4 ms·

Please learn first how cryptographers attempt to solve problems in voting, and, more importantly, what these problems actually are. Blockchain is just a timesta

by dozzie 10y ago

Please learn first how cryptographers attempt to solve problems in voting, and, more importantly, what these problems actually are. Blockchain is just a timestamping protocol. Voting has nothing to do with timestamps and everything with (1) not knowing how your neighbour voted and (2) validating that your vote was properly counted.

davidgerard 10y ago
This precisely fails to answer the question. Voting is commonly put forward as a use case for blockchains and indeed Bitcoin, so a simple "how on earth does that even scale" is hardly an unreasonable question. A helpful answer would be something more than "lol read up n00b" and probably more like pointing at a real-life working example.
- dozzie 10y ago
  > This precisely fails to answer the question. Voting is commonly put forward as a use case for blockchains [...] Commonly and incorrectly. It's like asking how to weld steel using milk and pasta -- the very question is ill-formed. Voting has very different problems than what distributed timestamping (a.k.a. blockchain) solves. > A helpful answer would be something more than "lol read up n00b" And I didn't specify the field the OP should read about? And on what problems? I think I did. It really takes one trivial query in Google to get a grasp, and I provided the necessary keywords.
yaacov 10y ago
Can you recommend specific resources?
- CrazyPyroLinux 10y ago
  Not specific to cryptography, but a good understanding of voting in general is another important foundation. For that, I found this class very interesting: https://www.coursera.org/learn/digital-democracy https://www.coursera.org/learn/digital-democracy
yaacov 10y ago
Can you recommend specific resources?
ccarter84 10y ago
Secrecy of the vote is necessary to prevent against such things as vote buying and manipulating others to vote a certain way through intimidation (these days more of a problem outside of US). The validating that a vote was counted appropriately probably could be used in a block chain type mechanism, but may need to be more with a zcash type of implementation. I'm a true believer that more tech is not the right answer for voting security. (At least for the near term). Voter-verified paper ballots, that can be run through open-source tabulators and then stored for a subsequent mandatory audit would be ideal (3-5% is the target I think we've gone for in Cali).

by dozzie 10y ago

davidgerard 10y ago

This precisely fails to answer the question. Voting is commonly put forward as a use case for blockchains and indeed Bitcoin, so a simple "how on earth does that even scale" is hardly an unreasonable question. A helpful answer would be something more than "lol read up n00b" and probably more like pointing at a real-life working example.

dozzie 10y ago
> This precisely fails to answer the question. Voting is commonly put forward as a use case for blockchains [...] Commonly and incorrectly. It's like asking how to weld steel using milk and pasta -- the very question is ill-formed. Voting has very different problems than what distributed timestamping (a.k.a. blockchain) solves. > A helpful answer would be something more than "lol read up n00b" And I didn't specify the field the OP should read about? And on what problems? I think I did. It really takes one trivial query in Google to get a grasp, and I provided the necessary keywords.

yaacov 10y ago

Can you recommend specific resources?

CrazyPyroLinux 10y ago
Not specific to cryptography, but a good understanding of voting in general is another important foundation. For that, I found this class very interesting: https://www.coursera.org/learn/digital-democracy https://www.coursera.org/learn/digital-democracy

yaacov 10y ago

Can you recommend specific resources?

ccarter84 10y ago

Secrecy of the vote is necessary to prevent against such things as vote buying and manipulating others to vote a certain way through intimidation (these days more of a problem outside of US). The validating that a vote was counted appropriately probably could be used in a block chain type mechanism, but may need to be more with a zcash type of implementation. I'm a true believer that more tech is not the right answer for voting security. (At least for the near term). Voter-verified paper ballots, that can be run through open-source tabulators and then stored for a subsequent mandatory audit would be ideal (3-5% is the target I think we've gone for in Cali).