Internet Voting
UK Guardian: Oscars vote vulnerable to cyber-attack under new online system, experts warn
Computer security experts have warned that the 2013 Oscars ballot may be vulnerable to a variety of cyber attacks that could falsify the outcome but remain undetected, if the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences follows through on its decision to switch to internet voting for its members. The Academy announced last week... »
Duncan Buell: Patriocracy Overlooks Internet Voting Security Concerns
The League of Women Voters of South Carolina recently screened "Patriocracy," a new film by Brian Malone, who attended the screening and participated in a question and answer event afterward. The film focuses on the question of whether the US political system is broken because politics have become too partisan and the unwillingness of... »
If I can shop and bank online, why can’t I vote online?
There is widespread pressure around the country today for the introduction of some form of Internet voting in public elections that would allow people to vote online, all electronically, from their own personal computers or mobile devices. Proponents argue that Internet voting would offer greater speed and convenience, particularly for overseas and military voters... »
Report on the Estonian Internet Voting System
I visited Estonia in mid-July of this year at the invitation of Edgar Savisaar, the country's first prime minister and current mayor of Tallinn. Mr. Savisaar is the leader of the Centre Party, which placed second in recent national elections. The Centre Party and Mr. Savisaar have been questioning the outcome of the Internet... »
Email Voting: A National Security Threat in Government Elections
I am very concerned about the widespread push toward Internet voting in the U.S., of which email voting is just one kind. Neither the Internet itself, nor voters’ computers, nor the email vote collection servers are secure against any of a hundred different cyber attacks that might be launched by anyone in the world... »
Online voting is risky and expensive
This article was posted at the CT Mirror and is cross-posted here with permission. Online voting is an appealing option to speed voting for military and overseas voters. Yet it is actually “Democracy Theater”, providing an expensive, risky illusion of supporting our troops. Technologists warn of the unsolved technical challenges, while experience shows that... »
Oak Ridge, spear phishing, and i-voting
Oak Ridge National Labs (one of the US national energy labs, along with Sandia, Livermore, Los Alamos, etc) had a bunch of people fall for a spear phishing attack (see articles in Computerworld and many other descriptions). For those not familiar with the term, spear phishing is sending targeted emails at specific recipients, designed... »
Losing Democracy in Cyberspace
This op-ed appeared at Northjersey.com on April 3, 2011. Penny M. Venetis is a professor at Rutgers School of Law. She specializes in constitutional law, election law and human rights law. Voting computers, like heads of state, must be held accountable to the people they serve. It has been nothing short of astonishing that,... »
New York Times: The Asymmetrical Online War
This editorial appeared in the New York Times on April 3, 2011. In 1975, John Brunner wrote a science fiction novel, “The Shockwave Rider,” about a lone programmer who creates a computer worm that exposes a repressive regime’s secrets and ultimately undermines a tyrannical government. Life invariably seems to find a way to imitate... »
Disappointing Reversal on Transparency and Security for Washington Elections
A bill aimed at reducing restriction to voting for military and other overseas voters passed the Washington State Senate by a 47-1 vote on Friday. Senate Bill 5171 contains many provisions that will certainly make voting easier for Washington citizens living overseas including moving the primary election date two weeks earlier and meeting requirements... »



