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RE: Proposed cybersecurity bills would 'prohibit' internet-connected voting systems
Surely Steemit.com is the proof of voting possibilities through personal identification and crypto password technologies. This is certainly the best and most effective way of registering global votes on global issues on a safe global platform of free exchange.. They are already afraid of this and will apparently fight it to the end !! What will this mean for for this new Blockchain technology we Beta test now here , remains to be seen !!
Steemit would not be secure enough in my opinion for a national election. Not even close actually. But the data structure (blockchain) and the breakthroughs in cryptography will lead to secure voting technologies. In my opinion it's feasible to develop it, but I would not think it could be developed the way Steemit is being developed. It would have to be developed correct by construction, by "trusted" developers, to run on "trusted" infrastructure, and utilize quantum communication, such as from satellites in space and other technologies.
We know with blockchain technology that we can have a verifiable record of all transactions. These transactions could be votes. But the current blockchain implementations are not secure enough in my opinion for the United States elections, because we can't trust the developers, the compilers, the hardware the software runs on, at least not to the degree necessary. Any Internet voting scheme would have to in my opinion start out as a hybrid, which uses some of the verifiable elements of the paper ballot system while also using the cell phone networks and satellites to relay messages to and from the blockchain. Nodes can be put in space, so it is going to be possible to take advantage of quantum communication, but in my opinion no current software is secure enough you require a trusted compiler which produces verified code, and the hardware likely has backdoors, so you would need trusted hardware as well or at least a way to check via the software that the hardware isn't changing the results.
The point is we need the ability to do experimentation using blockchain and other technologies. We can't learn if we can't experiment, and a ban would prevent experimentation. A limitation on Internet voting would have been more sane, which would allow for some experiments to take place across the country, but not in places or in levels which could jeopardize an election.
Well i am greatly touched you have taken so much time to give me this extremely interesting and detailed response to my thoughts on this subject.So you see like me the danger signs here too ? am sure you are right when you say that steemiit does not have the necessary level of security for a a vote of national importance or more certainly at international level. Yes the weak link will always be the man or folks who have the key to the system, to manipulate, the trust we hand over to overly interested parties with an agenda outside democracy pure.the dream we as good people wanting to survive want. Sure , it not just the software hack problems, but more the hardware too as you so rightly point our !! So in true terms in these conditions it is dangerous to place such a huge amount of human " trust " into a system which may be as bad as the old one if not worse. Yes why not more a hybrid voting system, why not both at the same time then cross counted and referenced by ?? well a bot no?? ,yes Mobile network voting is I truly think how it will go at least when this thing if they permit it. happens. But does not look good eh?? with this big bit of internet tyranny being rolled out by the Quo to keep their Status, I mean i had to show my passport when opening my telephone account !!So surely if we can buy Bitcoins securely from my Android then why not vote on even global issues !! Such as to be Nuclear powered or not ?? a vote is just another transaction to be counted and written to the blockchain where it can be transparently analysed and counted by anyone and at any time, ad infinitum. No more shadows in politics, this i beñlieve is why we see this resistance now rising up within the controlling elites.Yes we need to test and experiment, I would love to see you Dana, do something like this in conjunction with maybe some steemit development members who are motivated by this vision of true democracy provided by blockchain technology ?. To show that a vote is nothing more than a value that once entered into a fair ly produced and housed algorithm will always give the best result, in terms of clarity in numbers without the manipulation of the invisible hand which pains so clearly our world right now !! Thanks again for this your great response to this idea of world future in voting systems on the blockchain of social interaction and response. This could be a vision of World government i would agree to, not you ?
To develop secure Internet voting requires a continuous iterative engineering process which is basically going to mean trial and error. The same sort of trial and error required to come up with the paper ballot approach which itself is not invulnerable to being hacked or I should say, manipulated. In my opinion Internet voting needs to be tested on a small scale until we find a way to do it which is secure enough to be scaled, but if we halt all trials it guarantees we will not find anything.
In addition, I don't think the search should be centralized. I don't think only the DHS or National Science Foundation should be qualified to try to solve these problems. I don't know that they do not have an agenda whether political or other. So I would say I prefer an effort which includes DARPA who is known for being successful at this kind of thing.
I don't know how to define "world government". I do think digital governance can be global but I don't assume it will be "world government". I don't assume one government will rule them all, but I do support the building of virtual governance technologies so we can experiment and learn from trial and error.
Yes we do need to put this great potential to the test as you say. But it certainly looks like they are not going to permit this system of efficient and " clean " voting to get off the ground as maybe this system is too "transparent " and does not for this very reason, suit them !
Of course you are right when you say that the research should be made by a joint global imitative and again not be put in the hands of the few for the loss of the many. World government does not need to exist in my opinion. But the worlds voice could be found by this system development, we just need the present political system to embrace and accept the possibilities of this blockchain technology and that which it could potentially bring to the table and lives of everybody living on this planet. This is surely something we could see as being a major step towards " world governance? " as the voice of the world could be collected and counted for the greater good of all.
But then " world government " is just a term and is in many ways not even important, the only thing which is important is that we try, like you say and see what can be done.
Its very sad and i would say a little disturbing to see that we are still far from this ever being the case. The very proof being the passing of this new law which you expose in this post. This law shows clearly their desire and more need to stem all online voting technologies development they are clearly not ready to renounce on their present system which I think we all see is flawed and open to negative manipulations.