Re: Concerns about the election process

[Germán Poó Caamaño <gpoo ubiobio cl>]

On Mon, 2006-11-27 at 01:22 -0500, Behdad Esfahbod wrote:
> On Sun, 2006-11-26 at 20:18 -0600, Gabriel Burt wrote:
> > On 11/26/06, Behdad Esfahbod <behdad behdad org> wrote:
> > > What he's saying is that, suppose you voted for me, Quim, Federico,
> > > Dave, Bastien, Luis, and Jeff, and were given the anonymous token
> > > 0bhnyOzwLJ05jYV2phjusfe0jBYO3HZf.  How do you make sure that no one else
> > > who voted for the same seven candidates received the same anonymous
> > > token?
> > 
> > I misunderstood.  This could be solved by printing the token and the
> > date/time that the vote was received, couldn't it?  Is this
> > information being logged so it could be used in this election?
> > Another way could be to publish a list of people who voted, and people
> > can check they are listed there, and compare the number of voters to
> > the number of votes listed.
> 
> No.  It's not easy really.  Just because the number of voters matches
> the number of anon tokens listed, doesn't mean that unique tokens were
> handed out to voters.  The results can be perturbed by handing out the
> same token to more than one voter, and insert phony tokens with
> arbitrary votes attached to them.

It is pretty hard that two voters receive the same token.  It is
calculated using the member name, email address given to the
foundation and a secret key (one for the whole process). (I don't
think the way the token is get has changed).

For this data, having the same token (md5) two different voters
is not possible.  Collisions in md5 have been detected under
very specific circunstances.

If a valid token is introduced as a token (with anything extra
stuff there) to another voter (a fake one), it will be invalid.

> There's nothing we should rush for this year.  The point is /not/ that
> the election committee cannot be trusted.  The point is, if we want to
> have a system in which the voters do not have to trust the election
> committee, then our current system does not qualify, and for the least,
> it should not be advertised like it does.

Having the list of all voters and each voter checking his or her vote,
should be enough.  IMVHO, Any voter as member of foundation has the
moral obligation to check it.

-- 
Germán Poó-Caamaño
http://www.ubiobio.cl/~gpoo/
Concepción - Chile