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To Protect Voting, Use Open-Source Software

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Re: To Protect Voting, Use Open-Source Software

#21

Post by DarkKomunalec »

giancarlostoro wrote: post #6
danirod wrote: post #3

Electronic voting is a bad idea and I'd be suspicious on anyone trying to promote it. How can you know that even if the source code for the voting machine is open, the voting machine is running the exact same source code? How can you know nobody has tampered the code the instance is running? I'm glad my country is still running on paper ballots and glad we require voter ID.

I agree with you entirely. There is no absolute way that we know of to truly know the code running is the exact code on GitHub. You can fake that it is in many ways, I don't see people running shell commands on the software before and after they vote to make sure it's the correct software. Even IF that software remains uncompromised, who owns the database? Who stops them from- Way too many factors...

> I don't see people running shell commands on the software before and after they vote to make sure it's the correct software.

How would you know the shell itself, running on the machine you're trying to verify, isn't lying to you?

Re: To Protect Voting, Use Open-Source Software

#23

Post by zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC »

nurettin wrote: post #19
danirod wrote: post #3

Electronic voting is a bad idea and I'd be suspicious on anyone trying to promote it. How can you know that even if the source code for the voting machine is open, the voting machine is running the exact same source code? How can you know nobody has tampered the code the instance is running? I'm glad my country is still running on paper ballots and glad we require voter ID.

Every time we vote, there is more talk about the burned ballots, unopened chests, uncounted votes and fraud concerning votes being collected from neighboring countries posing as people from my nation. So yeah. Doesn't really matter whether it's electronic or not.

So you mean it doesn't really matter whether we even know about the fraud happening?

Re: To Protect Voting, Use Open-Source Software

#24

Post by boomboomsubban »

As someone who is a firm supporter in free software as the best option in every area, this feels like a subversive attack.

Voting software is bound to fail, no bug bounty is big enough to offset the billions that could be made off of hacking an election. It is bound to fail spectacularly, and then for the rest of time people can point at the election and say "the ability to see the source code let this happen."

Re: To Protect Voting, Use Open-Source Software

#25

Post by TeMPOraL »

danirod wrote: post #3

Electronic voting is a bad idea and I'd be suspicious on anyone trying to promote it. How can you know that even if the source code for the voting machine is open, the voting machine is running the exact same source code? How can you know nobody has tampered the code the instance is running? I'm glad my country is still running on paper ballots and glad we require voter ID.

Where is the good old Anonymous when we need them?

We need a high-profile hack of some local elections to drive that point home. Something done completely for teh lulz, leading to a result so absurd the elections would have to be redone.

Re: To Protect Voting, Use Open-Source Software

#26

Post by JorgeGT »

danirod wrote: post #3

Electronic voting is a bad idea and I'd be suspicious on anyone trying to promote it. How can you know that even if the source code for the voting machine is open, the voting machine is running the exact same source code? How can you know nobody has tampered the code the instance is running? I'm glad my country is still running on paper ballots and glad we require voter ID.

> and I'd be suspicious on anyone trying to promote it.

It's just a former CIA Director signing the op-ed. It's not like they have a collection of zero-days and other exploits is it?

Re: To Protect Voting, Use Open-Source Software

#28

Post by richardknop »

Accacin wrote: post #20
danirod wrote: post #3

Electronic voting is a bad idea and I'd be suspicious on anyone trying to promote it. How can you know that even if the source code for the voting machine is open, the voting machine is running the exact same source code? How can you know nobody has tampered the code the instance is running? I'm glad my country is still running on paper ballots and glad we require voter ID.

My country doesn't require voter ID at all, other than confirming a few details and most studies here has shown that requiring ID didn't cut down on fraud. For me it's important that the barrier to voting is as low as possible, and we don't have a governement issued ID that is free.

That should be solved by issuing a free government ID, not by compromising and creating a giant loophole when potentially citizens of other countries can vote in your election and there is no way to verify that.

Re: To Protect Voting, Use Open-Source Software

#29

Post by ai_ja_nai »

This is plain bullshit. Opensource gives no guarantee that the vote won't be altered by whoever runs the machine.

What we need is a zero-knowledge proof: we need the entire voting dataset to be publicly downloadable and some kind of checksumming so that, while maintaining anonimity, I can 1)check that my vote is the same 2)run whole the counting in a blink on my PC.

This gives much better guarantees of no tampering

Re: To Protect Voting, Use Open-Source Software

#30

Post by richardknop »

zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC wrote: post #23
nurettin wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every time we vote, there is more talk about the burned ballots, unopened chests, uncounted votes and fraud concerning votes being collected from neighboring countries posing as people from my nation. So yeah. Doesn't really matter whether it's electronic or not.

So you mean it doesn't really matter whether we even know about the fraud happening?

Most fraud other than most primitive attempts by idiots goes unnoticed. If voter ID is not required it is not possible to prevent people who don't have right to vote from voting.
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