[liberationtech] E-Voting

[Rich Kulawiec]

On Thu, Nov 17, 2016 at 06:02:36PM +0200, Andres wrote:
> Could Intel and AMD team up and hide a backdoor on the vote counting
> server's CPU? It certainly is in the realm of possibilities. However,
> it's extremely cost prohibitive, risky and as a result unlikely.

It's not cost-prohibitive for someone (not necessarily Intel or AMD)
to do this.  Not any more.

Read this:
 
	Stealing an Election (Schneier on Security)
	https://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram/archives/2004/0415.html#4

A lot of articles and papers and reports been written about the problems
of e-voting.  That little essay might be the most important one.  If you've
gotten to this point and haven't read it: read it.  Bookmark it.  Read it
again later.  And again.

Now consider that it was written in 2004.  Scale the number up to account
for 12 years of dramatically increased campaign expenditures and the usual
inflation.  Factor in that there are no longer merely individuals or
parties/groups trying to sway the outcome of elections, but nations.

It is not unreasonable, at this point, to presume an attacker budget in
the billion-dollar range.

Which means that lots of things we might once have ruled out as absurdly
cost-prohibitive...aren't.

---rsk