As a long time reader of comp.risks, and having a professional interest in security (as a sysadmin), I'll take this opportunity to say that anyone who is promoting online voting as a replacement for paper ballots is (in my opinion) one or more of a)Hopelessly naive, b)Frighteningly optimistic, c)Woefully ignorant of the problems of authentication combined with anonymity, d)Ignoring the problems of coercion, or (worst of all) e) Willing to accept vote tampering. I do not seriously think that the Electoral Commissioner would be willing to accept vote tampering, but every electronic or online system has been demonstrated to be vulnerable to it. Worse, such attacks can occur at any point, be it in corrupt coding, interference with the ballots, or by injecting forged ballots. All of these have be proven to be possible in every practical and theoretical system proposed to date. This is ignoring the problem of d) - if the voting is not occurring in a public place, how do you prove that t...
Why is this still an issue? It was proved to be bullshit years ago.
ReplyDeleteSadly, yes.
ReplyDeleteAlas the myth persists and applying the copayment from the Budget to GP visits for vaccinations will only make things worse. :(
ReplyDeletePeople are like that they heard something somewhere must be true.
ReplyDeleteThere a many genetic defects in humanity all of us have some to some degree except for me of course i'm perfect. ;)