2,265 research outputs found
Electronic Voting
This open access book LNCS 13353 constitutes the proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Electronic Voting, E-Vote-ID 2022, held in Bregenz, Austria, in October 2022. The 10 full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 39 submissions. The conference collected the most relevant debates on the development of Electronic Voting, from aspects relating to security and usability through to practical experiences and applications of voting systems, also including legal, social, or political aspects, amongst others
Blockchain-assisted Academic Council Electronic Vote System (bACEVS)
A digitalização de tarefas e processos administrativos é uma realidade
nos dias de hoje, traduzindo-se em mais valias como a agilidade na gestão de
processos, ou no acesso simplificado a dados armazenados. A digitalização
de processos relacionados com tomada de decisão em órgãos colegiais, como
são os Conselhos Académicos, ainda n˜ao ´e algo totalmente alcançado. Atos
de votação ainda são realizados de forma presencial, ou quando muito em
reuniões à distância, sem que se tenha uma cabal confirmação do sentido
de voto de cada elemento. Tal é particularmente complexo de conseguir em
cenários de reuniões à distância, onde podem existir quebras de ligação ou
interrupções de fluxos de áudio ou vídeo.
Neste trabalho, propõe-se uma nova plataforma digital que permita que
tomadas de decisão, por votação em Conselhos Académicos, sejam suportados
por um sistema que garanta a integridade das decisões tomadas, mesmo
quando reunidos à distância. Mais, além dos sentidos de voto e respetivos
resultados, poder-se-á ainda garantir a integridade de todos os documentos
partilhados com todos os elementos que constituem um Conselho Académico.
Tal integridade de votos e documentos será conseguida com recurso a uma
Blockchain.
Com esta solução pretende-se demonstrar a viabilidade da digitalização
completa da tomada de decisão em Conselhos Académicos de Instituições
de Ensino Superior. O processo de digitalização compreenderá o acesso à
informação, por meios eletrónicos, de forma segurança, com garantias de
integridade da informação, bem assim como a digitalização do processo de
votação
Secret texts and cipherballots: secret suffrage and remote electronic voting
Una de les principals preocupacions sobre el vot telemàtic és com preservar el sufragi secret. La llista d’estudis que
afirmen que el vot per Internet és incompatible amb el secret del vot és força extensa. Si bé estudis posteriors sobre
experiències reals han tingut resultats més matisats, les preocupacions sobre el sufragi secret i el vot telemàtic es
mantenen. Abordar aquestes preocupacions esdevé una obligació ineludible. En aquest context, la nostra recerca és
novadora. En primer lloc, el nostre punt de partida no es basa en definicions legals preexistents que s'accepten com a
donades. Partint de l'enfocament universalista del dret constitucional comparat, hem entès que el principi del sufragi
secret transcendeix les opinions i convencions lligades a comunitats polítiques concretes. Aquesta concepció comú i
bàsica s'ha traduït en tres estàndards: individualitat, confidencialitat i anonimat. Aquests estàndards s’han de satisfer
en qualsevol canal de votació. En segon lloc, hem adoptat un enfocament més ampli en l’aplicació d’aquest principi al
vot telemàtic. Hem demostrat que el sufragi secret es pot garantir mitjançant la llei, el codi informàtic, les normes i fins i
tot el mercat. La normativa actual tendeix a ser limitada perquè recorre a analogies amb els canals de votació en paper
i no reconeix les especificitats del vot telemàtic. Per contra, aquí hem examinat el paper que exerceixen (i les
limitacions pròpies) del xifrat asimètric, l'anonimització basada en mix-nets o el recompte homomòrfic, i el vot múltiple.Una de las principales preocupaciones sobre el voto telemático es cómo garantizar el secreto del voto. La lista de
autores que afirman que el voto por Internet es incompatible con el sufragio secreto es considerable. Aunque las
conclusiones de estudios posteriores sobre experiencias reales hayan sido más matizadas, las preocupaciones sobre
el sufragio secreto y el voto telemático se mantienen. Abordar estas preocupaciones constituye en una obligación
ineludible. En este contexto, nuestra investigación es novedosa. En primer lugar, nuestro punto de partida no se basa
en definiciones legales preexistentes que se aceptan como dadas. Partiendo del enfoque universalista del derecho
constitucional comparado, hemos entendido que el principio del sufragio secreto trasciende las opiniones y
convenciones ligadas a la cultura de comunidades políticas concretas. Esta concepción se ha traducido en tres
normas: individualidad, confidencialidad y anonimato. Estas normas deberían aplicarse a cualquier canal de votación.
En segundo lugar, hemos adoptado un enfoque más amplio sobre la aplicación de este principio. Hemos demostrado
que el sufragio secreto puede garantizarse mediante la ley, el código, las normas e incluso el mercado. La normativa
actual tiende a ser limitada porque recurre a analogías con los canales de votación en papel y no reconoce las
especificidades del voto telemático.One of the key concerns about remote electronic voting is how to preserve secret suffrage. The list of authors who
claim that Internet voting is incompatible with the secrecy of the vote is actually quite long. Even if later studies that
analysed the actual implementation of remote electronic voting in public political elections had more nuanced findings,
concerns about secret suffrage and remote electronic voting remain. Addressing these concerns becomes an
inescapable obligation. In this context, our research is quite novel. First and foremost, our starting point is not based on
pre-existing legal definitions that are accepted as given. Drawing from the universalist approach to comparative
constitutional law, we have understood that the principle of secret suffrage exists in such a way that it transcends the
culture bound opinions and conventions of particular political communities. This core understanding has been
translated into three standards: individuality, confidentiality, and anonymity. These standards should apply to any voting
channel. Second, we have taken a wider approach at the enforcement of this principle. We have showed that secret
suffrage may be enforced through law, code, norms, and even the market. Current regulations tend to be constrained
because they resort to analogies with paper-based voting channels and fail to acknowledge the specificities of remote
electronic voting. In contrast, we have examined the role played by (and the limitations of) asymmetric encryption,
anonymization based on mix-nets or homomorphic tallying, and of multiple voting to enforce secret suffrage
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
Electronic Voting
This open access book LNCS 13353 constitutes the proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Electronic Voting, E-Vote-ID 2022, held in Bregenz, Austria, in October 2022. The 10 full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 39 submissions. The conference collected the most relevant debates on the development of Electronic Voting, from aspects relating to security and usability through to practical experiences and applications of voting systems, also including legal, social, or political aspects, amongst others
Cryptographic Protocols for Privacy Enhancing Technologies: From Privacy Preserving Human Attestation to Internet Voting
Desire of privacy is oftentimes associated with the intention to hide certain
aspects of our thoughts or actions due to some illicit activity. This is a
narrow understanding of privacy, and a marginal fragment of the motivations
for undertaking an action with a desired level of privacy. The right for not
being subject to arbitrary interference of our privacy is part of the universal
declaration of human rights (Article 12) and, above that, a requisite for
our freedom. Developing as a person freely, which results in the development
of society, requires actions to be done without a watchful eye. While
the awareness of privacy in the context of modern technologies is not widely
spread, it is clearly understood, as can be seen in the context of elections,
that in order to make a free choice one needs to maintain its privacy. So
why demand privacy when electing our government, but not when selecting
our daily interests, books we read, sites we browse, or persons we encounter?
It is popular belief that the data that we expose of ourselves would not be
exploited if one is a law-abiding citizen. No further from the truth, as this
data is used daily for commercial purposes: users’ data has value. To make
matters worse, data has also been used for political purposes without the
user’s consent or knowledge. However, the benefits that data can bring to
individuals seem endless and a solution of not using this data at all seems
extremist. Legislative efforts have tried, in the past years, to provide mechanisms
for users to decide what is done with their data and define a framework
where companies can use user data, but always under the consent of the latter.
However, these attempts take time to take track, and have unfortunately
not been very successful since their introduction.
In this thesis we explore the possibility of constructing cryptographic protocols
to provide a technical, rather than legislative, solution to the privacy
problem. In particular we focus on two aspects of society: browsing and
internet voting. These two events shape our lives in one way or another, and
require high levels of privacy to provide a safe environment for humans to
act upon them freely. However, these two problems have opposite solutions.
On the one hand, elections are a well established event in society that has
been around for millennia, and privacy and accountability are well rooted
requirements for such events. This might be the reason why its digitalisation
is something which is falling behind with respect to other acts of our society
(banking, shopping, reading, etc). On the other hand, browsing is a recently
introduced action, but that has quickly taken track given the amount of possibilities
that it opens with such ease. We now have access to whatever we
can imagine (except for voting) at the distance of a click. However, the data
that we generate while browsing is extremely sensitive, and most of it is disclosed to third parties under the claims of making the user experience better
(targeted recommendations, ads or bot-detection).
Chapter 1 motivates why resolving such a problem is necessary for the
progress of digital society. It then introduces the problem that this thesis
aims to resolve, together with the methodology. In Chapter 2 we introduce
some technical concepts used throughout the thesis. Similarly, we expose the
state-of-the-art and its limitations.
In Chapter 3 we focus on a mechanism to provide private browsing. In
particular, we focus on how we can provide a safer, and more private way, for
human attestation. Determining whether a user is a human or a bot is important
for the survival of an online world. However, the existing mechanisms
are either invasive or pose a burden to the user. We present a solution that
is based on a machine learning model to distinguish between humans and
bots that uses natural events of normal browsing (such as touch the screen
of a phone) to make its prediction. To ensure that no private data leaves
the user’s device, we evaluate such a model in the device rather than sending
the data over the wire. To provide insurance that the expected model has
been evaluated, the user’s device generates a cryptographic proof. However
this opens an important question. Can we achieve a high level of accuracy
without resulting in a noneffective battery consumption? We provide a positive
answer to this question in this work, and show that a privacy-preserving
solution can be achieved while maintaining the accuracy high and the user’s
performance overhead low.
In Chapter 4 we focus on the problem of internet voting. Internet voting
means voting remotely, and therefore in an uncontrolled environment.
This means that anyone can be voting under the supervision of a coercer,
which makes the main goal of the protocols presented to be that of coercionresistance.
We need to build a protocol that allows a voter to escape the
act of coercion. We present two proposals with the main goal of providing
a usable, and scalable coercion resistant protocol. They both have different
trade-offs. On the one hand we provide a coercion resistance mechanism
that results in linear filtering, but that provides a slightly weaker notion of
coercion-resistance. Secondly, we present a mechanism with a slightly higher
complexity (poly-logarithmic) but that instead provides a stronger notion of
coercion resistance. Both solutions are based on a same idea: allowing the
voter to cast several votes (such that only the last one is counted) in a way
that cannot be determined by a coercer.
Finally, in Chapter 5, we conclude the thesis, and expose how our results
push one step further the state-of-the-art. We concisely expose our contributions,
and describe clearly what are the next steps to follow. The results
presented in this work argue against the two main claims against privacy preserving solutions: either that privacy is not practical or that higher levels
of privacy result in lower levels of security.Programa de Doctorado en Ciencia y Tecnología Informática por la Universidad Carlos III de MadridPresidente: Agustín Martín Muñoz.- Secretario: José María de Fuentes García-Romero de Tejada.- Vocal: Alberto Peinado Domíngue
Electronic voting : 6th International Joint Conference, E-Vote-ID 2021, virtual event, October 5-8, 2021
This book constitutes the proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Electronic Voting, E-Vote-ID 2021, held online -due to COVID -19- in Bregenz, Austria, in October 2021. The 14 full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 55 submissions. The conference collected the most relevant debates on the development of Electronic Voting, from aspects relating to security and usability through to practical experiences and applications of voting systems, as well as legal, social or political aspects
Sixth International Joint Conference on Electronic Voting E-Vote-ID 2021. 5-8 October 2021
This volume contains papers presented at E-Vote-ID 2021, the Sixth International Joint Conference on Electronic Voting, held during October 5-8, 2021. Due to the extraordinary situation provoked by Covid-19 Pandemic, the conference is held online for second consecutive edition, instead of in the traditional venue in Bregenz, Austria. E-Vote-ID Conference resulted from the merging of EVOTE and Vote-ID and counting up to 17 years since the _rst E-Vote conference in Austria. Since that conference in 2004, over 1000 experts have attended the venue, including scholars, practitioners, authorities, electoral managers, vendors, and PhD Students. The conference collected the most relevant debates on the development of Electronic Voting, from aspects relating to security and usability through to practical experiences and applications of voting systems, also including legal, social or political aspects, amongst others; turning out to be an important global referent in relation to this issue.
Also, this year, the conference consisted of:
· Security, Usability and Technical Issues Track
· Administrative, Legal, Political and Social Issues Track
· Election and Practical Experiences Track
· PhD Colloquium, Poster and Demo Session on the day before the conference
E-VOTE-ID 2021 received 49 submissions, being, each of them, reviewed by 3 to 5 program committee members, using a double blind review process. As a result, 27 papers were accepted for its presentation in the conference. The selected papers cover a wide range of topics connected with electronic voting, including experiences and revisions of the real uses of E-voting systems and corresponding processes in elections.
We would also like to thank the German Informatics Society (Gesellschaft für Informatik) with its ECOM working group and KASTEL for their partnership over many years. Further we would like to thank the Swiss Federal Chancellery and the Regional Government of Vorarlberg for their kind support. EVote-
ID 2021 conference is kindly supported through European Union's Horizon 2020 projects ECEPS (grant agreement 857622) and mGov4EU (grant agreement 959072). Special thanks go to the members of the international program committee for their hard work in reviewing, discussing, and shepherding papers. They ensured the high quality of these proceedings with their knowledge and experience
Electronic Voting: 6th International Joint Conference, E-Vote-ID 2021, Virtual Event, October 5–8, 2021: proceedings
This volume contains the papers presented at E-Vote-ID 2021, the Sixth International
Joint Conference on Electronic Voting, held during October 5–8, 2021. Due to the
extraordinary situation brought about by the COVID-19, the conference was held
online for the second consecutive edition, instead of in the traditional venue in
Bregenz, Austria. The E-Vote-ID conference is the result of the merger of the EVOTE
and Vote-ID conferences, with first EVOTE conference taking place 17 years ago in
Austria. Since that conference in 2004, over 1000 experts have attended the venue,
including scholars, practitioners, authorities, electoral managers, vendors, and PhD
students. The conference focuses on the most relevant debates on the development of
electronic voting, from aspects relating to security and usability through to practical
experiences and applications of voting systems, also including legal, social, or political
aspects, amongst others, and has turned out to be an important global referent in
relation to this issue
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