The Estonian president wants a more digitally-integrated Europe • Hacker News Board

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

#31

Post by sccxy » Mon, May 30, 2016, 8:00 PM UTC

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…

Your arguments against e-vote can be used in regular voting also.

You can take photo of your vote to prove it to 3rd party. Also it is easy to buy votes from poor in regular voting.

For e-voting you can vote 1000 times and when you still feel need to vote 1 more time, then it is possible to use regular voting. E-vote period ends before regular voting.

It all goes to trusting the government. I trust my government and I e-vote.

Same ID-card is used for e-voting, banking & pretty much everything. It would be easier/more profitable to steal money from bank accounts than mess with these small elections.

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

#32

Post by teddyh » Mon, May 30, 2016, 8:00 PM UTC

PeterisP wrote: post #25

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.

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, b…

Yes, this is exactly the sort of things I was thinking of.

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

#33

Post by sccxy » Mon, May 30, 2016, 8:11 PM UTC

PeterisP wrote: post #25

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.

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, b…

In e-voting you can change your vote unlimited times. I think it is pretty good approach against your example.

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

#34

Post by johansch » Mon, May 30, 2016, 8:16 PM UTC

Natanael_L wrote: post #29

johansch wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

"and the only way to force individual voters to vote as you wish is to physically watch them vote."

Yes, exactly.

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

#35

Post by dijit » Mon, May 30, 2016, 8:39 PM UTC

gravypod wrote: post #23

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?

My girlfriend is Estonian, and she finds life incredibly complicated in both the UK and Sweden-

I just asked, she misses that there was never a need for a government office, no queuing and everything was centrally managed, as long as she has her ID card and her "pin".

She is mentioning the arduous processes we have for validating identity in Sweden and looking up financial history.

Part of me feels like this is a double edged sword, but she seems to genuinely miss it.

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

#36

Post by Strom » Mon, May 30, 2016, 8:41 PM UTC

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?)

You can change your vote in private. If you're worried about getting locked up and/or murdered by your wife after she has seen who you initially voted for, then you could set up a cron job to change the vote even if you're no longer breathing.

In addition, the same problem applies to paper voting. What stops your wife from demanding that you wear a hidden live streaming camera when you go to vote, so that she can see you really cast your paper vote for the candidate she insists on?

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

#37

Post by teddyh » Mon, May 30, 2016, 8:46 PM UTC

sccxy wrote: post #33

PeterisP wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, b…

In e-voting you can change your vote unlimited times. I think it is pretty good approach against your example.

No, I addressed this argument in my original comment above. If you need a password to change a vote, someone can take the password away from you after you voted the first time. If you can show up physically at the polling place and change your vote, your hypothetical corrupt employer can simply announce crunch time at work and effectively keep you on the premises. It might also be as simple as them not paying for the bus to to polling place, so you have no way to get there.

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

#38

Post by gurkendoktor » Mon, May 30, 2016, 8:52 PM UTC

jamesblonde wrote: post #30

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…

> 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.

I think you are missing the elephant in the room: our (German) complete and utter incompetence when it comes to software development.

Declaring taxes for my business still involves mailing many dead trees around the country, and I hate it. But what's the alternative, sinking billions of euros into a public software project that might be as crappy as Toll Collect?

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

#39

Post by Strom » Mon, May 30, 2016, 9:07 PM UTC

teddyh wrote: post #37

sccxy wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In e-voting you can change your vote unlimited times. I think it is pretty good approach against your example.

No, I addressed this argument in my original comment above. If you need a password to change a vote, someone can take the password away from you after you voted the first time. If you can show up physically at the polling place and change your vote, your hypothetical corrupt employer can simply announce crunch time at work and effectively keep you on the premises. It might also be as simple as them not paying for the…

You're effectively making the case that e-voting is flawed, because a completely controlled slave who has Stockholm syndrome can't vote for whom they want.

1) It's possible to revote unlimited times. In the overwhelming majority of cases, you would get an opportunity to revote in private.

2) If your ID card gets taken away, you can get a new one from the government.

3) If you lack the funds for the necessary travel, the government will provide that.

4) If you're being held locked up against your will, you can call the police.

5) If you're worried about getting murdered after you visibly vote for someone who you don't want to, you can set up a cron job to change the vote after even if you're no longer breathing.

In addition. If there truly is such an adversary that can completely control your life & silence any requests for help, then that very same adversary is also capable of requiring you to wear a hidden live streaming camera when you go to paper vote, so that they can see you really cast your paper vote for the candidate they insist on.

Dreaming up such astronomical edge cases can be useful, but in regards to e-voting, I have yet to see a scenario that has a negative effect on e-voting while the same effect doesn't exist on classic paper voting.

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

#40

Post by Strom » Mon, May 30, 2016, 9:19 PM UTC

gravypod wrote: post #23

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?

The digital systems work pretty well.

The digital prescriptions are definitely convenient, especially as you can get them renewed via e-mail to your doctor and thus skip any visitation bills.

I also still remember my amazement when it took me literally 5 minutes to register a new company online, 10 years ago. Not that much different from opening a Twitter account.

An even older system is the tax one, where everything is automated and I don't have to even think about it. I can just annually review the automatically calculated data and press accept to get some money back.