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INTERNET VOTING: THE GREAT SECURITY SCARE.


Hi All!

I have just posted a draft of my essay on the security of Internet voting. It can be secure! Here is the Abstract:

"This paper will present a social science paradigm for critically evaluating the security concerns most often expressed by opponents of Internet voting. In 2003, these concerns were so effectively expressed that they resulted in the US government ceasing all efforts to even experiment with voting from overseas via the new technology. However, when examined within a context of social scientific reasoning, the arguments that stopped the progress of Internet voting in the US appear as mere appeals to fear, bereft of rationality.

First, the problem of how to think about e-crime in general will be discussed. Secondly, the framework that emerges from that discussion will be applied to the arguments against Internet voting. The conclusion will suggest that Internet voting can be conducted with a degree of security similar to an online purchase, a million dollar bank transfer, or a secret military communication. As shown in the essay, the technology already exists, and has been honed over many years of use. While there are differences between the military uses of the Internet, e-commerce, and Internet voting, this paper will argue that the degree of security for each need not vary significantly.

SSRN has proven to be an excellent source for feedback. This paper is being submitted in the hopes of continuing that process."

Can anyone suggest an appropriate journal to which I can submit this paper? The paper will soon become a chapter in a book on the subject of reforming presidential elections in the US by basing them on Internet voting. Can anyone suggest an agent or publisher that would be interested in a book that favors Internet voting for such elections?

All comments welcome! The paper is available for free viewing or download at:
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1420344

Yours,

William J. Kelleher, Ph.D.

Why Is This Idea Important?

Misinformation about the security of online voting dominates public opinion today. The people should know the truth. Internet voting can be as safe and secure and private as a bank transfer. It can also be free of fraud and perfectly accurate. "Internet Voting is Coming!" (Just google this quote)
Comments
ratwell71 7 months ago
Lazy humans call using a calculator progress too even though it puts humans out of a job... Easier, you bet ya, however, the computer was hardly a thought when calculating human productivity versus machine productivity... How do the machines affect the economy? Do corporations have to PAY machines? NO... However, we continue to have a rising unemployment rate... Shove the machines and computers... It is NOT progress unless we live for free...
jmc27106 7 months ago
Kelleher, a political scientist has just written his "expert" opinion on internet security.

Kelleher has no credentials in computer science or internet security. He is unknown in the verified voting movement. He has no business advising anyone that internet voting is safe, secure or anything less than insane!

Experts in computers and security oppose internet voting:

Read what Kevin Poulsen, one of the most famous black hat hackers in the world (former)says about internet voting at wired news where he is now a Sen Editor
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/06/cfp-evote/

Read what Ed Felton says about internet voting here
http://www.freedom-to-tinker.com/blog/felten/internet-voting-how-far-can-we-go-safely

Read what Dr. Barbara Simons and Dr. Justin Moore (experts in computers) say about internet voting here
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/barbara-simons/the-internet-and-voting-w_b_210554.html

See this list of famous computer criminals who were caught and convicted of breaking into computers or computer networks. Some of them started at an early age, and the depth of their crimes will astonish you. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_convicted_computer_criminals

There is too much incentive to rig elections, and with the internet a person can spoof the election site, create denial of service (blocking voting), do just about anything the imagination can come up with.
Hi jmc27106!

Thanks for your comments. You certainly show strong feelings about the subject of Internet voting. And, that’s quite an impressive reading list you offer.

If you would take the time to read my essay, you would find that I directly engage some of the folks on your list. I also address all of the issues you mention.

Do you think that your strong feelings prevent you from being open minded about my essay?

As a progressive, I want to change the Big Money dominated election system.

Internet voting can be used to filter out the influence of rich contributors. It can make the elected representatives directly dependent upon the voters for their job.

Everyone who wants the US to have a more democratic election system should read this essay.

All comments welcome! The paper is available for free viewing or download at:
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1420344

wjk
ratwell71 7 months ago
As a reply to you comment about living in a true demon-ocracy... We live in a REPUBLIC... Most forget because of the banning of the Pledge of Allegiance, however, this country was built upon the principles of SMALL gov't for the people by the people... Not some tyranical democracy...

Give me a true REPUBLIC any day of the week... Democracy is the road to Communism... They are brothers, Democracy and Communism/Socialism!
Your anti-democratic temparment shows clearly in your writing.
jmc27106 7 months ago
Mr. Kelleher is credentialed as a "political scientist" but has no credentials as an expert in computer science or internet security.

I hope people are not foolish enough or gullible enough to think that since just because someone tags a PHD to their name that they should be listened to on a topci that you have no credentials in.

I thank former black hat hackers like Kevin Poulsen, who knows the possibilities and the "Threat Level" of Internet Voting - and who cared enough to write an article warning about the dangers of internet voting - just recently in Wired News.

I also thank the many other credentialed computer scientists who have served on govt committees that stopped internet voting and who continue to fight internet voting.
rebecca 7 months ago
COMPUTER TECHNOLOGISTS’ STATEMENT
ON INTERNET VOTING

Election results must be verifiably accurate. But several serious, potentially insurmountable, technical challenges must be met if elections conducted by transmitting votes over the internet are to be verifiable.

There are also many less technical questions about internet voting, including whether voters have equal access to internet technology and whether ballot secrecy can be adequately preserved.

Internet voting should only be adopted after these technical challenges have been overcome, and after extensive and fully informed public discussion of the technical and non-technical issues has established that the people of the U.S. are comfortable embracing this radically new form of voting.

A partial list of technical challenges includes:

• The voting system as a whole must be verifiably accurate in spite of the fact that client systems can never be guaranteed to be free of malicious logic. Malicious software, firmware, or hardware could change, fabricate, or delete votes, deceive the user in myriad ways including modifying the ballot presentation, leaking information about votes to enable voter coercion, preventing or discouraging voting, or performing online electioneering. Existing methods to “lock-down” systems have often been flawed; and even without that problem, there is no guaranteed method for preventing or detecting attacks by insiders such as the designers of the system.

• There must be a satisfactory way to prevent large-scale or selective disruption of vote transmission over the internet. Threats include “denial of service” attacks from networks of compromised computers (called “botnets”), causing messages to be mis-routed, and many other kinds of attacks, some of which are still being discovered. Such attacks could disrupt an entire election or selectively disenfranchise a segment of the voting population.

• There must be strong mechanisms to prevent undetected changes to votes, not only by outsiders but also by insiders such as equipment manufacturers, technicians, system administrators, and election officials who have legitimate access to election software and/or data.

• There must be reliable, unforgeable, unchangeable voter-verified records of votes that are at least as effective for auditing as paper ballots, without compromising ballot secrecy. Achieving such auditability with a secret ballot transmitted over the internet but without paper is an unsolved problem.

• The entire system must be reliable and verifiable even though internet-based attacks can be mounted by anyone, anywhere in the world. Potential attackers could include individual hackers, political parties, international criminal organizations, hostile foreign governments, or even terrorists. The current internet architecture makes such attacks difficult or impossible to trace back to their sources.

Given this list of problems, there is ample reason to be skeptical of internet voting proposals. Therefore, the principles of operation of any internet voting scheme should be publicly disclosed in sufficient detail so that anyone with the necessary qualifications and skills can verify that election results from that system can reasonably be trusted. Before these conditions are met, “pilot studies” of internet voting in government elections should be avoided, because the apparent “success” of such a study absolutely cannot show the absence of problems that, by their nature, may go undetected. Furthermore, potential attackers may choose only to attack full-scale elections, not pilot projects.

The internet has the potential to transform democracy in many ways, but permitting it to be used for public elections without assurance that the results are verifiably accurate is an extraordinary and unnecessary risk to democracy.

-- This statement was endorsed by computer scientists and security experts from top academic institutions and research laboratories across the US. For a full list of endorsers, please see:

www.verifiedvoting.org/downloads/InternetVotingStatement.pdf
Rebecca states ONE SIDE of the issue, as if it were the only possible point of view.

See my new post.

wjk
jmc27106 7 months ago
Kelleher what credentials do you have to advise anyone on internet security or electronic voting?

Readers - The Verified Voting Foundation has a statement on internet voting that has been endorsed by some of the best security or computer experts in this country.

Further, one of the most famous black hat hackers in the US has warned against the foolish idea of internet voting.

Mr. kelleher is a political scientist, a sort of social scientist.

That he could write a paper endorsing internet voting shows that he has done no research at all in the issue, or he would have learned that IV is one of the riskiest ways to conduct an election.

Further, his claim that internet voting would increase access and turnout has even been proven false by the internet election conducted in Honolulu Hawaii, just recently. Only 6.3% of the electorate participated in that election, which is a drop of 83%.
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090527/0359125027.shtml

http://www.kitv.com/politics/19573770/detail.html
Related Topics/Ideas
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INTERNET VOTING IS COMING!

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