[5879] in cryptography@c2.net mail archive
Re: desirable properties of secure voting
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Russell Nelson)
Tue Oct 12 10:15:12 1999
From: Russell Nelson <nelson@crynwr.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
Date: Tue, 12 Oct 1999 00:39:06 -0400 (EDT)
To: cryptography@c2.net
In-Reply-To: <199910111740.TAA13085@mail.replay.com>
Message-ID: <14338.46935.831631.912910@desk.crynwr.com>
Anonymous writes:
> > 8. Receipt=ADfreeness: A voter can't prove to a coercer, how he ha=
s
> > voted. As a result, verifiable vote buying is impossible.
>=20
> It appears that the votehere system does not satisfy this, since the=
vote
> is published in encrypted form, so the voter can reveal the plaintex=
t in
> a verifiable way. Of course even if the system mathematically prote=
cted
> against this you could still sell your vote by voting at home while =
the
> vote buyer watched you.
Any time you're allowed to vote in a manner which a third party can
observe everything you observe, they can affect your cost of voting
one way or another.
It's much more fun to try to disprove a positive statement. So let's
try. Perhaps the voting is in a challenge-response form? Given a
number, the voting executes a pre-arranged algorithm on it, and votes
with the results of the algorithm. That would work, presuming that
the algorithm has enough bits of entropy to confound cryptanalysis.
There's a bunch of problems, though: the algorithm has to be
executable in someone's head, without any intermediate values being
transcribed. The algorithm has to be memorized. The algorithm has to=20=
be coordinated with the vote-taking authority.
Does this sound like the pre-computer key distribution problem to you?
Sure does to me, so much so that I would say that this disproof
disproves nothing in a world where guys pick their girlfriend's name
as their password, and where people can keep 5+-2 things in their head=20=
at any one time.
--=20
-russ nelson <nelson@crynwr.com> http://russnelson.com
Crynwr sells support for free software | PGPok | Government schools ar=
e so
521 Pleasant Valley Rd. | +1 315 268 1925 voice | bad that any rank ama=
teur
Potsdam, NY 13676-3213 | +1 315 268 9201 FAX | can outdo them. Homes=
chool!
