The final, FINAL word on computer and internet voting

[Paragon]

No computer system is invulnerable. No security system is uncrackable.

NONE.

You want to use touch screens? Fine - give me a printout of my results to put in a separate bin for recounts. Problem solved.

[Vis Numar]

1. whatever

internet viting and touch screens are two different animals.

[Paragon]

2. Are you saying internet voting is secure?

Really?!?

[NoMoreRedInk]

3. No voting system is secure**********

nm

[patdem]

5. Well, I prefer to have the most secure (paper) vs the least secure

(touch screen)...at least give me a CHANCE for my vote to count!! :grr:

[lysergik]

4. Bingo..

I'll take a paper ballot with my isolated touch screen voting machines please!

Bruce Schneier has said, A secure Internet voting system is theoretically possible, but it would be the first secure networked application ever created in the history of computers.

You can read more of his analysis on this matter at: http://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram-0012.html#1

There are many many other security experts who have came out to disclose the dangers and insecurities of Internet voting, many of which apply to touch screen machines that use "proprietary", non Open Source operating systems and have communications devices (modems, wireless, etc) embeded inside the machines.

[Mairead]

8. The problem with all these 'Internet voting is insecure' tocsins

is that paper-ballot voting is also insecure. And in both cases, the insecurity is in people, not technology. And both kinds of systems are insecure in fundamentally the same way: the malicious can alter votes, so that no matter what the voter does or believes, something else is recorded.

[lysergik]

9. People are the weakest link..

.. but by having two methods of vote counting in place at polls, the incidence of having malicious activity goes down remarkably.

In the case of Internet voting, humans secure the equipment, but the technology also lacks in allowing people the security and piece of mind that their vote is secure, and yet still anonymous. The computer is vulnerable, the database is vulnerable, the users are vulnerable, the telco lines are vulnerable, the Internet portion is vulnerable, the anonymity portion is vulnerable, the physical security is vulnerable.

[Mairead]

10. "technology also lacks"

I think my point is that it's only an implementation issue. The public availablity of free, 2048-bit public-key encryption would guarantee security. All it wants is deployed.

[pinkpops]

12. Encrypted or not,

what comes out of the box is what comes out of the box, whether it is correlated to what goes in or not. There could be a random number generator in there for all we know.

[lysergik]

13. It only guarantees..

..socket layer security. That is all. A 56bit key could provide that. Malicious intrusion against the voting computer is still very realisitic as it's not possible to prevent unauthorized connection to that server. Nor does most of the public know jack when it comes to encryption or how it works. Even simple passwords confuse people which is why you'll usually find their passwords stuck to their monitor or under their keyboard. You've just taken the simplicity away and replaced it with obscurity.

It's an implementation problem and a technical problem. You can secure the traffic to the host, but you can't determine the security or trustworthyness of the host or the software on which it is running.

[Mairead]

14. "It's an implementation problem and a technical problem."

But there is a known solution to the technical problem: open-design hardware, open-source software. Create a low-parts-count hardware design, and put all the software in rom on a daughter board. Add point-of-use verification in fast static ram on a daughter card, and the technical problem is done.

[pinkpops]

11. I agree in that

there has always been election fraud. But it is the centralization and inability to recount that worries me.

[Isome]

6. I wish Bev were still here... n/t

[Nlighten1]

7. Isn't she sexy here?

[dusty64]

15. A random recount of the

paper ballots also must be performed to ensure they match the electronic returns.