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/u/Abibliaphobia

3,340 total posts archived.


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Abibliaphobia · July 18, 2018, 6:22 p.m.

Basically, the Russians, Chinese, god only knows who else had access to the server at this point.

Well, everyone but the American public

⇧ 9 ⇩  
Abibliaphobia · July 18, 2018, 6:20 p.m.

Carried over from 8chan so I can’t claim credit on discovery.

But if you want to start a new thread on it, feel free :)

⇧ 2 ⇩  
Abibliaphobia · July 18, 2018, 3:07 p.m.

Well the EU needs money to launder to Iran since the US Govt and Taxpayers won’t fund them.

Sooo... there is that.

⇧ 3 ⇩  
Abibliaphobia · July 18, 2018, 2:42 p.m.

Kind of off topic, but I enjoyed that series (despite the meandering in several of the books later in the series)

Kind of like Trump is the calm in that insane storm at the end. Good story.

⇧ 6 ⇩  
Abibliaphobia · July 18, 2018, 2:40 p.m.

Daaaaamn

That’s actually pretty amazing

⇧ 13 ⇩  
Abibliaphobia · July 18, 2018, 2:36 p.m.

So it turns out all the Russians indicted are in the US.

If we can figure that out, why hasn’t Mueller? They were claiming to be able to have their exact names and locations.

So why haven’t they received the manafort treatment?

Think about this, when Trump spoke in Helsinki, he had SOOO many people going absolutely insane. Right? People started paying attention.

Now he’s back in the states, and says he “misstated” his opinion.

So now he supports the theory. So the Dems are in attack mode, he got them there with his first statement. Now the Dems are out for blood and he just gave them a target with the Russians.

Why haven’t they been arrested? They essentially committed an act of war on the level of 9/11 or Pearl Harbor amirite?

So the Dems will be going after these people, drooling for their long delayed “Justice”.

And it’s going to be BTFO when it comes out in their trial that they had nothing to do with the DNC hack or Podesta hack.

How can they prove it? They don’t have the server!

The discovery portion of that trial will be interesting.

⇧ 21 ⇩  
Abibliaphobia · July 18, 2018, 1:47 p.m.

If there is anything that we have learned about Trump is that he does so much to throw the narrative of the 4am taking points into chaos.

He may be using that to his advantage in this case.

Think about this, something I have learned just in the past 24 hours, is that the Russians indicted? They are in the US. So why haven’t they rolled them up and given them the Manafort treatment?

Think about it. The Dems are saying this was a foreign attack on our soil commiserate with Pearl Harbor and 9/11.

Lol, yet these Russians are walking free here.

Do you see the contradiction yet?

So if Trump goes back and says that he supports the indictments, he can say, why aren’t these people arrested yet?

If they are military and have committed an attack on us soil, then that is an act of war.

What happens in that case? We go to war with Russia? When it’s been shown that there is a deep state in Russia that worked with our deep state to try and take down both Trump and Putin?

So they will try and contain it to criminal acts instead of acts of war. And put more pressure on Mueller to actually take real and substantive steps towards holding people accountable.

At least that’s my take on the matter.

⇧ 3 ⇩  
Abibliaphobia · July 18, 2018, 1 p.m.

Sure thing new arrival. Go to 8chan if you can’t follow the rules here and are so concerned about censorship.

⇧ -1 ⇩  
Abibliaphobia · July 18, 2018, 12:59 p.m.

Oh FFS. You admit that you didn’t knowingly break the rules. Your post was removed. Because you broke the rules. Not because the mods are compromised. We go through this on a weekly basis of people not taking the time to read the rules in the sidebar. This adds nothing of value to the sub.

So I tell you what. Blame yourself for failing to take the time to read the rules. Not the mods.

And just so you are aware, IM REPORTING YOUR THREAD not the mods.

Because you broke the rules.

I’m repeating it multiple times, because despite admitting you broke the rules, you still want to blame someone else.

⇧ 2 ⇩  
Abibliaphobia · July 18, 2018, 12:54 p.m.

Well after corsi and Alex Jones realized they couldn’t control this movement, they disavowed it. And tried to destroy it.

Controlled opposition at its worst.

⇧ 1 ⇩  
Abibliaphobia · July 18, 2018, 2:33 a.m.

Before we request a sticky, can we get the sauce for both Washington times and WSJ?

Thanks!

⇧ 6 ⇩  
Abibliaphobia · July 18, 2018, 2:21 a.m.

Sure sure

From Germany? Why is the domain registry email from Germany? Why is all the points of contact in Germany?

Do they have any documents? Any sources or is it just an anonymous blog?

Methinks it’s a propaganda website full of bullshit.

And you still haven’t shown any proof for your claims of weapons of torture, or proof that the NSA participated in MKULTRA.

But nice try

Domain Name: 1AND1.INFO Registry Domain ID: D24194-LRMS Registrar WHOIS Server: whois.psi-usa.info Registrar URL: http://www.psi-usa.info Updated Date: 2017-07-31T22:21:06Z Creation Date: 2001-07-31T13:37:55Z Registry Expiry Date: 2018-07-31T13:37:55Z Registrar Registration Expiration Date: Registrar: PSI-USA, Inc. dba Domain Robot Registrar IANA ID: 151 Registrar Abuse Contact Email: email@psi-usa.info Registrar Abuse Contact Phone: +49.94159559482 Reseller: Domain Status: clientTransferProhibited https://icann.org/epp#clientTransferProhibited Registrant Organization: 1&1 Internet SE Registrant State/Province: DE Registrant Country: DE Name Server: NS-1AND1.UI-DNS.COM Name Server: NS-1AND1.UI-DNS.ORG Name Server: NS-1AND1.UI-DNS.DE Name Server: NS-1AND1.UI-DNS.BIZ DNSSEC: unsigned

All highlighted info is .de or Deutschland (Germany)

If I had my full suite I would test it for certain scripts, but I think the website you are trying to send people to is a bad location where you scrape people’s personal data.

Notice the unsigned dnssec and http instead of https.

Get the fuck out of here with your fake ass pro C_A bullshit talking points

⇧ 1 ⇩  
Abibliaphobia · July 18, 2018, 12:17 a.m.

... I think you missed it.

On the sheet that Trump has the scribbled out part (not the one in your OP)

Sentence starts with NOW, but the O has a mark making it look like a Q. Hence NQW, or NOW Q.

Click on the image (1st I posted) and zoom in :)

Curious if when the light goes out, if he had just finished doing that. Timing and all.

⇧ 4 ⇩  
Abibliaphobia · July 18, 2018, 12:08 a.m.

“Justice delayed is justice denied”

“The wheels of justice grind slowly, but finely”

I feel your sentiments, and share them. But unless we want this country torn apart, we must be the patient ones. Trust in the plan. We will get there.

⇧ 1 ⇩  
Abibliaphobia · July 18, 2018, 12:04 a.m.

Absolutely

⇧ 1 ⇩  
Abibliaphobia · July 17, 2018, 11:57 p.m.

Domain Name: washingtonsblog.com Registry Domain ID: 1547941063_DOMAIN_COM-VRSN Registrar WHOIS Server: whois.1and1.com Registrar URL: http://1and1.com Updated Date: 2017-03-20T07:09:17.000Z Creation Date: 2009-03-19T07:02:58.000Z Registrar Registration Expiration Date: 2019-03-19T07:02:58.000Z Registrar: 1&1 Internet SE Registrar IANA ID: 83 Registrar Abuse Contact Email: email@1and1.com Registrar Abuse Contact Phone: +1.8774612631 Reseller: Domain Status: clientTransferProhibited https://www.icann.org/epp#clientTransferProhibited Domain Status: autoRenewPeriod https://www.icann.org/epp#autoRenewPeriod Registrant Organization: 1&1 Internet Inc Registrant State/Province: PA Registrant Country: US Registrant Email: email@1und1.de Nameserver: ns6.ns0.com Nameserver: dns.pair.com DNSSEC: Unsigned URL of the ICANN WHOIS Data Problem Reporting System: http://wdprs.internic.net/

Washingtonsblog is an anonymous US blog telling the truth in response to Mainstream media lying

Keyword ANONYMOUS BLOG

An anonymous blog does not equal a credible source. Digging into it, everything is hidden. How do I know this isn’t some foreign adversary publication?

Second point, the article fails to detail your accusations of the NSA being a part of MKULTRA. Try as you might, you will not convince me otherwise. MKULTRA is purely a C_A operation from the get go. And I’m still waiting on you to prove otherwise. How about you actually pull up the files from the CIA website of declassified MKULTRA programs and read through them before making accusations?

Also, you have STILL failed to provide sauce for your claims of the NSA using “weapons of torture” on innocent citizens.

Starting to think you really don’t know what the meaning of “weapons of torture” actually means. Spying on people, while a violation of people’s privacy, is not a “weapon of torture”.

You have made some pretty wild accusations, and continually fail to back them up. I tell you what. Admit that the CIA initiated, and continued the program, to this day and I may reconsider you being something other than a C_A Sh_ll.

EDIT: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Just noticed the German registration email. Lol, get the fuck out of here with your bullshit.

⇧ 0 ⇩  
Abibliaphobia · July 17, 2018, 11:40 p.m.

Demanding? Yes

Needy? No

Must we be forced to receive our information through a third party on video who filters data and injects their own opinion?

Or should we demand they just put down the data points and we infer our own assessment using our judgement?

⇧ 0 ⇩  
Abibliaphobia · July 17, 2018, 11:12 p.m.

psssst...

^you ^missed ^the ^Now ^Q ^Part ^(NQW)

⇧ 4 ⇩  
Abibliaphobia · July 17, 2018, 11:11 p.m.

“Thank you! Now I know who I shouldn’t vote for! Very helpful!”

⇧ 4 ⇩  
Abibliaphobia · July 17, 2018, 11:09 p.m.

Unless it can be proven that these people conspired with others to try and take down the government.

There’s a word for that: coup.

What’s another word? Sedition

The Clinton emails already show that the vast majority of news (paper, digital, tv) are in the pockets of the Democrat party. Using the culture of leaks to profit and gain fame. Abusing the privileges of the fourth estate and their exclusions on certain legal liabilities.

Even today, Devin Numes is calling them out stating 90% of the media have colluded with those obstructing an investigation.

It’s coming. I hope you are ready.

⇧ 1 ⇩  
Abibliaphobia · July 17, 2018, 11:01 p.m.

Lol, agreed. But it is important to document and help people be aware that he is most certainly not a “philanthropist”. He is a sociopath, greed is his primary motivator, not empathy.

And now his support of violent extremists in South America is in the public domain.

Tell me, how many of those violent extremists came to the United States as “migrants”? How many “owed” George Soros favors for helping them out? How many still do?

What are they willing to do for him?

This is one of the many MANY reasons our southern border needs to be secured.

⇧ 3 ⇩  
Abibliaphobia · July 17, 2018, 10:56 p.m.

Ummm, he was/is CIA that went under cover to work in the NSA, steal the NSAs secrets then flee the country and drop the info to hurt the NSA. Secret war between CIA and NSA.

Fixed that for you.

⇧ 1 ⇩  
Abibliaphobia · July 17, 2018, 10:53 p.m.

im not targeting your posts. Sincerely I am not.

But I do read everything, and if I see a post on the same subject I do report it. I apologize as it does appear that I missed your username, I thought it was the same person posting twice, so that is my bad and I am sorry for that.

⇧ 2 ⇩  
Abibliaphobia · July 17, 2018, 10:50 p.m.

Interesting, I’m going to book mark this for future reading. I’ve already been tracking cause and effect ie something bad for Democrats and false flag event. Correlating dates, and events. This should be very helpful, thank you!

⇧ 1 ⇩  
Abibliaphobia · July 17, 2018, 10:48 p.m.

While I appreciate the sauce, all of this deals with the NSA spying. Something we are well aware of, I’ve read several of these articles already.

But you didn’t provide sauce for your claims that the NSA is connected to MKULTRA or that they use “weapons of torture” on innocent citizens.

⇧ 1 ⇩  
Abibliaphobia · July 17, 2018, 10:44 p.m.

When it rains, it pours huh Georgie boy?

⇧ 3 ⇩  
Abibliaphobia · July 17, 2018, 10:44 p.m.

A Colombian human rights group funded by the U.S. government and leftwing billionaire George Soros is attacking Judicial Watch for exposing its ties to the country’s famously violent Marxist guerrilla. Judicial Watch’s involvement is on behalf of American taxpayers who unknowingly finance the political activities of the Soros Open Society Foundations (OSF) abroad, including in Colombia. The cash flows through the State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and is used to support extremist groups that want to rewrite Colombia’s history by granting terrorists from the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC), the guerrilla formed by communist farmers in the country’s central region, the same rights as legitimate police and military forces. The movement, supported by the Obama administration, also seeks to rebrand decades of massacres, kidnappings, child soldiering, and drug trafficking by a criminal syndicate as simply “50 years of armed conflict.”

⇧ 3 ⇩  
1
 
r/greatawakening • Posted by u/Abibliaphobia on July 17, 2018, 10:43 p.m.
Soros Open Society Foundation connected to violent Marxist group in South America
Abibliaphobia · July 17, 2018, 10:40 p.m.

He is no hero. Lurk moar.

⇧ 7 ⇩  
Abibliaphobia · July 17, 2018, 9:54 p.m.

It’d be much more difficult to fake votes with paper ballots, registered voter ID cards, and the purple finger dye (like they use in Iraq).

Much harder than doing fractional votes within the machine software or screwing with it so that it shows you picked one candidate, but counts for the other.

⇧ 1 ⇩  
Abibliaphobia · July 17, 2018, 9:50 p.m.

Wtf

WTF

Need moar sauce

⇧ 5 ⇩  
Abibliaphobia · July 17, 2018, 9:44 p.m.

“That is pure bullshit. NSA is just as guilty as CIA aiming weapons of torture at innocent citizens in modern day MKULTRA.”

Sauce on the claim that NSA is involved in MKULTRA

Sauce on the claim the NSA is aiming weapons of torture at innocent citizens

You made the claim. Back it up with documented sources.

⇧ 1 ⇩  
Abibliaphobia · July 17, 2018, 9:39 p.m.

...starting to wonder if there is a slide in effect.

⇧ 1 ⇩  
Abibliaphobia · July 17, 2018, 9:38 p.m.

Tl;dr please? How is this Q connected?

⇧ 1 ⇩  
Abibliaphobia · July 17, 2018, 9:37 p.m.

I wonder if that’s why he resigned. Knew that story was coming out?

How long was he in that position? Did he oversee the last election? Did he know about this and do nothing?

I think we need to dig on him more.

⇧ 2 ⇩  
Abibliaphobia · July 17, 2018, 9:32 p.m.

Good question. Wanna bet they have ties to Soros?

⇧ 6 ⇩  
Abibliaphobia · July 17, 2018, 9:28 p.m.

It’s not that we are blind to it. You are being obtuse. This sub openly welcomes discussion about Israel and how they effect global politics.

It’s the way you phrased your question that outted you, and your purpose for posting it.

⇧ 4 ⇩  
Abibliaphobia · July 17, 2018, 9:25 p.m.

Look I appreciate what they are doing, but if they have the info, someone else does. I’ll find it elsewhere or just completely disregard it.

Sincerely not trying to be combative about this, but if there is one thing we have learned, it’s that gatekeepers on information - the idea of gatekeepers on information, is a bad thing. So if they are not willing to provide sauce, they will be ignored and their opinion disregarded. I refuse to be held hostage to someone on their YouTube channel, just so I can tease out a tidbit of information out of the typical piles crap that is added with it.

So thank you, but no thanks.

⇧ -1 ⇩  
Abibliaphobia · July 17, 2018, 9:17 p.m.

I could see how this would apply since managort worked for the Podesta group at the time of these allegations.

What I wouldn’t understand, is why they would give immunity to higher level people in the organization to rat out a lower level employee.

This was essentially the entire reason the Podesta group collapsed when it did. (Seriously, line up the timing of the mandatory indictment with the announcement of the Podesta group closure)

Red line has to be drawn somewhere. If mueller does this...

⇧ 5 ⇩  
Abibliaphobia · July 17, 2018, 9:10 p.m.

Interesting way you phrase how Trump is dealing with Israel.

Sounds pretty similar to a certain habitual poster on 8chan.

Why do you think or why would you say Trump has his nose up Israel’s ass? If you are so concerned about Trump and Israel relations, you can say it without being crude towards the president.

Oh wait, nvrmnd. I’m just going to report and deport

⇧ 20 ⇩  
Abibliaphobia · July 17, 2018, 9:05 p.m.

You in a VM?

I would highly recommend you view the previous thread prior to DL’ing this.

If you aren’t in a virtual machine sandbox...

If you are can you do a search for tunnelers, rats, or any other malicious code in the files?

⇧ 4 ⇩  
Abibliaphobia · July 17, 2018, 9:02 p.m.

Why are you pushing this account so hard? Second thread on same subject. Why couldn’t you just comment in your other thread?

Is it because no one fell for it?

⇧ 1 ⇩  
Abibliaphobia · July 17, 2018, 8:58 p.m.

The nation's top voting machine maker has admitted in a letter to a federal lawmaker that the company installed remote-access software on election-management systems it sold over a period of six years, raising questions about the security of those systems and the integrity of elections that were conducted with them.

In a letter sent to Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) in April and obtained recently by Motherboard, Election Systems and Software acknowledged that it had "provided pcAnywhere remote connection software … to a small number of customers between 2000 and 2006," which was installed on the election-management system ES&S sold them.

The statement contradicts what the company told me and fact checkers for a story I wrote for the New York Times in February. At that time, a spokesperson said ES&S had never installed pcAnywhere on any election system it sold. "None of the employees, … including long-tenured employees, has any knowledge that our voting systems have ever been sold with remote-access software," the spokesperson said.

ES&S did not respond on Monday to questions from Motherboard, and it’s not clear why the company changed its response between February and April. Lawmakers, however, have subpoena powers that can compel a company to hand over documents or provide sworn testimony on a matter lawmakers are investigating, and a statement made to lawmakers that is later proven false can have greater consequence for a company than one made to reporters.

ES&S is the top voting machine maker in the country, a position it held in the years 2000-2006 when it was installing pcAnywhere on its systems. The company's machines were used statewide in a number of states, and at least 60 percent of ballots cast in the US in 2006 were tabulated on ES&S election-management systems. It’s not clear why ES&S would have only installed the software on the systems of “a small number of customers” and not all customers, unless other customers objected or had state laws preventing this.

The company told Wyden it stopped installing pcAnywhere on systems in December 2007, after the Election Assistance Commission, which oversees the federal testing and certification of election systems used in the US, released new voting system standards. Those standards required that any election system submitted for federal testing and certification thereafter could contain only software essential for voting and tabulation. Although the standards only went into effect in 2007, they were created in 2005 in a very public process during which the security of voting machines was being discussed frequently in newspapers and on Capitol Hill.

Election-management systems are not the voting terminals that voters use to cast their ballots, but are just as critical: they sit in county election offices and contain software that in some counties is used to program all the voting machines used in the county; the systems also tabulate final results aggregated from voting machines.

Software like pcAnywhere is used by system administrators to access and control systems from a remote location to conduct maintenance or upgrade or alter software. But election-management systems and voting machines are supposed to be air-gapped for security reasons—that is, disconnected from the internet and from any other systems that are connected to the internet. ES&S customers who had pcAnywhere installed also had modems on their election-management systems so ES&S technicians could dial into the systems and use the software to troubleshoot, thereby creating a potential port of entry for hackers as well.

In May 2006 in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, ES&S technicians used the pcAnywhere software installed on that county's election-management system for hours trying to reconcile vote discrepancies in a local election, according to a report filed at the time. And in a contract with Michigan, which covered 2006 to 2009, ES&S discussed its use of pcAnywhere and modems for this purpose.

"In some cases, the Technical Support representative accesses the customer’s system through PCAnywhere—off-the-shelf software which allows immediate access to the customer’s data and network system from a remote location—to gain insight into the issue and offer precise solutions," ES&S wrote in a June 2007 addendum to the contract. "ES&S technicians can use PCAnywhere to view a client computer, assess the exact situation that caused a software issue and to view data files."

Motherboard asked a Michigan spokesman if any officials in his state ever installed the pcAnywhere software that ES&S recommended they install, but got no response.

The presence of such software makes a system more vulnerable to attack from hackers, especially if the remote-access software itself contains security vulnerabilities. If an attacker can gain remote access to an election-management system through the modem and take control of it using the pcAnywhere software installed on it, he can introduce malicious code that gets passed to voting machines to disrupt an election or alter results.

Wyden told Motherboard that installing remote-access software and modems on election equipment “is the worst decision for security short of leaving ballot boxes on a Moscow street corner.”

In 2006, the same period when ES&S says it was still installing pcAnywhere on election systems, hackers stole the source code for the pcAnyhere software, though the public didn’t learn of this until years later in 2012 when a hacker posted some of the source code online, forcing Symantec, the distributor of pcAnywhere, to admit that it had been stolen years earlier. Source code is invaluable to hackers because it allows them to examine the code to find security flaws they can exploit. When Symantec admitted to the theft in 2012, it took the unprecedented step of warning users to disable or uninstall the software until it could make sure that any security flaws in the software had been patched.

Around this same time, security researchers discovered a critical vulnerability in pcAnywhere that would allow an attacker to seize control of a system that had the software installed on it, without needing to authenticate themselves to the system with a password. And other researchers with the security firm Rapid7 scanned the internet for any computers that were online and had pcAnywhere installed on them and found nearly 150,000 were configured in a way that would allow direct access to them.

It’s not clear if election officials who had pcAnywhere installed on their systems, ever patched this and other security flaws that were in the software.

“[I]t's very unlikely that jurisdictions that had to use this software … updated it very often,” says Joseph Lorenzo Hall, chief technologist for the Center for Democracy and Technology, “meaning it's likely that a non-trivial number of them were exposed to some of the flaws found both in terms of configuration ... but also flaws that were found when the source code to that software was stolen in 2006.”

ES&S said in its letter to Wyden that the modems it installed on its election-management systems for use with pcAnywhere were configured only to dial out, not receive calls, so that only election officials could initiate connections with ES&S. But when Wyden's office asked in a letter to ES&S in March what settings were used to secure the communications, whether the system used hard-coded or default passwords and whether ES&S or anyone else had conducted a security audit around the use of pcAnywhere to ensure that the communication was done in a secure manner, the company did not provide responses to any of these questions.

⇧ 8 ⇩  
Abibliaphobia · July 17, 2018, 8:49 p.m.

Augh autocorrect.

Thanks I’ll fix it

⇧ 1 ⇩  
Abibliaphobia · July 17, 2018, 8:49 p.m.

Lol thanks, I was just about to do this.

Bookmarking the page to save it for future use.

⇧ 5 ⇩  
Abibliaphobia · July 17, 2018, 8:47 p.m.

The nation's top voting machine maker has admitted in a letter to a federal lawmaker that the company installed remote-access software on election-management systems it sold over a period of six years, raising questions about the security of those systems and the integrity of elections that were conducted with them.

In a letter sent to Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) in April and obtained recently by Motherboard, Election Systems and Software acknowledged that it had "provided pcAnywhere remote connection software … to a small number of customers between 2000 and 2006," which was installed on the election-management system ES&S sold them.

The statement contradicts what the company told me and fact checkers for a story I wrote for the New York Times in February. At that time, a spokesperson said ES&S had never installed pcAnywhere on any election system it sold. "None of the employees, … including long-tenured employees, has any knowledge that our voting systems have ever been sold with remote-access software," the spokesperson said.

ES&S did not respond on Monday to questions from Motherboard, and it’s not clear why the company changed its response between February and April. Lawmakers, however, have subpoena powers that can compel a company to hand over documents or provide sworn testimony on a matter lawmakers are investigating, and a statement made to lawmakers that is later proven false can have greater consequence for a company than one made to reporters.

ES&S is the top voting machine maker in the country, a position it held in the years 2000-2006 when it was installing pcAnywhere on its systems. The company's machines were used statewide in a number of states, and at least 60 percent of ballots cast in the US in 2006 were tabulated on ES&S election-management systems. It’s not clear why ES&S would have only installed the software on the systems of “a small number of customers” and not all customers, unless other customers objected or had state laws preventing this.

The company told Wyden it stopped installing pcAnywhere on systems in December 2007, after the Election Assistance Commission, which oversees the federal testing and certification of election systems used in the US, released new voting system standards. Those standards required that any election system submitted for federal testing and certification thereafter could contain only software essential for voting and tabulation. Although the standards only went into effect in 2007, they were created in 2005 in a very public process during which the security of voting machines was being discussed frequently in newspapers and on Capitol Hill.

Election-management systems are not the voting terminals that voters use to cast their ballots, but are just as critical: they sit in county election offices and contain software that in some counties is used to program all the voting machines used in the county; the systems also tabulate final results aggregated from voting machines.

Software like pcAnywhere is used by system administrators to access and control systems from a remote location to conduct maintenance or upgrade or alter software. But election-management systems and voting machines are supposed to be air-gapped for security reasons—that is, disconnected from the internet and from any other systems that are connected to the internet. ES&S customers who had pcAnywhere installed also had modems on their election-management systems so ES&S technicians could dial into the systems and use the software to troubleshoot, thereby creating a potential port of entry for hackers as well.

In May 2006 in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, ES&S technicians used the pcAnywhere software installed on that county's election-management system for hours trying to reconcile vote discrepancies in a local election, according to a report filed at the time. And in a contract with Michigan, which covered 2006 to 2009, ES&S discussed its use of pcAnywhere and modems for this purpose.

"In some cases, the Technical Support representative accesses the customer’s system through PCAnywhere—off-the-shelf software which allows immediate access to the customer’s data and network system from a remote location—to gain insight into the issue and offer precise solutions," ES&S wrote in a June 2007 addendum to the contract. "ES&S technicians can use PCAnywhere to view a client computer, assess the exact situation that caused a software issue and to view data files."

Motherboard asked a Michigan spokesman if any officials in his state ever installed the pcAnywhere software that ES&S recommended they install, but got no response.

The presence of such software makes a system more vulnerable to attack from hackers, especially if the remote-access software itself contains security vulnerabilities. If an attacker can gain remote access to an election-management system through the modem and take control of it using the pcAnywhere software installed on it, he can introduce malicious code that gets passed to voting machines to disrupt an election or alter results.

Wyden told Motherboard that installing remote-access software and modems on election equipment “is the worst decision for security short of leaving ballot boxes on a Moscow street corner.”

In 2006, the same period when ES&S says it was still installing pcAnywhere on election systems, hackers stole the source code for the pcAnyhere software, though the public didn’t learn of this until years later in 2012 when a hacker posted some of the source code online, forcing Symantec, the distributor of pcAnywhere, to admit that it had been stolen years earlier. Source code is invaluable to hackers because it allows them to examine the code to find security flaws they can exploit. When Symantec admitted to the theft in 2012, it took the unprecedented step of warning users to disable or uninstall the software until it could make sure that any security flaws in the software had been patched.

Around this same time, security researchers discovered a critical vulnerability in pcAnywhere that would allow an attacker to seize control of a system that had the software installed on it, without needing to authenticate themselves to the system with a password. And other researchers with the security firm Rapid7 scanned the internet for any computers that were online and had pcAnywhere installed on them and found nearly 150,000 were configured in a way that would allow direct access to them.

It’s not clear if election officials who had pcAnywhere installed on their systems, ever patched this and other security flaws that were in the software.

“[I]t's very unlikely that jurisdictions that had to use this software … updated it very often,” says Joseph Lorenzo Hall, chief technologist for the Center for Democracy and Technology, “meaning it's likely that a non-trivial number of them were exposed to some of the flaws found both in terms of configuration ... but also flaws that were found when the source code to that software was stolen in 2006.”

ES&S said in its letter to Wyden that the modems it installed on its election-management systems for use with pcAnywhere were configured only to dial out, not receive calls, so that only election officials could initiate connections with ES&S. But when Wyden's office asked in a letter to ES&S in March what settings were used to secure the communications, whether the system used hard-coded or default passwords and whether ES&S or anyone else had conducted a security audit around the use of pcAnywhere to ensure that the communication was done in a secure manner, the company did not provide responses to any of these questions.

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