More...
The Huffington Post Voting Problems
Log In | Sign Up | July 6, 2009

If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post


The Blog

Spread Awareness - Stumble this Big News Page


Pages:   1 2 3
HUFFPOST'S BIG NEWS PAGES

Barbara Simons: The Internet and Voting: Worth Doing Right


Comments
4
Pending Comments
0
iPhone App Promo

Want to reply to a comment? Hint: Click "Reply" at the bottom of the comment; after being approved your comment will appear directly underneath the comment you replied to

View Comments:
- jimadler I'm a Fan of jimadler permalink

The religious wars around voting technologies (paper vs electronic vs Internet) miss the point that without end-to-end audit there is no basis to judge any of them -- "Internet Voting Combatants Miss the Point (again)" http://jimadlerblog.com/2009/06/internet-voting-combatants-miss-point.html

Jim Adler

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 08:03 PM on 06/06/2009
- lipscombr I'm a Fan of lipscombr permalink

In 2004, the Pentagon were about to launch an Internet voting system, dubbed "SERVE." But it was dumped after the entire notion of Internet voting was blasted by leading experts in computer security.

Here's an excerpt from their report, "A Security Analysis of the Secure Electronic Registration and Voting Experiment (SERVE)," http://www.servesecurityreport.org/

"Because the danger of successful, large-scale attacks is so great, we reluctantly recommend shutting down the development of SERVE immediately and not attempting anything like it in the future until both the Internet and the world's home computer infrastructure have been fundamentally redesigned, or some other unforeseen security breakthroughs appear...."

They caution that some varieties of attack "would be extremely difficult to detect, even in cases when they change the outcome of a major election."

Has the Internet become safer since then? Hardly. Security holes continually crop up.

In June 2008, Internet servers were discovered to have a flaw that would allow hackers to secretly divert browsers to imposter websites. (Search on "DNS poisoning." Or see http://www.informationweek.com/news/internet/security/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=208808229 )

Such sites could "filter" votes before passing them on to an authentic website.

And just six weeks ago, this alarming report appeared:

U.S. Steps Up Effort on Digital Defenses
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/28/us/28cyber.html?_r=2&hp

The Internet is nowhere near being a "Green Zone" for voting, even for the military.

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 10:41 AM on 06/05/2009
- RTIII I'm a Fan of RTIII permalink


THANK YOU for this article.

When I saw the title, I braced myself for the need for me to write up another "rebuttal" - in 200 words or less - as I am one of those experts of which Ms. Simmons writes.

I am SO RELIEVED that people are starting to get it: All-digital voting can never be made secure. Period.

While paper systems may also never be made fully secure, they always leave a -ahem- Paper Trail...
.

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 10:55 AM on 06/03/2009
- HuffCommen I'm a Fan of HuffCommen permalink

The author is right, despite all the "military grade" encryption that banks use the system still depends on us balancing our checkebooks and knowing where each dollar was spent. You cannot do that in voting. If your vote can be linked to you then you can be bullied or bribed into voting one way and punished or even killed for voting wrong.

That has happened in the past, this is why we have a private voting booth so that we can each, for that moment, for that space, make the right decision, our personal decision, free from intimidation, coercion and temptation.

Despite all the work that banks do, and they want to because their money is on the line, money still gets lost, and identities are still stolen.

As a side point it doesn't matter whether Obama won or not. Every election from U.S. Senator to City Councilman to Judge matters. Every elected official has the power to make our lives better or worse, the kind of power that corrupt people will always try to steal, if not today then tomorrow.

As another point, the turnout for this "first ever internet election", 6.3%. Hardly a major event.

    Favorite    Flag as abusive Posted 07:11 PM on 06/02/2009
Comments are closed for this entry

You must be logged in to reply to this comment. Log in  or  Connect