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	<h2>Blockchains Are Not Safe For Voting, Concludes NAP Report (nytimes.com)</h2>
	<div class='details'>(Thursday September 06, 2018 @11:30PM (BeauHD) 
from the ensuring-the-integrity-of-elections dept.)</div>
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    <ul>
    <li>Reference: <a href=''>0102640864</a></li>
        <li>News link: <a href='https://politics.slashdot.org/story/18/09/06/2137245/blockchains-are-not-safe-for-voting-concludes-nap-report'>https://politics.slashdot.org/story/18/09/06/2137245/blockchains-are-not-safe-for-voting-concludes-nap-report</a></li>
        <li>Source link: <a href='https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2018/09/06/technology/ap-us-tec-election-security-reform-report.html'>https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2018/09/06/technology/ap-us-tec-election-security-reform-report.html</a></li>
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	<div class='content' style='text-align: justify'>
		The National Academies Press has released a 156-page report, called &quot; [1]Securing the Vote: Protecting American Democracy ,&quot; concluding that blockchains are not safe for the U.S. election system. &quot;While the notion of using a blockchain as an immutable ballot box may seem promising, blockchain technology does little to solve the fundamental security issues of elections, and indeed, blockchains introduce additional security vulnerabilities,&quot; the report [2]states . &quot;In particular, if malware on a voter&#x27;s device alters a vote before it ever reaches a blockchain, the immutability of the blockchain fails to provide the desired integrity, and the voter may never know of the alteration.&quot;<br/><br/>The report goes on to say that &quot;Blockchains do not provide the anonymity often ascribed to them.&quot; It continues: &quot;In the particular context of elections, voters need to be authorized as eligible to vote and as not having cast more than one ballot in the particular election. Blockchains do not offer means for providing the necessary authorization. [...] If a blockchain is used, then cast ballots must be encrypted or otherwise anonymized to prevent coercion and vote-selling.&quot; The New York Times summarizes the findings:<br/><br/>&gt; The cautiously worded report [3]calls for conducting all federal, state and local elections on paper ballots by 2020 . Its other top recommendation would require nationwide use of a specific form of routine postelection audit to ensure votes have been accurately counted. The panel did not offer a price tag for its recommended overhaul. New York University&#x27;s Brennan Center has estimated that replacing aging voting machines over the next few years could cost well over $1 billion. The 156-page report [...] bemoans a rickety system compromised by insecure voting equipment and software whose vulnerabilities were exposed more than a decade ago and which are too often managed by officials with little training in cybersecurity.<br/><br/>&gt;<br/><br/>&gt; Among its specific recommendations was a mainstay of election reformers: All elections should use human-readable paper ballots by 2020. Such systems are intended to assure voters that their vote was recorded accurately. They also create a lasting record of &quot;voter intent&quot; that can be used for reliable recounts, which may not be possible in systems that record votes electronically. [...] The panel also calls for all states to adopt a type of post-election audit that employs statistical analysis of ballots prior to results certification. Such &quot;risk-limiting&quot; audits are designed to uncover miscounts and vote tampering. Currently only three states mandate them.<br/><br/><br/><br/>[1] https://www.nap.edu/catalog/25120/securing-the-vote-protecting-american-democracy<br/><br/>[2] https://www.nap.edu/read/25120/chapter/7#103<br/><br/>[3] https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2018/09/06/technology/ap-us-tec-election-security-reform-report.html
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    <h3></h3>
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      <h3>Re:All security = an implementation. (Score:5, Insightful)</h3>
      <div class='by' style='font-style: italic;'>by PopeRatzo ( 965947 )</div>
      <div class='comment_content'><p></p><p>> To say blockchain is inherently unsafe is like saying software is inherently unsafe</p><p>Oh, you are so close to a breakthrough.</p><p>When it comes to voting, blockchain, like software, IS inherently unsafe. If the main goal for voting security is maintaining the people's confidence in an election, the only system that will meet that standard is a system where people are actually keeping an eye on one another. And I mean physically watching one another. And that's the system we had in place before the advent of voting machines and election software. You had a room full of election judges from both sides, and they sat side-by-side checking in voters as they approached the voting booth and physically watched them put the ballot in the box. When the votes were counted, there was a whole bunch of people from both parties standing around keeping a close eye. When the ballots were sent for storage, one person from each party rode in the truck to drop them off after sealing the container - together - and signing off.</p><p>It was trust, but verify. Was it possible to jigger with an election like that? Of course. But you had a list of names of people you could hold accountable at every step in the process. Electronic voting will never, ever be trusted. That is the effect of transparency.</p></div>
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          <h3>Re: (Score:1, Insightful)</h3>
          <div class='by' style='font-style: italic;'>by Anonymous Coward</div>
          <div class='comment_content'><p></p><p>> " If the main goal for voting security is maintaining the people's confidence in an election " - Well I don't agree with that starting point definition. I think security = security, not theater of.</p><p>Then you're bad at security. Security is theater.</p><p>There is no impregnable system. Security can only increase the difficulty of entering a system, it cannot stop a determined opponent. Is a CCTV system going to stop someone from breaking into your store? No, but it will make the person think twice about it, because they are likely to be recorded, found, and caught. Is the TSA likely to stop all bad guys from getting on planes? No, but it alters how much they must prepare to get on board the plane so hop</p></div>
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            <h3>Re: (Score:2)</h3>
            <div class='by' style='font-style: italic;'>by Ocker3 ( 1232550 )</div>
            <div class='comment_content'><p></p><p>Sadly, the TSA haven't shown themselves to be any good at their job, repeatedly. It's hard to get good help when the work is shite, the 'customers' range from sullen to hating you, and the pay is peanuts.</p></div>
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        <h3>Transparency is the key (Score:1)</h3>
        <div class='by' style='font-style: italic;'>by victor_alarcon ( 5520418 )</div>
        <div class='comment_content'><p></p><p>I thought that was the main selling point. Yes, I'm sure someone can come up with some anonymity scheme but transparency should be top priority. Apologies if the point is too naive.</p></div>
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        <h3>Re: (Score:1)</h3>
        <div class='by' style='font-style: italic;'>by Anonymous Coward</div>
        <div class='comment_content'><p></p><p>Paper votes aren't any better, just look at Russia's vote stuffing. Literately. Someone comes up to the booth and stuffs fake/coerced votes into the box.</p><p>Now the way most US, Canadian, and UK elections are run, the paper vote is a two-step process.</p><p>A) You go to a scrutineer to check your name off a PAPER list, they hand you a ballot with no identifying information on it</p><p>B) You mark an X on the ballot, fold it in half or stick it in a privacy envelope and then stick it in a cardboard box with a hole on top.</p><p>Now</p></div>
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          <h3>Re: (Score:2)</h3>
          <div class='by' style='font-style: italic;'>by PopeRatzo ( 965947 )</div>
          <div class='comment_content'><p></p><p>> Paper votes aren't any better, just look at Russia's vote stuffing. Literately. Someone comes up to the booth and stuffs fake/coerced votes into the box.</p><p>That's right, because Russia doesn't have the same safeguards built into their elections that we have. You don't have election judges from both sides watching every vote from the time it's cast to the time it's counted to the time it's sent for storage. In the US, there have to be two election judges on hand when absentee ballots are opened.</p><p>People can sti</p></div>
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        <h3>Re: (Score:2)</h3>
        <div class='by' style='font-style: italic;'>by Ocker3 ( 1232550 )</div>
        <div class='comment_content'><p></p><p>I'd invite you to visit us in Australia, where we have the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC), a non-partisan (not bi-partisan) body of people who are collectively considered the Platinum Standard of running elections around the world. We actually send people to the USA to train election staff. We don't have party reps in the voting area until the polls close, then the parties can send in scrutineers who check that the paper ballots are being counted as per the regulations (when I did this I actually not</p></div>
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          <h3>Re: (Score:2)</h3>
          <div class='by' style='font-style: italic;'>by PopeRatzo ( 965947 )</div>
          <div class='comment_content'><p></p><p>> I'd invite you to visit us in Australia,</p><p>I've spent a fair amount of time in Australia. Yes, I've heard you guys do a good job with elections, but I'm not coming back until you get rid of those spiders that jump up and bite you on the eye. Oh, and drop bears and yowgwai. I don't need that kind of stress, thanks.</p></div>
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      <h3>Re: (Score:2)</h3>
      <div class='by' style='font-style: italic;'>by shellster_dude ( 1261444 )</div>
      <div class='comment_content'><p></p><p>Blockchains are obviously a terrible solution to election fraud. The only thing that prevents blockchain tampering is a ton of neutral third party machines checking the transactions (typically miners). We've already seen that this is a non-trivial problem when there is plenty of incentive for random people to fulfill that role (mining of crypto currency). National elections have very little incentive for people to invest thousands in hardware and electricity, and a ton of incentive for nation states like</p></div>
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    <h3>Oh the irony (Score:4, Insightful)</h3>
    <div class='by' style='font-style: italic;'>by the_skywise ( 189793 )</div>
    <div class='comment_content'><p></p><p>> All elections should use human-readable paper ballots by 2020. Such systems are intended to assure voters that their vote was recorded accurately. They also create a lasting record of "voter intent" that can be used for reliable recounts,</p><p>Now I agree with this and am happy to move back to paper ballots - But the entire reason we moved away from paper ballots was because of the 2000 elections where Florida used punch cards and political officers kept trying to argue over "partial punches", "dimpled chads" and "dangling chads" where they tried to reassess what the voter's INTENT was.</p><p>And, of course, let's not forget magical disappearing and appearing boxes of ballots.</p><p>Any system can be hacked but the electronic one is harder to track hacking than the good ol' traditional methods with paper ballots.</p></div>
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      <h3>Re: (Score:3)</h3>
      <div class='by' style='font-style: italic;'>by Dare nMc ( 468959 )</div>
      <div class='comment_content'><p></p><p>Their have been academic papers proposing electronic system that would be safe, where you could verify that your vote was counted (IE received at the server.)</p><p>In theory with open software, hardware, and multiple servers (again all open source) we could have a very robust electronic voting system. This would require a large project likely done with universities, and it may even be similar to some bitcoin concepts.</p><p>The technology side is very solvable, getting the project started, past the politics, and accept</p></div>
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    <h3>Key statement (Score:2, Insightful)</h3>
    <div class='by' style='font-style: italic;'>by Anonymous Coward</div>
    <div class='comment_content'><p></p><p>They key statement in the finding that most technology solutions fail to solve is this:</p><p>"Such systems are intended to *assure* voters that their vote was recorded accurately."</p><p>In the end, paper ballots may seem inefficient from a processing perspective, but that inefficiency becomes inherently difficult to tamper with and builds in systems for checks and recounts. The argument here is that blockchain is vulnerable before the data is stored in the blockchain, at the UI and the machine level, and blockchain th</p></div>
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      <h3>Re: (Score:2)</h3>
      <div class='by' style='font-style: italic;'>by presidenteloco ( 659168 )</div>
      <div class='comment_content'><p></p><p>Blanket arguments against computer algorithms for secure voting (or secure anything) are illogical, emotional, and flawed.</p><p>People argue to the effect: Because many programs have been found to have a security flaw in either A) the algorithm mathematics and logical assumptions, or in B) the implementation, therefore ALL programs must have some flaw in A) or B) therefore there is no such thing is a secure computer program. That is just bullshit. It's incorrect, unsupported generalization from specific examples.</p></div>
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        <h3>Re: (Score:2)</h3>
        <div class='by' style='font-style: italic;'>by presidenteloco ( 659168 )</div>
        <div class='comment_content'><p></p><p>Ok, there's a stupid bug in slashdot apparently, not including my less-than sign.</p><p>There. One bug.</p><p>What's up with that. Let me try again. Hmm. There was a less-than in there just to the left of this sentence. That's lame on slashdot software's part.</p><p>So you proved that ALL programs have bugs?</p><p>Didn't think so.</p></div>
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    <h3>Paper ballots are by far the most secure solution (Score:4, Insightful)</h3>
    <div class='by' style='font-style: italic;'>by Seven Spirals ( 4924941 )</div>
    <div class='comment_content'><p></p><p>Gimme a break. Use paper. Computers will be better tools for tabulating and processing the votes after they are cast, but it's tough to beat paper for a recount. Even paper has it's flaws, but the hand waving crypto-bullshit is pathetic "Oh but this counter signature will detect if the previous initialization vector was properly zeroed inside of the S-Box" *rolls eyes*. KISS baby. Things don't get more secure by making them more complex and I can't think of any way to make something more complex than to introduce computers. Computers are great at some things, ideal for some tasks: not for voting. They suck at that.</p></div>
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    <h3>paper ballots (Score:1)</h3>
    <div class='by' style='font-style: italic;'>by Anonymous Coward</div>
    <div class='comment_content'><p></p><p>The only way you can have some measure of accountability while keeping votes anonymous.</p></div>
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    <h3>Or, for heaven's sake, you can just use paper (Score:3)</h3>
    <div class='by' style='font-style: italic;'>by mark-t ( 151149 )</div>
    <div class='comment_content'><p></p><p>Make a simple mark on a paper ballot indicating your vote, fold it, put it in a box.</p><p>done</p><p>Now theoretically you could bribe people who do the counting, but you'd have to bribe a *LOT* of people to make any kind of difference because each individual ballot box with the folded ballots contains but a tiny fraction of the number of votes, and nobody ever counts the ballots from more than one or sometimes two different boxes.</p></div>
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    <h3>the real story (Score:2)</h3>
    <div class='by' style='font-style: italic;'>by slashmydots ( 2189826 )</div>
    <div class='comment_content'><p></p><p>Blockchains are perfect, right? WRONG. And also right. They are mathmatically flawless BUT if you outprocess the rest of the network, you can finalize a block with whatever the hell you want in it. You can form a block that says you own all bitcoins, all transactions put them in your wallet, and you're also the queen of England. The reason this "51% attack" doesn't happen it because that amount of processing power doesn't exist. That many ASICs don't exist on Earth. But let's set up a separate blockchain an</p></div>
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      <h3>Re: (Score:2)</h3>
      <div class='by' style='font-style: italic;'>by Kaenneth ( 82978 )</div>
      <div class='comment_content'><p></p><p>Even with a 51% attack, the Bitcoin blockchain is filled with digital signatures; noone but your own nodes would accept the blocks, and you would only be 'fooling' yourself.</p><p>Electronic voting could only work if every citizen had their own private, secure, digital signature key. Which can't happen in the US because poor people can't afford them, and a certain party would never give anything for free, while the other would protect the poor.</p></div>
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      <h3>Re: (Score:2)</h3>
      <div class='by' style='font-style: italic;'>by jwymanm ( 627857 )</div>
      <div class='comment_content'><p></p><p>This was the dumbest comment in the article. Obviously software methods exist to verify after the fact that what you saved is what you expected.</p></div>
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    <h3>It's not how the vote was recorded... (Score:2)</h3>
    <div class='by' style='font-style: italic;'>by LynnwoodRooster ( 966895 )</div>
    <div class='comment_content'><p></p><p>> The report goes on to say that "Blockchains do not provide the anonymity often ascribed to them." It continues: "In the particular context of elections, voters need to be authorized as eligible to vote and as not having cast more than one ballot in the particular election.</p><p>It's who casts the vote. Before we even worry about Blockchain, we need to ensure people casting the ballots are legally eligible to vote. Guaranteeing a vote was cast is no more important than guaranteeing who cast the vote was eligible to actually cast that vote.</p></div>
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    <h3>Paper ballots (Score:2)</h3>
    <div class='by' style='font-style: italic;'>by burtosis ( 1124179 )</div>
    <div class='comment_content'><p></p><p>Let me start out saying 100% electronic voting is going to be a disaster, triply so when done remotely and not at a secure voting machine. But what most people don't realize is we currently use unencrypted images of paper ballots in many states as backups. These are very insecure. Why not use paper ballots for the primary method, blockchain for the electronic backups? This ultimately seems far more secure than what we are doing now. We also could use open source machines and have audits at each polling</p></div>
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