Is this the key? https://github.com/moscow-technologies/blockchain-voting/blo...
Ok. What's going on here? There's just no way this is real.
Moscow's blockchain voting system cracked a month before election
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Re: Moscow's blockchain voting system cracked a month before election
#12It’s shame that this wasn't used in production and then nefariously used against Putin.
Ah yes, the best way to deal with semi-autocrats, if people still vote them, you manipulate the election - but of course for democracy! Seriously?
maybe they meant presenting its vulnerabilities to claim the election illegitimate. But that still won't work, they will just ignore/deny everything as usual
Re: Moscow's blockchain voting system cracked a month before election
#13Re: Moscow's blockchain voting system cracked a month before election
#14Re: Moscow's blockchain voting system cracked a month before election
#15Re: Moscow's blockchain voting system cracked a month before election
#16It’s shame that this wasn't used in production and then nefariously used against Putin.
Ah yes, the best way to deal with semi-autocrats, if people still vote them, you manipulate the election - but of course for democracy! Seriously?
This election is already a sham since some opposition candidates were illegally prevented from participating in it.
Re: Moscow's blockchain voting system cracked a month before election
#17I'm definitely missing something here. The standard size of both Ethereum and Bitcoin private keys is a 256bit secp256k1 key. If a 256bit key is guessable within 20 mins then the entire Blockchain is also broken.
Totally different kind of cryptography. sec256k1 is an elliptic curve, and 256-bit elliptic curves are generally believed to provide comparable security to 3072-bit RSA or DH or ElGamal. (See https://www.keylength.com for a good compilation of reputable comparisons along these lines.)
Re: Moscow's blockchain voting system cracked a month before election
#18I'm definitely missing something here. The standard size of both Ethereum and Bitcoin private keys is a 256bit secp256k1 key. If a 256bit key is guessable within 20 mins then the entire Blockchain is also broken.
The article doesn't mention this, but if you look at the paper[1] it turns out they aren't using ElGamal with elliptic curve fields -- instead they're using prime fields. In that case, you'd want similar key sizes to RSA. (The "less than 256 bit" part is a red herring, the problem is that they are using key sizes that would only be safe if they were using elliptic curves.)
Re: Moscow's blockchain voting system cracked a month before election
#19Earlier quoted context omitted.
Scanned the paper and looks like they're using keys that are < 256-bit hence the vulnerability. Also I think the encryption keys which were found vulnerable are separate from the transaction signing keys
But then the article and its citation is plain wrong. 256 bit keys(3 of them) are cited multiple times ""This is a mystery," the French researcher said. "The only possible explanation we can think of is that the designers thought this would compensate for the too small key sizes of the primes involved. But 3 primes of 256 bits are really not the same as one prime of 768 bits." However, a public key of a length of 102…
The paper[1] makes it much clearer. They aren't using elliptic curves, they're using prime fields with ElGamal (with a weird construction using three separate keys for some reason). The security is similar to RSA-256 (in other words, "awful") -- it makes sense that they could crack it in 20 minutes.
Re: Moscow's blockchain voting system cracked a month before election
#20It’s shame that this wasn't used in production and then nefariously used against Putin.
Yes, because Russia = Bad, and so Bad for Russia = Good
/s
American provinciality is really bizarre and offputting.