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The Estonian president wants a more digitally-integrated Europe

arstechnica.com

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Re: The Estonian president wants a more digitally-integrated Europe

#21

Post by Xylakant »

mpitt wrote: post #20
atirip wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh nice, your technique could then be used succesfully against ANY voting. Right? Just watching the boots. Because keeping the poor or 30% of population watched at gunpoint 24/7 for 2 weeks in Europe so that nobody notices is perfectly easy.

Not exactly, because of ballot secrecy. Nobody, not even you, can prove what you voted (or didn't vote) with a paper ballot. This is the primary countermeasure against coercion and bribery of the electors. With e-voting, providing ballot secrecy becomes much more complex because at the same time you need to prove that every voted is counted as it was cast.

> Nobody, not even you, can prove what you voted (or didn't vote) with a paper ballot.

More importantly, nobody is allowed to enter the voting booth with you. However, there's absentee vote by letter in practically all european voting laws that I'm aware of and that can be used as an attack vector since you can fill it in at home.

Re: The Estonian president wants a more digitally-integrated Europe

#22

Post by marklit »

carlob wrote: post #11

But this has nothing to do with credit cards and everything to do with the media industry. It's the exact same thing as those braindead DVD regions, or youtube restrictions in Germany, or netflix national catalogues.

It might not be mentioned in the article but a lot of online retailers, including with 50% of the purchases I try to make on Amazon.co.uk, refuse to ship to Estonia. Even digital good can often be difficult to purchase.

Re: The Estonian president wants a more digitally-integrated Europe

#23

Post by gravypod »

AndrewDucker wrote: post #2

The article is so much more than what the headline indicates. I wish more politicians were like this man.

I started watching this video expecting for him to be like all of my politicians are. I am happy that I was wrong.

He seems to actually understand the underlying technology that he is pushing, and it seems like it is working.

Is anyone here from Estonia who could comment on these new systems?

Re: The Estonian president wants a more digitally-integrated Europe

#24

Post by mk89 »

I agree on further digitalization of public services and stuff - come on, ... here in Germany you must store every kind of receipt for tax declaration (I don't know how this works in other countries, I just find it ridiculous nowadays). However, what the president of Estonia is talking about is basically not applicable to most of the current European countries, where people/countries raise walls, other countries threaten to leave, or where national interests are way higher than European ones.

In addition, I would also like to say that it's important to keep in mind that Estonia is a smaller country compared to others in Europe (it has ~ 1.5 million people, more or less the amount of people living/working in Cologne/Amsterdam/Milan). This means that they can be more focused and can invest more selectively. If you want to digitalize a country like Germany you need to change how many cities and towns? And ... how many laws that require still "paper" proof? It's not impossible, it just takes more time. That's it.

I hope that the president will be able to convince European countries to improve their IT infrastructure. That's cool. However, bigger countries won't see that coming in the next 5-10 years at least.

Re: The Estonian president wants a more digitally-integrated Europe

#25

Post by PeterisP »

atirip wrote: post #10
teddyh wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven’t seen the video, by my feeling is that there’s no need to “review” any e-voting system, since the very concept is irredeemably flawed. If a person can in any way prove to a third party what they voted on, then the system is wide open to coercion of voters. If I can e-vote, then someone could force me at gunpoint to log in and e-vote to their liking instead of mine. If the system allows changing my vote later…

Oh nice, your technique could then be used succesfully against ANY voting. Right? Just watching the boots. Because keeping the poor or 30% of population watched at gunpoint 24/7 for 2 weeks in Europe so that nobody notices is perfectly easy.

A prime comparison is a local employer bussing everyone from their village to the tactically most appropriate voting location and paying them a bit of money and/or alcohol to vote properly - despite being generally illegal, when it happens in a paper ballot system, these people can and do vote as they please anyway. (I recall a case in local municipality elections where there were criminal charges for such actions, but the vote counting in that district showed that most of the bussed-in and paid voters actually voted against the organizer).

Since there is no way for anyone, including themselves, to get to know how their vote went, if the voting stations are run properly, can be monitored by all constesting parties, yadda yadda, we know how to run this process even in cases where the opposing parties are openly hostile and attempt dirty tricks.

In e-voting, there is no good way against this approach, and local "strongmen" are a realistic threat that actually will get used in contested elections if they are able to. They'd have everyone from their factory to either vote in their office with the supervisor watching over the shoulder or get fired, and there's no good way to prevent that from happening.

Re: The Estonian president wants a more digitally-integrated Europe

#26

Post by mlni »

teddyh wrote: post #8
mpitt wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was watching this just yesterday, a thourough (it seems) review of the Estonian system. https://media.ccc.de/v/31c3_-_6344_-_en_-_saal_1_-_201412281...

I haven’t seen the video, by my feeling is that there’s no need to “review” any e-voting system, since the very concept is irredeemably flawed. If a person can in any way prove to a third party what they voted on, then the system is wide open to coercion of voters. If I can e-vote, then someone could force me at gunpoint to log in and e-vote to their liking instead of mine. If the system allows changing my vote later…

The described system is absolutely great for selling your vote, as you can prove within 30 minutes of voting who you voted for. It also allows you to change your mind an unlimited number of times until the voting deadline.

It is a very inconvenient system for buying votes though, as the voters can pick up your money and then go vote for whoever they wanted to in the first place.

Re: The Estonian president wants a more digitally-integrated Europe

#27

Post by johansch »

tauntz wrote: post #17
trymas wrote: post #3

Great push for use of latest technologies, especially for government sector. I skimmed the article, and I do not see a mention of Estonia's e-voting. AFAIK, they are using (IMHO) flawed system, that they just believe it works (i.e. it was not breached). Estonia is very innovative in technological sector, but their e-voting system is a very risky play with their democracy.

"they are using (IMHO) flawed system" Care to elaborate on this?

E-voting is flawed by design. The voting secret is lost.

(What is to stop the husband to control who the wife votes for, or vice versa?)

Re: The Estonian president wants a more digitally-integrated Europe

#28

Post by codesnik »

mpitt wrote: post #20
atirip wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh nice, your technique could then be used succesfully against ANY voting. Right? Just watching the boots. Because keeping the poor or 30% of population watched at gunpoint 24/7 for 2 weeks in Europe so that nobody notices is perfectly easy.

Not exactly, because of ballot secrecy. Nobody, not even you, can prove what you voted (or didn't vote) with a paper ballot. This is the primary countermeasure against coercion and bribery of the electors. With e-voting, providing ballot secrecy becomes much more complex because at the same time you need to prove that every voted is counted as it was cast.

taking a selfie with your filled in ballot is easy measure for vote buyers. There also exists a practice of exchange ballots, when you go into the booth with already filled in ballot and have to bring back to buyer empty one as a proof. No system is perfect.

Re: The Estonian president wants a more digitally-integrated Europe

#29

Post by Natanael_L »

johansch wrote: post #27
tauntz wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"they are using (IMHO) flawed system" Care to elaborate on this?

E-voting is flawed by design. The voting secret is lost. (What is to stop the husband to control who the wife votes for, or vice versa?)

Don't vote remotely.

https://roamingaroundatrandom.wordpress.com/2014/06/16/an-mp...

Re: The Estonian president wants a more digitally-integrated Europe

#30

Post by jamesblonde »

mk89 wrote: post #24

I agree on further digitalization of public services and stuff - come on, ... here in Germany you must store every kind of receipt for tax declaration (I don't know how this works in other countries, I just find it ridiculous nowadays). However, what the president of Estonia is talking about is basically not applicable to most of the current European countries, where people/countries raise walls, other countries thre…

Germany is ridiculously far behind. It's partly because of federalism, but mostly because of the fear of the state and desire for extreme levels of privacy. Here in Sweden, everything is digitalized and it makes life easy. I think of this externality of managing your taxes and stuff like that as "societal tax". Time is money, and countries like Germany and the US have ridiculously high levels of "societal tax" - you have to think so much to make simple decisions. Can i fix this problem with the govt in an afternoon, should I save this receipt for my tax declaration, to things like do I trust the taxi will turn up on time, will the train arrive on time?
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