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THE_ENCRYPTION_HAMMER

                                             April  26, 2009
                                             August 27, 2013

At the last CodeCon-- the one held at
cellspace in 2009, someone gave a talk
insisting that internet voting systems
have a future, but it requires educating
the technophobes to accept it.


A few points:

  (a) the flaws in conventional low-tech voting
      systems are real, but how hard are they to
      fix by conventional means?  Isn't it just
      a matter of will?

  (b) if you can't trust The Establishment to
      gather boxes of full of paper ballots, why
      would you trust them to install a secure
      electronic voting system?

      Isn't it much more likely that they'll do
      a bait-and-switch, promising to install
      something that you'll approve of, and then       Even having a way
      changing it around at the last minute (at        to detect that
      which point you'll be reclassified as an         there's been a
      out-of-touch egghead with no grasp of            switch is tricky.
      practicalities).

      You might say, well okay, we'll need to
      exercise extreme vigilence during the
      period of installation of a new system--
      but isn't it easier to maintain vigilence
      with the much simpiler paper ballot               BURNED_IN_2004
      systems?


           There are techies out there-- still!--
           who let technicalities blind them          What stops someone
           to the obvious.                            from just selling
                                                      their private key?
                TECHIES_FALLACY
                                                          My impression is
           This kind of syndrome makes it                 that this guy is
           difficult to bitch about people                living somewhere
           who refuse to listen to the                    between Bruce
           experts.                                       Schneier's first
                                                          and second book.



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