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In Switzerland, some states have ran internet voting trials. Recently, the state of Geneva ran one and a citizen was able to vote twice[1]. The administration t
by jre 14y ago
In Switzerland, some states have ran internet voting trials. Recently, the state of Geneva ran one and a citizen was able to vote twice[1]. The administration then fixed the problem by removing the duplicate vote and then told everybody how e-voting was a success.
Of course, some people complained because a system that allow someone to vote twice doesn't work. The biggest problem though was that they were able to fix it by removing a vote, meaning they could identify the votes and remove it without problems.
The bottom line is : from a technical/cryptographical perspective, the system is a joke (and they don't want to give access to the code). And that's my fear with e-voting : it seems like governments agencies (and their contractors) have a tendency to screw up very badly when it comes to new technology, at least in Switzerland. And I don't want to vote through an half-assed online system using MD5 and a 64 bits RSA key.
[1] http://www.tdg.ch/high-tech/web/Un-citoyen-a-pu-voter-deux-fois/story/18941094 http://www.tdg.ch/high-tech/web/Un-citoyen-a-pu-voter-deux-f... (in French)
- 0x0 14y agoInteresting. With the going rate of botnets ($0.02 per computer from some quick googling?) and everyone would be voting online.... How much do you want to pay to be the president? As if nobody would develop rootkits to fiddle with the HTTPS post (or whatever) going to the voting server...
- bluelu 14y agoYou are making a wrong assumption here. It's no problem that you can identify that someone has voted twice. It would be a problem if that person could prove that he voted for a certain person. Have a look at the papers of http://www.infsecmaster.ethz.ch/people/maurer http://www.infsecmaster.ethz.ch/people/maurer He also has a very good lecture on information hiding/binding principles where these principles are explained.
- lifeisstillgood 14y agoIf my vote is encrypted and put in an envelope that has my name on it, then it very very much matters. If you cam find two envelopes with my name, you can find out what my vote is ( I mean somewhere there is a decryption key) Physical voting strips most links out from who voted and what they voted (you prove who you are at the desk then walk in and vote on a piece of paper in no way related to your name. That is either impossible electronically or relies on unverifiable trust in the code. I know if someone looks over my shoulder. I cannot look at the code running - even if it is open source I cannot see what is really running.
- ramchip 14y agoNot necessarily, it's possible to find two envelopes with e.g. a hash of your name, without knowing your name.
- barrkel 14y agoSo you hash everyones' name, then you have a reverse mapping.
- lifeisstillgood 14y agoPlus once you have my envelope you have my vote - we don't trust you or the code btw