Thanks to deoetdoctrinae for the ping!
Posted on 05/07/2019 1:49:59 PM PDT by dayglored
In brief: Microsoft said ElectionGuard isn’t mean to replace paper ballots but rather, supplement and improve systems that rely on them. It also isn’t designed to support Internet voting, so there’s some reassurance there for those that aren’t yet convinced of such technologies.
Microsoft is expanding its Defending Democracy Program with a new product called ElectionGuard. Announced at Build 2019 today, ElectionGuard is a free, open source SDK that Microsoft is developing in partnership with Portland-based Galois that is designed to boost the security and public verifiability of elections.
ElectionGuard isn’t a standalone voting system but rather, an “add-on” of sorts for existing systems. According to Microsoft, it’ll enable end-to-end verification of elections, allow individual voters to confirm their votes were correctly counted and open results to third-party organizations for validation.
TechCrunch provides additional insight into how the system will work:
The platform would sit underneath existing voting systems, and when a voter casts their ballot, the data would be entered in the ordinary fashion in a state’s election systems, but also in ElectionGuard. The voter would then be given a tracking code that lets them see that their vote has been, say, recorded locally at the correct polling place, or perhaps that it has been sent on to state authorities for auditing.
Critically, this is done without the voting administration or Microsoft knowing how any individual actually voted through a cryptographic process called homomorphic encryption that allows mathematical processes – like counting – to be done on data that is still encrypted. Senior cryptographer Josh Benaloh has been pioneering Microsoft’s use of homomorphic encryption in election systems, the company said.
Microsoft has partnered with several leading election technology providers to pilot the service and will make the ElectionGuard SDK available on GitHub this summer. They’re also working to build a reference voting system to showcase ElectionGuard’s capabilities.
The SDK’s reference implementation will additionally provide guidance on how to set up a system on a Windows 10 platform for maximum security. It’ll even include an application for integrating an Xbox Adaptive Controller to improve accessibility for those with disabilities.
Thanks to deoetdoctrinae for the ping!
The best way to corrupt elections is to both centralize them, and put them on a standardized system
Don’t trust microsquish one inch.
Open source means anyone can change the code and recompile it.
Not just no, but hell no! Blue Screen of Election Death?
Get an ID.
Microsoft?
Same company that has the most hole-filled OS in the multiverse?
Same company whose OS is specifically constructed to get data from you, no matter how much you try to disable that data collection?
Same company that built the multiverse’s worse browser for decades?
Bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah!
I don’t trust MicroThief either.
If you believe MS’s claim about ElectionGuard then you probably believe in global warming too.
MS needs to put money where mouth is and offer $1 billion reward for Russian and Chinese hackers who hack it.
“Because everybody, and I mean EVERYBODY, trusts Microsoft.”
It’s open source, so anyone can see the underlying code.
I think this is move in the right direction. So, naturally, Democrats and RINOs will oppose or ignore it.
One danger of fraud I think is if the system can be accessed to make a list of people who have not voted. This might make it easier for stolen voter registrations to be used to vote fraudulently. But open source is a good way to go. Right now we have no way of knowing whether the systems being used are vulnerable to hacking and voter fraud.
There needs to be accountability at every level, and there needs to be a clear chain of custody from ballots to counting.
The software can be perfect, but it won’t stop fraud without other commonsense measures such as requiring voter ID.
I think we need to park cars with facial recognition software and cameras at major polling locations that are close. Those coming and going should be recorded and compared to see if they may be going to multiple polling locations.
More security measures are needed for absentee ballots.
They do not, historically, do SECURITY well. More than a decade after Unix showed how you could secure an operating system, Microsoft was still putting random 3rd-party drivers in the kernel, and attaching executable files to emails that would launch on opening. They've gotten better in the last 10 years, but only grudgingly, and with uneven results.
Why in the world would US Citizens entrust the security of their only voice in their government -- their precious VOTE -- to a private company that demonstrably does not have their privacy as a priority?
Frankly, I'd much rather have a real security company, or better, a consortium of competing real security companies, do it.
Accountability.
Traceability.
Reliability.
TRUST.
Not Microsoft, not Apple, not Google, not Yahoo, not Amazon, ...
Maybe the NSA. Hell, they already have all that data anyway... :-)
True, but... I mean this kindly, but seriously:
When was the last time YOU inspected any open-source program source, in enough detail to catch subtle security holes?Me neither.
I love open source stuff, but ultimately, 99.9999% of us rely on "somebody else" to read and analyze the open source code for security problems.
Just sayin', visibility doesn't guarantee either correctness or security.
Why not? What could go wrong? lol
Yeah, right. What could possibly go wrong? Only thing worse is if you let Fakebook count the votes and certify the winner.
From the guys who gave us Windows ME
Microsoft’s record on security is not good.
And you are going to believe the code they show you is the code compiled and installed on the machines?
Or if someone does a last minute update?
Ok what is their liability if stuff goes wrong?
They are not an elections, or even a computer, security company.
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