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Estonia's e-residency program expands abroad

e-estonia.com

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Re: Estonia's e-residency program expands abroad

#41

Post by cryptophreak »

octaveguin wrote: post #5

I recently applied for an Estonian e-residency. Heres what I did: The first thing to know is that you have to physically be there to apply. I went to Estonia and applied at the local police station. I know that sounds weird but thats how you do it. In Estonia, this is where you go to renew driver's licenses and a lot of governmental things. It was relatively painless. I didn't need to make an appointment. It's just l…

> The first thing to know is that you have to physically be there to apply.

Not anymore, according to the article.

Re: Estonia's e-residency program expands abroad

#42

Post by polymatter »

coretx wrote: post #21
Buetol wrote: post #15

I thought of a simple solution to the verifiability problem, what do you think ? - When voting, each voter receive a receipt with a random number assigned to his vote - All the votes are published with the random numbers alongside them - Each voter can verify that his vote was correctly saved by looking at his assigned number in the list It's not perfect but relying on a central server is far worse I think (like the…

The Estonian E-voting system is incredibly broken by design as you can see in this CCC lecture: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JY_pHvhE4os ( by J. Alex Halderman )

That was a very interesting video but I think you misrepresent it slightly. Its clear the Estonian E-voting system was designed very very well in comparison to the ridiculously bad Diabold machines of yesteryear. The problem was that the current state-of-the-art hasn't advanced enough to make major fraud at least as hard as the paper ballot. And that means that e-voting makes it plausible for state actors to dictate election results, which in a democracy is a very bad thing. In other words, there was no way Estonia could make it perfect and anything less than perfect is broken.

The important point for me was that getting e-voting right is so incredibly important to a democracy that it should be treated as a national security issue. The Estonian E-voting system was clearly treated as a government IT project as procedures like "don't plug in a personal USB stick into the master counting server" are violated if its more convenient than replacing the broken DVD drive. Worse, politics gets mixed in which means that security concerns are dismissed with complacent and technically questionable statements like "nice people who care about computer hygiene have no viruses".

Re: Estonia's e-residency program expands abroad

#43

Post by polymatter »

salvadors wrote: post #32
Buetol wrote: post #15

I thought of a simple solution to the verifiability problem, what do you think ? - When voting, each voter receive a receipt with a random number assigned to his vote - All the votes are published with the random numbers alongside them - Each voter can verify that his vote was correctly saved by looking at his assigned number in the list It's not perfect but relying on a central server is far worse I think (like the…

The Estonian voting system already allows you to verify your vote from a second device for a short time period. This certainly doesn't protect against all attacks (and it's only one part of the security system) — but it _does_ help against the threat of a virus that invisibly intercepts your vote to turn it into something different. If people started reporting that their phone showed a different vote to what they tho…

But it also means that a virus that intercepts your PIN and your ID card can log in an hour later and vote for someone different. You then would have no way of knowing.

Re: Estonia's e-residency program expands abroad

#45

Post by joelrunyon »

polymatter wrote: post #40
joelrunyon wrote: post #3

Does anyone know what obligations the e-residency program you have to submit to?

I couldn't find any obligations. Its probably a good idea to keep your PIN secure to reduce the probability of ID fraud. As far as I can tell its a state backed digital signature and authentication system so wouldn't confer any obligations. However, there is some discussion about whether its a completely new legal status which would do things like make you liable for double taxation. Personally I find that highly unl…

> However, there is some discussion about whether its a completely new legal status which would do things like make you liable for double ta

Yeah, that was the type of obligation I was referring to.

Re: Estonia's e-residency program expands abroad

#46

Post by krick »

ptaipale wrote: post #24
cpursley wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Russia trying to subvert and destabilize the baltic states is publically known as well." What a crock of bullshit.

People in Baltics disagree with that. "Russian President Vladimir Putin was a "real and present danger" to Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania and NATO was getting ready to repel any aggression, British Defence Secretary Michael Fallon said." [0] "Michael Fallon, the British defense secretary, warned that there is a real and present danger that Russian President Vladimir Putin will launch a campaign of undercover attacks t…

You mean "some mass-media claims people in Baltics disagree with that".

I don't really want to interfere with all that information war of yours, but as a Baltic citizen I feel almost offended by generalizations like that. Most people I know (including myself) would strongly claim this is bullshit, and have ironically-scornful attitude towards journalists and politicians spreading all that hysteria you are referring to as "the sources". Of course here are people, who feel otherwise, but I have ironically-scornful attitude towards them as well.

Re: Estonia's e-residency program expands abroad

#47

Post by krick »

zkhalique wrote: post #44

What is the advantage of e-residency in estonia?

I double that. Honestly, I expected that somebody already explained it in comments. Before reading so detailed and in-depth explanation on "how?" I would expect broad and self-selling explanation of "why?".

Re: Estonia's e-residency program expands abroad

#50

Post by jcrawfordor »

krick wrote: post #47
zkhalique wrote: post #44

What is the advantage of e-residency in estonia?

I double that. Honestly, I expected that somebody already explained it in comments. Before reading so detailed and in-depth explanation on "how?" I would expect broad and self-selling explanation of "why?".

The program appears to be oriented towards people who regularly visit Estonia or do business with Estonians. The Estonian ID card is used for authentication to many (perhaps all) Estonian government services and some private services, so it would be inconvenient to e.g. owe taxes there and not have an Estonian e-ID.
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