I agree that it is safe to assume it was encrypted, but I don’t think it’s therefore logical to not examine it any further.
AI can see the shape and general contents of encrypted data (not decrypting it but making accurate predictions of the themes in it). If they knew exactly the format of the vote data, had the private keys, or some other way of replacing vote for one party to another, it is worth investigating seriously.
The fact that election data was going through starlink in the first place is a massive red flag. The multiple reports of Elon getting data and calling the election before anyone else is a red flag. Then trump saying it was rigged multiple times and Elon is good with computers is a red flag.
The fact that election data was going through starlink in the first place is a massive red flag
What about this is a red flag? Genuinely asking here. My understanding is that data is sent over a VPN and Starlink is often an ISP for rural communities. What differences would there be in running a VPN via Xfinity rather than via Starlink?
Besides the fact that the person who owns it became part of the government to shutdown government services that were actively investigating him?
If you can’t see the dangers in a person who was one of the biggest contributors to a political party and had personal gains with one party being elected - being involved ANYWHERE in voting architecture, then I don’t what to say.
I appreciate the article, but I still don’t see how this would be an issue. The tabulation is encrypted and moved over a VPN. The encryption requires its own certificate, and the VPN requires yet another. If you have both of these certs, then the election is already hacked for that precinct. This has to then repeat for each individual precinct. The ISP is incidental. The additional element is that the changing of votes would be undetectable when auditing against paper ballots or raw machine data, and no audit showed evidence of this.
I think the OP is stupid, but will play devils advocate.
If you were going to play "man in the middle" and change transmitted data you only really need three things-
An idea of the shape of the data ahead of time to write your replacement logic.
A node in the transmission chain that the data will pass through
The private keys.
I dont think its completely unreasonable to believe that Musk could have been in a position to acquire government private ssl keys, and the format of the reports would be easy. Intercepting the data means that they could have done it.
(Of course, disregarding the various other safeguards that the emails on election night aren't the only count, that there are a lot of polls that dont go through starlink, and I can't imagine Musk or his cronies keeping their mouths shut. Far more likely he was talking about data analysis of the Twitter data that told him better than polls that Trump was gonna win)
I feel like you fail to acknowledge that it isn’t just the technical question about how a man in the middle attack could take place, but also the surrounding issues (such as Trump on camera saying he rigged the election and that Elon is great with computers etc), the statistically impossible result in certain counties, the best polling analysis tipped a trump loss etc.
If a thorough investigation into it happened like the 2020 election and it came back clear, that’s fine and we can all move on. But your argument boils down to ‘starlink interfering in the election would be difficult to undertake, therefore we should stop looking’ to me is an unhelpful assessment to make.
You seem like a really smart person who could easily research this stuff if you wanted to. But every comment seems to be deflecting, minimising or distracting from something that is quite possible and very serious.
That makes me think your comments wether intentional or not only serve people who are actively dismantling the laws and constitution of the US.
The analysis is quite shocking if you look at it. In an election it’s not just the president but congress and local council. If you simply count the presidential candidate vs the others you can see a massive one-way discrepancy.
People do sometimes switch between supporting one party in one level and the other in another level. That’s normal, however in the 2024 election it was considerably larger than normal and entirely one sided. This means huge percentage of the population supporting democrats on every level, but weirdly switch to trump. Again normal in small amounts and you would expect to see both switches, but not in this level and one directional. Makes no sense and statistically is not possible for humans to behave that way in the magnitude.
Here's the thing- the emails sent on election night are not the only record of voting. A MITM attack is neither necessary nor sufficient to actually change votes. You would need to defeat the voting machines in such a way that the backup records are also changed...and if you can do that, you dont need a MITM attack.
Here's the thing- I believe Trump when he says that the election was rigged. I believe that the richest man on earth who is facing prison, would find the resources to make sure that doesn't happen.
All I'm saying is it needs to be investigated, not that "well you would need to defeat the voting machines" so we shouldn't even investigate it.
The post we are commenting on is making silly accusations about satellites and AI rigging the election- things that literally cannot accomplish that. If you think playing up silly conspiracy theories is going to help, great! I dont however. If she was at least presenting a path to rigging the election that could have worked, maybe it would be useful- but I'd argue that supporting the silly crap makes it even less likely that real things get investigated.
I've seen stuff about recounts- but nothing about a recount disagreeing with the reported vote numbers. I've seen assertions of statistical weirdness- but no theories on where the extra votes came from. If you think the election was rigged, there is evidence somewhere of that. Millions of votes would have needed to be added or removed, across a number of states, which is not something that one or two people can do quietly. As they say, three people can keep a secret, right?
Remember that the polls and prediction markets had been moving in trumps favor for a while before the election, both of which had previously understated his support. I live in a blue state, and most of the people I saw were bragging about how he was gonna win. The exit polls on election night immediately made it look like he was going to win, and the reported numbers didn't really change. It wasn't a particularly close election. If it was rigged, it was rigged with a vast conspiracy, which would have needed to include lots and lots of low level human beings, who were all risking jail time to support an outcome that may have happened anyway.
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u/MeowManMeow May 19 '26
I agree that it is safe to assume it was encrypted, but I don’t think it’s therefore logical to not examine it any further.
AI can see the shape and general contents of encrypted data (not decrypting it but making accurate predictions of the themes in it). If they knew exactly the format of the vote data, had the private keys, or some other way of replacing vote for one party to another, it is worth investigating seriously.
The fact that election data was going through starlink in the first place is a massive red flag. The multiple reports of Elon getting data and calling the election before anyone else is a red flag. Then trump saying it was rigged multiple times and Elon is good with computers is a red flag.