4 ms·

Seriously one of the most important area of mathematics for democracies in an online world. Homomorphic encryption promises a hidden and verifiable online voti

by Iv 7y ago

Seriously one of the most important area of mathematics for democracies in an online world. Homomorphic encryption promises a hidden and verifiable online voting system that does not rely on trusting third party.

solidasparagus 7y ago
How does computation on encrypted data relate to voting systems?
- jl2718 7y ago
  It’s possible that OP meant multiparty computation.
- gnarula94 7y ago
  Homomorphic encryption would allow tallying the ballots without decrypting them. Helios [1], for instance uses an homomorphic scheme. There are alternatives to it though which preserve voter privacy but allow vote tallying. Shuffling is one of them. Cothority [2] implements an e-voting scheme based on Neff Shuffles 1. https://heliosvoting.org/ https://heliosvoting.org/ 2. https://github.com/dedis/cothority/tree/master/evoting https://github.com/dedis/cothority/tree/master/evoting P.S. I contributed to the latter
rfugger 7y ago
Any political voting system will need a trusted third party to run the voter registration/identity system, so I doubt the lack of practical homomorphic encryption is blocking this. There are other voter-verifiable systems that don't rely on HE for trustworthy counting: https://www.chaum.com/publications/AccessibleVoterVerifiability.pdf https://www.chaum.com/publications/AccessibleVoterVerifiabil... The major problem with online voting is that people can be coerced into voting against their wishes outside the watchful eye of election authorities. This may be worth the increase in voting ease, but it's where the real debate is.
- dark_glass 7y ago
  I don't think that is a major problem, unless I am misunderstanding. Oregon for instance is all vote by mail, outside the watchful eye of any government authority.
  - irrational 7y ago
    What do you mean by "outside the watchful eye of any government authority"? Do you just mean the ballots are filled out at home where a government authority is not looking over my shoulder? Because everything else is controlled by the government. The ballots and booklets are printed by the government (who authorize what can be on the ballot and in the booklet), are mailed by a government agency, are checked by a government authority, etc.
    - kosievdmerwe 7y ago
      It's hard to look over someone's shoulder to make sure they're making the "right" vote if they're in a public voting booth.
    - dark_glass 7y ago
      I was guessing that the OP meant literally looking over your shoulder. If you fill out the ballot at home, it is feasible you could be coerced to vote a particular way. I don't think this is currently happening, so I don't think it is a major issue.
    - pessimizer 7y ago
      If anyone has the ability to confirm your vote, either without you or through you, you can be compelled or paid for it. Imagine constructing a system that can thwart a abusive, tyrannical father who insists that his wife and children vote for a particular candidate (to make it concrete.) If you can get past him, your voting system passes the first test. Now imagine someone is offering $50 if you vote in a particular way. If there's no way to figure out how someone would claim it, it passes the second test. The abusive father can literally just fill out all of his family's ballots, and the $50 could be claimed by filling out the ballot in front of the buyer. You could thwart this with allowing multiple votes but only accepting the first, but then the father or buyer could just have the ballots filled out immediately at the first legal moment. I don't know that it's a thing that can be done without totally private environment around the voter and the record; meaning that the actions of the voter cannot be observed.
api 7y ago
It promises more than that. If we could actually have fast homomorphic execution we could have blind cloud computing.
- the8472 7y ago
  It also means undebuggable black box computations running on your machine (DRM, javascript).
mhh__ 7y ago
I still think paper voting is the only way no matter the algorithm i.e. no matter how good the system is it's still just a black box at the end of the day. Imagine trying to hack the British general election, it would be impossible without hiring millions.
m-p-3 7y ago
I'm wondering if this could be applied for zero-knowledge training of AI, ensuring complete privacy while training a model.

by Iv 7y ago

solidasparagus 7y ago

How does computation on encrypted data relate to voting systems?

jl2718 7y ago
It’s possible that OP meant multiparty computation.
gnarula94 7y ago
Homomorphic encryption would allow tallying the ballots without decrypting them. Helios [1], for instance uses an homomorphic scheme. There are alternatives to it though which preserve voter privacy but allow vote tallying. Shuffling is one of them. Cothority [2] implements an e-voting scheme based on Neff Shuffles 1. https://heliosvoting.org/ https://heliosvoting.org/ 2. https://github.com/dedis/cothority/tree/master/evoting https://github.com/dedis/cothority/tree/master/evoting P.S. I contributed to the latter

rfugger 7y ago

Any political voting system will need a trusted third party to run the voter registration/identity system, so I doubt the lack of practical homomorphic encryption is blocking this. There are other voter-verifiable systems that don't rely on HE for trustworthy counting: https://www.chaum.com/publications/AccessibleVoterVerifiability.pdf https://www.chaum.com/publications/AccessibleVoterVerifiabil... The major problem with online voting is that people can be coerced into voting against their wishes outside the watchful eye of election authorities. This may be worth the increase in voting ease, but it's where the real debate is.

dark_glass 7y ago
I don't think that is a major problem, unless I am misunderstanding. Oregon for instance is all vote by mail, outside the watchful eye of any government authority.
- irrational 7y ago
  What do you mean by "outside the watchful eye of any government authority"? Do you just mean the ballots are filled out at home where a government authority is not looking over my shoulder? Because everything else is controlled by the government. The ballots and booklets are printed by the government (who authorize what can be on the ballot and in the booklet), are mailed by a government agency, are checked by a government authority, etc.
  - kosievdmerwe 7y ago
    It's hard to look over someone's shoulder to make sure they're making the "right" vote if they're in a public voting booth.
  - dark_glass 7y ago
    I was guessing that the OP meant literally looking over your shoulder. If you fill out the ballot at home, it is feasible you could be coerced to vote a particular way. I don't think this is currently happening, so I don't think it is a major issue.
  - pessimizer 7y ago
    If anyone has the ability to confirm your vote, either without you or through you, you can be compelled or paid for it. Imagine constructing a system that can thwart a abusive, tyrannical father who insists that his wife and children vote for a particular candidate (to make it concrete.) If you can get past him, your voting system passes the first test. Now imagine someone is offering $50 if you vote in a particular way. If there's no way to figure out how someone would claim it, it passes the second test. The abusive father can literally just fill out all of his family's ballots, and the $50 could be claimed by filling out the ballot in front of the buyer. You could thwart this with allowing multiple votes but only accepting the first, but then the father or buyer could just have the ballots filled out immediately at the first legal moment. I don't know that it's a thing that can be done without totally private environment around the voter and the record; meaning that the actions of the voter cannot be observed.

api 7y ago

It promises more than that. If we could actually have fast homomorphic execution we could have blind cloud computing.

the8472 7y ago
It also means undebuggable black box computations running on your machine (DRM, javascript).

mhh__ 7y ago

I still think paper voting is the only way no matter the algorithm i.e. no matter how good the system is it's still just a black box at the end of the day. Imagine trying to hack the British general election, it would be impossible without hiring millions.

m-p-3 7y ago

I'm wondering if this could be applied for zero-knowledge training of AI, ensuring complete privacy while training a model.