September 11 and 12, 2016


News and Views


http://www.cbsnews.com/news/how-russian-hackers-could-disrupt-the-u-s-election/

How Russian hackers could disrupt the U.S. election
By REBECCA SHABAD CBS NEWS
September 12, 2016, 6:00 AM

FILE - In this Aug. 30, 2016 file photo, a voter casts his primary vote in Hialeah, Fla. Hacking attempts of voting machines and leaked emails could alter the trajectory of the presidential campaign in its final weeks. ALAN DIAZ, AP
Play VIDEO -- Feds widen probe into hacks of state election systems


As U.S. officials explore whether Russia is trying to tamper with the presidential election, states are grappling with how to secure their systems and prevent cyberattacks between now and Election Day.

Arizona and Illinois have already experienced attempted hacks of their voter databases and last week, U.S. officials said they are expanding their inquiry because investigators believe additional states have also seen hackers successfully probe their election systems. Officials have not publicly said yet who they believe was behind the Arizona and Illinois breaches, but as was the case with the Democratic National Committee (DNC) hack, Russia is suspected to be responsible.

More than a half-dozen cybersecurity experts CBS News spoke to said it’s clear Russia, which has among the best hackers in the world, is trying to influence the U.S. election and that the chances of more cyberattacks between now and Election Day are high.

Voter registration or voter roll databases might be one piece of election systems that could be susceptible to further attacks, experts told CBS. Officials in Arizona and Illinois said voters’ information was not meddled with, but it could be problematic if they break into the system and delete files.

“The real danger is whether they can delete voter registrations,” said Herbert Lin, a senior research scholar for cyber policy and security at Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation. “Let’s say they wanted to intervene on the side of [Donald] Trump. Then what you would do is find a way of invalidating the voter registrations, deleting the voter registrations of 10 percent of the Democrats in the state. That would make 10 percent of them ineligible to vote.”

Theoretically, another type of advanced attack, experts said, would be to target and modify software for voting machines so that it could affect what names are displayed or how votes are counted, though experts believe this would be too tricky to execute.

“You could, in theory, hack into that software and change it so that it would tally something differently. But again, those types of things are really hard to do just in terms of actually doing it, and doing it in an undetected way is much, much more difficult,” said Daniel Castro, vice president at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation.

Some experts are concerned about states that use touch-screen voting machines that leave no paper trail. Five states are completely paperless: Delaware, Georgia, Louisiana, New Jersey and South Carolina. Nine other states have some counties that use paperless systems: Arkansas, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia.

States are already on the look-out for possible insecurities. Last week, Washington state revealed that its online tool that allows voters to register, update personal information and view a voter guide was accidentally accessible through the website’s development code.

There was never a “security breach” or “hack of the voter system,” the secretary of state’s office said in an advisory, and it was quickly fixed. But the incident reinforces concerns that state election systems could be vulnerable to potential cyberattacks.

Experts told CBS News that the ultimate goal of these hackers is not to necessarily change the outcome of the election; their main objective is to de-legitimize the outcome by sowing doubt, uncertainty and suspicion through a series of cyberattacks.

“I would argue that this is one of the most significant cyber attacks that, to my knowledge, has ever been conducted against the United States. The attackers are trying to undermine the trust in the electoral process,” said Alexander Klimburg, associate at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, and author of a forthcoming book called The Dark Web.

“The challenge in cyber operations is that the only limitation in what you can do is your own creativity,” Klimburg said. “Whatever you can imagine doing is pretty much possible in cyber terms.”

So far, Obama administration officials have made no clear-cut statement either identifying the Russian government as being behind the cyberattacks or threatening retaliation. But Russian President Vladimir Putin, in an interview last week with Bloomberg denied that his government had anything directly to do with the DNC hack. “I don’t know anything about it, and on a state level Russia has never done this,” he said.

The Department of Homeland Security has offered states support and assistance in protecting against cyberattacks. Beside the general security recommendations made to make systems more secure, like changing passwords and installing firewalls, one expert said the most important action states can take is performing full compromise assessments to determine if a network has already been intruded and monitoring all computers on a network that have anything to do with vote tallying or the transfer of voter registration information.

Experts stress that hackers might not intend to use these attacks to sway the election -- in Trump’s favor, for example -- but they are part of Russia’s long-term strategy to challenge Western democracy and to disrupt and weaken the U.S. political system.

“They’ve already achieved some of their goal,” said James Lewis, senior vice president and director of the strategic technologies program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). “When they get closer to November, they’ll want to keep up the pressure, keep up the confusion. They’ll probably look for ways, if Trump loses, to plant information or create leads that suggest somehow the election is rigged.”

Trump has repeatedly warned that the election might be “rigged” and said in an interview with Larry King last week that it’s “pretty unlikely” that Russia would interfere.

But Lewis said he believes Russia is behind the DNC attack and intrusions at the state level and said there are a couple of factors that are likely motivating these hackers.

“Some of the goals are to see if you can drive a wedge between the U.S. and Europe and some of it is just grudge match,” he said. “They still Alexander Klimburg, associate at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, and author of a forthcoming book called The Dark Web.

“The challenge in cyber operations is that the only limitation in what you can do is your own creativity,” Klimburg said. haven’t forgiven us for what happened at the end of the Cold War.”

But FBI Director James Comey said last Thursday that any cyberattacks won’t affect the outcome of the 2016 race because it would be too complicated to attack the nation’s diverse voting systems on a large scale.

“The actual vote counting is clunky,” Comey said. “In a way, that is a blessing because it makes it more resilient and farther away from an actor who might be looking to crawl down a fiber optic cable.”

Dmitri Alperovitch is the founder and chief technology officer of CrowdStrike, which has been investigating the hacks at the DNC and DCCC, and that identified two groups, linked to Russian intelligence agencies G.R.U. and F.S.B., infiltrated the DNC independent of each other.

While Alperovitch agrees that Russia is trying to mainly cause havoc in the U.S. election system, he said “we can’t discount the possibility” that hackers could actually change the outcome of the race.

“If it’s close, and if it’s really going to come down to a few votes in a few counties, sort of similar to the 2000 Bush vs. Gore race, then you don’t need to hack into every state and every county,” he said. “You may need to do one hack and swing a few hundred votes.”

Since states and local jurisdictions run elections and use different systems, some experts and officials say its decentralized nature could in itself protect against a large-scale attack. But the fact that there isn’t a universal system to hack into also presents a downside.

“What that means from an attacker’s point of view is you can look through every state in the nation and look for the ones that have some weaknesses,” said Steve Grobman, chief technology officer of Intel Security. “There’s an incredible advantage for the adversary here in that it’s not like there’s one locked door that is built out of the field that they have to figure out how to penetrate. They basically have 50 doors that are made from all sorts of different vendors and all sorts of different technologies and they can wiggle them all, look at them all, and find the loosest one.”

It would be difficult, however, to manipulate the vote broadly, Grobman said.

Instead, Grobman said his top concern is how they could influence the election before Election Day in which hackers would release authentic data and intertwine it with data that they would fabricate, giving it the appearance of it all being believable.

“One of my concerns is that this is exactly what would happen in the election cycle where late in October, we would see a release of data that would have some piece of damning content that would potentially influence the outcome of the election and...people would assume it’s credible, especially if it’s intertwined with authentic, stolen data,” he said. “The problem would be there wouldn’t be enough time to research and validate that it would be a fabrication.”

“The Russians are going to decide the Americans are still ambivalent about how to respond to us,” Lewis said about the latest comments from key administration officials, “And they’ll see that as a greenlight.”

Asked what the chances are of Russia taking more action -- undetected or detected -- before the election, Lewis said, “100 percent.”



“Alexander Klimburg, associate at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, and author of a forthcoming book called The Dark Web. “The challenge in cyber operations is that the only limitation in what you can do is your own creativity,” Klimburg said. …. They’ll probably look for ways, if Trump loses, to plant information or create leads that suggest somehow the election is rigged.” …. Asked what the chances are of Russia taking more action -- undetected or detected -- before the election, Lewis said, “100 percent.”


After reading all this I’m even more skeptical of “intelligent” computers, because a computer probably cannot “detect” a clever job of hacking of this sort. Perhaps beyond states’ checking their data for tampering, they need to find and plug up any “back doors.” I would also like to see all voting and vote counting be low tech – paper ballots and hand counts. Declaring the winner would be slowed, of course, but it’s more trustworthy, I think.



https://www.yahoo.com/news/appeals-court-blocks-proof-citizenship-voting-requirement-013925171--election.html

Appeals court blocks proof-of-citizenship voting requirement
SAM HANANEL, Associated Press
September 10, 2016

Photograph -- In this image made from a Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2016 video, Brian Newby, executive director and general council for the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC), appears at a public meeting in Arlington, Va. A Kansas prosecutor is looking into allegations of misuse of public funds against Newby, a top federal elections official when he was a county election commissioner in the state, two county officials confirmed Monday, May 9, 2016. (Yorktel/U.S. Elections Assistance Commission via AP)


WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal appeals court on Friday blocked Kansas, Georgia and Alabama from requiring residents to prove they are U.S. citizens when registering to vote using a national form.

The 2-1 ruling is a victory for voting rights groups who said a U.S. election official illegally changed proof-of-citizenship requirements on the federal registration form at the behest of the three states.

People registering to vote in other states are only required to swear that that they are citizens, not show documentary proof.

The three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia acted swiftly in the case, issuing a two-page, unsigned ruling just a day after hearing oral arguments. A federal judge in July had refused to block the requirement while the case is considered on the merits.

The League of Women Voters and civil rights groups argued that the requirements could lead to the "mass disenfranchisement" of thousands of potential voters — many of them poor, African-American and living in rural areas

The groups took issue with the actions of Brian Newby, executive director of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, who changed the federal form shortly after he took the job last November. Newby is a former Kansas election official who had publicly supported the state's effort to make the change.

The case now returns to the district court for a full hearing on the merits. But the appeals court said the voting rights groups are likely to succeed on the merits.

The change requires people seeking to register to show birth certificates, naturalization papers or other documents as proof of citizenship. Kansas has been actively enforcing the requirement, but Alabama and Georgia have not.

Opponents said Newby had no authority to take the action on his own. Even the Justice Department has refused to defend Newby's action and has sided with voting rights groups.

The appeals court's ruling requires the commission to immediately remove the proof-of-citizenship requirement from all forms. It requires the states to treat all registration applications filed since January 29 as if they did not have the requirement.

Judges Judith Rogers and Stephen Williams were in the majority and Judge A. Raymond Randolph dissented. Rogers was a Democratic appointee, while Williams and Randolph were appointed by Republican presidents.

The EAC was created in 2002 to help avoid a repeat of the disputed 2000 presidential election between George W. Bush and Al Gore following ballot confusion in Florida. It is supposed to have four commissioners, two Democrats and two Republicans, but one of the Democratic seats is currently vacant. The remaining commissioners never acted to approve or disapprove Newby's action.

Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach had argued that the change was needed to prevent voter fraud. He rejected claims that the requirement undermined voter registration, saying Kansas voter rolls have risen overall this year.



“The appeals court's ruling requires the commission to immediately remove the proof-of-citizenship requirement from all forms. It requires the states to treat all registration applications filed since January 29 as if they did not have the requirement.” This is a good thing, because NOBODY carries their birth certificate around with them, whether or not they are going to vote. This is just one more Republican attempt to disqualify black and brown skinned people from voting. This is like Sheriff Arpaio arresting all Hispanic people that he finds “just on general principles.”



http://www.cbsnews.com/news/hillary-clintons-medical-scare-highlights-her-transparency-problem/

Hillary Clinton's medical scare highlights her transparency problem
By TIM PERRY CBS NEWS
September 12, 2016, 1:08 PM


After abruptly leaving a September 11th Memorial ceremony on Sunday, Hillary Clinton’s health has become a major issue in this election. Video has emerged showing Clinton apparently struggling to get into a car taking her to her daughter Chelsea’s apartment in Manhattan. The Clinton campaign blamed the incident on overheating and stated that the former Secretary of State had been diagnosed with pneumonia by her doctor last Friday. Many have questioned the Clinton campaign’s handling of the incident and the diagnosis raising alarm at the lack of transparency displayed surrounding Clinton’s health.

“Face the Nation” moderator and CBS News Political Director John Dickerson was asked Monday on “CBS This Morning” if her medical issues will be problematic throughout the remainder of the campaign.

“I think it’s problematic,” Dickerson said and added, “and there will be a lot of questions about, ‘let’s see her full medical records.’” Dickerson, however, stressed the incident highlighted Clinton’s problem of transparency. An issue that he called her candidacy’s “Achilles’ heel.”

“I think the transparency issue with Hillary Clinton in particular, but both candidates is: What is their instinct?” Dickerson asked. “When no one’s looking, are they telling the truth? When they get caught, do they tell the truth?”

Another aspect of the transparency issue Dickerson brought up related to the people both candidates surrounded themselves with.

“Are they cocooned by people who protect them? Who keep the press away for 90 minutes – what’s the cocooning function for both of these candidates?” The “Face the Nation” moderator asked. These questions are important for a presidential candidate, according to Dickerson, because of the alienating nature of the presidency.

“Everything in the office of the presidency cocoons you. It keeps you away from unpleasant things.” Dickerson said. “If that’s already your instinct, that’s only going to be exacerbated when you become president.”

To watch Sunday’s full broadcast of “Face the Nation,” click here.



I was in the library kneeling down to see some books when, as I tried to get up – something I’ve never had a problem with before – my knees felt so weak and wobbly that they wouldn’t lift me up and my head felt like I was about to faint. The library worker brought me a chair, and after sitting for maybe five minutes I was able to get up and check my books out without further symptoms. I did go straight to my doctor’s office and he gave me an EKG. He wasn’t sure about the reading and sent me to a cardiologist. I was pronounced okay there, and that doctor told me I was probably having an incident of low blood pressure due to dehydration. Elderly people do tend to become dehydrated more easily than the young. He told me to take a little salt with my numerous glasses of water a day, which I do now. My blood pressure is always low, and apparently it dropped too far. I was on my knees at the time, too, which reduces blood flow to the brain. These kinds of events are usually transitory and harmless, and being out in the hot sun can make me giddy also. I’m sure the doctor gave her antibiotics for her pneumonia. Lighten up, Donnie Baby.



http://www.cbsnews.com/news/more-than-a-10th-of-earths-wilderness-lost-since-the-1990s-study/

Study: One-tenth of Earth's wilderness lost since the 1990s
By BRIAN MASTROIANNI CBS NEWS September 12, 2016, 10:20 AM

Map -- A map illustrating portions of the Earth’s wilderness that have been lost since 1993. WCS
Diagrams -- unspecified-5.jpg, Catastrophic Wilderness Loss Since the 1990s, WCS
28 PHOTOS -- Critically endangered species and beloved animals at risk


It’s a bleak revelation — a new study reveals that about a tenth of the Earth’s wilderness has been lost since the 1990s. Over the last 20 years, a total area half the size of the Amazon and twice the size of Alaska has been depleted.

The researchers behind the study, published in the journal Current Biology, say they hope that the sobering revelation that rich natural habitats like the Amazon have been decimated in a relatively short amount of time will act as a wakeup call to global leaders to emphasize conservation efforts in their environmental protection policies.

When asked why these important, at-risk areas haven’t been better protected, study lead author James Watson points the finger at government leaders around the world.

“Put simply — no international treaty talks about the importance of wilderness or has any targets that nations must follow that limit their (wilderness areas’) loss,” Watson, an associate professor at the University of Queensland in Australia, wrote in an email to CBS News.

The study shows that, right now, only about 23 percent of the world’s land area remains wilderness. The majority of this wilderness is found in North Asia, North Africa, Australia, and North America (primarily in northern Canada). Since the 1990s, the area that has witnessed the most wilderness loss has been South America, which has seen a 30 percent decline. Africa follows, with a 14 percent decrease in wilderness area.

“The wilderness decline around the world is most in the tropical biomes, the tropical rain forests have lost a lot of wilderness,” study co-author Oscar Venter, of the University of Northern British Columbia, told CBS News. “A lot of the Amazon has been lost, the mangrove ecosystems, which are really important wilderness areas have been hit. They are a nursery ground for a lot of the world’s wildlife — young fish are reared in these mangrove ecosystems, they are a base for a lot of the fisheries. Now, there is almost no wilderness left in the mangroves.”

They key is protect what is left. Watson stressed that people all over the world need to safeguard natural habitats that remain and “restore those areas that can still hold viable populations of some species.”

Venter praised “grassroots movements” for raising awareness of the wilderness’s importance.

“What can happen in the near-term is to encourage major policy mechanisms to actually speak to wilderness values and wilderness protection. Speak to your local officials, make sure you can set values on wilderness preservation that can occur through actual policy, where we set targets for wilderness protection areas,” Venter added.

Watson said that it is crucial to keep clear that deforestation, pollution, the impacts of climate change — all of the various factors that contribute to habitat loss ultimately have a negative effect on future generations.

These wilderness areas and accompanying wildlife could be lost for good, ultimately impacting the communities that depend on these natural resources, Venter said.

“These areas really are the refuges for many threatened species. A lot of the biodiversity around us is driven into the wilderness areas that is where they persist, this is why conservation is important,” Venter asserted. “I’m thinking about the world’s most economically and politically marginalized people — a lot of them are living in and using these wilderness areas. For the poorest most marginalized people on the planet, the wilderness is crucial to their lives.”

© 2016 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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Humans won’t live on this earth too many more centuries, I don’t think. We’ll die of lack of oxygen, overheating, lack of potable water or lack of food. Will we get our super-long-distance space ships ready by 2116? Can we get our cryopreservation techniques up to snuff by that time? I hope the astronomers find a new, large and habitable rock by that time.

For that sly reference, go to Amazon or some such source and look for videos of the fantastically funny and ever surprising TV show “Third Rock From the Sun.” Here it is on YouTube -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjVh_UDn8xI&list=PL97ADA62DDE8DA29E&index=1. The show is about four space aliens who are anthropologists on their home planet, and have come to “study” humans and our life here in the disguise of their human bodies. They have to get used to their bodies and end up making love matches, getting strange “new” diseases, and meeting our earth creatures such as dogs and in one case a molded green jello dessert that wiggles all the time.



http://www.cbsnews.com/news/students-rally-around-bullied-deaf-student-after-backpack-dumped-in-toilet/

Students surprise bullied deaf teen whose backpack was dumped in toilet
By JENNIFER EARL CBS NEWS
September 8, 2016, 7:35 PM

Photograph -- Alex Hernandez speaks out against bullies after a photo of his ruined school supplies goes viral. CBS AFFILIATE KMTV


The Internet was slammed with an ugly reminder last week when the story of how a deaf high school senior’s belongings ended up in a toilet went viral: bullies still exist.

Alex Hernandez’s sister, Analy Luevano, couldn’t stay silent when he told her two students stole his backpack from the lunch room.

“[It] contained not only his tablet, debit card, and school supplies but it also contained homework and a project he worked really hard at,” she posted on Facebook, sharing a photo of his soaked school supplies. “It was later all found but this is what they did with his school supplies and homework.”

The Burke High School senior from Omaha, Nebraska, said he wanted to transfer schools after the incident.

But his peers are hoping their act of kindness will change his mind.

Students started raising money with a GoFundMe page to help replace some of the damaged items. They quickly reached their goal; and with an overflow of donations pouring in every minute, the creator has already shut down the page.

“Due to the increase and high donations we decided to stop the fundraiser,” one of the students who apparently created the fundraising page tweeted. “We raised enough money for the student to replace his school supplies!”

The student was blown away by the support.

“I wanted to thank all of my friends and those who wrote me for supporting me,” Hernandez told CBS affiliate KMTV. “I am very happy. It made me feel like I am not alone.”

Hernandez, who has been deaf since age 1, says he has endured years of bullying because of his disability, KMTV reports.

The Omaha Public School District is taking steps to ensure something like this never happens again.

“Our goal is to ensure that the student whose backpack was stolen feels comfortable and supported at Burke High School,” Omaha Public Schools Superintendent said in a news release. “He is here with teachers, staff and a school community who love and support him, and we will continue to do so.”

After several interviews with students, school administrators said in a statement that they believe the students involved didn’t know each other, and that “students targeted an unattended backpack versus an individual student.”

Regardless, Hernandez’s mom says there has to be consequences.

“It’s not fair that the bullies think they can continue with this behavior,” she told KMTV. “Today was my kid - tomorrow will be somebody else’s.”



“The Omaha Public School District is taking steps to ensure something like this never happens again.” I hope they can succeed in preventing it in the future. Most teachers know which of their kids are problems, and parents should be notified and either fined or forced to go to parenting classes. Children who are aggressive like that are usually aggressive at home as well, and they are usually older and larger (or otherwise better able to defend themselves) than the chosen victim. Parents tend to pass it off as “Boys will be boys,” when it is actually a severe lack of personal awareness of the full “personhood” of those who are another race or as in this case, partially disabled. I wonder if a mandatory class in Sensitivity Training would help. Teachers also should look at the issue as to whether the bully is being “bullied” at home or on his way to school, because sometimes that is the case. If not, then staying an hour after school for a week and washing the blackboards might do some good, or writing two hundred times, “I will not be mean to other students.” That’s the way it used to be handled. Hernandez took it in his stride, however, and didn’t seem to feel depressed about it. The reason I talk so much about this kind of incident is that it is preventable, and it is more often than not really discouraging to a kid who may already be having problems. Every now and then an article is published about a kid who commits suicide of the matter.



http://www.cbsnews.com/news/campaign-spokesman-hillary-clinton-plans-to-release-more-medical-information-this-week/

Campaign spokesman: Hillary Clinton plans to release more medical information this we
By REBECCA SHABAD CBS NEWS
September 12, 2016, 1:21 PM

Hillary Clinton plans to release more of her medical information this week, spokesman Brian Fallon said Monday, as questions are raised about her health following a pneumonia diagnosis.

In an interview on MSNBC’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports,” Brian Fallon was asked if the campaign will allow Clinton’s physician, Dr. Lisa Bardack, to speak to reporters.

“It is our intention that in the next couple days we’re gonna be releasing additional medical information about Hillary Clinton,” Fallon said, while dodging the question of whether Bardack would speak to the press.

Fallon said the campaign released Clinton’s comprehensive medical history more than a year ago.

“But we’re gonna go beyond that and in the next few days we’ve been in touch with her physician this morning to get those materials together. We’re gonna be releasing that to, to further put to rest any concerns about what you saw yesterday,” Fallon said, referring to Clinton’s decision to leave the 9/11 memorial event early because she felt ill and Clinton was seen stumbling into a van.

After Clinton disappeared, the campaign said she felt overheated during the event and went to Chelsea’s apartment in Manhattan. She emerged a little while later and said she was feeling much better. The campaign revealed later in the afternoon that Dr. Bardack had diagnosed Clinton on Friday with pneumonia and was prescribed antibiotics.

Fallon said Clinton has “no other undisclosed condition” and said “there is nothing here in terms of anything that was caused by what happened in 2012.” That year, she sustained a concussion after fainting. She was later admitted to a hospital with a blood clot, which she was treated for.

On Monday morning, Trump said that he plans to release “very, very specific numbers” from a physical he had done last week. Late last month, Trump challenged Clinton to release more detailed medical records, saying he would also do the same.

CBS News’ Drew Johnson contributed to this report.



I do think all candidates, even for legislative service, should get and release to the public a report on their basic health and (especially, in fact) mental health, plus a police report. Those things are really important, but are never published. The fact that they may have a DUI isn’t like murder, theft or wife-beating, but it is significant.