>
> So let's set aside our fancy 5.x kernels and ask a very serious question:
> Which kernel version is running the machines used to tally votesi
> in November?
>


> Depends on the state or county, doesn't it?
>

If only the scope and scale of this problem was constrained to old Linux
kernels.

"In fact, many voting machines across the country run on years-old
unpatched Windows and Linux operating systems, partly because counties
don’t have the staff to maintain the systems and have long believed that
the systems are secure, and partly because (due to long delays in getting
new or altered versions of voting machines certified) voting machine
vendors often sell systems without the latest patches installed.


The operating systems on the election-management systems ES&S submitted to
California for testing and certification last year were missing dozens of
critical security patches, including one for the vulnerability the WannaCry
ransomware
<https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/18/us/politics/us-north-korea-wannacry-cyberattack.html>
used
to spread among Windows machines. Two optical-scan machines ES&S submitted
for certification had nine unpatched security vulnerabilities between them
— all classified by the security industry as critical.

Just last month, Cisco, which makes the model of firewall used with ES&S
election-management systems, announced a critical vulnerability
<https://tools.cisco.com/security/center/content/CiscoSecurityAdvisory/cisco-sa-20180129-asa1>
in
its devices that would let a remote hacker take full control of the
firewalls and get at the systems they protect. News reports last week
indicated hackers are already attempting to exploit vulnerable
<https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/02/that-mega-vulnerability-cisco-dropped-is-now-under-exploit/>
Cisco
firewalls in the wild."
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/21/magazine/the-myth-of-the-hacker-proof-voting-machine.html
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