My brother is involved in the campaign of someone pursuing an election to the United States Congress. We’ve had some discussions about the technology that’s being used in the campaign and some other conversations about politics in general.
Being a little bit closer to the political pulse now than I’ve been in the past, this article from Symantec was interesting as it talks about some of the challenges and threats we may be seeing as it relates to the political process becoming more web-centric.
Last Friday I had the opportunity to moderate a panel – Political Phishing A Threat to the 2008 Campaign? – held as part of the Anti-Phishing Working Group eCrime Researchers Summit hosted by Carnegie Mellon CyLab in Pittsburgh, PA. Our panelists were Rachna Dhamija from Harvard University, Chris Soghoian from Indiana University , and Pat Clarke of Jackson/Clark Partners. We had some great discussion on the potential impact of Internet-borne threats to the upcoming US Presidential Election. The timing could not have been more appropriate. As the primaries get closer, and the Internet continues play a central role in fundraising and communication, the likelihood of Internet-borne threats impacting the election increases.
The articles touches on the majority of topics and concerns you could think about as it relates to elections and the political process. Topics discussed include: typo-squatting, phishing, adware, spyware, keyloggers, website security, voter information and intercepting communications.
I firmly believe that the Internet is going to be the place and solution for extending some of the ideas of democracy and a republic to the world at large. First there’s the spread of information that can be accomplished via the Internet. Perhaps more importantly though in my opinion is the ability for the “voice of the people” to be heard more and more by our elected officials. For this reason I think we need to invest in finding the solutions for these problems and securing the Internet for the political process as much as possible. Nothing will be fool-proof as long as there are fools humans programming the systems and participating in the process, but hopefully we can come close.
Source: Cybercrime and the Electoral System