4 ms·

> For what it's worth, e-voting isn't verifiable directly, > unless it's done in a way linked to voter identities You're missing out on the last 20 years of cr

by oggy 12y ago

> For what it's worth, e-voting isn't verifiable directly, > unless it's done in a way linked to voter identities You're missing out on the last 20 years of crypto research. I'd say we're not there yet, but people have been thinking hard about things such as verifiability (with vote confidentiality of course!), coercion resistance etc, and have come up with really cool ideas. As with his other work, David Chaum has some stuff that makes you go "WTF?!? oooh", check out things like Pret a Voter or Scantegrity.

ddingus 12y ago
Get back to me when there is a chain of trust between voter intent and the actual record of the vote. Electronic systems do not actually record the voter intent, just an interpretation of it. Note, the confidentiality is not the same as anonymity. This is a link to voter identities. It's just not made public, but it's there. A nice, robust, human readable, court room compatible vote by mail works very well, and it embodies the four basic ideas I mentioned above. It can be manually done, or electronically counted and audited too. Whatever works. Really, e-voting is a solution looking for a problem. Making fancy systems really isn't getting at the core issue; namely, turnout and suppression. Not a one of those cool ideas will work out, unless it's linked to people like we do bank transactions. Even then, the voter will be in a forced position of trust as they must allow the technology to interpret their intent instead of recording their intent directly onto a trusted record.
lcastillo 12y ago
Also check Microsoft research U-Prove (http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/u-prove/ http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/u-prove/) or IBM Identity Mixer (http://www.zurich.ibm.com/security/idemix/ http://www.zurich.ibm.com/security/idemix/), both are Identity systems that allow casting electronic votes anonymously. I wonder if we will ever get to a point where that kind of crypto is explained enough that we collectively trust it as much as pen and paper.
- ddingus 12y ago
  There still exists a forced trust by the voter in that they must trust the machine to parse their voter intent and must trust it to use that intent to contribute to the overall tally. A machine presents a user with some interface, and they make a selection and they get told something. They have no identifiable way to see the record of their intent is accurate, or even will be used. With pen and paper, the intent of the voter is what we record and that record is used to arrive at the tally to determine the election. With a machine, we do not record the voter intent, only what a machine determined that intent to be. Actually recording the voter intent means being able to evaluate that intent in a court of law, vote by vote, if needed. Given the impact law and government has on us, it's not too much to ask we actually do record intent.
spindritf 12y ago
Systems that can be understood by maybe 10% of the population aren't really transparent.
- oggy 12y ago
  I assume you mean that its transparency can be understood by 10% of the population, not how you use them (Pret a Voter for instance is quite straightforward). Still, that's a fair objection. I can counter it with two points, though. First, I don't really understand how the current system in my country works. There are constituencies, preferential voting, overhang seats, etc. Second, what is the process of ensuring transparency? Surely I, as an individual, could not just go and demand to see and count all the ballots myself. I would need to turn to somebody I trust. This would stay the same, except that this time that somebody could be anyone who understands mixnets and zero-knowledge proofs, rather than a select number of political organizations.
  - specialist 12y ago
    Surely I, as an individual, could not just go and demand to see and count all the ballots myself. Different jurisdiction, different rules, so YMMV (at least in the USA). Sometimes manual recounts are automatically triggered for highly contested races. And sometimes campaigns can pay for a recount. I would need to turn to somebody I trust. The system I "trust" is mutual distrust. If all the candidates (campaigns) agree on the count, then I am much more likely to accept the final tally. Whenever someone in election administration says "trust us", I know I'm being conned.
    - oggy 12y ago
      Are you saying that you, just by the virtue of being a voter in your constituency, can go to the local election office, and demand that you yourself count all the ballots? Anyway mutual distrust is what the proposed e-voting systems rely on. You need to trust k out of n (where k can be tuned between 1 and n) parties involved that your vote privacy won't be compromised. Maybe you're not prepared to trust any single one of them and that's a valid objection. On the other hand, you do get more verifiability with e-voting - anyone who is able to comprehend how the system works can verify that the votes have been tallied correctly.
_asummers 12y ago
Here's[0] a survey paper from 2006 on the state of cryptographic elections. [0] http://electionmathematics.org/em-voting-systems/rivest-student-adida-phd.pdf http://electionmathematics.org/em-voting-systems/rivest-stud...
specialist 12y ago
There is no crypto based system which is appropriate for actual elections in the USA. While cool for technophiles, all crypto based systems rely on hash collisions to protect voter privacy. It's a combinatorial problem. Given a typical general election ballot (say 10-30 issues, with 1-6 choices each), the pool of voters (ballots cast) would need to number in the 100,000s. Alas, elections are administered per precinct, which typically number 1 - 1,000 voters. To use crypto election administration would require splitting our ballots into a ballot per issue, greatly increasing the size of precincts, or both. But whatever the case, the burden of proof for this hair brained ideas is on the proponents. And until they (you) assume the responsibility of proving these systems work for real world elections, I'm not interested.
- oggy 12y ago
  It sounds like one of us doesn't know what they are talking about, and I don't think it's me. How does, say, Pret a Voter rely on hash collisions to protect voter privacy?
  - specialist 12y ago
    How does pret a voter protect voter privacy in a voter pool (precinct) of 400 with a ballot containing 30 issues. Go ahead, work it out for yourself, manually, like I did. I'll wait.
    - oggy 12y ago
      The premise of whatever it was that you were manually working out was that "all crypto based systems rely on hash collisions to protect voter privacy". Again, pray tell, how does Pret a Voter rely on hash collisions?
      - specialist 12y ago
        Down vote? Petty. You're right, of course. I conflated Pret a Voter with another hare brained scheme: Chaum's Punchscan, which at least makes a token attempt to protect voter privacy. My apologies. (It's been a few years since I studied this nonsense.) Pret a voter does not throw information away (a la secure one-way hash), it merely obfuscates the process. It's just a more fancy kabuki.

by oggy 12y ago

ddingus 12y ago

Get back to me when there is a chain of trust between voter intent and the actual record of the vote. Electronic systems do not actually record the voter intent, just an interpretation of it. Note, the confidentiality is not the same as anonymity. This is a link to voter identities. It's just not made public, but it's there. A nice, robust, human readable, court room compatible vote by mail works very well, and it embodies the four basic ideas I mentioned above. It can be manually done, or electronically counted and audited too. Whatever works. Really, e-voting is a solution looking for a problem. Making fancy systems really isn't getting at the core issue; namely, turnout and suppression. Not a one of those cool ideas will work out, unless it's linked to people like we do bank transactions. Even then, the voter will be in a forced position of trust as they must allow the technology to interpret their intent instead of recording their intent directly onto a trusted record.

lcastillo 12y ago

Also check Microsoft research U-Prove (http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/u-prove/ http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/u-prove/) or IBM Identity Mixer (http://www.zurich.ibm.com/security/idemix/ http://www.zurich.ibm.com/security/idemix/), both are Identity systems that allow casting electronic votes anonymously. I wonder if we will ever get to a point where that kind of crypto is explained enough that we collectively trust it as much as pen and paper.

ddingus 12y ago
There still exists a forced trust by the voter in that they must trust the machine to parse their voter intent and must trust it to use that intent to contribute to the overall tally. A machine presents a user with some interface, and they make a selection and they get told something. They have no identifiable way to see the record of their intent is accurate, or even will be used. With pen and paper, the intent of the voter is what we record and that record is used to arrive at the tally to determine the election. With a machine, we do not record the voter intent, only what a machine determined that intent to be. Actually recording the voter intent means being able to evaluate that intent in a court of law, vote by vote, if needed. Given the impact law and government has on us, it's not too much to ask we actually do record intent.

spindritf 12y ago

Systems that can be understood by maybe 10% of the population aren't really transparent.

oggy 12y ago
I assume you mean that its transparency can be understood by 10% of the population, not how you use them (Pret a Voter for instance is quite straightforward). Still, that's a fair objection. I can counter it with two points, though. First, I don't really understand how the current system in my country works. There are constituencies, preferential voting, overhang seats, etc. Second, what is the process of ensuring transparency? Surely I, as an individual, could not just go and demand to see and count all the ballots myself. I would need to turn to somebody I trust. This would stay the same, except that this time that somebody could be anyone who understands mixnets and zero-knowledge proofs, rather than a select number of political organizations.
- specialist 12y ago
  Surely I, as an individual, could not just go and demand to see and count all the ballots myself. Different jurisdiction, different rules, so YMMV (at least in the USA). Sometimes manual recounts are automatically triggered for highly contested races. And sometimes campaigns can pay for a recount. I would need to turn to somebody I trust. The system I "trust" is mutual distrust. If all the candidates (campaigns) agree on the count, then I am much more likely to accept the final tally. Whenever someone in election administration says "trust us", I know I'm being conned.
  - oggy 12y ago
    Are you saying that you, just by the virtue of being a voter in your constituency, can go to the local election office, and demand that you yourself count all the ballots? Anyway mutual distrust is what the proposed e-voting systems rely on. You need to trust k out of n (where k can be tuned between 1 and n) parties involved that your vote privacy won't be compromised. Maybe you're not prepared to trust any single one of them and that's a valid objection. On the other hand, you do get more verifiability with e-voting - anyone who is able to comprehend how the system works can verify that the votes have been tallied correctly.

_asummers 12y ago

Here's[0] a survey paper from 2006 on the state of cryptographic elections. [0] http://electionmathematics.org/em-voting-systems/rivest-student-adida-phd.pdf http://electionmathematics.org/em-voting-systems/rivest-stud...

specialist 12y ago

There is no crypto based system which is appropriate for actual elections in the USA. While cool for technophiles, all crypto based systems rely on hash collisions to protect voter privacy. It's a combinatorial problem. Given a typical general election ballot (say 10-30 issues, with 1-6 choices each), the pool of voters (ballots cast) would need to number in the 100,000s. Alas, elections are administered per precinct, which typically number 1 - 1,000 voters. To use crypto election administration would require splitting our ballots into a ballot per issue, greatly increasing the size of precincts, or both. But whatever the case, the burden of proof for this hair brained ideas is on the proponents. And until they (you) assume the responsibility of proving these systems work for real world elections, I'm not interested.

oggy 12y ago
It sounds like one of us doesn't know what they are talking about, and I don't think it's me. How does, say, Pret a Voter rely on hash collisions to protect voter privacy?
- specialist 12y ago
  How does pret a voter protect voter privacy in a voter pool (precinct) of 400 with a ballot containing 30 issues. Go ahead, work it out for yourself, manually, like I did. I'll wait.
  - oggy 12y ago
    The premise of whatever it was that you were manually working out was that "all crypto based systems rely on hash collisions to protect voter privacy". Again, pray tell, how does Pret a Voter rely on hash collisions?
    - specialist 12y ago
      Down vote? Petty. You're right, of course. I conflated Pret a Voter with another hare brained scheme: Chaum's Punchscan, which at least makes a token attempt to protect voter privacy. My apologies. (It's been a few years since I studied this nonsense.) Pret a voter does not throw information away (a la secure one-way hash), it merely obfuscates the process. It's just a more fancy kabuki.