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Sierra Leone Becomes First Country With Blockchain-Powered Elections

posted by Fnord666 on Thursday March 15 2018, @04:59PM   Printer-friendly
from the blockchain-architecture dept.

Anonymous Cow Herd writes:

"The blockchain method primarily used by those engaging in cryptocurrency transactions is a decentralized mechanism where all the information is stored in blocks, can be viewed and altered by registered users. In the case of Sierra Leone elections, allows the votes to be seen by voters who are registered within the system, in the public ledgers, but only allowed authorized persons to make any changes, this, in turn, prevents the chances of fraud since the voting information is available to all the blockchain users."

URL: https://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Sierra-Leone-Announces-Run-Off-Elections-Becomes-First-Country-With-Blockchain-Powered-Elections-20180314-0013.html

I would personally like it if they would explain the mechanics of their so-called "blockchain" to us mortals.

As I understand a blockchain, it is an extensible data structure that (when used in a bitcoin context) incorporates sequentially applied, recursively structured self-referential checksum mechanisms to counter efforts at tampering with the contents of the blocks; usually, via recursive encryption.

~childo

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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Lester on Thursday March 15 2018, @09:53PM (1 child)

    by Lester (6231) on Thursday March 15 2018, @09:53PM (#653126) Journal

    Sprinkle anything with the magic pixie dust of "blockchain" and everything looks cooler. Add AI, and it is in every blog, even TV

    The same that happens/ed wih Smartxxxx, web 2.0, online, AI, dot com, app, cloud, SaaS...

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  • (Score: 2) by Wootery on Friday March 16 2018, @10:28AM

    by Wootery (2341) on Friday March 16 2018, @10:28AM (#653490)

    Yup. As far as I can tell, there's zero technical benefit to using blockchain here, it's purely trend-chasing.

    You still have to trust the voting machines. It doesn't answer the question of voter anonymity. These are questions that might have technical solutions, but I don't see how blockchain helps.