[Fsfe-ie] E-Voting letter and IFSO logo

[Ian Clarke]

On Thu, 2004-04-08 at 16:04, Cathal Mc Ginley wrote:
> Thanks for your feedback & suggestions, Éibhear; I've incorporated most 
> of it into a new draft, which I've uploaded to the same page:
> http://homepage.eircom.net/~cathalmcginley/e-voting/draft-letter.html

Well, I know it isn't a popular opinion on this list, but I think that
making the e-voting source code public is a distant second to voter
verified audit trails and I am concerned that advocating the
"nice-to-have" will only reduce our chances of getting the
"need-to-have".  In effect, we are prioritising the narrow goals of
advocating free software over the wider goal of protecting democracy.

Opening the source code gives a false sense of security, if your
compiler, or BIOS has been compromised, you can review the source all
you want and you won't know that someone has stolen your election.

Voter verified audit trails are secure because their operation is
obvious and transparent.  I would only have marginally more trust in an
election which used open software over one which did not (which isn't
much), but I would have almost total trust if there was a V.V.A.T.

Ian.

-- 
Coordinator, the Freenet Project
CEO, Cematics Ltd
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