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Edward Snowden has gained quite a notorious reputation as the ex-NSA spy who revealed to the American people just how extensive the government's surveillance goes.
In the 2016 election, Snowden has played a different role: The self-exiled gadfly has chimed in with his computer hacking and data expertise multiple times during the election season.
After the FBI “cleared” Hillary Clinton in its email probe—for the second time—Snowden weighed in with a “how-to” on a way the FBI can “de-dupe” the sets of 650,000 emails on Weiner's laptop and those already known to investigators.
Now, Snowden is showing the American people just how easy it is to hack voting machines. As demonstrated in a video published by Cylance:
Snowden took to Twitter to explain how it can be done:
"Researchers just demonstrated how to hack the official vote count with a $30 card.
"Little time to patch this vuln(erability), but can still forbid use of this model, run statistical analysis after polls close on rest to ID outliers.”
“Hacking voting machines: not that difficult. Hiding a secret deviation in votes from after-the-fact statistical analysis: nearly impossible,” he added.
Donald Trump has claimed throughout the 2016 election campaign that the “election is rigged.”
Image Credit: Screenshot of the Sequoia AVC Edge voting machine/Youtube
As noted by The Sun about the video:
In a few steps they were able to make votes for one candidate count as votes for a rival.
They also easily changed names of candidates and other details.
Then they inserted a modified PCMCIA flash memory card into the machine and restarted it.
The altered and false data was retained in the system on relaunch and was also transferred to a printed paper version at the click of a button, making the results appear genuine.
Cylance said: “With access to the physical machine, we were able to produce a forged update with false voting data.”
The type of voting machine used in the demonstration, The Sequoia AVC Edge, is still used in 13 U.S. States. In a tightly contested election, every vote counts.