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DARPA Is Building a $10M, Open-Source, Secure Voting System

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Re: DARPA Is Building a $10M, Open-Source, Secure Voting System

#171

Post by grepper »

masswerk wrote: post #152

Thought experiment: Have, like in aviation, units built of two separate, but parallel architectures designed and built by unrelated, independent manufacturers with software written by independent teams in different languages and deploy them redundantly. (E.g., Airbus does this.) Now you have cranked up the cost for any manipulations to the requirements of successfully attacking two separate architectures in the same…

For those who were perhaps intrigued, as I was--here is a bit more information I found through a cursory search about how Airbus's consensus system works. Interesting stuff. [0][1]

[0] https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/15234/how-does-...

[1] https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/21744/how-do-re...

Re: DARPA Is Building a $10M, Open-Source, Secure Voting System

#172

Post by tvbusy »

nathan_long wrote: post #8

> Kiniy said Galois will design two basic voting machine types. The first will be a ballot-marking device that uses a touch-screen for voters to make their selections. That system won’t tabulate votes. Instead it will print out a paper ballot marked with the voter’s choices, so voters can review them before depositing them into an optical-scan machine that tabulates the votes. Galois will bring this system to Def Con…

The code should be anonymous, so that it can't be used to trace who made the vote, yet still can be used to verify that is counted. This way, anyone can verify that they're vote was actually counted, so the voting system will be verifiable later on.

Re: DARPA Is Building a $10M, Open-Source, Secure Voting System

#174

Post by darpa_escapee »

tvbusy wrote: post #172
nathan_long wrote: post #8

> Kiniy said Galois will design two basic voting machine types. The first will be a ballot-marking device that uses a touch-screen for voters to make their selections. That system won’t tabulate votes. Instead it will print out a paper ballot marked with the voter’s choices, so voters can review them before depositing them into an optical-scan machine that tabulates the votes. Galois will bring this system to Def Con…

The code should be anonymous, so that it can't be used to trace who made the vote, yet still can be used to verify that is counted. This way, anyone can verify that they're vote was actually counted, so the voting system will be verifiable later on.

If the user can verify their vote, then they can be coerced to verify their vote by, say, their boss, or be bribed into voting a certain way.

Does this system address that concern?

Re: DARPA Is Building a $10M, Open-Source, Secure Voting System

#175

Post by zepolen »

snowwrestler wrote: post #89
mike741 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

how does the current system, or any voting system, prevent coercion? If there's a gun to your head, or some other ultimatum, it seems far too late to be worrying about your vote being shared. Even if votes aren't all logged, you can still be tortured for the answer. I would much rather the country have an individual coercion problem than a mass voting fraud problem. "Voting systems should [...] not permit anyone, inc…

Ok, you put a gun to my head and tell me to vote for Hillary. I go into the ballot box and vote for Trump. I come out and you ask me if I voted Hillary. I say yes, I voted for Hillary, of course. If there is no possible way for you or me to know (edit: prove) if I'm telling the truth, how is that worth your time and energy? It's not. The benefit of a secret ballot is that it greatly reduces, if not removes, the incen…

This is how it actually works:

1. Mobster goes in to vote but doesn't put it in the box - he takes the blank ballot paper outside with him.

2. He fills the vote on the ballot and gives it to the coerced voter 1. He expects a blank ballot back, or else. He has his goons watching the voter throw the real ballot in the box, or else.

3. Using the new blank ballot he goes to coerced voter 2, and the cycle continues.

Of course this is hard to scale.

Re: DARPA Is Building a $10M, Open-Source, Secure Voting System

#177

Post by jacques_chester »

therealdrag0 wrote: post #130
sverige wrote: post #60

Why does this keep coming up? What is the compelling argument against paper ballots? There is no need for results to be known immediately, so how does making voting an exercise done by computers make anything better, particularly when computers are much more vulnerable to remote interference?

Aren't counting ballots always wrong? Like every time there is a recount the number changes... What's wrong with electronic ballots? If we can have a secure and audit-able banking system (and every other aspect of our lifes), surely we can have the same for voting?

Banking doesn't require ballot secrecy.

Re: DARPA Is Building a $10M, Open-Source, Secure Voting System

#178

Post by realthing »

dragontamer wrote: post #53
simongr3dal wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate being outright dismissive but it sounds like an expensive html/pdf form with a printer attached. I do agree that the paper trail is a great thing. I'm not fundamentally against electronic voting, but I haven't heard of a system that can really compete with the simplicity and verifiability of the immutablility you get from paper ballots inside ballot boxes being watched over by interested parties on all sides.

> I hate being outright dismissive but it sounds like an expensive html/pdf form with a printer attached. And I like it. The simpler the design, the better. Sometimes it takes a billion dollars and a couple of smart researchers to invent the "obvious" solution to a problem. We've got butterfly ballots, confusing electronics-only machines, and a variety of bad standards as the basis of our current voting infrastructur…

You like that it cost 10mil ? Ok man, Ok.

Re: DARPA Is Building a $10M, Open-Source, Secure Voting System

#179

Post by jacques_chester »

samirm wrote: post #154
sverige wrote: post #60

Why does this keep coming up? What is the compelling argument against paper ballots? There is no need for results to be known immediately, so how does making voting an exercise done by computers make anything better, particularly when computers are much more vulnerable to remote interference?

Paper ballots aren't scalable or transparent. Open source hardware and software can be audited by anyone and every one and can be formally verifiable.

> Paper ballots aren't scalable or transparent.

Australia holds elections this way and has done so for a century. Scaling has not been an issue. Neither has transparency.

Re: DARPA Is Building a $10M, Open-Source, Secure Voting System

#180

Post by jacques_chester »

Pharmakon wrote: post #81
hansjorg wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because paper ballots increase the cost of manipulating elections.

Ironically the one recent confirmed case of a rigged election in the U.S. was rigged through paper absentee ballots.

And it was detected.

That's a big part of the advantage of paper ballots. The cost of subversion is high because more people need to be in on any conspiracy to subvert the system. More conspirators means more and more incentive to defect against co-conspirators.

Electronic systems do not scale subversion cost with electorate size. But they do scale the payoff of subversion.

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