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I will be the odd one out, but I am not sold on the idea of blockchain. Unless something has changed radically, blockchain depends on trusting the entities tha

I will be the odd one out, but I am not sold on the idea of blockchain. Unless something has changed radically, blockchain depends on trusting the entities that host the ledgers. Creating shell organizations that appear to be separate entities is one of the oldest cons. For me blockchain adds nothing but complexity and greater risk of obfuscation and deception. For me a better system would be something closer to the certificate transparency system. There should be a way I can match something I know + something I hold to a cryptographic log entry that is publicly available but not reversable to my identity. If I dispute my vote record, I can challenge it using my secret information and quickly expose that my votes were tampered with. All of that said, our current systems are possibly the worst convoluted highly-hackable-by-design systems. Engineers have testified before congress that they were told to make them weak intentionally. This just leads to engineers being silenced. Pen-testers get in trouble for exposing these systems being intentionally weak. It feels like this is the desired end-state as it just keeps happening.

13415 5y ago
> If I dispute my vote record, I can challenge it using my secret information and quickly expose that my votes were tampered with. How can a legitimate challenge be distinguished from one by malicious actors who want to nullify the election even though their votes were counted correctly?
- LinuxBender 5y ago
  Because this isn't a count. This is a signature that can be verified with my data as my entry along with a series of hex codes that represent each voting item and selection. A tiny python script could be used in conjunction with the key material to quickly see if the public record has parity. Any citizen can verify their data. If even one record has been tampered with, an audit is invoked.
- JanisErdmanis 5y ago
  This is a great point. Often this issue is not raised due to necessity of coercion resistance which prevents voters to prove how they voted. In absence of such requirement voters may as well be able to issue a message which invalidates the vote and can be collected by a third party. Then the invalid votes tallied collectively could be used as legitimate reason for nullifying election result.

13415 5y ago

> If I dispute my vote record, I can challenge it using my secret information and quickly expose that my votes were tampered with. How can a legitimate challenge be distinguished from one by malicious actors who want to nullify the election even though their votes were counted correctly?

LinuxBender 5y ago
Because this isn't a count. This is a signature that can be verified with my data as my entry along with a series of hex codes that represent each voting item and selection. A tiny python script could be used in conjunction with the key material to quickly see if the public record has parity. Any citizen can verify their data. If even one record has been tampered with, an audit is invoked.
JanisErdmanis 5y ago
This is a great point. Often this issue is not raised due to necessity of coercion resistance which prevents voters to prove how they voted. In absence of such requirement voters may as well be able to issue a message which invalidates the vote and can be collected by a third party. Then the invalid votes tallied collectively could be used as legitimate reason for nullifying election result.