Schneier On Self-Enforcing Protocols

Hollow Being writes "In an essay posted to Threatpost, Bruce Schneier makes the argument that self-enforcing protocols are better suited to security and problem-solving. From the article: 'Self-enforcing protocols are safer than other types because participants don't gain an advantage from cheating. Modern voting systems are rife with the potential for cheating, but an open show of hands in a room — one that everyone in the room can count for himself — is self-enforcing. On the other hand, there's no secret ballot, late voters are potentially subjected to coercion, and it doesn't scale well to large elections. But there are mathematical election protocols that have self-enforcing properties, and some cryptographers have suggested their use in elections.'"

Comments

Re:Show of hands not self-enforcing

[CaptainOfSpray]

Here's some experience of "show of hands" votng.

It was widely used in trade unions in England in the 50's and 60's, typically in public meetings of all the members in a workplace. I heard of it both from a carpenter in the ship-building industry, a family friend; and from other insider reports on meetings in the car-making industry in Oxford, where I lived for a while. According to my sources, these meetings were often used to pass strike decisions of considerable financial importance to the members, but (a) you attended these meetings with your workmates, who saw how you voted, and made life hell if you didn't vote the Right Way (b) the committee appointed tallymen to count the hands - they reported whatever counts the committee had told them to report.

The result was the destruction of British industrial firms by self-centered self-appointed little dictatorial union leaders who werealways interested in making trouble, regardless of their member's interests. Vote them out? How? The elections were by "show of hands".

So "show of hands" voting is wide open to abuse if there are more people present than can be viewed and instantly counted by those present, or where those present are unable to challenge the count effectively.

related pet peeve

[circletimessquare]

voting systems should better reflect the people's actual will, by being a little more complex

you're never going to get the nuance of the people's will 100%, but you can do a lot better. for example: borda voting

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borda_count

just rank candidates in the order you like them. then, in a divisive election is an opportunity for everyone's second best choice to become the winner rather than partisan first choices, that one half of the population hates, barely edging out the other

now take as an example the disgusting 2000 presidential election: if people were allowed to merely rank candidates rather than be forced to pick one, who would have won? john mccain. however you think of him as a choice in the 2008 election, mccain was certainly a better choice than gore or bush in 2000, and the nation actually thought so. if the people were allowed to rank a list of candidates, his name would have come out as the number 2 choice of everyone, and he would have won. but the system worked against mccain. instead, various undemocratic closed door machinations led the republican party to choose monkey boy bush over the more deserving mccain, and so the democrats who would have ranked mccain second best never would have been able to register their approval of mccain over bush. borda voting does away with the whole party primary nonsense: democrats field 4 or 5 presidential candidates, republicans field 4 or 5 presidential candidates. and the voters merely rank them. then the voting system better reflects the nuances of public opinion, and allows for the candidate whom people really like to emerge. who should really lead the nation? by better reflecting the people's affinity or dislike. no more divisive partisan bullshit

another good system: approval voting

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Approval_voting

easier to understand than borda voting with similar results: checkbox next to anyone you like. voting for no one and voting for everyone has the same effect. in between, are abilities to express approval and disapproval, and the winner is a simple tally of whomever gets the most votes