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> How will identification work? That's the whole problem, and always unsolved (because it's hard). You need to be able to ensure that votes are made by real pe
by RL_Quine 7y ago
> How will identification work?
That's the whole problem, and always unsolved (because it's hard). You need to be able to ensure that votes are made by real people, that votes aren't duplicated, and that votes are included in a count. Some of this is easy, some of this is near impossible. None of this is solved by a blockchain, which is at its core simply a remarkably inefficient, if decentralized, timestamping system. When a "blockchain" is presented as a solution, ask why the trustworthiness of timestamping was holding back a particular technology before now.
- babyloneleven 7y agoAlso, if you rely on a third party to do identification for you, you simply don't need a blockchain. Blockchain is heavily constrained by the vital requirement of not trusting any third party whatsoever. If you relax this, you can build much simpler systems that are equally secure regarding non-repudiation and other properties but doesn't need proof of work.
- toomuchtodo 7y agoBlockchain has one genuine purpose: value transactions where you can't rely on societal legal framework, nor do counterparties trust each other. "Silk Road".
- orblivion 7y agoZCash (from what I can understand of it) seems like it could be the basis to use. Suppose everyone sets up a wallet and they get paid one ZVoteCoin at voter registration. Then they go home and do a shielded transaction (you didn't even mention anonymity) to their favored candidate. Their wallet should tell them that the transaction went through.
- avmich 7y agoI'm afraid there are too many ways this may not work, but I'd be more interested in figuring if there are other similarly fundamental problems to online voting.
- RL_Quine 7y agohttps://www.usenix.org/legacy/events/sec08/tech/full_papers/adida/adida.pdf https://www.usenix.org/legacy/events/sec08/tech/full_papers/... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helios_Voting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helios_Voting You might want to look at some of the issues solved by Helios. Its showing its age at this point but the fundamental design goals are the same as if it were designed today.
- RL_Quine 7y agoYour solution doesn't provide a solution to the core problem. How do you identify that voters have a vote, and people that shouldn't have a vote didn't vote.
- orblivion 7y ago> How do you identify that voters have a vote The voters can see that their own transaction went through. Administrators (and everyone else) can count total votes cast at the end of the elections by the balances of the candidates' wallets. That's at least as good as paper ballots in this specific respect. > and people that shouldn't have a vote didn't vote. The voter's wallet can be tied to the voter's registration. Again, at least as good as what we have now, in this specific respect. I think I've just made a more elaborated restatement of what I already said. Could you identify a specific hole in my system? You could point to voting software _in general_ being a bad idea, and that's fair enough. But it doesn't sound like that's what you were saying.
- acdha 7y ago> The voters can see that their own transaction went through. How do you prevent vote selling and coercion?
- vngzs 7y agoThis appears reasonable. Votes are anonymous. Every person gets one vote. The software basically always works. I would scrap the whole "mobile ID" thing, however. You should fill out a voter registration card to get a unique private key that is imported into your wallet.