Google TechTalks
5 HN recommenders · recommended in 11 months, 2011–2019
1:32:08 · 74K views · Dec 21, 2007
A Google Tech Talk by Steve Weis that introduces modern cryptography and its use in practice and at Google. It covers proofs of security and security definitions and a special topic. HN commenters treat it as a talk on verifiable electronic voting.
HN keeps pointing to it as a long, fascinating talk on cryptographic, verifiable voting whenever e-voting security comes up.
13 comments from Hacker News
I can't believe this talk hasn't been posted yet! Theory and Practice of Cryptography: Verifying Elections with Cryptography this video This is probably one of the homomorphic schemes mentioned in TFA. It's very old (2007-ish?) and the state of the art probably advanced, but it's very interesting and addresses a number of points that are not cared for in TFA (like secret ballots verifiable by the voter but impossible to prove to anyone else).
There are documented issues with many existing electronic voting systems. E-voting encompasses a lot of different types of system that can involve computers in the chain, and not surprisingly all of them are equal. There have been a few discussions around voting on HN recently, and that's good. It's an important topic, as trust in the integrity of elections is vital for democracy. There's a lot of existing material out there about verifiable and auditable voting systems, especially in the wake of the 2000 US Presidential elections. I encourage you to take a look at what's out there. It can provide a great foundation for discussion. Here are some links I've found useful: Wikipedia page on End-to-End Auditable Voting Systems [LINK] Ron Rivest slide deck from March 2016. Auditability and Verifiability of Elections [LINK] Ben Adida Google Tech Talks December 19, 2007 Theory and Practice of Cryptography: Verifying Electiosns with Cryptography this video
Going back to my original comment, widespread faith that the voting process is safe is just as important as whether it actually is. Casting doubt on the process without really solid evidence undermines this faith. By no means do I want to be Pollyannaish about this: it's too important. Which is why I want to see improvements in the voting process. If voting integrity is something you feel particularly strongly about (I certainly do), I encourage to look into the work that's already out there. The 2000 election spurred a lot of research. Some good starting points are: Ronald L. Rivest MIT Auditability and Verifiability of Elections ACM-IEEE talk March 16, 2016 [LINK] --- Ben Adida Google Tech Talks December 19, 2007 Theory and Practice of Cryptography: Verifying Electiosns with Cryptography this video
Here's a link to slides from a talk Ronald Rivest gave back in March 2016 at ACM-IEEE: "Auditability and Verifiability of Elections" [LINK] It covers a lot of what I'm sure is going to be discussed in this thread, including vote receipts, coercion, verifiability that your vote is counted. Edit to add: And heres a good talk by Ben Adida speaking at Google for a "Theory and Practice of Cryptography" TechTalk series entitled "Verifying Elections with Crytography" from 2007. Good stuff there, too. this video
I think blockchain might have some application, but I'm unconvinced that computer technology alone is going to solve it. Have a look at this slide deck from Ron Rivest (of RSA fame). [LINK] I think he does a pretty good job of covering the history of modern voting and how technology can be properly applied. You might find this Google Tech Talk by Ben Adida "Verifying Elections with Cryptography" interesting as well: this video