[LINK] Electronic voting in ACT

[Stephen Rothwell]

Hi Karl,

On Fri, 16 Oct 2020 16:16:17 +1100 Karl Auer <kauer at biplane.com.au> wrote:
>
> On Fri, 2020-10-16 at 14:00 +1100, Stephen Rothwell wrote:
> > http://www.softimp.com.au/evacs/index.html  
> 
> I am reasonably sure that the original EVACS was written at least
> partly by Andrew Tridgell. Which means that it is (was?) probably
> unbreakable, unsinkable and uncrackable, regardless of operating system
> or development language. If it can be powered and programmed, Tridge
> can make it work.

Several of us (Tridge certainly leading) at Linuxcare were involved in
the design or what became EVACS, however Linuxcare dissolved before
implementation started.  Some (at least one) of the Linuxcare hackers
were involved in the implementation at Software Improvements.

Part of what won us the tender was Phil Green's enthusiasm for having
an Open Source solution.

> However, while the original EVACS was partly or fully open source, the
> people Tridge partnered with (Software Improvements) to create it were
> not so altruistic; IIRC they redeveloped the software into an entirely
> proprietary system, which they also called "EVACS".

You can get some(!) of the source for the system used up until the 2016
election
(https://www.elections.act.gov.au/elections_and_voting/electronic_voting_and_counting),
but this year's requires signing a "Deed of Confidentiality".

> Whether they did actually redevelop it or whether they just said they
> did so they could close it and start selling GPLed code is a matter for
> conjecture.

They claim to have rewritten it more recently in Ada ...

> Proprietary voting systems are by definition not trustworthy.

Indeed.

-- 
Cheers,
Stephen Rothwell
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