Prof. J. Alex Halderman Tells Us Why Internet-Based Voting Is a Bad Idea (Video)

Not a "bad idea" by Sarten-X · 2012-03-12 00:58 · Score: 4, Insightful

No, it's a good idea with bad implementations, and little chance of those implementations improving. Using it for an actual election of consequence at this point would be bad. Let's not assume that everything that doesn't work in the foreseeable future is inherently bad, okay?

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You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.

Re:Not a "bad idea" by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-12 01:06 · Score: 5, Interesting

The problem is that the cost of securing such a system (which has to be accessible to the general populace) is very very high compared to the cost of compromising such a system.
Anyway, I dislike any system where it is not mandatory to enforce the privacy of the voter. One of the main reasons we all have to go into a single person booth is to prevent someone who can *tell* how we voted influencing our vote. This could be as nasty as a someone with a crowbar or insidious as the patriarch of the family making his family vote in the same way.
Re:Not a "bad idea" by lfourrier · 2012-03-12 01:14 · Score: 4, Insightful

It's a BAD IDEA!

Every vote that doesn't occur in a supervised place can be sold, extorted, etc... That include correspondance voting, of course, but usually for small numbers unlikely to change the result.
The fact that the transmission is not reliable is nothing compared to the whole mess of distance voting.
Re:Not a "bad idea" by errandum · 2012-03-12 01:30 · Score: 4, Insightful

The big problem, unlike the story suggests, it's not security. It is the fact that you cannot guarantee that the vote is coming from whoever is registered. Anyone with a login and password can usurp your vote, so you'll never have a doubt free election ever again.
On the other hand, I do believe that you can design a secure system for voting, as long as you can guarantee that the machines were not tampered with.
Re:Not a "bad idea" by errandum · 2012-03-12 01:36 · Score: 3, Insightful

On the other hand it seems to be unable to weed out the highly motivated idiots. There are a whole lot of very brilliant people that I actually know that don't vote, simply because their vote does not matter. The blind idiots will outnumber you and decide the course of every single election.
If you stopped to think about it, you'd see it's true. It's the big flaw of the democratic system.
Re:Not a "bad idea" by oobayly · 2012-03-12 01:42 · Score: 3, Interesting

Yup, it's definitely a bad idea. It also interferes with my idea of weighted ballots:

A series of (simple unambiguous) questions acompany the ballot.
During counting, the quiz is marked, and that vote is weighted using the result (you get one mark for turning up)
This way you're not disenfranchising anyone as their vote will count. It just means that people who understand what they're voting have a greater say as to what goes on. I'm sick to death of seeing knuckle dragging Neanderthals (who have voted the way their television told them to) have as much say as myself (if I don't understand what the vote is on, I'll make sure I read up on it).
Point in question: The alternative vote refurendum in the UK. The number of people I heard saying they'd vote no for completely false reasons was ridiculous. Fine, if you don't agree. Just make sure you know the facts first.
Online voting would just make it easier to cheat.
Re:Not a "bad idea" by Hatta · 2012-03-12 03:04 · Score: 3, Insightful

I suppose you don't remember why poll tests were a bad idea. Why should the vote of a wealthy land owner count more than that of a newly enfranchised former slave?

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Re:Not a "bad idea" by FhnuZoag · 2012-03-12 03:25 · Score: 3, Insightful

I think more importantly, while things could have gone wrong, the difficulties in the lunar landers were not *malicious* in nature. It's easy to make a system 'probably' safe in an environment of random threats, but in an environment that is actually actively hostile, that unlikely event of failure would rapidly become a certainty.
Re:Not a "bad idea" by fgouget · 2012-03-13 20:57 · Score: 3, Informative

But WHY would it be so expensive? See here is what I've never gotten
It's not expensive like a luxury car is expensive. It's expensive because despite decades of research verifiable anonymous electronic voting, and even more so internet voting, is an unsolved problem.

and maybe I'm missing something but we've had smart cards for a pretty damned long time, so why not use them? Put a 512bit key, one for each person in America and hand them out with a USB reader, one per household.
What could go wrong you ask?
First distributing hundreds of millions of keys is no small undertaking. The government would have to keep a database of the public keys assigned to every voter. It would have to handle lost keys: invalidate them and reassign a new one. If it's a per-state affair then they would have to handle people moving out of state, and back in, etc.
The government would obviously use your public key so they can decode and tally your encrypted vote. That also means the government computer would know exactly how you voted (and have cryptographic proof of it). At that point you have absolutely no proof that they wouldn't store that information elsewhere. It also means anyone hacking the system like these researchers did would also know how you voted (and could resell that information or your public key).
With the kind of access these researchers had, another attack would be to decode your ballot and discard it before it's even been tallied if you voted the wrong way.
Someone could impersonate you and claim to have lost their voting key. Your key would then be invalidated thus making you unable to vote. But with access to the server another attack would be to change your public key in the government database. You would then be unable to vote until the database has been restored from backup (likely after the election). A variant would allow them to replace your ballot with a new one signed by the corresponding private key. Given that you would not be allowed to verify your vote anyway (to prevent the sale of votes), you would have no way to know this happened and no chance to complain. Even if you did you would have no proof of the hack.
If someone gets hold of the smart card, USB key or CD containing your private key, then they would be able to vote in your place. They could also simply steal or confiscate it to prevent you from voting.
Heck, you present generating secure keys as if it was something trivial. But even that can easily go wrong: you suggest a 512 bit key but a 768 bit RSA key has already been broken, just see the Debian SSL/SSH key debacle, the recent discovery that about 2 out of 1000 RSA keys is a dud. Then there's all the encryption systems that have been cracked over the years like WEP, CSS, etc. What makes you think the encryption used for your vote will fare any better. And more to the point, how will a layman be able to verify by himself that it will?

Another bad solution to an imaginary problem... by Theophany · 2012-03-12 01:03 · Score: 4, Insightful

Why is Internet-based voting required anyway? Surely this is a great idea to get those basement dwellers out of the house at least once every four years. There are already systems in place to allow those confined to their homes due to medical circumstances to participate in their democracy. Whether it's done tomorrow or in 30 years time, people will still find ways to break the system. Net result? A colossal waste of money over something that is already in place and works as well as can be expected.

Re:Another bad solution to an imaginary problem... by betterunixthanunix · 2012-03-12 01:05 · Score: 4, Interesting

In the USA, we are lucky if a simple majority of people vote at all. Internet based voting might help with that, since it takes some of the effort out of voting.

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Palm trees and 8
Re:Another bad solution to an imaginary problem... by vlm · 2012-03-12 01:16 · Score: 4, Interesting

In the USA, we are lucky if a simple majority of people vote at all. Internet based voting might help with that, since it takes some of the effort out of voting.
Actually that's a bug not a feature. Billions of dollars spent on election advertising (by people expecting to be rewarded after the election) and half the population is resistant enough (or intelligent enough) to not bother voting. I can't imagine the politicals being happy about those people being enfranchised, why instead of simple minded TV commercials they'd actually have to win them over using logic, or purchase their votes with programs, or ... How exactly do you control people without simpleminded emotional arguments anyway?
No the real feature is the death of democracy and replacement with feudalism. A "Large Enough" fraction of the population will be doing this online voting under the close eye of their supervisor at work, or their church pastor, or their professor at school, or maybe the landlord's office, or probation officer's office, or their spouse... It's kind of a stealth poll tax such that "the more important people" will be enforcing who votes for who.
Sure, it is true, that technically you can vote for anyone you want, with this new internet voting... all you need is no job or independently wealthy, atheist, non-student, property owner (as opposed to renter), clean criminal justice record, and be an orphan with no immediate family or friends. Everyone else has to vote for who the local alpha male says to vote for.
I can't say as its really going to change anything, because both parties are two sides of the same coin with different marketing messages.

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"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Re:Another bad solution to an imaginary problem... by vlm · 2012-03-12 01:30 · Score: 4, Interesting

The effort in voting is not getting off the couch and hauling you fat, lazy ass to a polling station. Rather it is in educating yourself on issues, forming your own opinions on those issues, examining the candidates opinions of those issues, and then communicating with those candidates both by voting for your preferences and by maintaining a dialog with those actually elected to office.
You've gotta be kidding. Its all about who looks better on TV, who is a better public speaker, who tells better lies, which 1%er passes himself off more like a 99%er, which candidate is compatible with my personal selection of imaginary man in the sky, and by far the most significant reason is to vote for the party your male ancestors supported, or depending on family dynamic and youthful rebelliousness, vote for the party your male ancestors did not support.
The other part is 90% of the population blindly follows either party right into hell, only the votes and beliefs of about 10% "swing voters" matter. So you've gotta be crazy enough to get the 45% of your party to nominate you (Palin, Santorum, heck practically every R after Reagan in my opinion) yet be normal enough to get the sane 10% swing voters fooled into voting for you. So its a multiple personality contest, the winner is the one who acts the nuttiest of the nuts to the 45% while simultaneously appearing normal to the 10%. That's about it.
Finally there's a large fraction of the sway voters who simply vote pocketbook... Am I happy today (got some from the wife, sports team won last night, etc) well then the incumbent wins. Am I unhappy today (wife made me sleep on couch, sports team lost last night, etc) well then the challenger wins. Probably 9% of the swing voters vote this way. Smart idea for the R to oppose contraception, no pill = no sex = unhappy 9% swing voters = incumbent fail

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"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger

Idea.. by backslashdot · 2012-03-12 01:08 · Score: 3, Funny

Is it really a bad idea? This is just the opinion of some researchers, so why don't we vote on it online and see?

Yes, a bad idea by dkleinsc · 2012-03-12 01:10 · Score: 5, Insightful

I'd argue that it's a fundamentally bad idea, for reasons which have absolutely nothing to do with technology.

It's very simple: If you go to a polling place, you are in a situation where you can be observed by poll workers, who will notice things like somebody standing over your shoulder with either a gun or $10 to get you to vote the way that somebody wants you to. Whereas if you can vote anywhere, it's quite possible for an organization to do those sorts of things.

The same arguments also apply to voting by mail, or over the phone, or absentee ballots. For instance, it was not uncommon for political parties to stop by my grandmother's nursing home to help the residents vote, helpfully filling it out for the voter (including checking the boxes for their preferred candidates).

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Re:Yes, a bad idea by AdrianKemp · 2012-03-12 01:19 · Score: 4, Insightful

I was going to suggest the less sinister issue with it, although along the same vein.
If all you have to do is log in and vote from your computer, a small "incentive" could seriously increase the voter turn out. Of course I'm referring to the incentive being provided by a company/party.
Right now, laziness is keeping the vast majority of uninformed dolts away from the ballot boxes. Utter hatred is keeping some informed ones home too but that's a different issue.
Re:Yes, a bad idea by nedlohs · 2012-03-12 01:45 · Score: 4, Insightful

That already applies to postal voting, and so as a replacement for postal voting isn't an issue.
Re:Yes, a bad idea by yakovlev · 2012-03-12 02:05 · Score: 5, Interesting

Absolutely. This was my first thought.

It's actually quite sinister when you consider that you can combine this with a Super PAC.

A Super PAC is an organization that can get unlimited amounts of money from corporations and has zero legal accountability to the candidate. This means it's perfectly possible for a Super PAC to offer to pay anyone $20 to vote (implied "for their candidate") then include some kind of browser plug-in that actually checks that the voter voted. If it's determined that this is illegal then the Super PAC goes down, but the candidate is squeaky clean. I'm sure they'd portray this as the internet equivalent of driving you to the polling place, though it's obviously much worse.

$20 per person x 300 million people = about 6 billion dollars to pay every man woman and child $20 to vote. It's probably a billion or two cheaper than that when you consider that children can't vote. This means it is well within the abilities of a well-funded Super PAC to offer $20 per vote (technically not necessarily for their candidate) to anyone who will take it.

All I've tried to describe above would likely be considered legal. If they wanted to step a little outside legal, the plug-in could "helpfully" fill out the vote form for the candidates they wanted you to vote for. A little less sinister would be to add a "default vote" or "Vote with Super PAC for Hope!" button to the ballot shown to the voter. Even if they said they would still pay you, some people would vote as directed for fear they would lose the money, and many would vote as directed because clicking the button or just pressing "VOTE" on the form as presented was easier than thinking about the issues. They could go even less sinister than that and just reorder the candidate listings on the ballot, such that their candidates were always on top.

Re:Way too early by betterunixthanunix · 2012-03-12 01:10 · Score: 3, Insightful

While I'm on this subject, who came up with the idea of sending 25 armed agents and a small tank to get some geek out of their basement?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SWAT#History

Heck, for some of these guys you could just write a note, 'report to jail tomorrow and drop your computer off on the way there' and they would do it.

Paramilitary police is not about arresting people, it is about keeping the population terrified of the government. The point is to show people that the government can send a tactical team into any home at any time, so that people will be afraid to take a stand against the government.

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Palm trees and 8

Two words: PAPER BALLOTS by ArcSecond · 2012-03-12 01:13 · Score: 5, Insightful

I like them. I trust them. They are their own record. And, if you like, you can spoil them.

In Canada, we have our ballots counted within hours of the polls closing. And you can go back and re-count them if necessary.

Keep it simple!

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Weakest link by digitalaudiorock · 2012-03-12 01:27 · Score: 4, Interesting

I've always thought the whole issue is pretty clear. Internet voting can never be any more secure than it's weakest link...the end users browser/computer/device. In other words it can never be secure. As far as I'm concerned it's a total non-starter for this reason.

Paper voting is not safe by Sqreater · 2012-03-12 01:32 · Score: 5, Insightful

The assumption is always that paper ballot voting is secure. Electronic fraud is somehow more important than paper ballot fraud. President Kennedy wasn't even a legitimate President according to some due to paper ballot fraud and they have a good case. See the "Controversies" section of the Wikipedia article on the 1960 election: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1960. No, the whole controversy over the safety of voting is just a reason not to do what is required by a belief in Democracy and what is absolutely necessary in a period of time which illustrates the obsolescence of the old system. The Macroparasites have taken control of our system of government and true electronic democracy is the only way we will get power back into our hands. As for the safety of electronic voting, let me say this: It is safe to do internet banking; it is safe to transfer trillions of dollars of assets around the world daily; but it is somehow not safe to cast a single vote electronically . I don't believe that is the truth. And those who argue against electronic Democracy are merely the familiars of the Macroparasites.

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E Proelio Veritas.

Re:Way too early by vlm · 2012-03-12 01:45 · Score: 3, Insightful

Don't forget profit and courtroom drama.

Profit is obvious. Courtroom drama is the perp must be guilty because the cops felt like sending 25 cops in riot gear and smashed all the house windows... If the cops just called his lawyer and asked him to talk, he must not be an absolutely guilty supercriminal.

Had a SWAT callout 5 houses to the west of mine some months ago... parole violator got drunk (thats a no no for a multi-time DUI guy) went to friends house, passed out alcohol intoxication. Friend owns a deer hunting rifle and was dumb enough to tell the cops looking for the drunk about it, so we get full swat team callout, smash all the windows and stick cameras in, including one of those tossed ball camera things. Streets blocked off, TV news told BS story about man barricaded in house with gun so we've got newsies crawiling everywhere. The cops got to do the judge jury executioner thing by tasing an semi-conscious drunk guy. This is all OK because "we're tough on crime in this rich suburban city". Lots of people made a lot of money, and the parole violator is back in a for profit prison again, the families (especially children like mine) were terrified, so its all good all around. Seriously SWAT doesn't mean anything anymore.

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"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger

Uh... this is DC. by Entropius · 2012-03-12 01:58 · Score: 3, Informative

So, I live in DC.

The result quoted in the summary, that DC didn't manage to pull off a secure electronic vote, shouldn't be interpreted as a condemnation of e-voting, for the simple reason that this city couldn't manage to find the exit to a paper bag with a map and GPS. The incompetence around here is hilarious: there's a reason everyone working for the government lives in either Maryland or northern Virginia, since being in DC itself just means you get to hear sirens 24/7.

Everyone's heard of Marion Barry, the crack-smoking mayor? Turns out they elected him mayor again right away when he got out of prison. He mismanaged the city finances so badly that Bill Clinton cut him off from a lot of his authority, and he flounced* from the mayorship -- and got elected to the City Council. Since then he's gone eight years without paying income taxes, driven drunk, and embezzled money. Now he wants to run for mayor again.

The guy is a complete scumbag. The Washington Post said "To understand Washington, you have to understand Marion Barry."

*Flounce: To leave after a post (on the internet) where you proclaim yourself a martyr, with great drama

Voting is flawed by Gideon+Wells · 2012-03-12 02:02 · Score: 4, Interesting

Even the current system isn't correct. The Republican Party holds voting accuracy as near sacred as part of their party talking points. Take a look at how they handled a primary season where they should have absolute control over the rules:
* Iowa went from Romney to Santorum, though a statistical tie, because someone mistyped a 2 as 22: http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2012/01/18/rick-santorum-might-have-actually-won-the-iowa-caucuses
* Maine almost didn't even count a whole county: http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/02/maines-miscount-one-county-might-be-included-after-saturday/
* Nobody can seem to make up their minds on what to do about Florida. It is supposed to be, normally, a winner take all state. It moved its primary up and got sanctioned by the party by having its delegates cut in-half. Also, it may or may not be proportional. We'll find out in August: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/01/26/2610390/fight-looms-over-fla-delegates.html
* Missouri has two elections this year. The first doesn't county, but everyone is assuming it will. The one that was held already was state mandated, but the state Republicans, not wanting to lose half their delegates, have decided that one won't count. They'll have a second one that will really count. Note : http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/07/missouri-primary-2012-explained_n_1257817.html
* She was allowed to vote once it was all sorted out, but an 84-year-old was initially told she was dead when she appeared at the polls: http://boston.cbslocal.com/2012/03/07/84-year-old-fall-river-woman-tries-to-vote-told-shes-dead/

My apologies to any Republicans I offended with these results. I only used these examples as they are near immediate in time scale.

The current voting system is full of flaws. It has been full of flaws. It will likely remain full of flaws. No need to worry about hackers mucking up an election when a typo can swing an election, and never have gotten caught if someone didn't post an image to FaceBook. So I don't see on-line voting as some type of corrupting influence on a pristine system.

The problem I see here is in the oversight. Considering it took two days for Washington D.C. to notice, I would say the real problem was not so much that the system got hacked, but D.C. didn't care enough about the election to monitor it as it was going on. The same lackluster oversight could still swing *cough*Iowa*cough* a close election.

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Another bad idea: video as a SlashDot post by xxxJonBoyxxx · 2012-03-12 02:20 · Score: 3, Insightful

Another bad idea: video as a SlashDot post. Seriously - we're too busy to watch this. Get it down to a paragraph we can scan while we're waiting for something to connect, something to compile or a minion to find an answer for us and maybe.

What's the problem? by spaceyhackerlady · 2012-03-12 03:33 · Score: 3, Informative

What problem are they attempting to solve?

The whole idea of having traceable pieces of paper, physical manifestations of the intentions of actual voters, has served us well. Anybody can see it. Anybody can understand how it works. Anybody can observe the process in action. These are good things.

The only issue I have is proportional representation, or the lack thereof. We've had a couple of referenda on the subject here in B.C., both of which have been defeated by massive FUD campaigns.

...laura

Fraud Already happening in Canada by EmperorOfCanada · 2012-03-12 03:35 · Score: 4, Interesting

Right now in Canada there is a big "Robocall" scandal where one party automatically called tens of thousands of people affiliated to other parties to tell them that their polling station had moved. The people would either say, "Too far" or not find the non-existent poll and not vote. This proves that there are Canadians who are motivated, funded, and capable to mess with an election using electronic means. What the hell chance do any electronic voting systems have?

Here in Halifax the morons have voting over the phone and are thinking about online municipal voting. They say it increases "Voter participation" basically they are sick of people not giving a crap about their self importance and think that throwing democracy in the toilet is the way to go.

This has political ramifications beyond the obvious, the bad people will always win, scenario. Even if the system was theoretically 100% secure I would never trust any party elected electronically. Thus my confidence in their right to be in power would be zero. What impact would this have on people abiding by laws, paying taxes, and other civic relationships. Take Greece as an example of where this has broken down. People there don't pay taxes because nobody else pays taxes. If you are fool enough to want to pay taxes you will find yourself sucked dry because the system is so screwed up that it has now adapted to the fact that people will cheat 100% of the time.

On top of all that the government insists on keeping these proprietary systems as secret as possible. Every single time the systems have been handed to security researchers they have torn them to shreds.

The only electronic voting that I would like to see is a polling system where you go in, pick your stuff and the computer prints out the results on a ballot you put into the machine. You can then look over your ballot and see that all is good. Worse case if there is a power outage or whatnot you could fill the ballot in by hand. Then you put the ballot into a ballot box which is the primary record of the election. This way the computer is more auditing the election. You would get instant poll results subject to verification by counting. I have worked at a polling station and it is often the first time for everyone so I can see a situation where people might mess up. The computer would not override them but if the computer strongly disagreed (ballot box stuffing) then everything would now be carefully scrutinized. Also the benefits to an electronic voting system of this nature is that it allows for complicated ballots to be filled out correctly. No hanging chads.

The list of major hacks on major companies is just too long. Most companies hope for the best with security and more design for the eventuality that they will be hacked and thus look to quickly mitigate the damage through good backups and whatnot. It turned out that Nortel's computer system was completely pwned for over 10 years. If Google has been hacked by the Chinese then no company in the world can claim to have a secure voting system, full stop.

One last problem is that if one party wins an election through fraud, proving that they are evil, they will now be able to structure the system so that they always win from then on. Thus good government is dead the instant a party wins through electronic fraud as the only party who could beat them would have to be more evil.

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Prof. J. Alex Halderman Tells Us Why Internet-Based Voting Is a Bad Idea (Video)

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