- Some super slides (well worth reviewing in full, links below) from leading computer security experts presented at the US National Institute of Standards and Technology’s workshop in Washington DC on however overseas citizens should vote. Choice quotes below. (via Ian Brown and FIPR)
Prof. David Wagner (UC Berkeley):
http://csrc.nist.gov/groups/ST/UOCAVA/2010/Presentations/WAGNER_UOCAVA2010.pdfIt is not technologically feasible today to make Internet voting safe against attack.
Operating an Internet voting system safely requires expertise and money way beyond what election officials are likely to have.
There is no known way to audit Internet voting. UOCAVA votes might fall “under a cloud of suspicion.”Prof. Ron Rivest (MIT):
http://csrc.nist.gov/groups/ST/UOCAVA/2010/Presentations/RIVEST_2010-08-05-uocava.pdfRemote voting is trade-off between franchise and risk
The risks of “internet voting” more than negate any possible benefits from an increase in franchise
Unsupervised remote voting vulnerable to vote-selling, bribery, and coercion.
We may view internet voting as voting on a contraption consisting of a collection of […] puzzle boxes, all connected by untraceable wires to every possible adversary on the planet.We do not currently have the technology to make internet voting secure (and may never).
We can’t make such technology appear by wishful thinking, just trying hard, making analogies with other fields, or running pilots.
It is imprudent (irresponsible?) to assume that determined effort by adversaries can’t defeat security objectives of internet voting.
“What are best practices for internet voting?” to me sounds like “Pleash jush help me inshert the key in the lock, (hic), and I’ll be on my way…”
- Online Consultation in a Democracy: Theory & Literature Review
I’ve just published the output from my never-completed doctorate: a review of government consultations online, models of democracy and a review of literature on researching online consultations.
Jason Kitcat 