[ale] OT: Electronic Voting in GA

[Michael D. Hirsch]

On Tuesday 28 October 2003 02:12 pm, Jeff Hubbs wrote:
> On Tue, 2003-10-28 at 12:59, Michael D. Hirsch wrote:
> > On Tuesday 28 October 2003 09:36 am, Bjorn Dittmer-Roche wrote:
> > > On Tue, 28 Oct 2003, Bob Toxen wrote:
> > > > On Sun, Oct 20, 2002 at 11:25:58PM -0600, Joseph A Knapka wrote:
> > > > > Public key cryptography allows us to achieve provably
> > > > > secure electronic voting, immune from this sort of
> > >
> > > I should dispell a myth here. Public key cryptography has NOT been
> > > proven to be secure through any mathematical process.
> >
> > True--that is one reason why quantum crytography looks so cool.  It is
> > provably secure.  At the moment, it is also damn hard to do, but it's
> > getting easier every year.  Until that time, or someone proved P != NP,
> > we'll have to settle for something that has every appearance of being
> > secure without an exact proof.
 <snip>
> Here's a rule of thumb:  suppose you could beam Leonardo De Vinci, Thomas
> Edison, or Ben Franklin to the present day.  Could these intelligent and
> capable men from their respective times examine, comprehend, and verify
> the voting process to their satisfaction,  Even if they had to learn about
> new things to do so?

Understanding why quantum cryptography is secure is within the grasp of any 
technologically literate person, so I don't think they would have trouble 
understanding that.  Verifying a voting process is a different question 
entirely, one I was not talking about.  I was only responding to the 
statement that PKC was not provably secure.

> Say all you want about quantum cryptography, but how to you keep it or any
> other mechanism from being perverted or subverted?

Hell if I know.  Voting mechanisms have so many possible failure points that 
the security of the transmission is probably the part I worry about least.  
Given the insecurities of recording the proper vote initially, insecure 
storage mechanisms, no audit trail, etc, why would anyone bother trying to 
crack the transmission security?

Michael