In the Republican Primary elections back in June, I had my first experience voting using Utah County’s new electronic voting machines. The process itself was smooth and voting using the machines was easy to understand and even pleasant.
However, my experience as a computer programmer has taught me a healthy distrust of technology and of people using technology.
Implementing proper security in any system takes an exceptional amount of effort, and even then, hackers are unbelievably resourceful and will often find ways to infiltrate the system despite a well implemented security process. What a lot of people unfamiliar with the topic don’t realize is that hackers excel at not only software engineering, but at what we call Social Engineering, or manipulating people using their expectations of technology.
