Azerbaijan Election Results Released Before Voting Had Even Started

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Azerbaijan Election Results Released Before Voting Had Even Started

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday October 9, 2013 @03:01PM from the and-the-winner-is dept.

Jah-Wren Ryel writes "Florida's hanging chads ain't going nothing on Azerbaijan. Fully a day before the polls were to open, election results were accidentally released via an official smartphone app, confirming what everybody already knew — the election was rigged from the beginning. The official story is that the app's developer had mistakenly sent out the 2008 election results as part of a test. But that's a bit flimsy, given that the released totals show the candidates from this week, not from 2008."

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Cryptographically signed elections? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-10-09 15:06 · Score: 5, Interesting

Is there a reason why developed countries haven't let users vote with a public/private key pair, and signing your own votes, in a method that can be cryptographically checked and counted by any reasearcher?
This can even be done anonymously, just identify voters from anonymously issued keys...
Certainly problems like this would go away
1. Re:Cryptographically signed elections? by mosb1000 · 2013-10-09 15:20 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  It seems like as long as there's anonymity, it's going to be possible to rig it.
2. Re:Cryptographically signed elections? by ThatAblaze · 2013-10-09 15:21 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  This comment has been modded up to (Score: 5)
3. Re:Cryptographically signed elections? by gl4ss · 2013-10-09 15:42 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  while it makes impossible to "rig" the election it makes it totally easy to rig the election the other usual way: voter intimidation, peer pressure, pressure from family, employer requiring certain vote, buying of votes... voted for legalization of pot? goodbye job.
  this is why the pen & paper and a decent society to handle that is the only way to do them(enough volunteer vote counters from enough parties).
  if you can prove who you voted then you can be persecuted for voting certain way(or if you refuse to prove being "loyal").
  and if the vote organizers are crooked then they could crook the signed voting too, press vote and all you would get would be "thank you for your vote for power party 1." or just have everyones receipts show up as normal but the total tally being something wildly different..
  
  --
  world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
4. Re:Cryptographically signed elections? by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · 2013-10-09 15:43 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  I suspect that it's partially inertia/penny-pinching and partially because crypto only solves certain (quite specific) problems within the larger problem of 'run an election'.
  
  For instance, in those countries that have smartcard-or-equivalent national IDs, cryptographically signed votes would be trivial; but you'd be reusing keys explicitly designed to not be anonymous, indeed, designed to be identifying. That is an issue. Beats some 'SSN+Mother's maiden name' bullshit; because at least it verifies something; but it isn't what you are looking for.
  
  If you anonymously issue keys, now you've got a weak spot there that crypto can't help you with: the crypto makes it quite possible to ensure that Anon_Key_X was responsible for Vote_X, and only Vote_X; but you still need to devise a system by which an eligible voter can obtain (without some absurd hassle) one and only one anonymous key, without it being covertly linked back to them, or them being able to sign up for ten, or the people running the system being able to generate 250,000(or simply keep a copy of the keys as they are issued, and 'win the race' to get a signed ballot into the pot with that key).
  
  If you have such a system, you also have a system that could trivially just hand the voter a ballot, since you have already satisfied anonymity, uniqueness, resistance to plural voting, etc. No need for the crypto at all.
  
  (Also, aside from that, a country with vote rigging tendencies is presumably going to use hierarchical PKI, not some web-of-trust cypherpunk wet dream, so what exactly will an election whose ballots are signed with keys that all descend from the 'Glorious Cryptographic Key for Make Benefit of People's Republic Motherland' prove? Hierarchical PKI schemes, as SSL has taught us, work OK if you are primarily concerned with criminals and frauds; but if the CA is the enemy, you are fucked. If you are the root, you can generate mathematically pristine child keys as fast as your little ASICs can carry you without the slightest trouble.)
5. Re:Cryptographically signed elections? by vux984 · 2013-10-09 16:04 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Only a handful of mathematicians would trust that.
  Paper ballots with independents actually conducting the election taking ballots and counting them, etc, with overseers from all political parties welcome to watch the entire proceedings, from start to finish.
  Simple and transparent.
6. Re:Cryptographically signed elections? by ravyne · 2013-10-09 16:29 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  And therein lies the rub. Is non-anonymity really better, especially where despots reign? Does it matter whether despots are continually re-elected through fraud or through fear of repercussions if the result is the same?
  
  I'm not one to roll over to this sort of fraud myself, but I have little faith that identity wouldn't simply shift the solution to the 'problem' of the people's will in a different, and likely violent, direction.
7. Re:Cryptographically signed elections? by JesseMcDonald · 2013-10-09 16:41 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  ... you still need to devise a system by which an eligible voter can obtain (without some absurd hassle) one and only one anonymous key, without it being covertly linked back to them, or them being able to sign up for ten, ...
  It doesn't solve all the problems, but blinded signatures can take care of this part. The essence of it is that a server can sign a "blinded" token such that, given the unblinded version at a later time, it can tell that it generated the signature but can't trace it back to the blinded version which was signed.
  In this scenario, the voter would present their credentials and be issued a single blinded token. The server would then add them to a list so that they can't come back and ask for additional tokens later. To vote, they present the unblinded token along with their choices. The server knows that they're authorized to vote, but not who they are. The token is added to another list to make sure it can't be reused.
  Obviously you'd need to take precautions (like using Tor) to avoid leaking any personally identifiable information to the server along with the ballot and unblinded token.
  
  --
  "The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else." - Bastiat
8. Re:Cryptographically signed elections? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-10-09 17:49 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Athan Gibbs figured it out years ago: that whole unriggable elections thing.
  Oddly enough, he was hit by a truck...
9. Re:Cryptographically signed elections? by Smauler · 2013-10-09 17:50 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  No... that's one of the problems with anonymity, it's easier to fake. However, it's very, very important, especially in places in which your vote is more likely to be coerced. The advantages of anonymity far outweigh the disadvantages.
10. Re:Cryptographically signed elections? by Smauler · 2013-10-09 18:10 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Allowing people to check their vote from home would fuck up anyone whose vote was made under coercion. As it is, you can vote one way and say you voted another way.
  This is less of an issue in the US, but it is still an issue... your boss asks you which way you voted.... let's just check that.
11. Re:Cryptographically signed elections? by Thanshin · 2013-10-09 18:16 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  Further proof that we need the mod option "Prophetic".
  As I've been repeating since at least 2014.
12. Re:Cryptographically signed elections? by Thanshin · 2013-10-09 18:21 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Problems? What problems?
  You seem to misunderstand the point of modern elections. They are not in place so that the people can choose their representatives. They are there to suppress revolt by displacing the responsibility of bad government into the people.
  Actually counting the votes is a pointless expense. The system works just as well by flipping a coin.
  Azerbaijan are ahead of their time in more ways than the obvious one.
13. Re:Cryptographically signed elections? by Imrik · 2013-10-09 20:39 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  How do you prevent people from being forced to give up their SN to prove how they voted?
14. Re:Cryptographically signed elections? by ArsenneLupin · 2013-10-09 21:55 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Their private key would allow them to prove to a third party how they voted... making them subject to pressure or bribery.
15. Re:Cryptographically signed elections? by TheLink · 2013-10-09 22:34 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  You're being rather optimistic. It doesn't actually solve the problem. There's a Google video proposing a well thought out verifiable system: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDnShu5V99s
  But that doesn't solve the real problem either!
  If someone in power with resources wants to rig the election doing it electronically makes it easier. He could let you check your votes and they show up just fine (as per the video's system), but you have no proof that your vote played any part in the final results! Yes it's audited by some experts, but the someone could plausibly bribe/coerce/select those few auditors.
  That's why a good paper based voting system is superior. When your own representatives and volunteers are there to observe and jointly count the votes one by one, sign off on the totals, check that the final total is the sum of the subtotals it gets pretty hard to tamper with the counts and results. The way you'd rig it is with postal votes, have fake/"supplementary" voters and gerrymandering (electronic systems don't solve these either). Swapping or replacing the ballot boxes might be possible but only likely in isolated areas with few witnesses (in which case the area might be "theirs" anyway).
  And so a good paper based system is also more likely to satisfy one important requirement of elections - convincing enough of the losers that they lost.
  A fancy blackbox system is not really convincing from a IT Security perspective.
  Whereas when the losing candidate's counting/observing team has been telling them that they've been counting the paper votes one by one and the results aren't looking good, it's far more convincing.
  Rigging such a paper based system would require more visibly obvious methods. Everyone can safely assume it's rigged if only one side does the counting and does it behind closed doors.
  --
  
  Too many replies beneath your current threshold
16. Re:Cryptographically signed elections? by ArsenneLupin · 2013-10-09 23:35 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  Even if it's your employer? That might put your manager behind bars, but yourself out of a job...
17. Re:Cryptographically signed elections? by Jason+Levine · 2013-10-10 01:11 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  I'd also add that there's the problem of being punished for not voting a certain way. It could be a McCarthy level scare where you voted for Politician X and he's just been branded "the enemy" as well as all of his supporters. Your vote being public could mean that you are swept up in the hysteria and jailed or ostracized by the public for voting the wrong way.
  Or it could be that your employer really wants Politician Y elected. They've invested quite a lot and your vote for Politician X "troubles" them. Perhaps they don't even outright tell you to vote for Politician Y but "strongly suggest" you do so. Maybe they don't even try firing you for voting the "wrong way", but now you're on a hit list and the first excuse they have you're out the door.
  There are just too many ways that public voting can be abused. Yes, our voting system is broken, but no, public voting won't fix it.
  
  --
  My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
18. Re:Cryptographically signed elections? by ygslash · 2013-10-10 02:41 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  Only a handful of mathematicians would trust that.
  Paper ballots with independents actually conducting the election taking ballots and counting them, etc, with overseers from all political parties welcome to watch the entire proceedings, from start to finish.
  Simple and transparent.
  No, even the mathematicians wouldn't trust it. See Bruce Schneier's 2006 essay that explains why.
  Use paper ballots. Period.
  However, crypto can still add value - it can go a long way towards preventing fraud and errors even in a paper ballot election. Scantegrity is an open-source system, invented by Rivest (the "R" in RSA), Chaum, and other researchers, that helps secure a paper ballot election by supplying each voter with a simple verification code that can be written down. The codes in no way compromise the anonymity of the voters, and cannot be used to determine what vote was cast. But they can be used by individual voters to verify that their votes have been counted correctly, and by election officials to verify that ballots have not been tampered with and that the results have been tallied correctly. The overhead cost of the system is low.
  Scantegrity has been used successfully in two real elections - municipal elections in the Takoma Park, Maryland in the U.S. But so far it doesn't seem to be catching on very much. I guess it doesn't quite suit the needs of the big money electronic voting industry.
Technology at its finest by russbutton · 2013-10-09 15:09 · Score: 4, Funny

Who says America is the greatest nation in the world! Azerbaijan already has time travel! Now if only we could get that gizmo for some stock market analysis...
We've Done It by Anonymous Coward · 2013-10-09 15:10 · Score: 4, Funny

We have taught them American politics.
SUCCESS!
i swear baby this has never happened before! by fightinfilipino · 2013-10-09 15:13 · Score: 5, Funny

"oh dear, i seem to have premature electorate all over my caucus!"
couldnt be worse than america. by nimbius · 2013-10-09 15:22 · Score: 4, Insightful

here we get to vote for one of two parties, but both are controlled by the same group of billionaires so they dont really represent normal people. its at least refreshing to see a government say, "well, yeah your vote is meaningless" as opposed to the United States, where people become upset if you dont believe voting is important. even if it were, and even if we all pitched in to vote for some third or fourth party, theyd get bought off just as quickly. it wouldnt change.

--
Good people go to bed earlier.
BooYAhhh! by bugs2squash · 2013-10-09 15:24 · Score: 5, Funny

Diebold deliver under budget and ahead of schedule...

--
Nullius in verba
Just unprofessional. by Anonymous Coward · 2013-10-09 15:35 · Score: 5, Funny

This is what makes me proud to be an American, at least we know how to properly rig an election.
1. Re:Just unprofessional. by Evtim · 2013-10-09 17:34 · Score: 3
  
  Precisely!
  The power hungry asshats in the east are just not competent enough. I mean, do you think that for instance Putin does not want to have the equivalent of the Russian NSA as powerful, all-seeing and intrusive as the US version? But he just does not have the capabilities to achieve it.
  The task of toppling today's world elite (or at least keeping their greed in check) is so much more difficult than fighting against the totalitarian regimes of the communist era. I mean, at that time we all knew we are prisoners and that the system does not serve us, but is actually working against us, the common folk.
  In the western world, however, the powers to be have done an excellent job (using hard science and remember the important thing about science - "it works, bitches!") in giving the illusion of choice, the illusion that people determine their own fate and many more illusions, whereas the actual situation is not much different than those totalitarian regimes of the past (and sliding further down daily). In the west the delusional part of the common folk will defend the system because they believe it to be just and right. Brilliant!
  Having lived in both systems I can sincerely say: The West is the best! In everything! (that includes propaganda, spying and killing, political hypocrisy and so on...not only the good bits!)
In post-Soviet Azerbaijan by Anonymous Coward · 2013-10-09 15:45 · Score: 3, Insightful

Ballots determine YOU!
Testing perhaps? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-10-09 15:46 · Score: 3, Interesting

Maybe the app developers are testing this year's app with old data? It should be easy enough to tell if the dataset used is from a previous election.
Wow, that's bad by Anonymous Coward · 2013-10-09 16:05 · Score: 5, Insightful

"The system uses standard personal computers as voting terminals,"
Geez, the NSA pawns PCs. Are you f**ing kidding me?
"with voters using a barcode to authenticate their votes."
Identifiable? i.e. you can be datamined on your voting choice?
"Voting terminals are linked to a server in each polling location using a secure local area network. No votes are taken or transmitted over a public network like the Internet."
FFS, there's no such thing as a 'secure local area network' now. You have a huge agency attacking every network it can. Networks not connected to public networks are hack physically, locally or via third party companies. If Belgacom can't keep its backoffice networks protected, what makes you think you can?
Really in a post PRISM world, recognize that you cannot trust electronic elections, encryption is broken, the keys you send around by email, they're intercepted an read. The networks you create ad-hoc, they're broken into. If you don't want the NSA or GCHQ choosing your PM, you need a paper audit trail.
Re:The new expendables by steelfood · 2013-10-09 16:23 · Score: 4, Interesting

That it was done by a developer, I have no doubt. Absolutely an accident. Like putting an assignment in a conditional.

--
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
Don't be overly critical. by edibobb · 2013-10-09 16:52 · Score: 3, Insightful

Don't be overly critical. Idiot politicians have not shut down the Azerbaijani government.
Azerbaijan does not need elections by boorack · 2013-10-09 17:23 · Score: 3, Informative

BP corporation runs this country, so no need for those pesky elections. According to our bankster-corporate overlords, regime working for BP is "democratic" enough.
Elections don't work that way by dutchwhizzman · 2013-10-09 17:55 · Score: 5, Insightful

Signing a vote isn't going to help one bit because fake citizens can be created that can sign fake votes.
You need anonymity to make certain people vote for whom they want, not whom they want others to think they should vote for.
The only way to prevent rigging is to make certain people get to vote in anonymity, but to be able to see every individual vote go into the ballot and after the voting has ended, be counted by many (independent) eyes.You need to control/bribe a lot of people if you want to get away with rigging an election if that system is in place.

--
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
The Onion by AlienSexist · 2013-10-09 18:18 · Score: 5, Funny

The Onion had done a spoof of this before. The summary reads so much like the script I had to double check that it wasn't April Fools.
Could be a honest mistake from IT-people... by Vegard · 2013-10-09 19:17 · Score: 3, Insightful

I'm in IT myself, and I know how difficult it is to come up with good test-data for your testing...so what's better than production data?
I'm not saying it is so, but it could very well be that the testers have loaded into it this years candidates, made up some likely result, and run the software to see that it works...
And apparently it did! ;)
Irony by Justpin · 2013-10-10 03:06 · Score: 3, Interesting

A little side story. The great irony is, that Azerbaijani people are incredibly corrupt thus they get the government they deserve. I travelled from Tbilisi to Baku a few years ago. Right from the onset from the Azerbaijan border it was ALL about corruption. I had a visa and letter of invitation before hand. Right from the border it began, you had to pay a fee to 'park' in the border area, no pay fee? Your vehicle got trashed, the bloke in front had most of his windows smashed. Then you went from one building to another each time there happened to be forms with a hand written $5 price on each corner. At which a fat oaf with a stamp would refuse to stamp your entry documents unless you gave him $20. I had a buddy tried not to pay and was not allowed into the country. Then 20 metres from the border was a check point where the official would grab your passport and ransom it for $20. Refusing to pay got a bayonet in your tyre. Binoculars came out and there were MANY MANY such check points. So we went off road instead, but now and again had to stop for gas, it said something like .25 for a litre of gas. (it was cheap) except when it came to pay it was not .25 it was 25 a litre. Buying food and stuff the decimal place got moved to the left 2 places. Even when we got to Baku nobody would give us directions without payment. Similar situation with hotels, big sign saying $x per night PRIVATE ROOMS! No, this is wrong, old sign! price was doubled or tripled. Tired we paid and found it was a dorm with beds stacked 5 high. Morning we came out and somebody had stolen our front wheels, $150 if we wanted them back. Just driving to the port we were stopped and 'fined' many many times... We couldn't wait to get out of there, heading to the port there was a port tax. Except we had to go back and forth to a building outside the port to pick up forms and get them stamped inside the port. Each time you entered incurred a $5 fee. There were MANY forms. We got onto the ferry and were happy to be out of there.