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Estonian E-Voting Source Code Made Public

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Re: Estonian E-Voting Source Code Made Public

#91

Post by daxelrod »

skrebbel wrote: post #82
lucaspiller wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Send a pull request :)

License says "no derivatives"

Interesting. That doesn't seem to square with this item from GitHub's ToS:

  > By setting your repositories to be viewed publicly, you agree to allow others to view and fork your repositories.
https://help.github.com/articles/github-terms-of-service#f-c...

Re: Estonian E-Voting Source Code Made Public

#92

Post by joestringer »

yaddayadda wrote: post #70
vvllddrr wrote: post #64

The title is wrong (the article isn't, necessarily). The license, https://github.com/vvk-ehk/evalimine/blob/master/LICENSE , is non-free/open source.

The "Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License" is an "open source" license. The source code itself is "open" and can be redistributed for free (beer not speech). But it is disappointing that they have opted to prohibit derivatives, and it makes their posting of the code to GitHub an interesting choice.

What if you clone the repo before the license was added? Then do you get code in the public domain?

Re: Estonian E-Voting Source Code Made Public

#93

Post by revelation »

bkmartin wrote: post #47
revelation wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thats why any person can act as an observer if they so wish and oversee the person counting your ballot. I can not possibly do the same with a turing machine.

So why can't you be an observer of the sys admin when they install the software. Witness some chain of command that the software has come from an authorized source, meets a digital check-sum and is installed properly. It can then be secured by another party with a two password "lock box" type approach kind of like we use with our crypto system at work that guards our CC processing. There are systems invented and impl…

You don't seem to understand, so heres a whitepaper [1] from Rop Gonggrijp on how to play chess on a Nedap voting computer. And the Nedap machines are special-built and programmed to ensure the authenticity of the votes, using anything from printers to read only memory. Not fucking Python running on a loosely secured Linux box.

[1]: http://wijvertrouwenstemcomputersniet.nl/images/9/91/Es3b-en...

Re: Estonian E-Voting Source Code Made Public

#94

Post by oceanstone »

oceanstone wrote: post #85
Fargren wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Secret ballots make it easier to pull off. How so?

In 2000, there was a voting scandal regarding the presidential election in the USA. It involved allegations of votes being paid for, to secure a victory for Bush in Florida, among other states. An open ballot could have prevented this.

@Fargren: I would argue votes are easier to sell, with a secret ballot. The seller would be whoever is counting the votes. There could be a huge monetary gain for that one counter (Diebold for instance), as opposed to relatively small amounts for individual voters.

That being said, buying votes directly is illegal. If ballots were open, and someone bought votes, there would now be a paper trail.

Re: Estonian E-Voting Source Code Made Public

#95

Post by Afforess »

joelthelion wrote: post #87
skrebbel wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, and so it's uncool and crappier than Python? How is that related? The OP clearly used the term "enterprise" with a negative connotation. I doubt he was referring to a brand name.

There is a verbose and enterprisy smell to the language itself. Just compare the hello worlds in java and python... Apart from that, I agree with you.

Let's not. Unless you think we should also be comparing memory footprint, performance, etc of said 'Hello World'.

Language pissing contests are dumb. Languages are tools, each serves a specific job.

Re: Estonian E-Voting Source Code Made Public

#96

Post by 3pt14159 »

daxelrod wrote: post #91
skrebbel wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

License says "no derivatives"

Interesting. That doesn't seem to square with this item from GitHub's ToS: > By setting your repositories to be viewed publicly, you agree to allow others to view and fork your repositories. https://help.github.com/articles/github-terms-of-service#f-c...

View and fork does not mean view and fork and edit.

Some of us fork just so we can security audit the code once and then have a safe place to clone from.

Re: Estonian E-Voting Source Code Made Public

#97

Post by eli »

oceanstone wrote: post #85
Fargren wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Secret ballots make it easier to pull off. How so?

In 2000, there was a voting scandal regarding the presidential election in the USA. It involved allegations of votes being paid for, to secure a victory for Bush in Florida, among other states. An open ballot could have prevented this.

So by "votes being paid for" you mean the conspiracy theory that Diebold machines altered vote totals?

Re: Estonian E-Voting Source Code Made Public

#98

Post by kmfrk »

jsaxton86 wrote: post #66
rimantas wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMHO internet voting falls under "because you can does not mean you should".

There are two parts to this story: -Estonia has an internet voting system -Estonia just released the source code to their voting system Even if internet voting is a terrible idea, a transparent election system is a very good idea, and releasing the source code for your voting system is a big step in that direction.

Ill-advised or not, at lot of countries are considering e-voting.

I think it's a bad idea as well, but like you, I think it's weird to be upset that there are people who want to help achieve the best solution/compromise, in the event that your country's government vote to implement something like this.

I'm as pro-government as the next European, but we can all think of horrible government project failures.

Re: Estonian E-Voting Source Code Made Public

#99

Post by glesica »

skrebbel wrote: post #81
eli wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Java Enterprise Edition is the name of an Oracle product. http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javaee/overview/index... It's "enterprise" literally by definition.

Indeed, and so it's uncool and crappier than Python? How is that related? The OP clearly used the term "enterprise" with a negative connotation. I doubt he was referring to a brand name.

I suspect the implication was that being written in Python makes the code more accessible to "normal" people, both to read and (perhaps to an even greater extent) to run. If it were written on .NET one would likely (because Mono is incomplete) need a Windows server to run the code. If it was written using Java there is a decent chance it would require some pretty complex configuration and possibly a license of some sort from Oracle. I might be misinterpreting the comment, but when I personally poke fun at Java or .NET for being "enterprise-y", this is more or less what I'm talking about.

Re: Estonian E-Voting Source Code Made Public

#100

Post by pavel_lishin »

rimantas wrote: post #50
zimbatm wrote: post #38

Common, not a single positive comment ? Things in the administration always take time. At least it's a move in the right direction. Next add a build CI to produce signed images. Then propose USB keys for people to boot their own system on the voting booth. At least it's better than the Diebold debacle in the states.

IMHO internet voting falls under "because you can does not mean you should".

Can you expand on that? I could probably blab for three minutes on either side of the argument, but I don't know if I have any strong opinions about it right now.
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