Theory and Practice of Cryptography
Why Hacker News recommends it
HN keeps pointing to it as a long, fascinating talk on cryptographic, verifiable voting whenever e-voting security comes up.
What it is
A Google Tech Talk by Steve Weis that introduces modern cryptography and its use in practice and at Google. It covers proofs of security and security definitions and a special topic. HN commenters treat it as a talk on verifiable electronic voting.
Recommended by 5 HN commenters across 7 different months, 2011 to 2019.
What Hacker News said
Strong rec kaoD · 2016-11 · on “An idea for encrypted, verifiable voting”
I can't believe this talk hasn't been posted yet! Theory and Practice of Cryptography: Verifying Elections with Cryptography [this video] This is probably one of the homomorphic schemes mentioned in TFA. It's very old (2007-ish?) and the state of the art probably advanced, but it's very interesting and addresses a number of points that are not cared for in TFA (like secret ballots verifiable by the voter but impossible to prove to anyone else).
Recommends maeon3 · 2011-02 · on “Free university lectures on computer science”
Youtube users: 'UserGroupsatGoogle' and 'GoogleTechTalks' post some epic content for the more advanced programmer. Continuous Integration with Hudson: [LINK] Cryptography Theory and practice: [this video]
Recommends aianus · 2014-07 · on “Software used to count Australian Senate votes is a “trade secret””
> counted by hand. By whom? Overseen by whom? Who oversees the overseers? Not to mention people make mistakes, ballots get dumped, and nobody has any evidence their vote was actually counted. Here's a long but fascinating tech talk on a real solution: [this video]
Recommends aianus · 2015-04 · on “Estonia's e-residency program expands abroad”
Unfortunately this enables someone to coerce or bribe you into voting for a certain candidate, since the coercer would be able to demand to see your receipt and verify you complied. Here's a rather long but very interesting tech talk about electronic voting schemes which maintain the secret ballot property: [this video]
Recommends grzm · 2016-10 · on “In Pennsylvania, Claims of a Rigged Election May Be Impossible to Disprove”
Here's a link to slides from a talk Ronald Rivest gave back in March 2016 at ACM-IEEE: "Auditability and Verifiability of Elections" [LINK] It covers a lot of what I'm sure is going to be discussed in this thread, including vote receipts, coercion, verifiability that your vote is counted. Edit to add: And heres a good talk by Ben Adida speaking at Google for a "Theory and Practice of Cryptography" TechTalk series entitled "Verifying Elections with Crytography" from 2007. Good stuff there, too. [this video]
Recommends grzm · 2016-11 · on “Votes could be counted as fractions instead of as whole numbers”
I think blockchain might have some application, but I'm unconvinced that computer technology alone is going to solve it. Have a look at this slide deck from Ron Rivest (of RSA fame). [LINK] I think he does a pretty good job of covering the history of modern voting and how technology can be properly applied. You might find this Google Tech Talk by Ben Adida "Verifying Elections with Cryptography" interesting as well: [this video]
Recommends grzm · 2016-11 · on “E-Voting Refuses to Die Even Though It's Neither Secure nor Secret”
There are documented issues with many existing electronic voting systems. E-voting encompasses a lot of different types of system that can involve computers in the chain, and not surprisingly all of them are equal. There have been a few discussions around voting on HN recently, and that's good. It's an important topic, as trust in the integrity of elections is vital for democracy. There's a lot of existing material out there about verifiable and auditable voting systems, especially in the wake of the 2000 US Presidential elections. I encourage you to take a look at what's out there. It can provide a great foundation for discussion. Here are some links I've found useful: Wikipedia page on End
Recommends grzm · 2017-01 · on “Time to Take a Stand”
Going back to my original comment, widespread faith that the voting process is safe is just as important as whether it actually is. Casting doubt on the process without really solid evidence undermines this faith. By no means do I want to be Pollyannaish about this: it's too important. Which is why I want to see improvements in the voting process. If voting integrity is something you feel particularly strongly about (I certainly do), I encourage to look into the work that's already out there. The 2000 election spurred a lot of research. Some good starting points are: Ronald L. Rivest MIT Auditability and Verifiability of Elections ACM-IEEE talk March 16, 2016 [LINK] --- Ben Adida Google Tech