[E-voting] encryption compromised by hardware

[Michael McMahon]

Patrick J Kobly wrote:
> This is the huge assumption made by most cryptographers developing 
> crypto-protocols for reliable e-voting.  The assumption is that the 
> system the user interacts with acts as a faithful agent of the user 
> with respect to encrypting, recording and displaying vote data.  
> Thompson talks about why this assumption cannot be made (and in 
> general any proof is illusory).
>
Well, that is not true with respect to the  crypto based systems which I 
have looked at.
For example, David Chaum's system based on visual encryption
(http://theory.lcs.mit.edu/~rivest/voting/papers/Chaum-SecretBallotReceiptsTrueVoterVerifiableElections.pdf)

There are certain practical issues with this system, but it 
categorically does not depend on the system acting
as a faithful agent of the user with respect to encrypting, recording or 
displaying vote data.

Chaum has come up with another system more recently 
(http://www.punchscan.org) which apparently
addresses some of the usability issues with his previous one. I haven't 
looked at it yet, so I can't comment on it.

Michael