Did Anonymous save the election?

[Askold]

http://www.addictinginfo.org/2012/11/17/anonymous-saved-the-election-text/

There is a letter signed by "Anonymous" claiming that Karl Rove and his goons tried to rig the voting machines in three different states. The letter claims that the electronic voting system had holes in the defenses left there so that the results could be changed. They also claim to have hacked the system to prevent this.

Certainly it is easy to claim something like this but at least the article claims that the phrasing of the letter seems like the writer knows something about hacking and the system.

These phrases are (our emphasis):

    We noticed these tunnels were strategically placed to allow for tunnel rats to race to the sewer servers from three different states.

Now, to a normal person a rat is just that: a furry animal or a slang term for a scoundrel. But to a computer person, a rat is something radically different, a r.a.t. hack. The Remote Administration Tool hack is a method of remotely accessing a machine as if it were local. Using such a hack, you would have full access to the machine, at a level someone physically at the machine may not have. A “sewer server” is a term used to denote a hack over a secured tunnel, known as a Secured SHell (SSH), using a form of encryption designed to make it appear to be innocent background traffic.

This is not some general discussion, making claims in order to claim. They have released clear and specific details on what exactly was done, information which the people behind Orca can verify. Even more telling, however, is the name the group used for their denial of service attack:
The Great Oz

“Oz” refers to the land in the classic movie, The Wizard of Oz; more currently, it refers to the television show Oz,which is about a prison. And the actions the group took was to attempt to hack the election into jail, locking it away. It broke, absolutely. We reported on the failures of Orca and its public face earlier. What Anonymous is claiming is that Orca’s public face was a farce, a lie. It was not to coordinate poll challengers so much as to steal the election.

Again there is no actual proof just claims.


...Except

The little cherry on top, however, is the hint that Anonymous not only blocked the operation, but kept copies of the code and data from Orca and are planning on leaking it to wikileaks. If and when this happens, you know AI will be there.

Well I suppose if they do post the codes to wikileaks it will be easier to verify this.

Anyway, true or not this is a cool story.




INB4 "Anonymous is not a group / anyone can use the name etc."

[KZN02]

Let's wait until Karl Rove has something to say on the matter.

[Dakota Bob]

I'll wait until they post the code to WikiLeaks.

[mellenORL]

This really is interesting, keeping in mind who owns the electronic voting machine companies. And how the RR campaigners were so oddly confident in their poll models. Oh, what a lovely xmas present to the whole world if this proves completely true. I can wait, though.

[ScrappyB]

If it is true and there's actual proof, then the shit will hit the fan.

Can't wait to see how they try to spin that one.

[mellenORL]

Let's add it to the Fox News Headlines Game thread.....or just do a spontaneous version here in this thread. Since we have to wait, might as well pass the time creatively 

[niam2023]

This would change my view of Anonymous entirely, should it prove true.

[m52nickerson]

[JohnE]

Let's add it to the Fox News Headlines Game thread.....or just do a spontaneous version here in this thread. Since we have to wait, might as well pass the time creatively 

Did cyber-terrorist group Anonymous hack the election to make Obama win? Find out at 11.

[Art Vandelay]

I'll believe it when (s)he makes with the proof.

[Witchyjoshy]

Yyyyyeah no.

I'm honestly doubting this happened.

[mellenORL]

Heehee....know what just occured to me? I stayed up late on election night, and Mittens took fucking forevvvvvvvvver to come out and do his concession speech. Seriously, it was like 2 hours almost after the election had been called, and the FuckWitNews team said it was because he HAD NOT written a contingency concession speech at all. Wanna bet he was on the phone with Rove, screaming a blue streak the whole time? Cause the concession speech was simple and dry, nothing a campaign speechwriter would need more than 15 minutes to write for him. Oh, if only I could have been a fly on the wall in that room 

[Sylvana]

I find this highly suspect.
The quotes provided don't really mean anything, and even then I doubt any republican was going to hack the machines to change votes. It would have been simpler to just commit voter fraud like they normally do or just rig the database before hand. There are many better ways of cheating your way to victory than through remote access.

If anything it sounds like poorer than usual security on the server and I honestly don't find that suspicious. Often security is lowered by the IT departments to facilitate operations and just keep everything going. There seems to be a reasonable amount of security, nothing extreme, but good enough for most cases.

[Witchyjoshy]

Oh, I believe the part about Republicans attempting to cheat through the machines or some other method (such as sending all the votes to Texas to be counted...) but I doubt Anonymous had a hand in saving us.

[Veras]

Heehee....know what just occured to me? I stayed up late on election night, and Mittens took fucking forevvvvvvvvver to come out and do his concession speech. Seriously, it was like 2 hours almost after the election had been called, and the FuckWitNews team said it was because he HAD NOT written a contingency concession speech at all. Wanna bet he was on the phone with Rove, screaming a blue streak the whole time? Cause the concession speech was simple and dry, nothing a campaign speechwriter would need more than 15 minutes to write for him. Oh, if only I could have been a fly on the wall in that room 

There's no way that he really didn't write a concession speech.  No candidate or campaign is that stupid.  The Romney campaign saying that they didn't write a concession speech was probably just a lie told to energize their base.  In reality, they probably had multiple speeches for multiple outcomes (win the election, but fail to take the Senate; win the electoral vote but lose the popular vote; lose the electoral vote but win the popular vote; etc.).

There are two likely reasons that he didn't concede until midnight.  First, because he wanted to make absolutely certain that the projections were correct (don't forget, in 2000, Florida was prematurely projected for both candidates at one point or another).  Second, and more importantly, the polls in Alaska didn't close until midnight eastern time.  If the Republican candidate conceded while the polls were still open it may have discouraged Republicans who hadn't yet cast their ballot from voting.  Obviously this didn't matter for the Presidential race, but it could have shifted close down ballot races to the Democrats.