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Experts Analyze the App That Broke Iowa

11 pointsby sutroover 5 years ago

2 comments

jiveturkeyover 5 years ago
&quot;Honestly, the biggest thing is—I don’t want to throw it under the bus—but the app was clearly done by someone following a tutorial.&quot;<p>HAR!
joveianover 5 years ago
So it sounds like for people able to use the app (maybe limited in part due to the use of TestFairy free tier (from a different vice article)), the app correctly got data into Google Cloud Functions, but a script used to transfer the data from there to the Iowa Democratic Party (not sure what they were using) didn&#x27;t work correctly (due to a &quot;data formatting error&quot;). Some people were confused by the three six digit numbers needed, a precinct id, PIN, and two-factor code (auth0, according to the other vice article with screenshots).<p>ProPublica also found there was a MITM vulnerability:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.propublica.org&#x2F;article&#x2F;the-iowa-caucuses-app-had-another-problem-it-could-have-been-hacked" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.propublica.org&#x2F;article&#x2F;the-iowa-caucuses-app-had...</a><p>However, even if the app didn&#x27;t mess up numbers there seem to be a bunch of issues with the numbers:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nytimes.com&#x2F;2020&#x2F;02&#x2F;06&#x2F;upshot&#x2F;iowa-caucuses-errors-results.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nytimes.com&#x2F;2020&#x2F;02&#x2F;06&#x2F;upshot&#x2F;iowa-caucuses-erro...</a>