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posted by martyb on Friday May 30 2014, @05:05AM   Printer-friendly
from the one-vote-for-you-two-votes-for-me dept.

Estonia is the world leader in using online voting for its national elections. Its government has done a great deal to improve the security of the system, which is now used by up to 25% of voters. The country's "I-voting system" is touted by proponents of online voting in the U.S. to claim that secure Internet voting is possible.

It isn't. Early in May an international team of independent security experts accredited by the Estonian government reported severe security vulnerabilities in that country's "I-voting system." Elections, the researchers found, "could be stolen, disrupted, or cast into disrepute." These results have serious implications for the push to internet voting in other countries, particularly in the U.S.

 
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 30 2014, @07:09AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 30 2014, @07:09AM (#49052)

    Votes being tied to unique numbers would not require votes to be tied to an individual. The numbers could be randomly generated and never repeated.

  • (Score: 2) by lx on Friday May 30 2014, @10:44AM

    by lx (1915) on Friday May 30 2014, @10:44AM (#49090)

    Attention Bitcoin freaks everywhere. Show us how you can use the blockchain to ensure a secure vote.
    You know what? That plan is so crazy it might just work.
    Votecoin anyone?

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Angry Jesus on Friday May 30 2014, @01:08PM

    by Angry Jesus (182) on Friday May 30 2014, @01:08PM (#49130)

    > Votes being tied to unique numbers would not require votes to be tied to an individual.

    Of course they would be tied. Someone pays you or threatens you to make you vote a certain way and requires that you give them your id number so they can verify that you voted as they wanted you to.

    • (Score: 2) by Geotti on Friday May 30 2014, @05:14PM

      by Geotti (1146) on Friday May 30 2014, @05:14PM (#49207) Journal

      Allow for the inclusion of plausible deniability (i.e. give out 10 IDs per person and only you know, which one was actually cast) and this problem is solved.

      I disagree with the central database, though (single point of failure/attack). It should be a CRC-checked, verified and vetted distributed system. It seems the bitcoin idea from above has some merit.

      • (Score: 2) by Angry Jesus on Friday May 30 2014, @06:26PM

        by Angry Jesus (182) on Friday May 30 2014, @06:26PM (#49233)

        > Allow for the inclusion of plausible deniability (i.e. give out 10 IDs per person and
        > only you know, which one was actually cast) and this problem is solved.

        That's an interesting idea, but I don't think it will scale because of the exponential increase in complexity. Once there are more than 2 different elections on the same ballot, keeping mental track of which ID is "real" is going to move beyond the abilities of the average voter. A mnemonic device like using pictures instead of numbers might bump retention up by a few more races, but I'm guessing that, best case, 5 would still be a limit for a majority of the population.