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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 Thursday May 09 2019, @03:54PM (1 child)
Yes. Trust is an engineering concept.
E.g. in cryptography is the ratio between the effort/cost an attacker needs to spend to crack your encryption vs the effort/cost you incur to encrypt your information.
Not to be confused with faith.
Here's an example [google.com].
There are cases when the cost of just doing it pen-and-paper and the cost of lost opportunity (of not having a government for 2 months until manually counted and recounted if the result is contested) would justify the investment.
Besides, you are thinking in the context of "Oh, I need to vote only once every 4 years, if ever; faster more secure ballot counting doesn't worth it".
What if the cost of organizing and running a referendum becomes so low that you can get even a direct democracy, Swissland-style? (*shudders* - Americans voting 3-4 times a year on things that affects them? Oh, the horror! the horror!)
Again, speaking slower and louder: I... am... not... saying... you... need... to... trust... voting... machines... produced... by... Microsoft... or any other corporation. You got it this time?
I only say: machines one can trust are possible to build and deploy. Do you disagree?
Example - Banknotes: do you trust them? Why wouldn't be possible to have a non-for-profit non-political entity, very much on the same principle as the national bank, to take care of building and certifying such machines?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Thursday May 09 2019, @06:15PM
Cryptography isn't engineering. It's an applied field of math and computer sciences. There cryptography that don't know how to code at all.
More importantly, trust (computational, cryptographic or otherwise) is most definitely not defined as such a ratio: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computational_trust#Defining_trust [wikipedia.org]
What you're describing is one of the alternative metric to security level. And they're all theoretical since there's no known way to prove the claim otherwise we would be having so many red colored entries here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cipher_security_summary#Common_ciphers [wikipedia.org]
It doesn't cost anyone a penny to wait weeks or even months for the exact count. It's not like the world shutdowns waiting for the vote.
K. Lets ask the Swiss. https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/politics/digital-voting_geneva-shelves-e-voting-platform-on-cost-grounds/44577490 [swissinfo.ch]
Of course I disagree. I trust no machine. I test to see if it works and assess how well it will keep working. I don't even trust my own body when running or lifting weights. I slowly accelerate or add loads. And things still get bloody. Because machines of all kinds are not to be trusted.
No. I trust the laws that govern the banks. And I trust the nation that holds guns to the heads of failed bankers. Which is why I don't accept US banknotes unless it's for a quick small transaction. Because I know if a US bank collapses no one will give me my money back.
Because the power structure doesn't match. A small (not too-big-to-fail monopoly) for-profit lives and dies by their reputation. But the nature of these machines and software is to be designed and built by monolithic conglomerates that are beyond the reach of the law and can get away with murder. Maybe in a small and functioning European nation it would be possible to put out a contract for a non patent-encumbered open-source hardware and software design and then another contract for units different companies could produce and provide... But the moment companies like Microsoft are named the whole thing died. Regardless of the specs. Regardless of who is sitting in the working groups, Microsoft will get the contract. Just like how Lockheed Martin and Colt always get their share. Because that's what the US economy is all about.
compiling...