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Voting Machine Used in Half of U.S. Is Vulnerable to Attack, Report Finds

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Re: Voting Machine Used in Half of U.S. Is Vulnerable to Attack, Report Finds

#71

Post by hvdhh7 »

mdorazio wrote: post #34
rohit2412 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lot of generalizations and stupid assumptions in that video, like where he argues that of course the ballots will be uploaded over the internet without any authentication/checksum. I don't see why a digital counting machine which is kept completely offline and is transported physically cannot be used, specially if we can verify it's counting functions by randomly verifying a few of those machines (also keep paper bal…

Hang on. You want to use a counting machine, and then physically transport it around to avoid security issues instead of just using proven human counters and physically transported ballots because....???? Why? Just why? What problem is this solving? Does getting your results a few hours sooner make a single bit of difference to merit this madness?

Perhaps because counting tens of thousands of near-identical pieces of paper is exactly the sort of repetitive, robotic task we've entrusted machines to perform more accurately than humans since at least the 1940s.

Re: Voting Machine Used in Half of U.S. Is Vulnerable to Attack, Report Finds

#72

Post by Krakadero »

sgeisenh wrote: post #48
return-value wrote: post #6

I work for the municipality of Skanderborg, Denmark. We have what we call digital elections, but what’s digitized is the registration process. Basically every adult gets a voting card with their information + a barcode, we scan those barcodes when they turn up to receive their ballot(is that the right word for voting list?), and then they are registered. The actual voting takes place on paper, and while it takes time…

I trust good digital voting systems more than a paper ballot. Specifically, the system should be auditable in a way that makes it difficult to trace individual votes back to voters, but allows individual voters to verify that their votes are counted correctly. There must be a good way to accomplish this while also addressing potential voter fraud. Does anybody know of any research in this area? With paper ballots, I…

I sat and counted votes just a month ago. In order to cheat I'd have had to managed to destroy the votes sitting around a table with nine other people, none of whom I'd ever met before. The public, of course, is also welcome during the whole proccess. You can sit and watch the counting if you want to.

Re: Voting Machine Used in Half of U.S. Is Vulnerable to Attack, Report Finds

#73

Post by wtallis »

robotrout wrote: post #70
wtallis wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Transportation to a DMV office isn't the main limitation. Having the freedom to miss a day or two of work to spend waiting in line is a bigger problem, especially when those offices don't necessarily process non-driver ID cards on all ordinary business days. > Let's join the rest of the world and make sure that the people voting in our elections are citizens. The proper time to verify citizenship is during the regist…

I will support any system that insures that all voters have verified citizenship.

At what cost? Are you interested in ensuring that additional voting restrictions actually prevent more illegal votes than they prevent legitimate votes? What makes you think the base rate of non-citizen voting is even high enough to be a problem that can be addressed without invariably causing more harm than good?

Re: Voting Machine Used in Half of U.S. Is Vulnerable to Attack, Report Finds

#75

Post by drdaeman »

_uhtu wrote: post #26
seren wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are elections not held on Sundays ? I assume that on average there are less people working that day that Monday - Friday, so less people would have to take time off from their job. Edit: Found this > In 1845, the United States Congress chose a single date for all national elections in all states. The first Tuesday after the first Monday in November was chosen so that there would never be more than 34 days between…

Elections were originally on Tuesdays because "Tuesday was established as election day because it did not interfere with the Biblical Sabbath or with market day, which was on Wednesday in many towns." Why hasn't it changed? Because to change it the party in power would have to vote to massively change voting block, almost certainly swinging several elections. Since the party is in power, they have no interest in this…

> Additionally, the people who want it changed are probably the people who can't easily vote on Tuesday. These people already don't vote

I'm sorry but there is a non sequitur here. If someone is inconvenienced by voting on Tuesday, it doesn't really mean they don't vote on Tuesday.

I don't know how it really is (non-US citizen and not in the US) but I strongly suspect there must a lot of people who don't fancy the extra hassle but still vote.

Re: Voting Machine Used in Half of U.S. Is Vulnerable to Attack, Report Finds

#76

Post by rootusrootus »

jerf wrote: post #59
bradlys wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How often is this an issue? Sounds like a made up scenario for the US.

It's better to worry about these things before they are problems. I don't know if it's happened in the US but it is absolutely a very common attack against voting systems, and any voting system not resistant to it should be considered suspect.

You think people didn't worry about it before we implemented vote-by-mail? This is a solved problem, and it turns out that there isn't much of an attack vector here after all.

Re: Voting Machine Used in Half of U.S. Is Vulnerable to Attack, Report Finds

#77

Post by yoha »

contravariant wrote: post #53
sgeisenh wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I trust good digital voting systems more than a paper ballot. Specifically, the system should be auditable in a way that makes it difficult to trace individual votes back to voters, but allows individual voters to verify that their votes are counted correctly. There must be a good way to accomplish this while also addressing potential voter fraud. Does anybody know of any research in this area? With paper ballots, I…

That's only possible if you sacrifice some of the stronger anonymity requirements. In theory you shouldn't be able to prove you voted a particular way to ensure you can't be intimidated into changing you vote. Unless it's good enough to verify whether your vote was counted, that should be fairly easy to do.

> That's only possible if you sacrifice some of the stronger anonymity requirements

Untrue. You can use strong encryption to ensure confidentiality and zero-knowledge proofs to ensure integrity. Then, you can use methods from homomorphic encryption to tally the ballots. There is a whole area of research dedicated to this.

Re: Voting Machine Used in Half of U.S. Is Vulnerable to Attack, Report Finds

#78

Post by yoha »

sgeisenh wrote: post #48
return-value wrote: post #6

I work for the municipality of Skanderborg, Denmark. We have what we call digital elections, but what’s digitized is the registration process. Basically every adult gets a voting card with their information + a barcode, we scan those barcodes when they turn up to receive their ballot(is that the right word for voting list?), and then they are registered. The actual voting takes place on paper, and while it takes time…

I trust good digital voting systems more than a paper ballot. Specifically, the system should be auditable in a way that makes it difficult to trace individual votes back to voters, but allows individual voters to verify that their votes are counted correctly. There must be a good way to accomplish this while also addressing potential voter fraud. Does anybody know of any research in this area? With paper ballots, I…

Yes, it's possible, and it is an area of research in cryptography. For instance, have a look at Helios and Belenios.

Re: Voting Machine Used in Half of U.S. Is Vulnerable to Attack, Report Finds

#79

Post by gsnedders »

RileyJames wrote: post #62
bluGill wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This actually a bad idea: The reason for in person voting is poll monitors there are watching to make sure nobody knows how you voted. There are have been cases of "vote for me or I'll break your legs". When you vote from home someone can come by and watch you mail your vote the "correct" way in.

In theory. Has this actually happened, since the introduction of postal voting, in the United States? To be useful it would be necessary to visit 10,000’s - 100,000 houses and threaten violence. The voting system does not need to resolve this issue. Threats of violence are already illegal, and any group conducting such acts at that volume would be quickly apprehended. Call the police. Can you imagine how quickly twit…

The risk has typically been more been cohabiting family (partners and parents, especially).

Re: Voting Machine Used in Half of U.S. Is Vulnerable to Attack, Report Finds

#80

Post by yoha »

learc83 wrote: post #51
sgeisenh wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I trust good digital voting systems more than a paper ballot. Specifically, the system should be auditable in a way that makes it difficult to trace individual votes back to voters, but allows individual voters to verify that their votes are counted correctly. There must be a good way to accomplish this while also addressing potential voter fraud. Does anybody know of any research in this area? With paper ballots, I…

>but allows individual voters to verify that their votes are counted correctly. If everyone can prove how they voted it becomes much easier to intimidate or incentivize people to vote a certain way.

That is indeed the main issue with verifiable voting. The usual solutions offer various compromises, but it is not possible to both guarantee the ability to verify that one's ballot is counted correctly, and that you cannot prove for whom you voted.
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