6 ms·

PublicVotes – Ethereum-Based Voting Application

76 points by dominiksch 11y ago

Kinnard 11y ago
"The code is available on Github and here is a blog post explaining how OpenVotes works." There's no link to the blogpost.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- dominiksch 11y ago
  Sorry, currently writing it up and making some graphics. Should be up on Medium very soon :)
- Natanael_L 11y ago
  This is what is linked: https://medium.com/@DomSchiener/publicvotes-ethereum-based-voting-application-3b691488b926#.s82vez1r6 https://medium.com/@DomSchiener/publicvotes-ethereum-based-v...
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
gervase 11y ago
Very exciting. As things like this become more well-defined, and start to solve the security/ease-of-use problem, I think (hope?) that we'll see some truly groundbreaking applications of distributed decision making tools.
- dominiksch 11y ago
  Absolutely agree on this. This right now is more of a Minimum Viable Product, but I'm already working on a new application (or rather social experiment) for decentralized decision making. Exciting times ahead with new technologies such as Bitcoin, Ethereum and IPFS :D
- nickpsecurity 11y ago
  I'm doubting it. The reason is that they're both really hard to come up with and really hard for end-users to understand. That last part is important for widespread trust and verification. It's why I've always been in favor of centralized models with distributed verification. Especially simple computations that can just be re-run on available data with tamper-detection and comparisons of hashes, etc.
  - slasaus 11y ago
    You mean something as trustworthy and tamper proof on a large scale as paper ballots and manual tallying? I still haven't seen any electronics that can be practically verified by the public comparable with the centuries old manual solutions that anyone can follow. Using electronics means getting a massive TCB with many orders of magnitude less the number of eyes that can actually inspect the computations being run (both because of organizational reasons and lack of knowledge). According to Halderman* it might take us 10 years, if ever, to get machines the public can trust and verify on the scale that is needed for nation-wide elections. Given the sorry state of current phone and laptop security, the problem of having a massive TCB is not solved, not with building on Ethereum either. * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JY_pHvhE4os#t=58m55s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JY_pHvhE4os#t=58m55s
    - nickpsecurity 11y ago
      It's all in the protocol and implementations: you don't need to trust huge TCB's and manufacturing of specific device. Low TCB, diverse, clients doing the checking is all you need. The paper comparison is unfair given online and electronic is assumed in the requirements of the OP. Something closer to paper in usability, cost, or security would be: http://www.scantegrity.org/ http://www.scantegrity.org/
      - slasaus 11y ago
        Scantegrity, like other secure electronic systems, scores low on usability[1]. Recently the CEO of Fox-IT reported a delay to our minister in the Netherlands[2] with researching the specs for a usable and secure vote printer and vote counter[3]. It's not as easy as people think, especially the elder seem to have trouble with it. [1] https://www.usenix.org/conference/evtwote14/workshop-program/presentation/acemyan https://www.usenix.org/conference/evtwote14/workshop-program... [2] https://zoek.officielebekendmakingen.nl/blg-604665 https://zoek.officielebekendmakingen.nl/blg-604665 (Dutch) [3] Unofficial translated summary of the report on large scale voting; proposes using a vote printer and vote counter with human readable ballots in between: https://www.kiesraad.nl/sites/default/files/every-vote-counts-conclusions-and-recommendations.pdf https://www.kiesraad.nl/sites/default/files/every-vote-count... (English)
fareesh 11y ago
Tried to click on Early US Presidential and Bernie Sanders, but got a websocket 400 error. I'm on the latest Chrome on Ubuntu.
- dominiksch 11y ago
  You should still be able to vote. AFAIK, this is caused due to not having an SSL certificate.
  - dominiksch 11y ago
    Just checked, seems that that account went out of Ether as there were too many votes (more than 100). Didn't expect this much traffic haha. But to basically explain what happened, each poll has a minimum 0.2 Ether which are used for paying the network for executing the smart contract. Since more than 100 people have voted on the system, it means that the account (which holds the Ether) went out of tokens and now nobody can vote anymore. I'm right now working on fixing this by creating a balancing system that basically creates a faucet. But feel free to create a new poll. You can send me the link here and I'll send some Ether to get you going.
dominiksch 11y ago
Hey everyone. Anyone that wants to create a new poll and doesn't have any Ether, please just post here with your poll link and I will send some Ether to your poll so you can get started :)
- tunesmith 11y ago
  oh cool! I tried one here: 0xa93eb477fe671f5911ddb56b2c0aa6bb4b74b8de
  - dominiksch 11y ago
    Sent. Once the transaction has been received, you should be able to click on "Start Poll" at the page :)
    - pippy 11y ago
      I have one i tested too: 0x06183b08067874c411e1fe0dd7d1b14bd357506e
      - dominiksch 11y ago
        Sent, your poll should be ready soon. :)
mrdrozdov 11y ago
Anyone can comment on its ability to scale? Not sure exactly what to ask about (I guess performance?), but do you think this could scale to say 200 million people?
pippy 11y ago
I noticed the dropdown on the create page doesn't display the list correctly (chrome, Win7): http://i.imgur.com/QfuWYS5.png http://i.imgur.com/QfuWYS5.png
- dominiksch 11y ago
  Hey pippy thanks for notifying me. This is a weird error which happened to one of my friends on Windows and Chrome as well. Will look into it.
joosters 11y ago
I don't get it. What does Ethereum add to this?
- kidgorgeous 11y ago
  Decentralization my friend. Vote tampering is a huge problem with current systems and this is aiming to mitigate that by using a public blockchain
- dominiksch 11y ago
  Through Ethereum this creates a transparent voting system where anyone can audit a poll, since everything is recorded in the Blockchain. Additionally, votes cannot be altered once they are cast, ensuring the integrity of the system. Right now this is a Proof of Concept though, more voting applications will follow.
  - joosters 11y ago
    But what's to stop vote tampering between the webpage and the blockchain? Couldn't you easily make up false votes or record votes wrongly?
    - Quiark 11y ago
      You just run your Ethereum client on your machine and use it to verify the data on the blockchain.
    - dominiksch 11y ago
      The website is currently a single Point of Failure, since it is the gatekeeper for recording votes into the Blockchain. With this proof of concept I did not want to build a fully decentralized voting application that ensures that 1 person == 1 vote, I rather just wanted to display how Ethereum and the Blockchain can be utilized for voting. Once a vote is recorded into the Blockchain it cannot be altered anymore. The question of feasibility of this application is obviously very much up in the air. But overall, there are some interesting concepts to protect such systems against sybil-attacks, so that we can ensure that 1 person == 1 vote any nothing more.
what-no-tests 11y ago
BUG: After voting there's no response. I can vote over and over again and I just keep getting '200' responses.
- dominiksch 11y ago
  Hey, that should have been fixed last night. There was a small bug when I pushed some updates last night.
nickpsecurity 11y ago
Secure voting is hard. Better to improve on something that already had good work put into it like Civitas: http://www.cs.cornell.edu/projects/civitas/ http://www.cs.cornell.edu/projects/civitas/ Plus, you don't really need decentralized voting so much as decentralized checking. That's where the effort should be. Blockchains are a total waste of time and money for this kind of thing. Especially with so many prototypes in existence that use less energy/money with good security properties.
- maxpupmax 11y ago
  I get that security is your thing, but don't you think that telling someone to ditch their side project and critizing the underlying technology is extreme given that it's basically a side project? I don't think OP is suggesting that they use it for anything more serious than a quick poll at the moment. Sorry if I'm misreading the tone of your post.
  - nickpsecurity 11y ago
    Oh no, that's a fair critique. You could say my comment is conditional. There's two ways it may be interpreted depending on the project's intent: 1. Many projects are running with the idea that Bitcoin-style tech will change the world and let's all build on it for anything security-related. They intend to see eventual uptake of whatever they make after a certain amount of development. If it's one of those, then my critique stands fully. 2. If it's a side project for fun/exploration, then my critique becomes a precautionary note that doesn't apply to it. There's nothing wrong with making arbitrary projects for fun or learning: plenty right about that on the contrary. :) Hope that clears it up.
- sandGorgon 11y ago
  Do you know how civitas compares with all the invisible ink based systems like Scantegrity?
  - nickpsecurity 11y ago
    I haven't done a thorough review of either. They just both have good traits from a design and security perspective. So, I bring them up both as examples of better path and something for further review/development/improvement.

76 points by dominiksch 11y ago

"The code is available on Github and here is a blog post explaining how OpenVotes works." There's no link to the blogpost.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
dominiksch 11y ago
Sorry, currently writing it up and making some graphics. Should be up on Medium very soon :)
Natanael_L 11y ago
This is what is linked: https://medium.com/@DomSchiener/publicvotes-ethereum-based-voting-application-3b691488b926#.s82vez1r6 https://medium.com/@DomSchiener/publicvotes-ethereum-based-v...

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

gervase 11y ago

Very exciting. As things like this become more well-defined, and start to solve the security/ease-of-use problem, I think (hope?) that we'll see some truly groundbreaking applications of distributed decision making tools.

dominiksch 11y ago
Absolutely agree on this. This right now is more of a Minimum Viable Product, but I'm already working on a new application (or rather social experiment) for decentralized decision making. Exciting times ahead with new technologies such as Bitcoin, Ethereum and IPFS :D
nickpsecurity 11y ago
I'm doubting it. The reason is that they're both really hard to come up with and really hard for end-users to understand. That last part is important for widespread trust and verification. It's why I've always been in favor of centralized models with distributed verification. Especially simple computations that can just be re-run on available data with tamper-detection and comparisons of hashes, etc.
- slasaus 11y ago
  You mean something as trustworthy and tamper proof on a large scale as paper ballots and manual tallying? I still haven't seen any electronics that can be practically verified by the public comparable with the centuries old manual solutions that anyone can follow. Using electronics means getting a massive TCB with many orders of magnitude less the number of eyes that can actually inspect the computations being run (both because of organizational reasons and lack of knowledge). According to Halderman* it might take us 10 years, if ever, to get machines the public can trust and verify on the scale that is needed for nation-wide elections. Given the sorry state of current phone and laptop security, the problem of having a massive TCB is not solved, not with building on Ethereum either. * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JY_pHvhE4os#t=58m55s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JY_pHvhE4os#t=58m55s
  - nickpsecurity 11y ago
    It's all in the protocol and implementations: you don't need to trust huge TCB's and manufacturing of specific device. Low TCB, diverse, clients doing the checking is all you need. The paper comparison is unfair given online and electronic is assumed in the requirements of the OP. Something closer to paper in usability, cost, or security would be: http://www.scantegrity.org/ http://www.scantegrity.org/
    - slasaus 11y ago
      Scantegrity, like other secure electronic systems, scores low on usability[1]. Recently the CEO of Fox-IT reported a delay to our minister in the Netherlands[2] with researching the specs for a usable and secure vote printer and vote counter[3]. It's not as easy as people think, especially the elder seem to have trouble with it. [1] https://www.usenix.org/conference/evtwote14/workshop-program/presentation/acemyan https://www.usenix.org/conference/evtwote14/workshop-program... [2] https://zoek.officielebekendmakingen.nl/blg-604665 https://zoek.officielebekendmakingen.nl/blg-604665 (Dutch) [3] Unofficial translated summary of the report on large scale voting; proposes using a vote printer and vote counter with human readable ballots in between: https://www.kiesraad.nl/sites/default/files/every-vote-counts-conclusions-and-recommendations.pdf https://www.kiesraad.nl/sites/default/files/every-vote-count... (English)

fareesh 11y ago

Tried to click on Early US Presidential and Bernie Sanders, but got a websocket 400 error. I'm on the latest Chrome on Ubuntu.

dominiksch 11y ago
You should still be able to vote. AFAIK, this is caused due to not having an SSL certificate.
- dominiksch 11y ago
  Just checked, seems that that account went out of Ether as there were too many votes (more than 100). Didn't expect this much traffic haha. But to basically explain what happened, each poll has a minimum 0.2 Ether which are used for paying the network for executing the smart contract. Since more than 100 people have voted on the system, it means that the account (which holds the Ether) went out of tokens and now nobody can vote anymore. I'm right now working on fixing this by creating a balancing system that basically creates a faucet. But feel free to create a new poll. You can send me the link here and I'll send some Ether to get you going.

dominiksch 11y ago

Hey everyone. Anyone that wants to create a new poll and doesn't have any Ether, please just post here with your poll link and I will send some Ether to your poll so you can get started :)

tunesmith 11y ago
oh cool! I tried one here: 0xa93eb477fe671f5911ddb56b2c0aa6bb4b74b8de
- dominiksch 11y ago
  Sent. Once the transaction has been received, you should be able to click on "Start Poll" at the page :)
  - pippy 11y ago
    I have one i tested too: 0x06183b08067874c411e1fe0dd7d1b14bd357506e
    - dominiksch 11y ago
      Sent, your poll should be ready soon. :)

mrdrozdov 11y ago

Anyone can comment on its ability to scale? Not sure exactly what to ask about (I guess performance?), but do you think this could scale to say 200 million people?

pippy 11y ago

I noticed the dropdown on the create page doesn't display the list correctly (chrome, Win7): http://i.imgur.com/QfuWYS5.png http://i.imgur.com/QfuWYS5.png

dominiksch 11y ago
Hey pippy thanks for notifying me. This is a weird error which happened to one of my friends on Windows and Chrome as well. Will look into it.

joosters 11y ago

I don't get it. What does Ethereum add to this?

kidgorgeous 11y ago
Decentralization my friend. Vote tampering is a huge problem with current systems and this is aiming to mitigate that by using a public blockchain
dominiksch 11y ago
Through Ethereum this creates a transparent voting system where anyone can audit a poll, since everything is recorded in the Blockchain. Additionally, votes cannot be altered once they are cast, ensuring the integrity of the system. Right now this is a Proof of Concept though, more voting applications will follow.
- joosters 11y ago
  But what's to stop vote tampering between the webpage and the blockchain? Couldn't you easily make up false votes or record votes wrongly?
  - Quiark 11y ago
    You just run your Ethereum client on your machine and use it to verify the data on the blockchain.
  - dominiksch 11y ago
    The website is currently a single Point of Failure, since it is the gatekeeper for recording votes into the Blockchain. With this proof of concept I did not want to build a fully decentralized voting application that ensures that 1 person == 1 vote, I rather just wanted to display how Ethereum and the Blockchain can be utilized for voting. Once a vote is recorded into the Blockchain it cannot be altered anymore. The question of feasibility of this application is obviously very much up in the air. But overall, there are some interesting concepts to protect such systems against sybil-attacks, so that we can ensure that 1 person == 1 vote any nothing more.

what-no-tests 11y ago

BUG: After voting there's no response. I can vote over and over again and I just keep getting '200' responses.

dominiksch 11y ago
Hey, that should have been fixed last night. There was a small bug when I pushed some updates last night.

nickpsecurity 11y ago

Secure voting is hard. Better to improve on something that already had good work put into it like Civitas: http://www.cs.cornell.edu/projects/civitas/ http://www.cs.cornell.edu/projects/civitas/ Plus, you don't really need decentralized voting so much as decentralized checking. That's where the effort should be. Blockchains are a total waste of time and money for this kind of thing. Especially with so many prototypes in existence that use less energy/money with good security properties.

maxpupmax 11y ago
I get that security is your thing, but don't you think that telling someone to ditch their side project and critizing the underlying technology is extreme given that it's basically a side project? I don't think OP is suggesting that they use it for anything more serious than a quick poll at the moment. Sorry if I'm misreading the tone of your post.
- nickpsecurity 11y ago
  Oh no, that's a fair critique. You could say my comment is conditional. There's two ways it may be interpreted depending on the project's intent: 1. Many projects are running with the idea that Bitcoin-style tech will change the world and let's all build on it for anything security-related. They intend to see eventual uptake of whatever they make after a certain amount of development. If it's one of those, then my critique stands fully. 2. If it's a side project for fun/exploration, then my critique becomes a precautionary note that doesn't apply to it. There's nothing wrong with making arbitrary projects for fun or learning: plenty right about that on the contrary. :) Hope that clears it up.
sandGorgon 11y ago
Do you know how civitas compares with all the invisible ink based systems like Scantegrity?
- nickpsecurity 11y ago
  I haven't done a thorough review of either. They just both have good traits from a design and security perspective. So, I bring them up both as examples of better path and something for further review/development/improvement.