Submitted via IRC for ErnestTBass
From checking in at a polling place on a tablet to registering to vote by smartphone to using an electronic voting machine to cast a ballot, computers have become an increasingly common part of voting in America.
But the underlying technology behind some of those processes is often a black box. Private companies, not state or local governments, develop and maintain most of the software and hardware that keep democracy chugging along. That has kept journalists, academics and even lawmakers from speaking with certainty about election security.
In an effort to improve confidence in elections, Microsoft announced Monday that it is releasing an open-source software development kit called ElectionGuard that will use encryption techniques to let voters know when their vote is counted. It will also allow election officials and third parties to verify election results to make sure there was no interference with the results.
"It's very much like the cybersecurity version of a tamper-proof bottle," said Tom Burt, Microsoft's vice president of customer security and trust, in an interview with NPR. "Tamper-proof bottles don't prevent any hack of the contents of the bottle, but it makes it makes it harder, and it definitely reveals when the tampering has occurred."
Developed with the computer science company Galois, the kit will be available free of charge for election technology vendors to incorporate into their voting systems.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday May 08 2019, @12:27AM (2 children)
Neither paper is foolproof. The effort of counting (nearly 300 died counting votes [qz.com]) and the error rate is higher for paper.
I'll grant you that an electronic system:
Should the society remain at the level of buggies because the rate of car accidents is higher for cars?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Wednesday May 08 2019, @02:17AM (1 child)
That's a horrible analogy. Computers do not offer significant improvements over paper, only expedience. That's not always a good thing.
You can have your computers, but give us paper or forget it. I don't know why you insist. It's a silly argument. Trust isn't a good thing either. Trust is an adversarial relationship. You "trust" your enemies. If you have to trust your friends, they are not your friends. The best thing for an election is minimal trust and maximal verification. Paper is still best for that. The computer can assist.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday May 08 2019, @08:31AM
You have a very peculiar definition of trust.
I'm done with it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford