[5875] in cryptography@c2.net mail archive

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Re: desirable properties of secure voting

daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Greg Broiles)
Mon Oct 11 17:21:16 1999

Date: Mon, 11 Oct 1999 12:51:20 -0700
From: Greg Broiles <gbroiles@netbox.com>
To: cryptography@c2.net, cypherpunks@cyberpass.net
Message-ID: <19991011125120.A6988@ideath.parrhesia.com>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
In-Reply-To: <199910111740.TAA13085@mail.replay.com>; from Anonymous on Mon, Oct 11, 1999 at 07:40:16PM +0200

On Mon, Oct 11, 1999 at 07:40:16PM +0200, Anonymous wrote:
> > 2. Robustness: Dishonest voters, other participants or outsiders can't
> > disturb or disrupt an election.
> 
> Votehere's system depends on a coalition of mutually suspicious parties
> to tally the vote (they mutually share the necessary decryption key).
> If enough of these refuse to cooperate then this could disrupt the
> election.

Do you have documentation for this? Thus far, the people at votehere
seem to think they have something to hide, and are asking people to
accept their system without disclosure. It would be more accurate to say
"Votehere claims that their system depends .." 

> Snake oil is a nasty phrase in this business.  It's about the worst thing
> you can say about a crypto related enterprise.  Next time it would be
> better to learn about the technology before commenting on it rather than
> the other way around.

If it's not possible to learn something about crypto which is being
promoted, that's all that one needs to know to know that it's snake oil.
If you have a pointer to actual code or technical information about
votehere, it would be helpful, especially in light of votehere's
admission that the information they had on their website, until
recently, was misleading and incorrect. If your conclusions about
votehere are based upon that incorrect information, it might be
appropriate to reconsider them. Have you received information dated
later than their CTO's retraction of their prior statements? 

--
Greg Broiles
gbroiles@netbox.com


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