* DEFCON hosted a hackathon of voting machines ("exact clones")
* Youngsters attending DEFCON searched online and found publicly available the username and password for a given voting machine
* Those youngsters then used the publicly available credentials to log in over the internet to the voting machine
* Those youngsters then changed the votes made on that machine
* It is illegal under the DMCA for "good guys" to attempt to hack a voting machine, either for research purposes or for a real election (which means the only folks that will try are enemy states. You know, the guys you can't prosecute for trying or succeeding.)
* DEFCON successfully demonstrated hacking many voting machines, but this one made sensationalist news headlines
The "misleading information":
* The youngster at DEFCON didn't actually affect a real election. It was only a hackathon at DEFCON.
* The much maligned voting machine is no longer in service (taken out in 2014)
* The youngster was coached in how to hack the machine, he didn't just intuit that he should google for it
Conclusion:
The article's states that we should stop freaking out because it was only a hackathon.
We should freak the f_ck out.
This machine--whose username and password were ADMIN and ABCDE respectively--were decommissioned merely two years before the last presidential election.
That this is the level of sophistication of a 2014 voting machine SHOULD SCARE THE F_CK OUT OF ALL OF YOU. And this article, trying to assuage those worries, should do no such d_mn thing.
Paper ballots should be the only thing legally allowed to determine elections.
Electronic ballots should be the "quick count" but not legally binding.
Anything less is folly.