (1 April 2016). For the Selpuveda story, see Jordan Robertson, Michael Riley, and Andrew Willis, “How to Hack an Election,” Bloomberg Newsweek, 30 March, 2016 (print edition, 4 April, 2016).
[2] Greer, “Hacking Democracy,”
We now know exactly what it looks like when foreign intelligence agencies manipulate American social media and internet platforms to boost the candidates they prefer. ……. [W]e face a wounded but still powerful enemy who seeks revenge for America’s interference in her own internal affairs, a power who actively works across the globe for a future of diminishing American power.
Where one can read the best argument for these claims?
Without solid evidence, this is a largely speculative 'conspiracy theory' that heightens the chances for a war, a needless major war. It would have been foolhardy to embrace it as fact.
Of course, it is all right if there is reasonably sound evidence behind it.
For all of the commentary about how Trump is Putin's favored candidate, most have blindly assumed that it is because their strategic interests align in policy circles. That is only half of the explanation, and Putin's longer game (which works even if Trump loses) is to try and undermine trust in Western institutions. Lack of trust in the veracity of vote totals, bifurcated, partisan media regularly pushing dis-information, ignoring stories and encouraging half-truths. The pity is that much of the professional left has tee'd this up, but it is the hard "right" that is taking the bait. The dismaying part of this whole process is the degree both sides are fostering it, in their own, very different, ways.
Figure it this way. I'm Putin. My goal is to remove the US as an actor on the world stage. The best way to do that is to have the Yanks fighting each other. So I prepare, for years, to set that up. I am assisted in this by the willfully blind passivity of a very large segment of the political class and the business, media and academic establishment; perfectly represented by Mr. Obama. In fact, I have taken the measure of this class and Mr. Obama and know that I can get away with anything, anything, in furtherance of my goal. Please note too that though my efforts and those of the Red Chinese, there is nothing at all that I don't know about the inner workings of the US gov, the state govs, the county govs, the local govs and the US military. And I mean nothing. Nothing. And there is no system I can't get into. None at all.
Now comes Nov 9 and I bollix up everything, or maybe only some things. Maybe some places have a legit vote count, some don't. Nobody can tell. Then it becomes know that I've done this. I don't give an interview to Russia Today admitting this but it becomes quite obvious that I have. The election results can't be trusted and it is the result of foreign actions. Now what will the US gov exec branch do?
Since I (remember, I'm Vlad the Great [and he will be the Great if he pulls this off] in this scenario) have taken the measure of Mr. Obama I know what he will do. He will declare the election null and void and decree that he will remain in office until things are cleared up and another election can be held. No time frame given of course.
Then of course things will come apart because various state governments will say, nothin' doin' buddy. We aren't going along with that. Then Mr. Obama will send federal agents to arrest some governors who will be protected by state police who won't back down and God only knows from there. God may not know but I, Vlad the Great know that the US polity and military won't give a hoot about anything that happens anywhere else in the world and all those troops will go home to take part in the civil conflict.
Voila! I've just accomplished the greatest come from behind victory in world geo-political history.
That is what can happen.
There was a sustained attack on US internet service today, just a day or two after the Czechs pick up a Russian hacker for us. Things are getting started it appears.
Folks should probably read the US Constitution. Disputed elections go to the House of Representatives.
And the Republicans have a majority in the House, at least at this moment. How will Mr. Obama view that? I don't know. What if some of the governors don't play along and certify the vote in their states because of hacked machines, or if suits are filed, in the hundreds, challenging the certification of the vote? The point stands, if the legitimacy of the vote counts are called into question because of computer shenanigans, especially foreign shenanigans, Lord only knows what will happen.
We may have dodged the bullet. I was worried about Y2K too.
Probably nobody will ever read this but I comment anyway.
I thought we dodged the bullet on Nov. 9 but we didn't. There is a rebellion going on, but not by the states; it is a rebellion of the bureaucracy, especially the intel bureaucracy, in Washington aided by the media and the established elites of both parties. They are upset by the election result but needed a casus belli, something to justify what is looking a lot like a coup. Russian monkey wrenching is giving them just that. It doesn't matter what the Russians did, or if it had any real effect on the election. It matters that they were seen to be doing something and they made sure they were. That gives one side or the other ammo it wanted. Hyperbole, leaks and media repetition will take care of the rest.
Vlad the Great and the boys probably didn't know exactly how this would work itself out. They did know that something would come of their efforts and whatever it was, it would weaken the Americans. That is exactly what is happening. Trump's win is proving to be very fruitful for them. Not because Trump is in Vlad's hip pocket as would be the superficial way to view this; but because of the fury with which the bureaucratic, media and political establishment reacted to Trump's win. All they needed to proceed with a coup attempt was the word "Russia" and they are off and running. The Russians gave them what they needed.
Now if any of you out there want to quibble about the word coup, you are missing the point. Half the population of the country in way over half the geographical area of the country voted Trump in. They are seeing what is going on now-anonymous leaks by officials, parsed questions, media headlines that are mostly loudly proclaimed accusations sans proof-as an attempt by the establishment to deprive them of their political voice as expressed in an election. If they are deprived of their vote, and they will see Trump not serving his four years that way, there will be problems. Mark Steyn has commented if that happens half the country may conclude they are excluded from normal political process and therefore have no stake in continuation of normal American political process. Trouble, big trouble, will ensue. God only know what kind.
God only knows the details, but Vlad the Great knows that the details don't matter. The Americans will be weakened and Vlad will reap the reward.
(I used to call Vlad, Vlad the would be Great. Not now. He is Vlad the Great, proven by deed. One more thing, the intel guys, the our patriotic spies, seem to be relishing their attempts to be political puppet masters. If their efforts foment the big trouble I fear, they may regret them.)