As voters cast their ballots, courts nationwide issue election security edicts

Legal battles with election security implications raged across the country over the holiday weekend, even with early voting well underway at historic levels in many states. In no state did those two things coincide more than in Georgia. Peach State voters amassed in lines marked by reports of 10-hour waits on Tuesday, following two key court rulings. Northern District of Georgia Judge Amy Totenberg on Sunday denied a bid to scuttle touch screen voting machines over cybersecurity vulnerabilities. On Monday, she also denied a request to require a specific number of emergency ballots to be on hand at Georgia polling sites. The ruling Sunday represented a setback for election integrity advocates who contend that Georgia’s machines have not been secure enough, and still aren’t. Totenberg ruled last year that Georgia must phase out its existing paperless voting machines, citing doubts about cybersecurity safeguards for direct-recording election equipment tabulations that couldn’t be audited without a paper record. […]

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Maksim Boiko, an accused money launderer and part-time rapper, to plead not guilty

A Russian man caught carrying $20,000 in cash through the Miami airport earlier this year will plead not guilty to laundering money on behalf of a transnational cybercriminal organization, his attorney said Friday. An FBI complaint unsealed in March charges that Maksim Boiko, 29, was a “significant cybercriminal” who converted stolen money into cryptocurrency for a group called QQAAZZ. Boiko was taken into custody in Florida earlier this year, though he’s due to be arraigned via teleconference in the Western District of Pennsylvania soon, defense attorney Arkady Bukh told CyberScoop. “My client will plead not guilty,” he said. Boiko, known as “gangass” among other accused cybercriminals, was arrested in March at a Miami condominium on March 28 after entering the U.S. with his wife through the Miami airport in January. An FBI complaint unsealed the next day included pictures of Boiko driving a BMW with bundles of U.S. cash on […]

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