In either case, the uncritical recitation of the witnesses' conclusions was self-evident. The blame here lies with the magistrate for signing it.

It's clear that the agent either accepted the witnesses' observations and conclusions uncritically, or knowingly withheld the confounding context and explanations. I suspect the former (and that an inexperienced agent with no election training was deliberately chosen and steered to these witnesses)

The affidavit in the GA elections search warrant was unsealed. I did a short thread over on a competing social media platform yesterday with my thoughts. Tl;dr: I’m surprised the judge issued the warrant. federate.social/@mattblaze/1...

I did a little thread over on Mastodon with some speculation on the Fulton County election office search warrant. federate.social/@mattblaze/1...

So many of us warned of this situation www.justsecurity.org/16503/securi...

Susan Landau, @mattblaze.org, and Steven Bellovin unpack the U.K. government's latest attempt to access encrypted cloud backups in Apple products and explain how it could make sensitive data more vulnerable to adversarial actors.

NB: When I, a professor of law, profess that an act is unlawful, I am not doing it to inform the lawbreaker, but rather to inform you, the reader. So the question “what, like you think he cares?” is inapposite. The question is whether *you* care. I think you should, which is why I bother.

The trick to be taken seriously is to act seriously, something the election deniers don't seem to be capable of doing.

They got a cool festive signage for the holiday train and an old subway token as the line symbol!

Tomorrow in my election security course we dissect election denial BS, always fun. I'm grateful to the "election truth" conspiracy people for keeping the 2020 dream alive in 2024, giving us a steady stream of new (actually recycled) material. The pillow guy gets old after a while.

I really want to know the full story behind this epic hack, and yet I also hope it is never solved.

It's my favorite day! It's the 38th anniversary of the Max Headroom signal broadcast intrusion! 1st incident lasted 25s during the 9PM news on WGN-TV in Chicago; The 2nd, 2hrs later, lasted ~90s on PBS affiliate WTTW during Dr. Who. You can watch it here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqge...

It pains me that people take my work and that of my colleagues out of context - or outright misrepresent it - to make specious claims of election fraud. But it's also critical that we have frank discussions of elections - warts and all - and how to improve them.

The unfortunate truth is there's no simple, clean narrative about election security right now. There are real vulnerabilities. Not all states do sufficiently rigorous post-election audits to provide robust assurance. But there's also simply no evidence to support claims that elections are hacked.

I run the conference to which you appear to be referring, and I'm not sure where you're getting weird the idea that we dont talk about Risk Limiting Audits. In fact, this year Philip Stark (who has served on our board) gave a talk about RLAs and led a workshop on how to conduct them.

A reminder that if I block you, it’s definitely because I’m afraid of your superior intellect, arguments, and attractiveness. It has nothing to do with your being an annoying, toxic dimwit.

a lot of people regretting the 'this shoulda been an email' advice rn lol

My mentions here currently consist of a steady barrage of election deniers challenging me to prove the negative proposition that the 2024 election wasn't stolen (which is not how it works). So if I miss your reasonable, non-shouty post to me, I apologie.

About me: I'm an election security expert with two decades of experience. I've led comprehensive security assessments on behalf of states of their voting tech. I've testified in congress several times about election vulnerabilities. I run a major election security conference. The claims are BS.

The only differences between these claims about 2024 and the claims that the election was stolen from Trump in 2020 are: - The losing candidate isn't amplifying the BS this time. - No one stormed the Capitol this time - No one is offering discount coupons for lumpy mail-order pillows this time.

There ARE real vulnerabilities in some of our election infrastructure, and this is absolutely a problem that we should fix (and on which significant progress has been made). But the mere existence of vulnerabilities is not evidence of fraud.

They also have no credible theory of how this massive-scale fraud was supposedly carried out, eiither technically or logistically. They just make vague observations about a few know vulnerabilities in some systems, with no indication that even these were actually exploited. It's supremely weak tea.

They're conning statistically unsophisticated, disappointed voters with impressive-looking, but meaningless, "analysis" that tell people what they want to believe. Then they challenge you to prove a negative - "if this is wrong, just show there WASN'T fraud". That's not how it works.

In particular, all they're doing is "analyzing" precinct and mail-in voting tailles from different places and claiming the results are "suspicious". Except: - They aren't. They're readily explained by unsurprising demographic differences. - Even if they were, that's not how you show fraud.

There's a reason that the candidates who supposedly had their offices stolen from them want nothing to do with this nonsense.

Asserting that a presidential election outcome was altered is an *extraordinary* claim, and requires significant, compelling evidence to back up. But the "evidence" being presented is nonsense. A bunch of statistics about "voting patters" that don't actually show anything surprising or suspicious.

I would LOVE to believe the "election truth" people who claim the 2024 presidential race results have suspicious anomalies that indicate fraud. Politics aside, it would vindicate warnings from my collegues and that elections systems have serious vulnerabilities. But there's just nothing there.

One example of the harm of disinformation that the #ConspiracyEntrepreneurs couldn't care less about bsky.app/profile/than...

As the first law professor in the US to teach a Sex Crimes course, I have two words for Megyn Kelly: Just stop.

As someone deeply concerned professionally with securing elections, i think making unfounded claims that elections are being rigged is an extremely harmful grift, that deserves strong condemnation.

"What's the harm?". The harm is that these supposed "suspicious patterns" aren't actually suspicious, but they're being misleadingly sold to disappointed voters to support a completely baseless conspiracy theory that degrades the democratic process.

I would LOVE to believe the "election truth" people who claim the 2024 presidential race results have suspicious anomalies that indicate fraud. Politics aside, it would vindicate warnings from my collegues and that elections systems have serious vulnerabilities. But there's just nothing there.

Loving today's news that the mysterious "fedora man" outside the Louvre heist was actually a 15-year-old museum visitor who dresses like a 1940s French detective all the time, just because. apnews.com/article/louv...

As an academic, I have actually published a few things here and there.

I get where you're coming from, but I think there's value in experts engaging with people. I've certainly benefited from interacting with and reading experts in other fields on social media.

If I may, it’s not worth fighting in the muck with people. There’s always another to come along after and rehash the same ole fight. A published article is worth 10,000 fights in the weeds.

Oddly enough, weeks of being insulted and browbeaten by anonymous strangers here about the actual subject I work on in my day job has NOT led me to reconsider my position.

Subway's bread is notoriously squishy and pliable. Any fear of injury would disappear the moment you saw the wrapper. Throwing a Subway sandwich is like shooting with a nerf gun. Now if it were a more substantial bread - say a bagel - prosecutors might have had a more viable case.

pre-writing a devastating obituary for your enemy is god-tier hating of a kind you don’t often see anymore. renaissance haterism. beautiful stuff.

i loved being a poll worker! met amazing people, learned a lot, served the community. i didn’t love chairing a polling place in 2016, but that mostly had to do with an injury i had and the outcome of the election.

Strong seconded. It’s easy, it’s simple, and it will absolutely challenge at least one long held assumption you have about how politics works on the retail level. And no matter where you are, I assure you they’re desperate for competent adults to pitch in.

To be clear, when I suggest that people sign up to be election pollworkers, I'm not trying to be flippant. I'm dead serious. It's a vital civic service where you help your neighbors vote. And you learn an absolute *ton* about how elections actually work, as well as meet the officials who run them.

To clarify, do you believe you're entitled to cross examine everyone on social media to interrogate their beliefs on any topic of interest to you, or just me? In any event, I have already pointed you to where you can find answers to your questions about my work on election security.

If you're curious about my opinions about election security, there's an ample public record on the subject, and, if you don't wish do dig further, you can read my posts here simply by clicking on my profile.

This makes it frustrating to have a productive discussion about election security. There's no simple narrative. Yes, there are security vulnerabilities in some election systems, and that's genuinely bad. But no, there's no evidence any US elections have been stolen or rigged this way (so far).

Just to be clear, I don't claim that our elections are free of fraud. But I have seen no credible evidence whatsoever that any US election outcome has been altered by technical vulnerabilities. Could that happen? Possibly, and that's concerning. But there's simply no evidence that it actually has.

Or, to put it as politely as my upbringing taught me is warranted here, fuck of with your "just asking questions" bullshit.

Thank you, Debra Bowen, Dave Wagner, the DefCon crew, and others who've helped for making this happen. (And of course no thanks to the GOP voter registration and other official voting suppression efforts where the REAL fraud happens. But stuffing ballot boxes is pretty much obsolete.)

This is not a problem exclusive to the right. Disgruntled Harris supporters are claiming that the 2024 election was hacked, trotting out exactly the same bogus "evidence" Trump was making in 2020. Fortunately, and to her great credit, Harris has not amplified any of this nonsense.