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USPS Files Patent for a Blockchain-Based Voting System

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Re: USPS Files Patent for a Blockchain-Based Voting System

#341

Post by segfaultbuserr »

koheripbal wrote: post #160
segfaultbuserr wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, you're not. This is the consensus in tech. Well, at least in the infosec community, this opinion is held by the majority. For example, Bruce Schneier is an advocate of paper ballot for 20 years. * Voting Security (2004) https://www.schneier.com/essays/archives/2004/07/voting_secu... * Securing Elections (2018) https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2018/04/securing_elec... * See also: xkcd #2030 - Voting Software…

Neither of your two sources talk about crypto here at all. Crypto would allow voters to follow their vote through tabulation, in private, and see exactly how it's being counted. It has only two downsides... 1. People could prove who they voted for after the fact. 2. People who don't understand technology may not understand how it's so secure. ...but the reality is that these issues exist in the current system as well…

> Neither of your two sources talk about crypto here at all.

I was quoting the xkcd title text.

Re: USPS Files Patent for a Blockchain-Based Voting System

#342

Post by mhh__ »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #221
bjo590 wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That gives much stronger guarantees than paper, and while the average Joe can't verify it himself, there would be three million programmers in the US alone who easily could. I think the current US population that really understands blockchains is less than 1% of the population.

I would argue that lesss than 1% of software professionals REALLY understand blockchains.

On top of that, how do you guarantee the voting machine is running the right software? They have problems as it is.

Even worse, good luck getting election software formally verified on a budget.

Re: USPS Files Patent for a Blockchain-Based Voting System

#343

Post by mhh__ »

nathias wrote: post #199
djaque wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, at least in my circles nobody thinks electronic voting is a good idea. I think Tom Scott has the best argument: you can't build a system that requires you to have a PhD in computer science to fully understand why you should trust it. Every day people need to have faith in voting and not just because a group of experts say they should.

that's a luddite argument, it can apply equally to everything that requires trust

Yes? The whole point is that paper voting works, and is still semi-provably secure. Ten year olds can understand how voting works with paper, with an electronic system you need to read papers just to understand it.

You also forget that you still have to put blind faith in the implementation of the electronic system - you've just moved the social aspect.

Also, with a aeroplane you can trust the engineering because the proof is in the pudding - they're safe as safe can be with flights every minute of everyday. With an election if something goes wrong you are almost literally fucked as a country.

Re: USPS Files Patent for a Blockchain-Based Voting System

#344

Post by mhh__ »

elcritch wrote: post #251
snarf21 wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. The other thing the current system does is that it involves LOTS of people. The people counting a specific polling place may only count 1000 votes. They know their count. They can talk to the other counters at other locations. So if your state or area all of a sudden miraculously goes blue/red, you can know it instantly and have the paper to prove it. This is the beauty of the system. It can't be hacked at s…

That’s a good point. Based on that idea, do you think large scale mail in ballots would have similar issues to an electronic system? Normally I don’t follow the news cycle, but this makes it seem large scale mail in ballots would be more readily corrupted at scale?

Maybe, but it still involves doing various difficult tasks at huge scale.

The paper trail for fraud of that scale is enormous - think of the Watergate slush fund only way bigger and in the age of twitter. This is why paper voting works - you can maybe fraudulently gain a few votes but good luck doing it at a national scale (also an argument against FPTP). Look up granny farming for a more realistic election fraud strategy

Re: USPS Files Patent for a Blockchain-Based Voting System

#345

Post by mhh__ »

staunch wrote: post #268
throwaway936482 wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope, it relies on me being able to go to my local church Hall and watch the ballots being counted or take part in the count myself. All the parties in the election send their own representatives along to watch over the ballot and they also keep a running total. It is a process that I can verify is being carried out correct with my own eyes. Saying "citizens would be much better off not having to trust and be able to…

You can only observe a single ballot counting location, while there are hundreds or thousands to observe. Someone could be bribing people in dozens or hundreds of locations and there are lots of tricks to pull. You're not really verifying much at all by watching the counting process. It's really just a false sense of security. You actually have no idea if all the ballots are being counted, if they're all real ballots…

The whole point is that the people doing the counting are working together but from opposing parties/candidates.

Everyone is watching you, if you try to influence the process the police will (and have done) come down like a sack of bricks.

We also (used to) trust OpenSSL... We thought speculative execution was safe too. Paper is easy, paper is cheap. KISS

Re: USPS Files Patent for a Blockchain-Based Voting System

#346

Post by lalaland1125 »

svrb wrote: post #325
tudorhn wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This on-chain voter ID would never have to be "mapped" directly to a voter The government will generate these IDs and then mail them to people. Who’s stopping them from recording the mappings?

What's stopping them from not properly separating the outer and inner envelopes in mail-in voting? Or correlating poll booth entries with checkins? Nothing. The system fundamentally assumes the organization operating the poll is trustworthy.

In case you are interested, the thing preventing those types of shenanigans from happening is volunteer observers from various parties. The inperson and physical nature of things makes it much more difficult to break.

Re: USPS Files Patent for a Blockchain-Based Voting System

#347

Post by mhh__ »

propogandist wrote: post #227
atlgator wrote: post #200

It's the illusion of safety. There is no facility for identity verification baked into blockchain. You have integrity for the data allowed on the chain but if you let Russian hackers write to it, it undermines the whole thing. Personally I'd rather go with a PKI system that offers non-repudiation.

what Russian hackers?

Russians are to active measures what God is to sin.

Re: USPS Files Patent for a Blockchain-Based Voting System

#348

Post by diebeforei485 »

wtracy wrote: post #239
diebeforei485 wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meanwhile people have difficulty filling out paper ballots, because it's terrible UX. If you want to have a nice voting system like STV or even ranked-choice, shading ovals on paper ballots is not ideal. Sometimes it feels as though existing problems get a free pass because of tradition, but new issues (even if addressed) are scary and so the entire thing should be stopped. I think the right strategy is to pick a sta…

> Sometimes it feels as though existing problems get a free pass because of tradition In safety-critical systems, known problems are often tolerated because they are predictable. In these cases, mitigations are understood, and there's a well-defined upper bound on the amount of damage that can be caused if the mitigations fail. > but new issues (even if addressed) are scary and so the entire thing should be stopped.…

> In safety-critical systems, known problems are often tolerated because they are predictable. In these cases, mitigations are understood, and there's a well-defined upper bound on the amount of damage that can be caused if the mitigations fail.

Oh, voter suppression is well-understood and predictable. I disagree with you that mitigations have been effective.

Re: USPS Files Patent for a Blockchain-Based Voting System

#349

Post by mhh__ »

Fjolsvith wrote: post #216
TheHypnotist wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You overestimate the current government of the USA.

The federal government doesn't handle vote tallying or polling, so why your comment?

The federal government also doesn't set the drinking age.

The Trump administration seems to be trying to ratfuck an entire election. They won't succeed, but "Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest"-style comments from trump about fraud and months of delays in the results are beyond asinine. I'm slightly amazed that HN seems to have a contingent of I'm alright jack supporters of him. Maybe that says something about our ethics but I won't go there.

Re: USPS Files Patent for a Blockchain-Based Voting System

#350

Post by mhh__ »

diebeforei485 wrote: post #218

If you were creating a society on Mars, would you use a system of people lining up in-person to vote? Probably not. Rigged elections have been a thing for a very long time. The shenanigans in Belarus is only the latest example. Covid-19 will accelerate the inevitable. We're having a mail-in election this year, people will get comfortable voting from home and it's only a matter of time before people start asking why t…

Using the Belarus elections as an example here (government meddling) is like saying Litvinenko put the Po is his own tea
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