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

Karl Auer kauer at biplane.com.au
Wed Oct 29 20:40:10 AEDT 2008


On Wed, 2008-10-29 at 18:06 +1100, Richard Chirgwin wrote:
> OK, I'll be more specific and design the network. It would look like a
> defense network; clear-channel tails to secured NTUs, with no interface
> to any public network. No, the risks are not greater, because the public
> has no access - no dial-in, no Internet-accessible routers, and so on.

My point is just that all the connectivity runs, physically, *right
beside* the fibres and copper wires carrying the Internet's traffic.
Just as breachable, in other words. Interrupting it is easy; modifying
it in transit is harder but doable. Unless the traffic is encrypted of
course. And here we are back where we started.

> No, it's not. If I say "there is a direct link between the poll
> collection centre in Broken Hill and Canberra", that is comprehensible.

It's a lot of money to spend on making the ignorant feel more
comfortable without actually being any better off. If people ask how the
data going over the Internet is secured, let's just say say "it's
transmitted, encrypted for security, straight from the polling booth to
the tally room".

Data integrity lies in encryption. The integrity of the communications
medium itself is, in this country as in the US, largely unaddressed.

In fact, satellite comms would probably be a better choice for an
election - expensive, but briefly so, so not very pricey at all in
absolute terms. All encrypted of course :-)

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





More information about the Link mailing list