Seminar Description
This seminar will be looking at the trustworthiness and
security of electronic voting systems, with a focus on what is
presently being deployed or considered. I see this as being as
much a public policy issue as a research one, so the seminar
will be biased toward understanding and improving the use of
computerized voting in political elections and away from less
applied cryptographic research.
Logistics
Time: 11:00 - 12:20
Location: 200 Deschutes (alternately 260 or 160)
Credits: 2
CRN: 26139
Organized by Eric Anderson and Michal Young.
Schedule
- Week 1: 9 January 04
- Read Kohno et al before we meet.
- Week 2: 16 January 04
- Review Kohno et al, read Ken Thompson, Rebecca
Mercuri, and think about area and specific papers on which
to lead discussion.
- Week 3: 23 January 04
- Read Schneier (Security in the
Real World), Neumann and H.R. 2239. Presented by Max.
- Week 4: 30 January 04
- Jeremy and Max will lead
discussion on the Thompson and Mercuri papers and on the SERVE analysis, respectively.
- Week 5: 6 February 04
- Julian will probably be
presenting on the GNU.FREE distributed voting system.
Readings TBA.
- Week 6: 13 February 04
- Nathan will present on HCI
issues. Readings TBA.
- Week 7: 20 February 04
- Read Caltech/MIT paper: Residual Votes
Attributable to Technology. (presented by Eric A.)Start
looking at Saltman.
- Week 8: 27 February 04
- Read Saltman. Eric W. will be presenting (?)
- Week 9: 5
March 04 1 March 04
- Week 10: 12 March 04
- Brian Lehr will be presenting. Readings/topics TBA.
Readings & Resources
- T. Kohno, A. Stubblefield, A. Rubin, D. Wallach, Analysis of an Electronic Voting System, Johns Hopkins Information Security Institute Technical Report TR-2003-19, July 2003
- Diebold Election Systems, Checks and Balances in Elections ..., Press Release.
- R. Mercuri, A Better Ballot Box?, IEEE Spectrum 29(10), Oct. 2002.
- D. Chaum, Secret-Ballot Receipts and Transparent Integrity, draft, May 2002
- P. Neumann, Security Criteria for Electronic Voting, Proc. 16th National Computer Security Conference, Sept. 1993
- R. Weiss, Five Weeks in November: A Brief Commentary on the
Florida Election Results, Writer's Showcase Press, 2001.
(Amazon)
- H.R.2239 Voter Confidence and Increased
Accessibility Act of 2003. Introduced May 22, 2003 by
R. Holt. (HTML)
- D. Jefferson, A. Rubin,
B. Simmons, D. Wagner, A
Security Analysis of the Secure Electronic Registration and
Voting Experiment (SERVE), Published on-line at http://servesecurityreport.org/,
Jan. 2004.
- E. Nilsson ed., Getting the Chad Out:
Elections, Technology and Reform, CPSR, Winter 2001. (HTML)
- M. Alvarez,
S. Ansolabehere, E. Antonsson, J. Bruck, S. Graves,
N. Negroponte, T. Palfrey, R. Rivest, T. Selker, A. Slocum,
C. Stewart, Residual Votes
Attributable to Technology: An Assessment of the Reliability of
Existing Voting Equipment, The Caltech/MIT Voting Technology
Project, Mar. 30, 2001.
General Software Safety and Security
- K. Thompson, Reflections on Trusting Trust, Communications of the ACM. 27(8), pp. 761-763, Aug. 1984. (HTML)
- N. Leveson, White Paper on Approaches to Safety Engineering, April 2003.
- B. Schneier, Security in the Real World: How to Evaluate Security, Computer Security Journal, v. 15, n. 4, pp 1-14, 1999
- B. Schneier, Secrets and Lies: Digital Security in a Networked World, John Wiley & Sons, 2000. I have a copy available to borrow, and will be happy to photocopy excerpts.
- R. Saltman, Accuracy, Integrity and Security in Computerized Vote Tallying, National Bureau of Standards Special Publication 500-158, August 1988
Popular Press Articles
- F. Manjoo, An Open Invitation to Election Fraud, Salon.com, Sept. 23, 2003. (Subscription/ad-viewing required).
- F. Manjoo, Another Case of Electronic Vote Tampering?, Salon.com, Sept. 29, 2003. (Subscription/ad-viewing required).
- F. Manjoo, Bad Grade for a Voting Machine Exam, Salon.com, Oct. 15, 2003. (Subscription/ad-viewing required).
- P. Krugman, Hack the Vote, New York Times, Dec. 2, 2003. (Original here).
- R. Cringely, No Confidence Vote: Why the Current Touch Screen Voting Fiasco Was Pretty Much Inevitable, PBS, Dec. 4, 2003.
- R. Cringely, Follow the Money: Why the Best Voting Technology May Be No Technology at All, PBS, Dec. 11, 2003.
- K. Zetter, Diebold Gets Stay in California, Wired, Jan. 17, 2004.
- E. Bolstad, Votes From 134 Residents Were Not Counted, Miami Herold, Jan. 7, 2004.
- D. Cho, Fairfax Judge Orders Logs Of Voting Machines Inspected, Washington Post, Nov. 6, 2003.
Web Sites