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"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."
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
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday March 15 2018, @10:34PM
Without this, you're screwed, period. No amount of technology, procedure, or oversight is going to keep a hostile organizer from being able to skew or completely fabricate the results.
Of course the parties are willing to cheat - that's what the local election oversight committees are for, transparency in the process, etc. etc. In the U.S. some sites are still overseen by 100% partisan groups and do cheat, but they are a small minority and somewhat balanced by cheaters for the other side. In an ideal world, independent observers for all major candidates in the election would have shared oversight of each balloting location. In the real world, we're doing good to get 15% turnout of voters, so....
The fault in this assumption is that the string of bits lives alone in the dark. The strength/power/value/whatever you want to call it of blockchain is that it is verified and known by a large number of independent entities. I agree that results should not be rendered to a string of bits, alone in the dark, before being shared with multiple outside verifiers.
Again, you'll never fix this with choice of technology or procedure, only independent oversight at the location of the initial tally can help.
There's a looming paradox between anonymity of the voter's choice and veracity of the tally. If the voters would shed their anonymity, then the tally could be perfect, but that has other problems. Even when votes are aggregated by district, there's the possibility for retaliation against the minority dissenting district.
This wouldn't happen if the local election officers verify their results in the final tally. Again, the anonymity paradox looms, but if the local officers can all see the main office tally including their results, they can confirm or deny the accuracy of their results in that total, and each can run the final sums to verify the overall result.
If that string of bits confirms a collection of believable information, like photographs of officials including their final tally results - sure the photos can be doctored, but presumably not on the local officials' personal cell phones, the result in the final should match what they snapped at the time of reporting. And, again, two strings of bits alone in the dark are not of any particular value, but 200 copies of those 2 strings distributed to 200 "trusted, independent reviewers" starts to carry some weight.
Now you're messing with the CIA, MSS, KGB, etc. and if they're playing dirty, you're likely to be nerve gassed, fed polonium, kidnapped, waterboarded, and killed. The only hope there is that the opposing agencies don't really want a war, because when they do want a war, they have proven their ability to have one.
Sure, one copy can be doctored by one bad actor. When it's distributed to many and there's a doctored copy out there, then they'll notice the discrepancy and re-verify with the source. Source can't be trusted? Well, then you're screwed, aren't you - no amount of technology or procedure is going to fix that one.
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