Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Public trust demands open-source voting systems

voting.works

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

271–280 of 292 posts

Re: Public trust demands open-source voting systems

#271

Post by shadowgovt »

teddyh wrote: post #267
shadowgovt wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most states (I don't have all fifty states' laws in my head) have a sample recount process; they generally trust the machine numbers but they will randomly sample some percent of precincts for a detailed hand-audit count. Any attempt to generally infect electronic systems falls afoul of this back-stop. In addition, most states have a mechanism by which a candidate can formally challenge the results in a precinct, for…

> they will randomly sample some percent of precincts for a detailed hand-audit count. This places a lot of trust in that “random” selection.

That's an industry-standard quality control approach in almost every supply chain. Proven approach.

Not sure why you're scare-quoting random. Do you have reason to believe it's not random?

Re: Public trust demands open-source voting systems

#272

Post by ncr100 »

pie_flavor wrote: post #53
ncr100 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(META: Anyone want to summarize the 20 minutes of video, and make it more relevant to this conversation than simply, "No." ?)

Haven't watched it, but to summarize what I imagine someone aligned with me would say: A ballot's entire lifecycle can be watched as it goes from the stack to the booth to the dropbox to the counting pile. Poll watchers are vestigial as soon as voting machines are involved; it becomes the honor system, which is not trustworthy enough in a system where the parties do not trust each other. The best you have is 'we have…

Thank you!

Sounds like externally verifiable logic systems is an upcoming need.

E.g. You as a Citizen walk around with your own System Verification toolkit and can at any time Verify that the voting system tabulates your vote. Something fantastical like that.

Trust is hard to maintain with human. Digital trust is not a human concept, the way I think at least. So this area is tricky.

Re: Public trust demands open-source voting systems

#273

Post by ncr100 »

nostrademons wrote: post #141
ncr100 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(META: Anyone want to summarize the 20 minutes of video, and make it more relevant to this conversation than simply, "No." ?)

First video: Arguments against electronic voting: 1) one person can change millions of votes 2) vulnerable even outside the country 3) even if you audit the software, it's hard to verify that the audited software is what is actually loaded on the machines 4) even if you check hashes of the software, how do you check the software that checks the software (this is a restatement of the Ken Thompson Hack) 5) proprietary…

+5 internet points for extraordinary effort nostrademons. Smart and well summarized, thank you.

These are fair criticisms.

And I personally feel that electronic voting can be made secure and trustworthy, in the human sense of trust and the digital sense. Looking at this from a 'voting accuracy advocate' position, one could add verifiability at all stages, allowing external validation by the invested party .. the citizens could count their own votes and vet the State's tabulation.

Re: Public trust demands open-source voting systems

#274

Post by ncr100 »

supportengineer wrote: post #127
ncr100 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(META: Anyone want to summarize the 20 minutes of video, and make it more relevant to this conversation than simply, "No." ?)

This isn't a technology problem, really. It's a problem of corruptible humans. In US elections, there are billions and even trillions of dollars at stake. Observe the grifting being done by the current administration. Thus, humans are extremely incentivized to corrupt the process. Technology just makes the corruption easier. Technology enables the grifter.

It does! Tech creates an abstraction layer which commonly is referred to, in my experience, as the dynamic term, "disruption".

This complicates a formerly intuitive subject, introducing radical change hidden within an often literal black box .. and nowadays that box is in 'the cloud' .. making it difficult for humans to retain a mental model, which can then reduce the sense of trustworthiness of that subject!

Corruptible humans are here to stay, forever. We are alive until we are not, and we are a successful species, so we "get it done, whatever it takes" in order to survive. That includes grifting.

People are motivated to resource-hog (power, money, votes in favor of their own interest) by brain chemistry / structures. "Feels good to win."

So - in my view - regulation is key to ensure that shared values win, over personal values.

Technology doesn't care, and can be crafted to add "guardrails" that prevent corruption.

The trick, again in my view, is maintaining those guardrails as anti-guardrail technology is developed by self-interested grifters!!!

What a world! (ncr100 sprays chrome spraypaint on mouth an drives off into the desert ...)

Re: Public trust demands open-source voting systems

#275

Post by cies »

yunnpp wrote: post #247
cies wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US and France are marked as "Flawed democracy" (nr. 28 and 26 respectively). Enjoy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist_Democracy_Index

I did certainly enjoy, thank you.

Most welcome. :)

Re: Public trust demands open-source voting systems

#276

Post by didibus »

Aloisius wrote: post #236
didibus wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Crypto identities are anonymous. I don't see the issue?

Crypto doesn't limit participation, unlike voting. At some point, one needs determine whether voting transaction 123 by votecoin address 3456 was made by a valid voter and that the voter has only voted once. So how do you do that? If a central authority does it by say, issuing votecoin addresses to voters or asks voters for their self-generated addresses, then your ballot is no longer secret since they can see exactl…

I think you're restricting your thinking to Bitcoin. The question is, can cryptography methods solve the problem, not can Bitcoin solve it.

I'm not a super expert, but from the little I know, I think it's possible to issue a one time use key that lets you sign a private/public key pair.

So when that public key enter the network with 1 vote and cast it on the distributed ledger, the network can validate the key is signed by the authority.

You know that the authority allowed the key to exist, but not who the key ties back too.

And the user could only sign one key, so they can't create more.

Re: Public trust demands open-source voting systems

#277

Post by lynx97 »

AfterHIA wrote: post #205
lynx97 wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. Democracy is not about reducing cruelty, or any other vaguely activists points of views. It is about having people choose where they want to go. It might be that these choices unveil that humanity, statistically speaking, is actually a cruel bunch. And, what you think is cruel, might be just fair to someone else. Democracy is about surfacing the human nature.

Define, "human nature." Don't compare me with an activist.

If you don't identify as an activist, I sincerely apologize for accidentally offending you. No sarcsam involved.

Re: Public trust demands open-source voting systems

#278

Post by bitbiter »

bruce511 wrote: post #251
bigbadfeline wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But in truth being Open Source has no (real) benefit. Software is easy to tweak, Open or not. But that's not the truth though. Open source software is not easy to tweak when it's deterministically compiled using reproducible builds and there are provisions for on-demand inspection of executables and hardware.

We looked hard at this question, but ultimately determined it was as prone to distrust as any other. Firstly, inspection of code is a very technical skill, so there's a certain amount of reliance on a tiny group here. That tiny group then simply declares whatever they like. Understanding a complex C program, looking for obfuscated behavior is a very specific skill. Secondly, given the tens of thousands of machines in…

Electronic gambling machines are highly regulated because they deal with real money and random number generation. There are a lot of safeguards in that industry across various jurisdictions that seem like they should apply to electronic voting machines too.

Independent testing laboratories exist that do specialize in the specific skills you're talking about. Pretty much all of the software involved is certified and saved, source is saved, compiled binaries are saved, hashes are logged of the compiled binaries. Binaries run from EPROMS or write-protected partitions making it very difficult to change them once installed. Cabinets have tamper-apparent sealing.

The machines are designed so that an auditor can inspect a machine on a casino floor in under 5 minutes, verifying that the software that's installed is the one that's supposed to be and that the physical seals haven't been broken.

I'd imagine there are a lot of similar processes for ATMs.

Re: Public trust demands open-source voting systems

#279

Post by lynx97 »

AfterHIA wrote: post #232
lynx97 wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. Democracy is not about reducing cruelty, or any other vaguely activists points of views. It is about having people choose where they want to go. It might be that these choices unveil that humanity, statistically speaking, is actually a cruel bunch. And, what you think is cruel, might be just fair to someone else. Democracy is about surfacing the human nature.

I can't edit my previous comment so I'll continue: This isn't and has never been true in a universal sense. Athens was democratic plutocracy with slaves. The United States didn't have popular democracy until well until the 20th century and it's worth noting that it was the Southern Democrats which wanted to restrict the basic political rights of blacks in the name of, "popular sentiment." The Fukuyamist position whic…

Maybe I misinterpreted your original comment, but I wholeheartedly agree with this on. I miss people seeing the nuances in politics. The only rebutal most people seem to have against shortcomings of democracy is "it is the best system we have", which is sort of a final argument killing the discussion then and there.

Re: Public trust demands open-source voting systems

#280

Post by tuesdaynight »

Spivak wrote: post #231
yachad wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brown hands typed this comment

I can assure you I am as white as they come, my family being a mix of Quebecois and Irish I'm "wears sunscreen in the winter" pale. I'm at a loss for why you would assume something about my racial background from my view that voting should be made easy and convenient in a democracy. I'll go even further, in addition to being able to vote digitally you should automatically be registered to vote when you establish resi…

English is not my native language, so maybe I'm losing some context. How can that comment not be racist? I'm being genuine. Did something get over my head?
Post reply on HN