4,137 research outputs found
A Simple Cast-as-Intended E-Voting Protocol by Using Secure Smart Cards
We propose a simple cast-as-intended remote e-voting protocol where the security is based on the use of secure (and trusted) smart cards that incorporate incard numeric keyboards and LCD displays, and can perform a limited number of cryptographic operations (like encryption, signing, and random number generation). The protocol, while very simple, is significantly more secure (in the sense of ``cast-as-intended\u27\u27) and convenient to use than the e-voting protocol currently used in Norway. The protocol is developed primarily with the idea of deploying it in Estonia within the next to years. Since in Estonia, a vast majority of the population already has ID-cards with digital signing and authentication functionality, and the use of ID-cards is a required prerequisite to participate in Estonian e-voting anyway, our assumption of every voter having a secure hardware token makes sense in this concrete context
State of Alaska Election Security Project Phase 2 Report
A laska’s election system is among the most secure in the country,
and it has a number of safeguards other states are now adopting. But
the technology Alaska uses to record and count votes could be improved—
and the state’s huge size, limited road system, and scattered communities
also create special challenges for insuring the integrity of the vote.
In this second phase of an ongoing study of Alaska’s election
security, we recommend ways of strengthening the system—not only the
technology but also the election procedures. The lieutenant governor
and the Division of Elections asked the University of Alaska Anchorage to
do this evaluation, which began in September 2007.Lieutenant Governor Sean Parnell.
State of Alaska Division of Elections.List of Appendices / Glossary / Study Team / Acknowledgments / Introduction / Summary of Recommendations / Part 1 Defense in Depth / Part 2 Fortification of Systems / Part 3 Confidence in Outcomes / Conclusions / Proposed Statement of Work for Phase 3: Implementation / Reference
HandiVote: simple, anonymous, and auditable electronic voting
We suggest a set of procedures utilising a range of technologies by which a major democratic deficit of modern society can be addressed. The mechanism, whilst it makes limited use of cryptographic techniques in the background, is based around objects and procedures with which voters are currently familiar. We believe that this holds considerable potential for the extension of democratic participation and control
Individual verifiability in electronic voting
This PhD Thesis is the fruit of the job of the author as a researcher at Scytl Secure Electronic Voting, as well as the collaboration with Paz Morillo, from the Department of Applied Mathematics at UPC and Alex Escala, PhD student.
In her job at Scytl, the author has participated in several electronic voting projects for national-level binding elections in different countries. The participation of the author covered from the protocol design phase, to the implementation phase by providing support to the development teams.
The thesis focuses on studying the mechanisms that can be provided to the voters, in order to examine and verify the processes executed in a remote electronic voting system. This work has been done as part of the tasks of the author at the electronic voting company Scytl. Although this thesis does not talk about system implementations, which are interesting by themselves, it is indeed focused on protocols which have had, or may have, an application in the real world. Therefore, it may surprise the reader by not using state of the art cryptography such as pairings or lattices, which still, although providing very interesting properties, cannot be efficiently implemented and used in a real system. Otherwise, the protocols presented in this thesis use standard and well-known cryptographic primitives, while providing new functionalities that can be applied in nowadays electronic voting systems.
The thesis has the following contents: A survey on electronic voting systems which provide voter verification functionalities. Among these systems we can find the one used in the Municipal and Parliamentary Norwegian elections of 2011 and 2013, and the system used in the Australian State of New South Wales for the General State Elections in 2015, in which the author has had an active participation in the design of their electronic voting protocols. A syntax which can be used for modeling electronic voting systems providing voter verifiability. This syntax is focused on systems characterized by the voter confirming the casting of her vote, after verifying some evidences provided by the protocol. Along with this syntax, definitions for the security properties required for such schemes are provided. A description of the electronic voting protocol and system which has been used in 2014 and 2015 elections in the Swiss Canton of Neuchâtel, which has individual verification functionalities, is also provided in this thesis, together with a formal analysis of the security properties of the scheme and further extensions of the protocol. Finally, two new protocols which provide new functionalities respect to those from the state of the art are proposed: A new protocol providing individual verifiability which allows voters to defend against coertion by generating fake proofs, and a protocol which makes a twist to individual verifiability by ensuring that all the processes executed by the voting device and the remote server are correct, without requiring an active verification from the voter. A formal analysis of the security properties of both protocols is provided, together with examples of implementation in real systems.Aquesta tesi és fruit de la feina de l'autora com a personal de recerca a la empresa Scytl Secure Electtronic Voting, així com de la col·laboració amb la Paz Morillo, del departament de matemàtica aplicada a la UPC, i el Alex Escala, estudiant de doctorat. A la feina a Scytl, l'autora ha participat a varis projectes de vot electrònic per a eleccions vinculants a nivell nacional, que s'han efectuat a varis països. La participació de la autora ha cobert tant la fase de disseny del protocol, com la fase de implementació, on ha proveït suport als equips de desenvolupament. La tesi estudia els mecanismes que es poden proporcionar als votants per a poder examinar i verificar els processos que s'executen en sistemes de vot electrònic. Tot i que la tesi no parla de la implementació dels sistemes de vot electrònic, sí que s'enfoca en protocols que han tingut, o poden tenir, una aplicació pràctica actualment. La tesi té els continguts següents: Un estudi en sistemes de vot electrònic que proporcionen funcionalitats per a que els votants verifiquin els processos. Entre aquests sistemes, trobem el que es va utilitzar a les eleccions municipals i parlamentàries a Noruega als anys 2011 i 2013, així com el sistema utilitzat a l'estat Australià de New South Wales, per a les eleccions generals de 2015, sistemes en els que l'autora ha participat directament en el diseny dels seus protocols criptogràfics. La tesi també conté una sintaxi que es pot utilizar per modelar sistemes de vot electrònic que proporcionen verificabilitat individual (on verifica el votant). Aquesta sintaxi s'enfoca en sistemes caracteritzats pel fet de que el votant confirma la emissió del seu vot un cop ha verificat unes evidències sobre ell, proporcionades pel protocol. A més de la sintaxi, es proporcionen definicions de les propietats de seguretat d'aquestts sistemes. La tesi també conté una descripció del sistema i protocol de vot electrònic que s'utilitza al cantó Suís de Neuchâtel a partir del 2014, el qual té funcionalitats per a que els votants verifiquin certs processos del sistema. La tesi a més conté un anàlisi de la seguretat de l'esquema, així com possibles extensions del protocol. Finalment, la tesi inclou dos protocols nous que proporcionen noves característiques i funcionalitats respecte als existents a l'estat de l'art de la tècnica. El primer permet a un votant defendre's de un coaccionador generant proves falses, i el segon fa un canvi de paradigma de la verificabilitat individual, de forma que el votant no ha de verificar certs processos per a saber que s'han efectuant correctament. La tesi inclou un anàlisi formal de les propietats de seguretat dels dos protocols, així com exemples de com podrien ser implementats en un escenari real.Postprint (published version
Towards internet voting in the state of Qatar
Qatar is a small country in the Middle East which has used its oil wealth to invest in the country's infrastructure and education. The technology for Internet voting now exists or can be developed, but are the people of Qatar willing to take part in Internet voting for national elections?. This research identifies the willingness of government and citizens to introduce and participate in Internet voting (I-voting) in Qatar and the barriers that may be encountered when doing so. A secure I voting model for the Qatar government is then proposed that address issues of I-voting which might arise due to the introduction of such new technology. Recommendations are made for the Qatar government to assist in the introduction of I-voting.
The research identifies the feasibility of I-voting and the government s readiness and willingness to introduce it. Multiple factors are examined: the voting experience, educational development, telecommunication development, the large number of Internet users, Qatar law which does not bar the use of I-voting and Qatar culture which supports I-voting introduction. It is shown that there is a willingness amongst both the people and the government to introduce I-voting, and there is appropriate accessibility, availability of IT infrastructure, availability of Internet law to protect online consumers and the existence of the e government project. However, many Qataris have concerns of security, privacy, usability, transparency and other issues that would need to be addressed before any voting system could be considered to be a quality system in the eyes of the voters. Also, the need to consider the security threat associated on client-side machines is identified where a lack of user awareness on information security is an important factor.
The proposed model attempts to satisfy voting principles, introducing a secure platform for I-voting using best practices and solutions such as the smart card, Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) and digital certificates. The model was reviewed by a number of experts on Information Technology, and the Qatari culture and law who found that the system would, generally, satisfy voting principles, but pointed out the need to consider the scalability of the model, the possible cyber-attacks and the risks associated with voters computers. which could be reduced by enhancing user awareness on security and using secure operating systems or Internet browsers. From these findings, a set of recommendations were proposed to encourage the government to introduce I-voting which consider different aspects of I-voting, including the digital divide, e-literacy, I voting infrastructure, legal aspects, transparency, security and privacy. These recommendations were also reviewed by experts who found them to be both valuable and effective.
Since literature on Internet voting in Qatar is sparse, empirical and non-empirical studies were carried out in a variety of surveys, interviews and experiments. The research successfully achieved its aim and objectives and is now being considered by the Qatari Government
A framework for comparing the security of voting schemes
We present a new framework to evaluate the security of voting schemes. We utilize the framework to compare a wide range of voting schemes, including practical schemes in realworld use and academic schemes with interesting theoretical properties. In the end we present our results in a neat comparison table.
We strive to be unambiguous: we specify our threat model, assumptions and scope, we give definitions to the terms that we use, we explain every conclusion that we draw, and we make an effort to describe complex ideas in as simple terms as possible.
We attempt to consolidate all important security properties from literature into a coherent framework. These properties are intended to curtail vote-buying and coercion, promote verifiability and dispute resolution, and prevent denial-of-service attacks. Our framework may be considered novel in that trust assumptions are an output of the framework, not an input. This means that our framework answers questions such as ”how many authorities have to collude in order to violate ballot secrecy in the Finnish paper voting scheme?
The SAVE System: Secure Architecture for Voting Electronically: Existing Technology, with Built-in Redundancy, Enables Reliability
Existing technology is capable of yielding secure, reliable, and auditable voting systems. This system outlines an architecture based on redundancy at each stage of the ballot submission process that is resistant to external hacking and internal insertion of malicious code. The proposed architecture addresses all layers of the system beyond the point when a voter commits the ballot. These steps include the verification of eligibility to vote, authentication, and aggregation of the vote. A redundant electronic audit trail keeps track of all of the votes and messages received, rendering a physical paper trail unnecessary. There is no single point of failure in the system, as none of the components at a particular layer relies on any of the others; nor is there a single component that decides what tally is correct. Each system arrives at the result on its own. Programming time for implementation is minimal. The proposed architecture was written in Java in a short time. A second programmer was able to write a module in less than a week. Performance and reliability are incrementally improvable by separate programmers writing new redundant modules
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