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Kaspersky Says Lack of Digital Voting Will Be Democracy's Downfall
hapworth writes "Eugene Kaspersky, founder and CEO of cybersecurity firm Kaspersky Lab, has warned that one of the greatest cyber threats facing the world is the lack of effective online voting systems, claiming that unless young people can vote online they won't bother at all and the whole democratic system will collapse. Not everyone is buying that theory, however (and there's reason to suspect Kaspersky has a vested interest in online voting, which may need his firm's cybersecurity products). As producer James Lambie writes, 'Ultimately, the digital native's disenchantment with voting is based less on a lack of suitable technology and more on disillusionment with the craven and anemic political choices they are presented with.'"
Good!
I’ve always hated this push to get people to go out and vote. That’s not what’s important. The message that should be going out is to educate yourself enough to make an actual decision, THEN vote! Going into a booth (or online) and selecting a random choice because MTV told you it’s your duty to vote is only going to make things worse.
If someone won’t vote unless they can do it in less than 10 seconds... their opinion is probably worth very little, and would rather not have it diluting the already thin pool.
Ugh.
I'd rather a small turnout of people making an actual decision.
Voting isn't what's important. Having an opinion is. 100% voter turnout isn't worth much if 70% of that turnout picked randomly.
Unless they figure a good way to validate that someone is making a serious choice (and force them to do so), all this does is dilute the already very thin pool of educated voters.
Do you think the current crop of politicians WANT people to be engaged and empowered to pick their governments?
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
Electronic doesn't necessarily mean insecure. Public key cryptography with keys in voter cards is a possibility. Encrypt the vote with your public key and the government's public key, then sign. You could then check that your vote was counted and counted correctly either online with a cheap smartcard reader or at a library if you don't have a reader. The keys would be signed to verify identity and could also include a photo.
The reason current electronic voting machines are insecure is that they have no electronic security whatsoever, not inherently because they're electronic.
I say stop making excuses for and pandering to "young people". If they can't integrate with the "real world" IRL then they can just starve to death in their pathetic little digital corners. There are plenty of things in life that require one to get off one's own ass - voting is one of them.
The official stats seem to disagree, or at least suggest that there's more to consider than just age/membership in a wired generation.
Consider for instance the breakdown in voting participation over the last 4 presidential elections (.pdf warning) - voter participation of those between 18 and 34 (what I would consider to be the net generation) has increased, in many cases markedly. Consider for instance that 18 to 20 year olds in 1996 had a 31.2% rate, 2000 saw a 28.4, 2004 had a 41% and 2008 had 41%. Similarly 21 to 24 saw 33.4, 35.4, 42.5, and 46.6. Similarly overall participation has increased across the board - 50.3% in 2000 to 57.1 in 2008.
If anything one could argue that the rise of the internet has increased participation through the development of targeted demographic outreach like that popularly attributed to Obama's campaign success. Combine that with the ready stream of polarising online news, politicised communities, and use of social media and you've got a recipe for maximum outreach with minimum investment.
Estonia is a shining example of that. They have implemented online voting with smartcards and system is even more tamper-proof, than pen-and-paper voting, as a person can re-vote any number of times he/she wants to and only the last one will count.
...digital voting will be democracy's downfall.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
This is from a company that is Russian, and by coincidence discovers the US might be at fault for Flame just as there is a tug-of-war between ICANN and a Russian/Chinese backed UN body for control of the Internet.
If anyone has any clue at all, electronic voting is just ripe for being hacked. Look at what the Black Box voting site reported, from monkeys hacking voting booths, to standard keys that fit any RV fitting the locks on the voting computer. Without a solid paper component, it is a heck of a lot easier to forge results in a way that is completely detectable. At least with hanging chads, someone somewhere had to hold up pieces of paper and say they were not usable. Just being electronic means that a country's elections can be completely compromised by a foreign body.
Hmm... I'm sure there are plenty of countries who don't like the US who would love to influence elections. Making voting electronic just means the hack will be untraceable. I'm sure advocating E-voting would help lots in this department.
Hell with e-voting. We need paper trails, as what was shown with the voting machine stories.
This sounds suspiciously like preliminary marketing buzz for a new Kaspersky Labs software venture: create perception of a problem so they can then leap in and solve it. As irredeemably cynical as I am about human motives, behavior, and so-called intelligence, even I don't believe that a lack of e-voting will be a significant deterrent to people voting. The proximal cause of most people not voting, as demonstrated time and time again, is disillusionment with the whole process and the mediocre - at best - results... "why bother when my vote doesn't count and I have no idea who the 'better man' actually is?"
Personally, I'd argue that making voting mandatory but restricting the electorate to those with a given minimum level of education and/or minimum intelligence would be the smart move, but change the rules for being in school from being mandatory for under 16s to being mandatory for under BSc/BAs regardless of age. (Likewise, eliminate the age of responsibility/majority - unlike cheese and wine, people do not improve with age alone - and replace it with a proficiency of responsibility. I don't care if you're 16, 60 or 600.)
1. Not everyone is suited for a college degree. Period. That does not automatically mean they are less intelligent.
2. Make rules for voting other than 'citizen' and 'breathing' and we would immediately see massive manipulation of those rules. And *you* will not be one of the manipulators.
I just want to see 'citizen' and 'breathing' enforced.
>>>as a person can re-vote any number of times he/she wants to and only the last one will count.
This is what we should have for our House of Representatives. We will keep the same politicians, in order to have their meetings and craft the bills, but when it comes to the final passage, it will be decided by the People online. That way stupid stuff like TARP will not pass (almost 80% of Americans were against it). The Senate would still function normally, with politicians voting "aye" or "nay", so as to block any bad bills the People's House might pass.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
A very important factor in a democracy is the secret of the vote. If I can prove my vote was cast for a given option, then the gate is open for parties buying it â" Or punishing me for voting according to my will.
The reason why TARP passed was because without it we would have fallen into the Great Depression II. The real trouble is that the many of the same people who foam at the mouth about TARP are also somehow think that softening the already weak banking regulations more would work as a stimulus. The simple fact is that the Republican House that was elected in the 2010 has worked hard to keep banks 'too big to fail'. Sure to a lessor extent the Dems are also to blame, but I'd argue that it's just political Darwinism, where only the well financed survive.
The force that blew the Big Bang continues to accelerate.
Electronic Voting cannot be democratic as it doesn't conform to the minimal standards.
So far nobody has proposed an electronic voting system which can be proven to not be manipulated by anybody. If you need a degree in math to understand how the security works, it may be suitable for an election in the maths department of an university, but it is not suitable for the general population.
The pen an paper system can be checked by everybody, not just specialists who might fear for their job if they became politically active.
Not until we quit electing lawyers and former lawyers, it won't. :) (Speaking from a US perspective.)
They're all crooks, but we've managed to elect the entire club of crooks who spend all their time thinking up new ways to stick it to the average citizen.
It's the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man.