[LINK] Electronic voting in ACT

[David Lochrin]

On 2020-10-16 12:44, Kim Holburn wrote:

> The system requirements are somewhat alarming:
> 
> http://www.softimp.com.au/sodis/spa_requirements.html

It seems to rely on Java, but only requires Java-5.  The relevant Wikipedia article states:

QUOTE
The latest versions are Java 15, released in September 2020, and Java 11, a currently supported long-term support (LTS) version, released on September 25, 2018; Oracle released for the legacy Java 8 LTS the last free public update in January 2019 for commercial use, while it will otherwise still support Java 8 with public updates for personal use up to at least December 2020.  Oracle (and others) highly recommend uninstalling older versions of Java because of serious risks due to unresolved security issues.[22]  Since Java 9, 10, 12 and 13 are no longer supported, Oracle advises its users to immediately transition to the latest version (currently Java 15) or an LTS release.
UNQUOTE

The word "alarming" is a bit mild: Java 5 was apparently released 16 years ago and Windows-7 is almost as old... what could possibly go wrong?

Of course the integrity of the election depends on what versions of what software were actually used in what network environment, but I think it's interesting to speculate on the legal position of a court challenge on those sorts of issues.  I wonder if the setup was stress- and security-tested and formally approved by the Aust. Electoral Commission?

David Lochrin