Using purely e-voting to elect government is akin to asking "Anonymous" whom they want for president, which would probably be the "Son, I am dissapoint" guy --- or worse.
The only way that e-voting is useful is as a hybrid system with paper voting, that employs results validity through random and targetted sampling.
Proposal:
(1) When a citizen votes during an election, as the paper vote is dropped into the ballot box it is simultaneously scanned by an computer reader which is networked to central tabulation HQ.(If the vote cannot be read, it is not accepted into the ballot box)
(2) When voting is finished, all voting staff and political party staff (from all parties running) get instant "un-official" print-outs of voting, with results described by each ballot box, across the entire voting area. These "un-official" election results can be posted online the very second voting ends. BUT, ballot boxes with paper votes are still securely locked down, as always!
(3) Before results of the election can be officially announced, two more things must happen: i)a random sample of a significant proportion of ballot boxes must be counted by hand, and verified to be equal to or very, very close to what the "un-official" electronic results were, which were already posted online for each ballot box. ii)every party running in the election is allowed to request an official hand-count of a generous proportion of ballot boxes, at places of their choosing, with hand-count results to be verified against the original "un-official" electronic results.
(4) If in the previous step above any of the hand-counting for any single ballot box is off from what the "un-official" electronic tally originally had reported, the electronic results are deemed VOID and completely thrown out. At this point, ALL paper ballots go to be hand-counted, to get the true election outcome.
Advantages of this approach: (1) Costs WAY less to conduct elections, since much fewer paper ballots are manually counted (Except in those cases where electronic results are off from the statistical sampling, in which case all votes everywhere are recounted... and whomever designed the e-voting security is fired and plastered throughout the media as an idiot/crony). Governments could even pay a nominal insurance fee so that expenses would be covered in the case that the e-voting is hacked and all votes have to be counted
(2) results are just as verifiable as classic paper-only election. If absolutely necessary, all paper votes can be counted.
(3) complete but un-official election results can theoretically be released seconds after voting closes. No more watching tv news talking heads yammer all night as results slowly trickle in
(4) If properly designed, the system can ensure secrecy of your vote
Electronic voting can be helpful, but if the day comes that we allow government elections to go electronic-only.. that is the day we ALL lose democracy.
Nobody in his/her right mind should ever endorse computer-only voting or vote-counting. That is a path to madness and rioting.
However, with a verifiable mixture of both paper and electronic voting, we could make everybody happy.
Proposal:
(1) When a citizen votes during an election, as the paper vote is dropped into the ballot box it is simultaneously scanned by an computer reader which is networked to central tabulation HQ.(If the vote cannot be read, it is not accepted into the ballot box)
(2) When voting is finished, all voting staff and political party staff (from all parties running) get instant "un-official" print-outs of voting, with results described by each ballot box, across the entire voting area. Also, these "un-official" election results are posted online the very second voting ends. Ballot boxes with paper votes are securely locked down, as always.
(3) Before results of the election can be officially announced, two more things must happen:
i)a random sample of a significant proportion of ballot boxes must be counted by hand, and verified to be equal to or very, very close to what the "un-official" electronic results were, which were already posted online for each ballot box.
ii)every party running in the election is allowed to request an official hand-count of a generous proportion of ballot boxes, at places of their choosing, with hand-count results to be verified against the original "un-official" electronic results.
(4) If in step (3) above any of the hand-counting for any single ballot box is off from what the "un-official" electronic tally originally had reported, the electronic results are deemed VOID and completely thrown out. At this point, ALL paper ballots go to be hand-counted, to get the true election outcome.
These steps should ensure as verifiable results as we have had with paper-only counting. However, it should cost a lot less this way to conduct elections, as much fewer votes need to be counted (unless the electronic results are off, in which case more money for counting paper votes is the least of the government's problems).
Arguably, these steps may also result in official election results being released to the public faster.
Electronic voting can be helpful, but let me re-emphasize what I said in the beginning:
The day we allow government elections to go electronic-only is the day we ALL lose democracy.
The mouse truly *is* your friend.
I haven't seen anybody suggest another rather *obvious* way to make sure your password is not being logged properly(at least by a keylogger):
(1) When typing a password, type a "Cloaked" password. That is, add (groups of) characters that don't belong in your password
(2) Before submitting your password, delete the groups of characters that don't belong AS BLOCKS.
(3) IMPORTANT! Make sure the superfluous groups of characters added to your password is exactly the same *every* time (read on...)
So, for example, if your password is really, "Star9!", get used to always typing something like:
"Star123456789!"
Then, before hitting enter, highlight with your mouse and delete the superflous characters AS ONE BLOCK in the appropriate place (in this case, a single block of eight characters, starting from the third leftmost).
In this case, all what the keylogger will log is:
Star123456789! *DeleteKey*
So, for the person who reads you keylog file, his/her first impression will be that your password is "Star123456789". Then, even if they catch on to the fact that you are cloaking your password, they will have to try deleting every combination of keys, and GROUPS of keys, from your pre-DEL password. Good Luck to them.
Chances are, unless the person trying to get your password is targeting you specifically, they will give up and move on to the next person for whom they have a keylog file. But even if it your husband/wife spying on you, with this method their goal of figuring out your password is at least encumbered somewhat.
As for the "IMPORTANT" part in step (3), consider the case that for the password "Star9!", one day you use the cloak "Star123456789! *DeleteKey* ", and another day you use the cloak "Star987654321! *DeleteKey* ".
The bastard reading the keylog file would have to be an idiot to not figure out, from those two cloaks, what your password is.
So, memorize your "cloak" as well as you memorize your password, and you should be safe from keyloggers.
Cheers,
Mikey123
Slashdot Mirror
All they had to do was look at comic book mutants (X-Men?) to see that most of them come from underprivileged backgrounds.
Using purely e-voting to elect government is akin to asking "Anonymous" whom they want for president, which would probably be the "Son, I am dissapoint" guy --- or worse. The only way that e-voting is useful is as a hybrid system with paper voting, that employs results validity through random and targetted sampling. Proposal: (1) When a citizen votes during an election, as the paper vote is dropped into the ballot box it is simultaneously scanned by an computer reader which is networked to central tabulation HQ.(If the vote cannot be read, it is not accepted into the ballot box) (2) When voting is finished, all voting staff and political party staff (from all parties running) get instant "un-official" print-outs of voting, with results described by each ballot box, across the entire voting area. These "un-official" election results can be posted online the very second voting ends. BUT, ballot boxes with paper votes are still securely locked down, as always! (3) Before results of the election can be officially announced, two more things must happen: i)a random sample of a significant proportion of ballot boxes must be counted by hand, and verified to be equal to or very, very close to what the "un-official" electronic results were, which were already posted online for each ballot box. ii)every party running in the election is allowed to request an official hand-count of a generous proportion of ballot boxes, at places of their choosing, with hand-count results to be verified against the original "un-official" electronic results. (4) If in the previous step above any of the hand-counting for any single ballot box is off from what the "un-official" electronic tally originally had reported, the electronic results are deemed VOID and completely thrown out. At this point, ALL paper ballots go to be hand-counted, to get the true election outcome. Advantages of this approach: (1) Costs WAY less to conduct elections, since much fewer paper ballots are manually counted (Except in those cases where electronic results are off from the statistical sampling, in which case all votes everywhere are recounted... and whomever designed the e-voting security is fired and plastered throughout the media as an idiot/crony). Governments could even pay a nominal insurance fee so that expenses would be covered in the case that the e-voting is hacked and all votes have to be counted (2) results are just as verifiable as classic paper-only election. If absolutely necessary, all paper votes can be counted. (3) complete but un-official election results can theoretically be released seconds after voting closes. No more watching tv news talking heads yammer all night as results slowly trickle in (4) If properly designed, the system can ensure secrecy of your vote Electronic voting can be helpful, but if the day comes that we allow government elections to go electronic-only.. that is the day we ALL lose democracy.
Nobody in his/her right mind should ever endorse computer-only voting or vote-counting. That is a path to madness and rioting. However, with a verifiable mixture of both paper and electronic voting, we could make everybody happy. Proposal: (1) When a citizen votes during an election, as the paper vote is dropped into the ballot box it is simultaneously scanned by an computer reader which is networked to central tabulation HQ.(If the vote cannot be read, it is not accepted into the ballot box) (2) When voting is finished, all voting staff and political party staff (from all parties running) get instant "un-official" print-outs of voting, with results described by each ballot box, across the entire voting area. Also, these "un-official" election results are posted online the very second voting ends. Ballot boxes with paper votes are securely locked down, as always. (3) Before results of the election can be officially announced, two more things must happen: i)a random sample of a significant proportion of ballot boxes must be counted by hand, and verified to be equal to or very, very close to what the "un-official" electronic results were, which were already posted online for each ballot box. ii)every party running in the election is allowed to request an official hand-count of a generous proportion of ballot boxes, at places of their choosing, with hand-count results to be verified against the original "un-official" electronic results. (4) If in step (3) above any of the hand-counting for any single ballot box is off from what the "un-official" electronic tally originally had reported, the electronic results are deemed VOID and completely thrown out. At this point, ALL paper ballots go to be hand-counted, to get the true election outcome. These steps should ensure as verifiable results as we have had with paper-only counting. However, it should cost a lot less this way to conduct elections, as much fewer votes need to be counted (unless the electronic results are off, in which case more money for counting paper votes is the least of the government's problems). Arguably, these steps may also result in official election results being released to the public faster. Electronic voting can be helpful, but let me re-emphasize what I said in the beginning: The day we allow government elections to go electronic-only is the day we ALL lose democracy.
The mouse truly *is* your friend. I haven't seen anybody suggest another rather *obvious* way to make sure your password is not being logged properly(at least by a keylogger): (1) When typing a password, type a "Cloaked" password. That is, add (groups of) characters that don't belong in your password (2) Before submitting your password, delete the groups of characters that don't belong AS BLOCKS. (3) IMPORTANT! Make sure the superfluous groups of characters added to your password is exactly the same *every* time (read on...) So, for example, if your password is really, "Star9!", get used to always typing something like: "Star123456789!" Then, before hitting enter, highlight with your mouse and delete the superflous characters AS ONE BLOCK in the appropriate place (in this case, a single block of eight characters, starting from the third leftmost). In this case, all what the keylogger will log is: Star123456789! *DeleteKey* So, for the person who reads you keylog file, his/her first impression will be that your password is "Star123456789". Then, even if they catch on to the fact that you are cloaking your password, they will have to try deleting every combination of keys, and GROUPS of keys, from your pre-DEL password. Good Luck to them. Chances are, unless the person trying to get your password is targeting you specifically, they will give up and move on to the next person for whom they have a keylog file. But even if it your husband/wife spying on you, with this method their goal of figuring out your password is at least encumbered somewhat. As for the "IMPORTANT" part in step (3), consider the case that for the password "Star9!", one day you use the cloak "Star123456789! *DeleteKey* ", and another day you use the cloak "Star987654321! *DeleteKey* ". The bastard reading the keylog file would have to be an idiot to not figure out, from those two cloaks, what your password is. So, memorize your "cloak" as well as you memorize your password, and you should be safe from keyloggers. Cheers, Mikey123