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Notes -
Colorado Department of State has put out a press-release on a whoopsie:
The Colorado Public Radio elaborates on what kind of passwords these were, and to which machines:
The Colorado Department of State calls these "partial" passwords and says no worries re election integrity:
The BIOS passwords, that were stored unencrypted on an Excel spreadsheet that was up on the department's website (but in a hidden tap!), are "partial" in a sense that one needs another password to access "every election component".
I am not a certified IT geek, so I asked Claude for top three security concerns if a hacker got my computer's BIOS password:
Those sound serious. That's OK, though, because I need my usual password to get into my account, so the BIOS password for my computer is just "partial", right? Claude patiently replies "Nope":
The Colorado Department of State, in their press release, give a paragraph describing why one shouldn't worry that this may compromise the voting equipment:
I have highlighted all that impressive-sounding security: secure rooms, secure ID badge, secure area... So with all that carefully thought-out security protocol, how the F*@& did the BIOS passwords got stored unencrypted on a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet in the first place? Let alone how that Excel file got onto the Department of state website? According to the Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold:
Which mistake, Secretary Griswold? The act of compiling of the unencrypted BIOS passwords onto a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet? The act of hiding that tab and leaving it on a Microsoft Excel document meant for sharing with broader audience? The act of uploading that document to the Department's website, free to download to anyone on the web? I am far more interested in answers to that first question, because it says quite a lot about the level of professionalism that underlies the security system of Colorado voting equipment.
What is the job of the Colorado Secretary of State?
The Colorado GOP, therefore, wants to know if Secretary Griswold will resign. Her response:
So that's a no, then. Plus, a nice implication that this whoopsie is also part and parcel of the "conspiracies and lies about our election system".
Is it too late to switch to that system we had the Iraqis use, with the ink-on-the-finger that stains the skin for the following week?
Ehhh, it's not great that these passwords have been disclosed but honestly, it's not the end of the world in this situation, assuming the voting machines are designed intelligently (not a safe thing to assume, I know): if someone has access to enter the BIOS password, they probably already have the kind of access they need to the machine to compromise it in many ways.
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Is it any wonder that republicans have trouble trusting the integrity of our election systems when fair-minded professionals like Griswold are in charge of it?
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I can't speak to the exact systems they are using, but my laptop from 15 years ago had two levels of BIOS passwords. You could set one (and I did) to prevent booting without the password, and another to actually making changes to the system. Assuming this is similar, I'd bet it's the password to just turn the thing on, not change it.
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