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more on Report Says Internet Voting System Is Too Insecure to Use (fwd)
From: Dave Farber <dave () farber net>
Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2004 14:34:03 -0500
Delivered-To: dfarber+ () ux13 sp cs cmu edu Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2004 09:44:25 -0800 From: Brad Templeton <btm () templetons com> Subject: Re: [IP] Report Says Internet Voting System Is Too Insecure to Use (fwd) To: Dave Farber <dave () farber net> Cc: gep2 () terabites com On Thu, Jan 22, 2004 at 11:40:45AM -0500, Dave Farber wrote: > 1) The system would have to meet suitable standards regarding privacy and > integrity, specifically regarding the registering, communication, and > collection > of voter responses, and I believe that it is at least CONCEIVABLE that > suitable > technology can resolve those issues (note that I am NOT confident at this > point What is perhaps not clear is that this report is not saying it's impossible to build a secure computer, or have auditing etc. There are very specific issues with the SERVE program. In particular, the voter votes on an ordinary Microsoft Windows PC, using MSIE or Netscape. That should be enough for most of us here, but it seems the designers of the voting system are not aware how easy it is to place a trojan horse program on a Windows PC, to intercept its keyboard, screen and other operations to make the user think it is doing one thing while it is actually doing something else (like voting for another candidate.) That the PC's communication with the server is secure and encrypted is pleasant but unfortunately not any assurance of security when the PC is so open. Note that while Windows is particularly ripe, I would not feel much safer with linux or other systems. You would need a dedicated voting terminal with no connection to the outside world except the ability to talk to the voting server, and no ablility to use or store anything but trusted voting programs on it. Even that has concerns, but voting from the ordinary user's home Windows PC is crazy. This is even though the thing we are comparing it to -- mail in ballot -- is also highly troublesome. With mail in ballot you give up secret ballot, since you can sign your ballot and give it to the vote buyer to fill out and mail. So while there are a number of contentious issues on internet voting that are worthy of discussion, the SERVE story is much simpler. Internetvoting from a home Windows PC should be a non-starter on its own.
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- more on Report Says Internet Voting System Is Too Insecure to Use (fwd) Dave Farber (Jan 22)