Distributed Random Process for a Large-Scale Peer-to-Peer Lottery

Most online lotteries today fail to ensure the verifiability of the random process and rely on a trusted third party. This issue has received little attention since the emergence of distributed protocols like Bitcoin that demonstrated the potential of protocols with no trusted third party. We argue that the security requirements of online lotteries are similar to those of online voting, and propose a novel distributed online lottery protocol that applies techniques developed for voting applications to an existing lottery protocol. As a result, the protocol is scalable, provides efficient verification of the random process and does not rely on a trusted third party nor on assumptions of bounded computational resources. An early prototype confirms the feasibility of our approach

Postponing Retirement: the Political Push of Aging

Conventional economic wisdom suggests because of the aging process, social security systems will have to be retrenched. In particular, retirement age will have to be largely increased. Yet, is this policy measure feasible in OECD countries? Since the answer belongs mainly to the realm of politics, I evaluate the political feasibility of postponing retirement under aging in France, Italy, the UK, and the US. Simulations for the year 2050 steady state demographic, economic and political scenario suggest that retirement age will be postponed in all countries, while the social security contribution rate will rise in all countries, but Italy. The political support for increasing the retirement age stems mainly from the negative income effect induced by aging, which reduces the profitability of the existing social security system, and thus the individuals net social security wealth.

Combatting electoral traces: the Dutch tempest discussion and beyond

In the Dutch e-voting debate, the crucial issue leading to the abandonment of all electronic voting machines was compromising radiation, or tempest. Other countries, however, do not seem to be bothered by this risk. In this paper, we use actor-network theory to analyse the socio-technical origins of the Dutch tempest issue in e-voting, and its consequences for e-voting beyond the Netherlands. We introduce the term electoral traces to denote any physical, digital or social evidence of a voter's choices in an election. From this perspective, we provide guidelines for risk analysis as well as an overview of countermeasures

What proof do we prefer? Variants of verifiability in voting

In this paper, we discuss one particular feature of Internet voting, verifiability, against the background of scientific literature and experiments in the Netherlands. In order to conceptually clarify what verifiability is about, we distinguish classical verifiability from constructive veriability in both individual and universal verification. In classical individual verifiability, a proof that a vote has been counted can be given without revealing the vote. In constructive individual verifiability, a proof is only accepted if the witness (i.e. the vote) can be reconstructed. Analogous concepts are de- fined for universal veriability of the tally. The RIES system used in the Netherlands establishes constructive individual verifiability and constructive universal verifiability, whereas many advanced cryptographic systems described in the scientific literature establish classical individual verifiability and classical universal verifiability. If systems with a particular kind of verifiability continue to be used successfully in practice, this may influence the way in which people are involved in elections, and their image of democracy. Thus, the choice for a particular kind of verifiability in an experiment may have political consequences. We recommend making a well-informed democratic choice for the way in which both individual and universal verifiability should be realised in Internet voting, in order to avoid these unconscious political side-effects of the technology used. The safest choice in this respect, which maintains most properties of current elections, is classical individual verifiability combined with constructive universal verifiability. We would like to encourage discussion about the feasibility of this direction in scientific research

Who Will Benefit from ESOPs?

[Excerpt] In the past decade, the number of worker-owned firms or ESOPs (Employee Stock Ownership Plans) has been growing geometrically. The national law granting tax incentives to ESOPs was passed in 1975, and since then several other pieces of legislation promoting employee ownership have passed at the federal level and in eight state legislatures. As a result of the technical assistance and industrial revenue bonds that some states now provide for ESOP development, and as a result of demonstrable tax, productivity, labor relations and even marketing advantages, business has taken note of the ESOP option. Several thousand ESOPs have started and scores of reports on employee ownership have appeared in the popular press and in business and trade publications