I am not kidding. A couple of weeks ago I get a call from a friend of mine. He wants me to hack into an email account to get info on some chick. I strongly refused. Do I have the skills to do it? Nope. I don't. Could I do it? I think I could if I wanted to learn how and do some extensive research. But, and a big but, that is the one thing I have never, ever wanted to learn.
You see, I had a great hacking teacher. My ex-husband taught me a lot. He taught me how to crack programs, how to hide stuff in my computer, other boring stuff... but the one thing he wanted me to learn I didn't. While he thought it was the greatest accomplishent a hacker could do, I thought that getting into other people's emails was just wrong. I didn't have anything to prove. Besides, I had it happen to me and I found it so disgusting I refused to even read about it. (Can you avoid that problem? Yes, you can. From time to time, change your password on every damn site you enter. And of course, read very carefully the address you are clicking on, because phishing emails are rampant all over the internet. Another thing you can avoid is clicking on forwards or actually sending them to other friends. Besides, forwards are usually annoying anyways...)
The thing was that I got sort of famous by fixing bugs that even the guys at Adobe could not fix. I can remember one day one file got ruined, I called them and no one was helping us fix it asap. During the call I did some research, hacked the document, fixed it and told the guy in the line that everything was ok, that I found the problem. You won't believe me, but the guys actually called me back and asked what the fuck did I do. I gladly told them, then stood at the middle of creative and yelled: I RULE! That got me kudos from my boss... and a bad reputation of a strong hacker, that actually haunts me to this day. Do I still hack from time to time? I've had to, to protect myself from many incredibly sick people out there. There are wackos that you won't believe out there, and I don't plan to let anyone screw my perfect little life. But there is a difference from protecting yourself and doing harm to others. I have that perfectly clear.
If people can consider me a threat, and I don't have even a quarter of hacking skills, then imagine a what a person can do when he or she doesn't have a life and has time to spare. Hacking Democracy is just that. Concrete proof that everything, and I mean EVERYTHING can be hacked. Even your votes. Think about this when you head for your voting booth this next November.
The film centers in the time after the 2000 elections, where there were errors found in Volusia County, Florida. Fraud was never proved, but two courageous women decided to ask those pesky questions that government people get annoyed by. Mainly about Diebold technology and how damn easy it was to hack their voting systems. You see, Diebold software, or other software like it, is installed in thousands of counties across 32 states. Can you hack them? In a word, yes. It is horrible, sad and extremely scary.
Look guys, I write about this because elections are coming and there is a way to fight back. Be extremely involved in the voting going on at your community. Look carefully. Be aware. Make your vote count. Trust me, this is not a conspiracy theory, because if it could not be done, they wouldn't have hacked it - ON FILM.
So, just please, please, please. Rent this film today. Look it up. Don't be blind at this huge problem. Watch. Learn. Do anything you can to stop it.
From your nice neighborhood kind-of-hacker, Me.
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