Page 3 - ARUBA TODAY

A3
up front Friday 17 January 2020
Georgia election server showed signs of tampering: Expert

Continued from Front ing to a reporter about
his findings. A spokesman
State officials have said for Georgia's secretary of
they've seen no evidence state, Brad Raffensperger,
that any election-related had no immediate com-
data was compromised . ment.
But they also long refused In his original and less me-
to submit the server image thodical examination of
for an independent exami- the server after he discov-
nation. Logan Lamb, a se- ered it exposed online,
curity expert for the plain- Lamb said he found per-
tiffs, said in an affidavit filed sonal data for Georgia's
in Atlanta federal court 6.7 million voters as well as
on Thursday that he found passwords used by county
evidence suggesting the officials to access election-
server was compromised in staging files.
December 2014. Lamb said For the 2020 election, Geor-
the evidence suggests an gia officials are replacing
attacker exploited a bug antiquated touchscreen
that provided full control of voting machines that
the server. have long been discred- In this Sept. 22, 2016, file photo, employees of the Fulton County Election Preparation Center in
Lamb also said he deter- ited by computer scientists. Atlanta test electronic voting machines.
mined that computer logs But Marks' group rejects Associated Press
— which would have been the computerized ballot- a significant question given intelligence agents in the lanta, Kevin Rowson, de-
critical to understanding marking devices the state federal findings of interfer- 2016 election. clined to comment on the
what might have been al- has purchased to replace ence by Russian military An FBI spokesman in At- matter.q
tered on or stolen from the them.
server — only go back to It maintains, paralleling the
Nov. 10, 2016 — two days findings last year of a Na-
after Donald Trump was tional Academies of Sci-
elected U.S. president. Two ences report, that the only
years later, Brian Kemp secure voting solution are
won the Georgia gover- hand-marked ballots proc-
nor's race by a narrow mar- essed by scanners that
gin over Democrat Stacey leave a paper trail that can
Abrams. be audited later. Most U.S.
Kemp oversaw Georgia's voters will use systems with
elections during the 2016 an auditable paper trail in
race as secretary of state. November.
Election administration "The defendants have
was handled at Kennesaw since day one tried to do
State University by an outfit everything possible to ob-
that Kemp's office disman- struct the public, the plain-
tled after the server-wiping tiffs and the court from see-
incident. ing the shambles of what
Additionally, Lamb found they had in an incredibly
evidence that election- compromised election sys-
related files were deleted tem," said Marilyn Marks
from the server on March 2, of the Coalition for Good
2017, just after a colleague Governance, one of the
of his alerted KSU officials plaintiffs in the case.
that the election server Now, she said, state offi-
remained vulnerable to cials argue that because
hackers. of their new system, prob-
It was Lamb who initially lems with the old system
alerted Merle King, direc- aren't relevant anymore.
tor of the elections center "Of course, that's not true,"
at KSU, in August 2016 of a she added. "This was the
gaping security hole that hub of their entire elections
left the server vulnerable structure."
to tampering. The FBI obtained the server
The fact that the access image as part of an inves-
logs were deleted sug- tigation into the security
gests possible foul play, researchers who alerted
Lamb wrote. "I can think of KSU to the server's secu-
no legitimate reason why rity hole. Those research-
records from that critical ers were never accused of
period of time should have any wrongdoing. It is not
been deleted," he said in clear, however, if the FBI
his sworn statement. ever examined the image
A protective order pre- to try to determine whether
vented Lamb from speak- it had been compromised,