Our picksKid hackers defeat states’ election systems; “hack-back” & cyberattacks; Twitter & impersonations, and more

I just hacked a state election. I’m 17. And I’m not even a very good hacker. (River O’Connor, Politico Magazine)
It took a lot less than you’d think for myself and my fellow teens to steal the midterms.

Inside the Democratic war against hacks (Axios)
Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen’s team has sent out three fake spearphishing email campaigns to staffers over the last 18 months to test whether they’d fall for real hacking, her chief of staff, Maura Keefe, tells Axios. The result? Several fell for it.

Fake Peter Strzok account highlights Twitter’s apathy toward impersonators (Jack Crosbie, Observr)
Peter Strzok, the FBI agent recently fired for the crime of ragging on the president in a series of text messages to his mistress, joined Twitter on August 13, shortly after his dismissal was announced. But strangely, an account bearing his name has been registered on the site since May 2016.

California is preparing to defend its waters from Trump order (Jane Kay, Reveal) In its first act to shield California from the Trump administration’s repeal of regulations, the state’s water board has prepared its own rules protecting wetlands and other waters. The proposed new rules, scheduled for a vote by the board this summer, could insulate the state from President Donald Trump’s executive order to roll back the reach of the Clean Water Act. That rollback would strip federal protection from seasonal streambeds, isolated pools and other transitory wetlands, exposing them to damage, pollution or destruction from housing developments, energy companies and farms.

Dem senator: Congress should consider allowing companies to ‘hack back’ after cyberattacks (Olivia Beavers, The Hill)
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) on Tuesday is expected to propose that Congress should consider allowing companies to “hack back” at digital attackers following a cyberattack, a divisive concept in the cybersecurity community. Whitehouse, the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism, says the idea is worth considering because hacking back can help prevent foreign actors from carrying out cyberattacks against U.S. entities. “We ought to think hard about how and when to license hack-back authority so capable, responsible private-sector actors can deter foreign aggression,” according to Whitehouse’s prepared opening remarks, which he is expected to deliver Tuesday afternoon during at a cyber-focused subcommittee hearing.

How desperate can Texas get for construction labor? Look at Houston after Hurricane Harvey (Jill Cowan, The Dallas Morning News)
Post-storm Houston has become a kind of case study on the effects of a construction labor shortage in its most extreme form.

Flint water crisis: Michigan’s top health official to face trial over deaths (AP)
State’s health director to stand trial for involuntary manslaughter in two deaths linked to legionnaires’ disease in the Flint area

When the IRA put down its weapons, the politicians in Northern Ireland promised a peace dividend. (Andrew Norfolk, Times)
One small Belfast charity has, however, earned a healthy living in recent years due to the brutal violence of a dissident terrorist group that rejected the peace process and vowed to continue the armed struggle.