INDIANAPOLIS (WTHR) - An online meeting of the Indiana Election Commission was interrupted by pornography Friday.
Mary Beth Schneider, editor for The Statehouse File and former politics and government reporter for The Indianapolis Star, has covered hundreds of Indiana Election Commission meetings in her career.
“I’ve been to them when it’s like me and a couple county clerks. That’s it,” Schneider said. “It’s pretty arcane detail for the most part."
Since the COVID-19 outbreak, though, the meetings have changed in the age of social distancing, like many across the country. They’ve gone virtual, while staying open to the public, turning to online forums like Zoom.
“This is all very new to everybody because normally, it’s a public meeting over in the government center,” Schneider explained.
Friday, hundreds, including Schneider, joined the Election Commission’s meeting virtually, by clicking on a Zoom link posted online. The meeting had just started when Schneider said one of the people who had joined the meeting exposed himself.
“It was startling to say the least. It lasted a few seconds and then it quickly vanished,” she explained. “You heard whoever was doing the system and the administrating of it, of the meeting, saying, 'I knocked them off as fast as I could.'"
She tweeted about it later, saying, “Holy Moly. Indiana Election Commission meeting had just started on Zoom when someone switched video to them masturbating. My eyes! My eyes!”
Cyber security experts say it’s called "Zoom bombing," people hacking into meetings. In this case, though, the person responsible didn’t have to hack into anything. They just clicked on a public link and they were in the meeting.
“The good news is tools like Zoom do have ways to control this kind of stuff,” explained cybersecurity expert Chet Wisniewski with Sophos, a global cybersecurity firm.
According to Wisniewski, the meeting’s moderator can set those controls.
“When you go into the settings of the program on your computer, and when you click on that, it gives you a whole bunch of choices around who can put their screens on and off,” he explained.
That way, only video of the officials talking can be shared, nothing else.
For her part, Schneider is taking it all in stride.
“I’ve covered Election Commission meetings going back into the early '90s and I’ve never seen anything like that,” Schneider said.
She’s hoping she doesn’t have to again.
“I’m sure today was a learning experience. It exposed everyone to the real problems involved in doing this,” Schneider said.
The FBI is reportedly investigating the incident.