Electronic Voting, Spring 2020Apr 17 notes and discussion
Part of
the CS:4980:0004 Electronic Voting Notes
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Pages 14-29 of the Mueller Report are Volume I, Section II, Subsections A, B and C, excluding Subsection C parts 5, 6 and 7. This material digs into the question of foreign interference in the election of 2016, focusing on Russian manipulation of social media, including "sock puppets" on Facebook and Twitter, using botnets to obscure who is really behind the various "fake news" posts.
Again, the talk I gave (listed as a reading for the previous class) serves as a preface. We knew that Russia had or had tried to hack the electorate instead of hacking the election. This material in the Mueller report lays bare the details of that social manipulation.
Again beware, it's easy to get lost and distracted in the Mueller Report. The first two excluded parts of Subsection C are fascinating, parts 5 and 6 discuss Russian organizing of political rallies in the US. Computers played a small role, perhaps. Part 7 is about how the "fake news" was used by US campaigns, so it off topic for a computer science course.