Paper ballots are generally considered more secure than electronic voting machines, which rely on individuals implicitly trusting that a machine recorded their vote correctly.

A technician bought an old, likely-decommissioned voting machine from 2013 and took it apart to see how a would-be hacker might be able to exploit its vulnerabilities. Get a sense of the needs for secure, up-to-date voting machines with this...

Magnetic strips store unchanging data that is easily cloned, but microchips act as miniature computers that encrypt sensitive data. They also resist fraud by creating data unique to each transaction, preventing duplication.

Defenders of the Electoral College argue it preserves federalism, forces candidates to build broad national coalitions, magnifies victory margins to reduce recount disputes, and limits incentives for voter fraud by containing the impact of contested ballots within individual states.

Insecure devices connected to the Internet of Things pose risks to the entire network, which cybercriminals can hijack to compromise infrastructure and private resident data. Poorly secured systems that become inoperable can undermine the promise of smart cities by worsening the quality of life.

In this article, Silver weighs the Electoral College's flaws—especially popular-vote inversions—against its advantages, arguing it can limit the effect of surplus votes in heavily one-sided states and encourage broader competition.

By using a network of devices, including digital meters, sensors, and controllers, smart grids can quickly detect mechanical issues and fluctuations in supply and demand, automatically adjusting electricity flow to prevent cascading failures. While this is important for variable solar and wind power generation, many of these computer systems are designed to be controlled remotely, which increases the risk of malicious access.

Since 1965, federal oversight has blocked thousands of state-level voting changes—including redistricting plans—by requiring approval for measures that could affect minority representation, a process scaled back by the Supreme Court in 2013.

What’s actually at stake when someone casts their vote in a US election? CNN’s “Election 101” podcast series provides ten episodes summarizing some of the basics of democratic elections. The ins and outs of voting are highlighted in 15-minute episodes on voter registration and voting by mail. Additional segments highlight how the electoral system works, how ballots are counted, the Electoral College, why it takes so long to get election results, and more.

This article explains how the Constitution leaves most rules for choosing electors to the states. Today, parties typically select elector slates through state conventions, rewarding loyal supporters who formally cast votes weeks after Election Day.

A mix of centralized cloud infrastructure and legacy protocols leaves the internet susceptible to downtime from minor cyberattacks or software bugs, infrastructure damage caused by extreme weather, and human error if a DNS service provider—the internet's phone book—or a backend system, such as Amazon Web Services, were compromised.

In ranked-choice voting, voters rank candidates in order of preference. If no one wins a majority, the lowest-ranked candidate is eliminated, and their votes are reassigned until a candidate surpasses 50%, avoiding separate runoff elections.

Smart cities utilize massive datasets to enhance mobility, resource utilization, and public safety. However, this data can also be compromised if mishandled by residents, making citizen awareness of risks a key component of cybersecurity efforts.

Major retailers like Target have stopped accepting checks in recent years as real-time payment systems are increasingly being implemented across the US. This shift is considered an improvement in safety—as checks are vulnerable to fraud—but can lead to some exclusion for those without access to digital devices.

After using biometrics or a PIN to access the private key stored on a device, it is combined with a random number generated by the site to produce a cryptographic signature. This signature is verified using the site's public key, allowing a user to log in without entering a password. This reduces the risk of fraudulent messages—phishing attacks—and data breaches.

Despite encrypting data and relaying it within the Tor network, traffic between the network exit and the final destination is no longer hidden and can be captured. Law enforcement agencies can also attempt to deanonymize users by monitoring and matching data signal patterns entering and leaving the network via a correlation algorithm.

The USA has seen some crazy elections. Election fraud is vanishingly rare now, but here are the craziest cases of election fraud in U.S. history.

A suite of cutting-edge hardware and computation-intensive software creates the potential for self-driving cars to be safer, more fuel-efficient, and more accessible to a broader range of drivers. However, automation also introduces potential cybersecurity threats.

Systems that can reproduce near perfect counterfeits of legitimate financial documents are increasingly prevalent and sophisticated. The international Association of Certified Fraud Examiners estimate organizations lose about 5% of revenue to fraud each year.

This article argues that the Electoral College no longer reflects modern democratic norms, disproportionately advantages smaller states, and warrants broader reform and national debate.

Because credit scores use a lot of personal information (such as whether or not someone makes credit card payments on time), some worry their privacy is being compromised in the data collection process.

Browsing the dark web requires onion routing, which prevents visitors from being identified and the locations from which they connect from being traced. This has been useful to activists in environments affected by political oppression or instability. However, those unfamiliar with navigating the space may encounter malware and network attacks from denizen hackers.

Nearly 70% of Americans feel uncomfortable riding in a driverless car, and 81% of them would not fly on a pilotless plane. However, automated systems on planes were slowly introduced and advertised as enhancing safety—an approach that may benefit driverless vehicles.

Because this type of malware requires human intervention, such as plugging an infected flash drive into a computer or downloading and running an infected file, the chance of infection can be greatly reduced by being cautious about unfamiliar emails, attachments, and links. Keeping systems up to date with the latest security fixes is also crucial.