J. Alex Halderman, University of Michigan, will speak on "Internet Voting and Cybersecurity: What Could Go Wrong?" at the Australian National University in Canberra, 6pm 23 March 2015: http://cecs.anu.edu.au/seminars/more/SID/3635
ABSTRACT Internet voting has the potential to ease voter participation, reduce fraud, and provide a high-tech upgrade to traditional polling methods. Unfortunately, it also raises some of the most difficult challenges in computer security, due to the need to safeguard election servers and voters' computers against a variety of powerful attackers while simultaneously protecting the secret ballot. How well can election technology defend against modern cyber threats? To find out, colleagues and I performed in-depth security evaluations of Internet voting systems used in the U.S. and other countries. In Estonia--the world's most significant user of online voting--we found staggering gaps in the system design and procedures that leave elections vulnerable to attackers such as foreign powers and dishonest election officials. Such attackers could change votes, compromise privacy, disrupt returns, or cast doubt on the integrity of results. In a separate study, we took part in a public trial of an Internet voting system introduced by Washington, D.C. Within 48 hours of the system going live, we had complete control of the server and changed all the votes. These findings illustrate the practical obstacles to securing Internet voting and carry lessons for all countries considering adopting such systems -- Tom Worthington FACS CP, TomW Communications Pty Ltd. t: 0419496150 The Higher Education Whisperer http://blog.highereducationwhisperer.com/ PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia http://www.tomw.net.au Liability limited by a scheme approved under Professional Standards Legislation Adjunct Senior Lecturer, Research School of Computer Science, Australian National University http://cs.anu.edu.au/courses/COMP7310/ _______________________________________________ Link mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
