Re: voting

[David Jablon]

>David Jablon wrote:
>> [...] Where is the "privacy problem" with
>> Chaum receipts when Ed and others still have the freedom to refuse
>> theirs or throw them away?

At 11:43 AM 4/16/04 -0700, Ed Gerck wrote:
>The privacy, coercion, intimidation, vote selling and election integrity
>problems begin with giving away a receipt that is linkable to a ballot. 

These problems begin elsewhere.  Whether a receipt would add any
new problem depends on further analysis.

>It is not relevant to the security problem whether a voter may destroy 
>his receipt, so that some receipts may disappear. What is relevant is 
>that voters may HAVE to keep their receipt or... suffer retaliation...
>not get paid... lose their jobs... not get a promotion... etc. Also
>relevant is that voters may WANT to keep their receipts, for the same
>reasons.

These are all relevant issues, and the system needs to be considered
as a whole.

The threat of coercion is present regardless of whether there's a
system-provided receipt, linkable, anonymous, or none. For example,
I might be told that after I vote I'll come face-to-face with a thug around
the corner, who will ask who I voted for, and who has a knack for
spotting liars. Or I may be told there's a secret camera in the booth.
Or I may think I'm at risk in simply showing up to vote, due to my public
party affiliation records, physical appearance, etc.

These issues must be addressed, and these concerns show that the
integrity of receipt validation must be ensured to at least the same
degree as the integrity of vote casting.  But *absolute* voter privacy
seems like an unobtainable goal, and it should not be used to trump
other important goals, like accountability.

-- David

Re: voting

[David Jablon]

I think Ed's criticism is off-target.  Where is the "privacy problem" with
Chaum receipts when Ed and others still have the freedom to refuse
theirs or throw them away?

It seems a legitimate priority for a voting system to be designed to
assure voters that the system is working.  What I see in serious
voting system research efforts are attempts to build systems that
provide both accountability and privacy, with minimal tradeoffs.

If some kind of tradeoff between accountability and privacy is inevitable,
in an extreme scenario, I'd still prefer the option to make the tradeoff for
myself, rather than have the system automatically choose for me.

-- David


>> At 11:05 AM 4/9/04 -0400, Trei, Peter wrote:
>> 
>> >1. The use of receipts which a voter takes from the voting place to 'verify'
>> >that their vote was correctly included in the total opens the way for voter
>> >coercion.

>John Kelsey wrote:
>> I think the VoteHere scheme and David Chaum's scheme both claim to solve
>> this problem.  The voting machine gives you a receipt that convinces you
>> (based on other information you get) that your vote was counted as cast,
>> but which doesn't leak any information at all about who you voted for to
>> anyone else.  Anyone can take that receipt, and prove to themselves that
>> your vote was counted (if it was) or was not counted (if it wasn't). 

At 06:58 PM 4/15/04 -0700, Ed Gerck wrote:
>The flaw in *both* cases is that it reduces the level of privacy protection
>currently provided by paper ballots.
>
>Currently, voter privacy is absolute in the US and does not depend
>even on the will of the courts. For example,  there is no way for a
>judge to assure that a voter under oath is telling the truth about how
>they voted, or not. This effectively protects the secrecy of the ballot
>and prevents coercion and intimidation in all cases.

Re: Criminalizing crypto criticism

[David Jablon]

... not especially crypto related, but ...

There is a serious problem with a law that broadly encroaches on freedom of
speech, patched-up with vague and complex exceptions that only a lawyer can
decipher.  Worse still, interpretation here seems to require as-yet-undetermined
case law.

A patchwork of exceptions, tailored to satisfy special interest groups, is a
very sloppy and incomplete way to deal with a fundamental problem.

I suppose my years of exposure to bad software have sensitized me to bad law,
so sorry for the rant.

-- David

At 06:36 PM 7/27/01 -0400, Arnold G. Reinhold wrote:
>At 1:56 AM -0400 7/27/2001, Declan McCullagh wrote:
>>On Thu, Jul 26, 2001 at 10:53:02PM -0400, David Jablon wrote:
>>>[...] We seem to be entering the twilight zone -- the end of an exciting,
>>>but brief era -- of public cryptography.
>>
>>The DMCA may be bad, but it's not *that* bad. It contains a broad
>>prohibition against circumvention ("No person shall circumvent a
>>technological measure that effectively controls access") and then has
>>a bunch of exceptions.
>>
>>One of those -- and you can thank groups like ACM for this, if my
>>legislative memory is correct -- explicitly permits encryption
>>research. You can argue fairly persuasively that it's not broad
>>enough, and certainly 2600 found in the DeCSS case that the judge
>>wasn't convinced by their arguments, but at least it's a shield of
>>sorts. See below.
>
>If you read the language carefully, you will see that 1201g only permits 
>*circumvention* as part of cryptographic research (and then only under limited 
>circumstances). There is nothing in the law that allows publication of results.
>
>Even the recent Shamir, et. al. paper on RC4 and WEP could arguably violate DMCA. WEP 
>could be considered a TPM since it protects copyrighted works (e.g. e-mail). More 
>importantly RC4 could be used in some other copy protection system that we don't know 
>about -- it's use might even be a trade secret.  There is simply no way to guarantee 
>that a given cryptoanalytic result doesn't compromise some TPM. Even software that 
>breaks Ceaser ciphers could be actionable. DCMA is *that* bad.
>
>Arnold Reinhold
>
>
>>
>>-Declan
>>
>>PS: Some background on Sklyarov case:
>>http://www.politechbot.com/cgi-bin/politech.cgi?name=sklyarov
>>
>>PPS: Note you only get the exemption if you make "a good faith effort
>>to obtain authorization before the circumvention." Gotta love
>>Congress, eh?
>>
>>
>>
>>http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c105:H.R.2281.ENR:
>>
>>`(g) ENCRYPTION RESEARCH-
>>
>>`(1) DEFINITIONS- For purposes of this subsection--
>>
>>`(A) the term `encryption research' means activities necessary to
>>identify and analyze flaws and vulnerabilities of encryption
>>technologies applied to copyrighted works, if these activities are
>>conducted to advance the state of knowledge in the field of encryption
>>technology or to assist in the development of encryption products; and
>>
>>`(B) the term `encryption technology' means the scrambling and
>>descrambling of information using mathematical formulas or algorithms.
>>
>>`(2) PERMISSIBLE ACTS OF ENCRYPTION RESEARCH- Notwithstanding the
>>provisions of subsection (a)(1)(A), it is not a violation of that
>>subsection for a person to circumvent a technological measure as
>>applied to a copy, phonorecord, performance, or display of a published
>>work in the course of an act of good faith encryption research if--
>>
>>`(A) the person lawfully obtained the encrypted copy, phonorecord,
>>performance, or display of the published work;
>>
>>`(B) such act is necessary to conduct such encryption research;
>>
>>`(C) the person made a good faith effort to obtain authorization
>>before the circumvention; and
>>
>>`(D) such act does not constitute infringement under this title or a
>>violation of applicable law other than this section, including section
>>1030 of title 18 and those provisions of title 18 amended by the
>>Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1986.
>>
>>`(3) FACTORS IN DETERMINING EXEMPTION- In determining whether a person
>>qualifies for the exemption under paragraph (2), the factors to be
>>considered shall include--
>>
>>`(A) whether the information derived from the encryption research was
>>disseminated, and if so, whether it was disseminated in a manner
>>reasonably calculated to advance the state of knowledge or development
>>of encryption technology, versus whether it was disseminated in a