In context: Mike Lindell has been on a campaign to safe the voting course of since former President Donald Trump’s defeat within the 2020 election. Following the election, Lindell promoted conspiracy theories accusing Smartmatic and Dominion voting methods of working with overseas entities to rig voting machines, altering the course of the election. Lindell’s efforts have since encompassed all the pieces from self-paid media appearances to a feature-length movie that obtained the 2021 Golden Raspberry Award for worst image and worst actor.
Suspicions and claims surrounding voter fraud and digital voting tools have gained elevated traction all through political and conspiracy theorist circles because the 2020 US presidential election.
Earlier this week, Lindell, often known as the My Pillow Man, kicked off his newest election crimes summit, which opened with an unplanned begin. Lindell desires to safe voting websites through drones. Lindell doubled down on his earlier efforts, introducing his latest, never-before-seen plan to safe the voting course of – drones with Wi-Fi sniffers.
Lindell revealed the plan throughout his election crimes summit in Missouri earlier this week after flying a drone over the attending viewers and onto the stage. Upon its arrival, Lindell eliminated a tool from the drone and informed the viewers, “…this wi-fi monitoring gadget, it simply grabbed your entire cell telephones, all people on this room, each gadget that is on the Web proper now.”
He referred to the gadget as a Wi-fi Monitoring Gadget (WMD) designed to detect Wi-Fi networks and seize media entry management (MAC) addresses. Lindell offered some extraordinarily “technical” commentary throughout the demonstration, stating, “…there is a command heart the place this info goes down and flashes, it will go – ‘router on-line.'” Lindell claims the potential is one we have by no means had within the historical past of know-how.
Mike Lindell takes the stage as an “Election Crime Bureau” ticker scrolls behind him. He says this new election summit just isn’t about proof, they’ve sufficient proof. He throws to a video and so they play the unsuitable one. This all occurs within the first minute of the summit. pic.twitter.com/FJHyEXf3DQ
– John Whitehouse (@existentialfish) August 16, 2023
Nevertheless, the reality is way much less thrilling. Protocol analyzers and Wi-Fi sniffers aren’t new. Many {hardware} and software-based options have been obtainable for years. Whereas these commercially obtainable applied sciences aren’t essentially dangerous, they’ll permit dangerous actors to investigate any parameters and vulnerabilities associated to these options and exploit them to keep away from detection.
Lindell and his group intend to cowl each parish in Louisiana throughout the coming election season. Nevertheless, The Day by day Beast notes that the not-so-thought-out plan could also be fraught with authorized issues.
Utilizing drones to patrol the airspace above and round a polling website would violate a number of Louisiana privateness, surveillance, and unmanned plane legal guidelines. Contemplating the media snafu that occurred inside minutes of the symposium’s opening, it is unsurprising that correct analysis, preparation, and testing did not occur earlier than rolling out “the plan.”