By Jerod MacDonald-Evoy | Arizona Mirror
Hackers and tech enthusiasts are gathering in the Nevada desert this week for a conference where new vulnerabilities in software and hardware are discussed, but an unlikely group of people will also be in attendance: the Maricopa County Recorder’s Office.
“You gotta know the ways of your adversaries,” Maricopa County Recorder Adrian Fontes said to the Arizona Mirror.
Fontes’ office sent representatives to the DEFCON hacking conference in Las Vegas this week to watch participants in the Voting Machine Hacking Village.
It’s the third year the conference has had a focus on election tech, and it is the only place that allows for public third-party assessment of electronic voting machines. It also isn’t the first time Fontes’ office has sent people to the conference – Fontes himself was there the first year.
In 2017, hackers at DEFCON were able to hack into electronic voting machines in less than an hour. In 2018, it didn’t even take 10 minutes.
