Democrats could have gained the majority in the House by switching less than 1/4 of one percent of the total votes -- less than one in 250 votes. [...] In contested House races in 2002, candidates typically spent $3M to $4M, although the highest was over $8M. The outcomes of the 20 closest races would have changed by swinging an average of 2,593 votes each. Assuming (conservatively) a candidate would pay $1M to switch 5,000 votes, votes are worth $200 each. [...]In 2002, all the Congressional candidates together raised over $500M. As a result, one can conservatively conclude that affecting the balance of power in the House of Representatives is worth at least $100M to the party who would otherwise be losing. So when designing the security behind the software, one must assume an attacker with a $100M budget.
The economics of stealing an election
Crypto-Gram, April 15:
Tags: big brother, conspiracies, security
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9 Responses:
cryptogram is a great newsletter no?
Bruce is one of my favorite guys to read-
bruce is a fabulous writer. one of the best technical writers of our time. i would say he's on par with richard feynman in his ability to distill difficult concepts into clear and cogent explanation.
On this topic, I also like <lj user="risks_digest">.
scary ain't it?
i conjecture that all of the electronic voting machine manufacturers are amateurs when it comes to security. they have ignored all of the fundamentals of good security: peer review, understanding your threat model, following common practice. conspiracy theorists would state that this is by intent. i have no opinion, but it does concern me about the future of our country.
Nice to know you can buy the power of the United States Federal government for so little as $100 million.
Talk about a fire sale.
Hey, it's a buyer's market!
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I dunno, it sounded to me like he just made up some numbers. I didn't see anything really revelatory in there.
The point isn't the accuracy of the numbers, but to get you thinking about how relatively cheap it would be.
I'm sort of missing one thing here (although I'll admit I didn't read the article). I'd say you (may) have 2 attackers with at least $100M each, but with opposite goals. That should make it a whole lot more interesting ;-)
Still scary however. However, is it really that different from buying your way to the white house by having more funds for your campaign (or by having a brother in the right place...)?