[LINK] E-voting fears run high as election day looms

[Karl Auer]

On Wed, 2008-10-29 at 17:14 +1100, Richard Chirgwin wrote:
> Exposing electoral machines to the Internet is also a risk; what if that
> overlooked-but-important buffer overrun gets its zero-day exploit on
> election day?

The same is true of any network you care to use. In fact, the chances
are far, far greater that a purpose-built network would fail in such a
way than that the Internet would, because there are millions of people
testing the Internet all the time.

> And finally, there's the matter of transparency (again). Citizens need
> to be able to understand what's going on, and (frankly) the world of
> Internet security models can even glaze-over experts.

This is, again, just as true for any purpose-built network.

> The Internet is a wonderful creature, but that doesn't mean it's the
> best tool for all possible applications.

True. But in this particular case, it probably *is* the best tool. And
quite apart from that, are you going to re-network the entire
continental US (or wherever) just to allow safe voting? Nup; won't
happen.

Regards, K.

-- 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Karl Auer (kauer at biplane.com.au)                   +61-2-64957160 (h)
http://www.biplane.com.au/~kauer/                  +61-428-957160 (mob)

GPG fingerprint: DD23 0DF3 2260 3060 7FEC 5CA8 1AF6 D9E3 CFEE 6B28