Re: [Moshe Zadka <m@moshez.org>] Independent Count
On Mon, 24 Mar 2003 17:56, Henrique de Moraes Holschuh wrote:
> Moshe wrote:
> >>I do not feel I can trust his words about the voting tallies for the
> >>upcoming elections. I wish that an independent Debian Developer be
> >>appointed for calculating the tallies himself.
>
> Maybe I am dense, but isn't the entire voting published (in hashed format)
> so that every developer that voted can see for himself if he vote was
> counted or not? And, I suppose, raise a major havok if it is wrong?
>
> So, it would be just a matter of rerunning the counting script over the
> data published, and check wether it matches or not.
>
> So, in essence, EVERYONE can do such verification, already...
Given that the hashing prevents the secretary from altering a cast vote, how
would a malicious secretary fake a vote?
They would cast a vote on behalf of a non-voting developer. Obtaining a list
of MIA developers is not too difficult. If someone does not vote then they
may not notice if the voting talley indicates that they cast a vote.
Is the secretary in a position to add votes to the talley without confirmation
messages being sent out or in a position to subvert email to @debian.org
addresses to make sure that such mail does not reach it's destination? If so
then they could concievably fake some votes without much risk of getting
caught. I expect that almost no-one checks to make sure that the fact that
they did not vote was correctly registered...
To check the actions of the secretary someone else needs access to the signed
vote records to ensure that every registered vote is the result of a signed
email.
I totally trust Manoj on this issue. I am posting to point out a flaw in your
analysis of the situation regarding cryptographic voting not to demand that
such checks be done.
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