Quantum Crypto in the Real World

bednarz writes "Swiss officials are using quantum cryptography technology to protect voting ballots cast in the Geneva region of Switzerland during parliamentary elections to be held Oct. 21, marking the first time this type of advanced encryption will be used for election protection purposes. "We would like to provide optimal security conditions for the work of counting the ballots," said Robert Hensler, the Geneva State Chancellor. "In this context, the value added by quantum cryptography concerns not so much protection from outside attempts to interfere as the ability to verify that the data have not been corrupted in transit between entry and storage.""

Comments

No fair, you changed the outcome by measuring it!

[Cyberax]

Nuff said :)

Heisenburg Voting

[Anonymous Coward]

Each voter is voting for all candidates simultaneously until the vote is actually read.

The Heisen-Rove uncertainty principle

[User 956]

Swiss officials are using quantum cryptography technology to protect voting ballots cast in the Geneva region of Switzerland

Bah, we hace somnething similar in the U.S. Diebold has been using quantum encryption technology on their voting systems for years. That is to say, attempting to examine the vote count, alters the count.

That Doesn't Make Sense

[logicnazi]

If the only concern is non-intentional errors introduced by hardware (or software) then a simple hash should be effective.

Re:That Doesn't Make Sense

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

Also not making sense are the reference to the "1 GHz quantum encrypter" and the statement that they're holding back information about how it works for security reasons. Either it's vulnerable or it isn't. And gigahertz are the wrong units of measure. And quantum key exchange doesn't work that fast.

Re:That Doesn't Make Sense

[Jarjarthejedi]

But the biggest question of all...how many Parsecs does it take for this system to make the Kessel Run?

Re:That Doesn't Make Sense

[ceroklis]

It does make sense if you realize that the only point of the exercise is economic promotion of the Geneva region. Robert Hensler is also pushing internet voting (using local technology) for the same reasons. See for instance this. The mention "ideal business location" should give you an idea of what this is all about.

I love this misguided attempt at security

[spagetti_code]

Its kinda like when someone says they are using 4096 bit encryption for their SSL banking, and not realising their password is being stolen by a keylogger.

The biggest problem we face today is *not* the encryption. We have bags of good encryption technologies out there, from AES (symmetric) to a variety of Public Key techniques. The problem actually comes from the people and processes at either end of the encryption pipe.

Guess what - no-ones SSID has (probably) ever been stolen while in transit via SSL over the internet. The millions of SSIDs stolen to date have been theft of laptops or admins not securing their websites properly. Hopefully they will understand this, and spend an equal portion of their time/energy securing their endpoints.

They never get it

[goombah99]

Crypto and now Quantum Crypto--theve voting machine folks just never get. Too wrapped in the forest of their own cleverness to see the trees. All these assertions of provable voting miss the entire point of transparency. Voters need to be able to see how it all works. You don't wrap it up in a trust-me-the-math-proves-it burrito and call it transparent. All that does is exclude participation in the process and every time you centralize the cryto it means it takes fewer and fewer people to exploit the hole they forgot to close and don't know about yet. The real solution is to spread the problem out in the sunshine so that even if it allows more people access to fudging things it also takes more people to achieve a significant fudge and the risk of getting caught is higher.

The key thing about voting is this: it's actually unlikely anyone will cheat but every wants to be sure it did not happen. Voting is about convincing the losers they lost not proving who won. it has to be convincing.

Re:They never get it

[causality]

While I can't say I know very much about how this is being implemented, and therefore could only speculate about the threat model and how it is being addressed, I very much appreciate your point about the need for transparency. I would further submit that an aspect of the problem that is not often discussed but certainly does have a strong influence in the outcome of elections and how they affect the country (i.e. the entire point of having a vote) is not so much how the voting is carried out, but who is doing the voting.

I realize how unrealistic it is that this would actually be tried, but what I would really like to see is a restriction that prevents anyone from voting until they demonstrate that they understand how the government actually works. Something like a (hopefully very tough) civics test that must be passed every so often in order to retain the right to vote, with emphasis on what is and what is not the proper role of government. At least in the USA, it seems that just because so-called "literacy tests" were abused for the purpose of denying suffrage to black people, during a time when the evils of open racism were widespread, we threw the baby out with the bathwater and decided to discard the entire idea that a voter should demonstrate some competence before performing such an important duty.

This could work if anyone who meets the other requirements (at least 18 years of age, not a convicted felon, etc.) is eligible to take such a test and maybe it would be a good idea to allow them to re-take the test until they pass. The idea is that with informed voters who understand how the system was intended (by the Founding Fathers) to work, elections would be determined more by a candidate's position on issues, their track record (if available) of how they handled previous positions of power, and whether their ideas are actually sustainable long-term (which many of our entitlement programs are not, such as Social Security and other vote-buying techniques) and less by 30-second ads on TV, campaign slogans, empty promises, and party affiliation. I believe this would also have the effect of selecting against the knee-jerk, ill-considered reaction of valuing security more than freedom and would probably also make it a little easier for candidates who do not belong to the two major parties to win elections beyond the local-government level.

One thing that has always bothered me about politics is the unwillingness to try new ideas to see if they are superior (and if not, why) and abandon them if they are not. It seems that we have too much faith in the status quo and are only ever willing to change it in reaction to some kind of crisis -- often due to skillful use of Problem, Reaction, Solution aka Thesis, Antithesis, Synthesis (Hegel) -- by taking measures that wind up being set in stone and very difficult to change in the future.

Re:They never get it

[causality]

The idea of a civics test is not a particular outcome as you seem to suggest (nice straw man btw), but the more basic concepts of how the system is implemented. It would require that the voter knows i.e. what the executive branch does that the legislative does not, the intentions behind the Bill of Rights and what they were designed to protect (and what they were designed to protect from), and that government only really does three things well, which are: defense, law enforcement, and public works. Someone who could pass such a test would probably also know that the Founding Fathers intended for the vast majority (90+%) of government to come from the local and state level during peacetime. Someone who understand very well how the system is implemented would also tend to recognize when it is being abused, either by vote-buying programs or by noticing how asset forfeiture laws directly contradict the 4th Amendment or by observing that the Fairness Doctrine contradicts the First Amendment. Widespread ignorance is the main reason why these things have gone on without much of a challenge, and a requirement that you need to such pass a test before you may vote would help ensure that those who choose to remain ignorant (which is fine, it is their choice) will not collectively have power over everyone else (which is not fine).

It's not so much the idea of a "correct" form of government as much as it would be a requirement that we actually learn from history and understand why some ideas have proven to be better than others. Also why some practices, such as allowing the government to take care of items beyond its purview like the various entitlement programs (sorry but if you're 20 years old and can't figure out that one day you will grow old and will want to retire, and that the time to start saving for that is right now, then perhaps you should serve as an example to others ala the ant and the grasshopper and not consider this the federal government's problem as though you were some baby who needs to be taken care of) tend to lead to the tyranny of a police state. That is the main way that rulers weaken their people and make them dependent; they do so by taking care of things for you that you really should be taking care of yourself yet they never do as good of a job as you could have done; compare the average Social Security payout with someone who has saved money in a Roth IRA for example.

While I won't say that there is One Correct Way to do things (that would be silly in this case), there is certainly a correct approach to the problem of how to govern. That correct form would stay the fuck out of my life whenever possible, would recogize that consenting adults should be allowed to do whatever they damned well please as long as they do not harm someone against their will (doing drugs in your own home and bothering no one, OK - doing drugs and driving a car and endangering others, NOT OK - see the difference?), and would not use deficit spending and unsustainable income transfer programs and class warfare (progressive income taxes) to buy votes and encourage a "what can I get out of this" mentality. Income taxes are designed to manipulate behavior; that is the only "feature" they offer that a national sales tax does not (and indeed a national sales tax would generate MORE revenue since it would be more difficult to cheat and now foreigners visiting here would also pay taxes) so I don't consider them to be a "correct" form either. Care to tell me what's wrong with these ideas or will you continue to pontificate from a veiled "who is he to say that" stance? Because what you will eventually notice is that there is such a thing as truth (if you say there isn't I will merely ask you "is that true?") and that learning from past mistakes is a good way to get closer to it. Business does this all the time, refining production and marketing ideas etc.; the problem with government is that it doesn't have any competition so the incentive to improve must come from us.

Re:They never get it

[moogle001]

I sincerely hope you realize that your post proves why there can't be any civics test. Your assumptions on what government can and can't do well and what's good for the common man are just that: assumptions. Many, many people in the world would disagree with you. But hey, you may be right, you may be wrong. It's all political theory, after all. Which is why we shouldn't be requiring people to agree.

Schrodinger's President

[BradleyUffner]

How did the scientists get around the fact that they don't know who won until after the person takes office?

Quantum Voting by Stalin

[Gothmolly]

"He who casts the votes decides nothing, he who counts the votes decides everything.... or not."

Re:Parent is an illiterate moron.

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice of you to leave your signature there - good for making sure your posts get modded down in the future.

In other words...

[NotQuiteReal]

The problem actually comes from the people

We let too many stupid people vote? Is that what you are saying?

Re:In other words...

[logicnazi]

No, the electoral college has important value besides merely respecting states rights. Hell, once we abandoned real electors and sworn electors were selected by popular vote arguably the electoral college does more to hurt state local interests than help since there is no need to fuss with states that are clearly in one column or the other.

The real benefit of the electoral college is to blunt the tendency of incomplete turn out to encourage extreme views. Notice that there are two ways to win elections: A) increase the percentage of people voting who choose you B) increase the percentage or people who want you who actually vote. We saw B used to great effect by Rove in recent elections but it's impact is somewhat blunted by the electoral college.

With the electoral college it doesn't matter how many extra votes you get out in a strong red/blue state it still counts the same. What matters is whether you can carry the moderate states. Thus there is less incentive to take extreme positions motivating turn out in the states that strongly support you and more to take the sorts of positions that will win in the moderate states. Sure there are still partisans of both stripes in every state but a republican in ohio isn't the same thing as a republican in Wyoming.

In my opinion the original founders were right and we should go back to a REAL electoral college.

Re:In other words...

[Fred_A]

With the electoral college it doesn't matter how many extra votes you get out in a strong red/blue state it still counts the same. What matters is whether you can carry the moderate states. Thus there is less incentive to take extreme positions motivating turn out in the states that strongly support you and more to take the sorts of positions that will win in the moderate states. Sure there are still partisans of both stripes in every state but a republican in ohio isn't the same thing as a republican in Wyoming. Your logic seems to imply that if there wasn't an electoral college in place, all the people in a given state would still vote the same way.
Presumably that wouldn't be the case. Most states would be moderate with a wide ventilation of votes across the spectrum.
(disclaimer, not from the US. And I never really got that electoral state thing either.)

Re:Parent is an illiterate moron.

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately you are wrong, and perhaps should be referred to: http://www.getitwriteonline.com/archive/022703.htm

"...in professional contexts, it is probably best to avoid ending sentences with prepositions simply because many people *think* that doing so is always incorrect. Many readers do not recognize the difference between ending a sentence with a preposition whose object appears earlier in the sentence and ending a sentence with a preposition that has no object."

The object of the tampering is the data in transit. No problem there.

Re:I was born in Switzerland.

[darthflo]

Yep, it's rather bad - about 30-50% of all voters actually vote, but the upcoming elections might have a bit higher participation (some very aggressive campaigning been going on for the past weeks). I think this is directly related to Switzerland being a very direct democracy - with enouh support (that's in numbers of people, not money), almost every decision of the Swiss political leaders can be overturned by the Swiss people.

Re:Parent is an illiterate moron.

[Garridan]

Prepositions are totally fine to end sentences with.

Do You Watch Them Count The Vote?

[logicnazi]

I doubt it. You trust the people to take the votes away somewhere and count them up. You probably don't have a clue who does the counting, where it is done, or how the counting machines work. I sure as hell don't.

The system we have now is just as non-transparent as all the good voting systems. The only real difference is that you are familiar and comfortable with one and not the other. That will change in time. Once various clever crypto systems become more familiar people won't need to look inside anymore than they need to know where their votes are counted. They will trust the assurances of people who do know that it all works.

Hell, with the right kind of homeomorphic encryption you can even verify that your vote was correctly counted, verify that it was included in the count correctly and pretty much see (with the help of a program) that everything went down as planned. Once people find this sort of computer aided crypto stuff more comfortabe it will be even more transparent than it is now.

Do you remember all the people who said they would never use ATMs b/c you didn't know how it worked and you didn't have a person there to be sure things didn't fuck up? Don't see many anymore.

Re:No fair, you changed the outcome by measuring i

[leonardluen]

more importantly, where do they keep all the cats in between elections???