Posted on 09/11/2016 11:47:57 AM PDT by Hostage
"Postal service wants to begin with small corporate and civic elections before ramping up to handle a full parliamentary election."
Australia Post is looking to move into the business of running elections, and plans to use the blockchain as a central pillar of its plan.
In a submission to the Victorian Electoral Matters Committee, the government-owned postal service said community expectations were driving the push towards digital voting, and it would be looking to put its prior work with blockchain to use.
"The emergence of crypto currencies on the technology known as blockchain have highlighted opportunities to repurpose that technology to capture various digital transactions in immutable, distributed and secure ways," Australia Post State Director, Victorian Government and Tasmania, Tim Adamson, said in the submission.
(Excerpt) Read more at zdnet.com ...
Again you haven’t read the link I posted to you about how Block-Chain Tech works.
I don’t see what your point is other than flail on about how Block-Chain Tech doesn’t work or can’t work and then making up flawed impossible examples or remarks that only serve to reveal you don’t know how it works.
Today people do NOT get to see what’s going on in the machines until the election official is ready to certify the votes. People can see the results (every second if necessary) transmitted to the blockchain but not what’s going on in the machine while it’s counting votes. The blockchain may be receiving fraud vote totals but because it is monitoring every vote as they happen, it is easy to intervene a any time and test some ballots against what the machine recorded.
You missed the point that it’s not the machines that need to know the blockchain, it’s the blockchain that monitors the machines, not the other way around.
What it seems you are attempting to say is that a hacked machine can report a fraudulent vote to the blockchain so that the blockchain will never know the difference. Again what you are not realizing is the blockchain is keeping totals for each moment of voting. It’s not waiting for the polling station to close before it sees inconsistencies. If a machine is fraudulently assigning a vote, then it is easy for a poll watcher to see inconsistencies develop.
A partial cross check of a small number of hand counts can be random to check against what the blockchain has on the machine. It’s much easier to count 10 or 20 ballots and compare the total on those ballots against what the blockchain has on them than to wait to conduct a hand recount on thousands and thousands of votes after the polling station closes.
Random ballot counting of sequential ballots against the same sequence in the blockchain and the machine as they come off the machine must all agree or it’s fraud or malfunction in which case the machine must be stopped. And it’s impossible to make a node of a blockchain agree with a particular machine because the blockchain is many different nodes in a network and it’s impossible to hack the blockchain to make all the nodes agree as they are all independent.
Again poll watchers can keep independent tallies of hand counts and they can monitor the blockchain votes that is being received from machines. The ballots once cast become property of the state, hence poll watchers can count ballots as they are gathered to perform cross-checks.
The way the system is arranged now with machines is that the totals are not executed until the polling stations are closed, and then the memory card totals are uploaded to the county level. There is no opportunity or an electronic audit trail to assist in monitoring for fraud as the vote is conducted. There is no indication of fraud in most every case. The blockchain with its real-time monitoring capability solves all the problems at each level. And it’s secure.
Again read how it works in the link I posted to you above. It covers everything,
My point is you’re trying to fix the wrong problem and grossly failing to understand what the actual problem is.
People STILL will not be able to see what’s going on in the machines. Hell even election officials don’t see it, they’re just hoping the stuff works as advertised. Every 4 years we see the story “I pushed X but Y blinked”, BCT doesn’t fix that, BCT won’t KNOW they’re fraud votes. It can’t. The touch screen is going to say “vote for Y” and BCT will say “certified” even though the voter will be saying “I pushed X”.
The block chain can’t monitor the RIGHT PART of the machine.
But the moment of voting doesn’t matter. You’re completely not understanding basic software communications. There’s no possible way for the blockchain to know what button was pushed OUTSIDE of being told BY THE SOFTWARE ON THE MACHINE. If the software is lying blockchain’s got no way to know that. It can’t see the inconsistencies, and the poll watchers can’t see the inconsistencies, and there’s nothing to hand count because they don’t make a paper record (or if they do it’s in response to what the touch screen says, which means it matches the data fed to block chain.
Random ballot watching WON’T HELP. There’s nothing for them to watch.
Your link talks entirely about online voting, which has problems I’ve discussed with the other guy, and does not address ANY of the issues I’ve outlined.
You’re just missing how all the works, let me outline:
There’s a computer
It’s been programmed to register votes
The vote registration system has been gamed
It will take a certain percentage of votes for one candidate and turn them to the other
All records that computer generates (soft or hard) will reflect that change
There will be NO record (soft or hard) of those votes as being for the intended candidate
There will ONLY be records (soft or hard) of those votes will say they’re for the programmer chosen candidate
Hand counts will be of printouts made by that software and therefore will reflect the programmer chosen candidate
Software counts (like block chain) will be of made by that software and therefore will reflect the programmer chosen candidate
He who controls the software that decides what button was pushed controls ALL records of the vote
Putting a block chain after that does nothing
> “People STILL will not be able to see what’s going on in the machines. Hell even election officials don’t see it, they’re just hoping the stuff works as advertised. Every 4 years we see the story “I pushed X but Y blinked”, BCT doesn’t fix that, BCT won’t KNOW they’re fraud votes. It can’t. The touch screen is going to say “vote for Y” and BCT will say “certified” even though the voter will be saying “I pushed X”.”
That’s what exists today, TODAY.
When Block-Chain Tech is implemented, there shall be changes on how that all works. Touchscreens may still be utilized but with protective features that will appear when Block-Chain Tech is implemented.
Companies that make voting machines will need to be blockchain-compliant. That’s not excessively burdensome, it happens in every industry on an as-need basis. Samsung for example just had to recall all its newest product mobile phones.
If there is no hand ballot scanner, for example, only touchscreens are available, then other options are available.
One example was described above in a post to you by another poster. It involves giving a voter a temporary encrypted pass-fob that is unique (only one vote) that can be used by the voter to both vote and verify their vote.
Their vote can be recorded behind an encryption code and is IMMEDIATELY transmitted to the blockchain and matched with a corresponding encryption code in the blockchain.
A hack of this would be extraordinarily difficult to defeat. The hacker would have to get past, say a 256-bit encryption code and the hacker would have to do it for each vote.
Because the code and the vote would transmit together to the blockchain, they would hit each node in the blockchain making it impossible for a hacker to hack the entire blockchain. Any inconsistencies would entail suspending the polling station until an investigation was complete. Backup procedures would be carried out to allow voting to continue.
At polling stations where hand ballots are fed into a scanner, we have already covered that above.
Donald Trump is a former casino investor and owner, for very high-end gaming equipment. Companies that make gaming equipment for high-end casinos understand security extremely well. They understand people will do everything under the sun to make machines payout including magnets. RF signals, you name it.
There is no reason on Earth why Block-Chain Tech cannot be procured with high security to ensure election integrity. Existing voting machine companies can be certified to be blockchain-compliant. They are certified now by other means but those certifications are a joke as many security holes and vulnerabilities exist. The US Government can cause companies to close those holes by moving to secure Block-Chain Technology.
The main problem I’ve seen raised with block chain voting is that a voter would be able to prove that he voted a particular way, which would allow for vote selling and vote coercion. I would love to be able to verify that my vote was recorded properly, but can’t figure out how without tripping on this issue.
No, private keys are never handed out. Also there is no database of public keys, just the blockchain storing the transactions allowing a vote per public key.
Most people don’t trust crypto systems. They ignore them.
Most people use crypto systems. They can't ignore them. Or do you think there is anyone who asks their bank for an unprotected connection?
Well now that you’ve said correct we are in complete agreement
Yes we are. Part of my job is to make crypto systems work whether or not people "ignore" them. But if people don't trust my work, then they won't hire me, so it something I have to worry about.
That might have been me. Whether it was or not, the private key is not given to the voter, but the voter does have to register a public key with a registrar. I said numerous times that the system does not solve the problem of multiple registrations, fraudulent registrations, etc.
So the pre-voting registration problem remains unsolved. On election day the system I described allows what you said: one vote per registered voter (fraudulently registered or not). Plus the voter can immediate verify that their vote was recorded immutably which is not possible with any of today's voting methods.
No. As discostu pointed out often, those can be hacked. Also you cannot have an existing system writing to the blockchain with its own private key mainly because there are no such systems with private keys. In bitcoin you will never see a system make a transaction with a private key, only a person with their own private key.
I have no idea what any of that means
How do you figure you’ll get your personal identifying information uploaded into the blockchain?
I don’t see how that could happen.
> “multiple registrations, fraudulent registrations”
Those are solved greatly by requiring Voter ID and keeping the voter rolls up tp date. But that’s a political fight in the courts now which will eventually be settled in the next 10 years or less.
The blockchain solves the problem of electronic vote fraud.
Semantics. I wrote companies, not systems.
The companies will have to redesign to meet blockchain specs.
And they will have to be certified to build those machines to spec.
I have a sense though that the gaming industry will leap ahead of existing vote machine mfgs as the current machines have gaping security holes in them.
I can’t imagine much worse designs in terms of security than what are found on existing machines.
Bitcoin is a ‘crypto currency’. Although Bitcoin has had accounts hacked, those hacks have had nothing to do with their innovation in creating Block-Chain Technology.
What he’s saying is that Block-Chain Technology which was invented for crypto currencies can have extended uses (be adapted for) to other digital transactions such as voting.
Your personal identifying info does not need to be published on the block chain for this to be a problem. Your public key uniquely identifies your votes.
Suppose Alice wants to sell her vote to Bob. Alice submits her vote on the block chain per Bob’s instruction including her public key and a digital signature proving she has the private key. Bob wants to verify the Alice kept her part of the deal and has her send the public key to him signed with a digital signature proving again that she has the private key. Now Bob can look up Alice’s vote on the block chain to verify she kept the deal.
Sounds like an analog version of a checksum.
How does a public key identify the person using it? It doesn’t.
palmer explains it better above:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3468215/posts?page=45#45
In my example, Alice identifies herself with the public key. It true, there is no information in the public key from which you can derive Alice's identity, but that does not stop Alice from doing so herself.
Perhaps palmer will return and shed some more light on this.
It is quite solid theory and technology (proven unbreakability and privacy). First, Alice creates a private key on her phone or computer. The computer encrypts and stores it securely on disk or flash. The private key can also be backed up into a file (online or removable drive) and it is encrypted in that backup file.
Immediate after her computer creates the private key, it derives the corresponding public key. When Alice wants to register that public key to the voting registrar, she presents the public key and her real world credentials to the registrar. Currently the registrar would look up her name and address in a database. What we are proposing in this thread is to look her up in the blockchain. In order to maintain privacy the blockchain will contain a one-way hash of the real world name and address (and probably other universal info). The important thing is for the hashed real world info to be canonical so Alice cannot register more than once with slight variations of the real world info.
If registration lookup is successful (simply that the hash isn't already on the chain), the registrar adds her hash and her public key to the chain (technically also a hash of the public key). Then the registrar transacts the credit for one vote to Alice's blockchain public key for the next election.
Finally we get to your question. When Alice wants to vote she must prove that she has a private key that matches her public key in the blockchain. That is very simple and the heart of PKI. She signs a transaction message with her private key. The transaction messages says "I hereby vote for Trump...." The SW on her phone or computer decrypts her stored private key, uses the private key to sign the message, erases the decrypted private key from memory so it can't be stolen by malware, and sends the signed transaction message to the blockchain. The blockchain verifies the signature using the public key.
If you remember one thing in PKI it is "sign with the private key, verify with the public key". The blockchain adds a transaction to the blockchain with the voting message in it. Nobody really knows (*) that it is Alice's transaction, but Alice can look up via her public key and see her vote. The blockchain also uses up the voting credit as it adds the vote. That way Alice cannot vote twice. She will be issued a new credit for the next election.
(*) Normally public keys really are public, and every can look up which public key belongs to Alice. But in the case of voting that would have to be prevented. I am not expert enough to know exactly how to do that.
Good point. I have no immediate solution for that either. But I can imagine some would be possible and use the same mechanism to enforce privacy. Essentially Alice has to ask a trusted third party (the government registrar) to prove her vote is on the chain. She has to submit proof that she is Alice. Then the registrar looks up a hash with that proof to find the vote on the chain. Bob could ask Alice for that info to do the same and I have no solution for that. Perhaps Alice would have to present herself in person or via Skype.
No there won’t be. That’s what I’ve explained to you over and over and over. Being on the block chain is not going to force them to have honest software, and it won’t prevent the touch screen interface from being hacked even if their software was honest.
You’re panacea thinking. And there are no panaceas, especially in the tech sector.
There MUST be a database of valid voters and there MUST be somebody saying “you there, yes you are in this database and therefore may use your key to vote”. Any system that doesn’t do that is just letting any random jackass with a computer vote.
HTTPS != using a crypto system.
This isn’t a crypto system that people could ignore. AND it won’t solve ANY of the problem. You’ve already admitted that.
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