[LINK] [UK] Call for e-voting to be scrapped amid security fears

[Rick Welykochy]

Craig Sanders wrote:

> On Tue, Jun 26, 2007 at 07:43:01PM +1000, Rick Welykochy wrote:
>> Really, this kind of IT service is not even as complicated as writing a
>> business accounting package. This stuff is very easy to get right ...
>> especially the security, audit trail and display integrity. One would have
>> to go out of their way to make a system perform as badly as described,
>> or one would have to be grossly incompetent, .... or one particular
>> operating system and its attendant mindset and quality ethic (or lack
>> thereof) come to mind.
> 
> i hate to sound like i'm in any way in favour of e-voting (i'm not), but
> that's not actually true.
> 
> accounting packages don't get anything like the usage pattern of
> e-voting software (typically no use at all for ages, then millions of
> short term users in a <12 hour period).

Thanks for the heads up from someone who has actually worked on
this software. I for one have not.

My comments were aimed squarely at the e-voting work station itself.
My guess is that this software in particular is not rocket science.

The problem of aggregating all the results from myriads of work stations in a
secure, reliable and timely fashion is a different one (imho) and was
not mentioned as a source of problems in the original article.


> even considering the quality of their system and the integrity of the
> people in the company, i'm still very much against e-voting. the risks
> are too great, and the benefits too trivial....at least for government
> elections (their system is also used for union ballots and shareholder
> votes etc).

Out of curiosity, what OS and platform was used for the system you worked
on, Craig?


cheers
rickw


-- 
_________________________________
Rick Welykochy || Praxis Services

Any belief that can't stand up to objective scrutiny is hardly worth having.
      -- LJ McIntyre