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Was YOUR vote counted? (feat. homomorphic encryption) - Numberphile

Numberphile

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  • Recommended by 5 people: 5 on Hacker News.
  • A classic. People kept recommending it from 2016 to 2024.
  • Presented by Ron Rivest, co-inventor of RSA
  • Linked in the descriptionarXiv 1504.03778Paper on usenix.org

Beginner. No background in the topic needed.

197K views9 years ago5 recommendations

SecurityComputer scienceCryptographyPrivacy and surveillanceAlgorithms

Ron Rivest explains how homomorphic encryption can be used to create end-to-end verifiable voting systems.

How to be sure your vote was counted ---- "End to End Verifiable Voting" with cryptopgraphy expert Professor Ron Rivest. More links & stuff in full description below ↓↓↓ See our other election video with Professor Rivest: youtu.be/ZM-i8t4pMK0 Problems with e-Voting via Computerphile: youtu.be/w3_0x6oaDmI RSA Encryption: youtu.be/M7kEpw1tn50 Some suggested reading from Professor Rivest: arxiv.org/abs/1504.03778 people.csail.mit.edu/rivest/pubs.html#OVF15 people.csail.mit.edu/rivest/pubs.html#CCCEx09 usenix.org/conference/evtwote13/workshop-program/presentatio… Support us on Patreon: patreon.com/numberphile NUMBERPHILE Website: numberphile.com/ Numberphile on Facebook: facebook.com/numberphile Numberphile tweets: twitter.com/numberphile Subscribe: bit.ly/Numberphile_Sub Numberphile is supported by the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute (MSRI): bit.ly/MSRINumberphile Videos by Brady Haran Brady's videos subreddit: reddit.com/r/BradyHaran/ Brady's latest videos across all channels: bradyharanblog.com/ Sign up for (occasional) emails: eepurl.com/YdjL9 Numberphile T-Shirts: teespring.com/stores/numberphile Other merchandise: store.dftba.com/collections/numberphile

Why it's here

5 people recommend this

What people say. Recommended as an exceptionally clear explanation of how homomorphic encryption can enable secure, verifiable voting.

Moments people linked to

pdkl95on Hacker News • Recommends

On “Computer scientists urge Clinton campaign to challenge election results”

Andrew Appel (CS Prof. at Princeton) also gave a very good talk earlier this year about the problems of electronic voting systems. link edit: Also, Ron Rivest was recently on Numberphile, where he talked about using homomorphic encryption to enable end-to-end verifiable voting. link to this video
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khrmon Hacker News • Recommends

On “To Protect Voting, Use Open-Source Software”

I find Rivest's video( link to this video ) on homomorphic encryption as voting mechanism quite interesting. It looks more secure than pen and paper. All user get a receipt which they can verify is same during vote counting. They themselves can vote count using all others receipt. At the same time, they can't sell their vote as it's encrypted.
View on Hacker News

YokoZaron Hacker News • Recommends

On “Protecting democratic elections through secure, verifiable voting”

The mechanism for voter verification is based on homomorphic encryption. Numberphile made a video on this topic recently, with a few basic explainers: link to this video
View on Hacker News

YokoZaron Hacker News • Recommends

On “Protecting democratic elections through secure, verifiable voting”

Right - the way you verify that is by asking for 100 sealed Alice envelopes, and opening 99 of them at random. If the machine was trying to trick you, you have a strong chance of catching it. You still walk out with a sealed envelope, and the would-be vote-buyer can't be sure it isn't a Bob envelope. This Numberphile video explains the process a bit more: link to this video
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PyroLaguson Hacker News • Recommends

On “A Peer to Peer Voting Algorithm [pdf]”

> I've seen many proposed implementations but they all fail because if I can prove my vote to myself in any way, someone else can make me prove it to them either to buy or coerce my ballot. There is a way to prove that your vote was counted without being able to prove what you voted for by using homomorphic encryption. So, if someone wanted to coerce you or pay you for voting at all for whomever you want, they could do it, but that's fine. Microsoft is actually working with Galois on a system operating on this principle1, and here's a good video explaining the basic concepts of how it works2. 1 link 2 link to this video
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c1ccccc1on Hacker News • Recommends

On “Colorado scrambles to change voting-system passwords after accidental leak”

Cryptographers are clever and have figured out a way to let you know your vote was counted without being able to prove it to a third party! link to this video
View on Hacker News

u/oadkin r/haskell • Mentions

On “DARPA and Galois Building a $10 Million, Open Source, Secure Voting System”

It's possible to give the voter confidence that what they voted for is correct without giving them the ability to prove it to anyone else, see 5:15 in this video. It's pretty high level so you might want to watch a full talk on end to end verifiable voting systems if you're genuinely interested. The system I've seen requires that the machine that is used to verify the vote is a different one (say, verified by some volunteers of a political party that you trust, but they have no way of knowing that you're actually voting that way since you can print off as many test votes as you want). The process is pretty complicated so I'm not convinced it will ever catch on, but it's always great for t…
16View on Reddit

u/Jaxan0in r/haskell • Mentions

On “Microsoft and Galois propose using FP to safeguard US elections”

Not at all impossible. It does require some difficult cryptography, but it is possible. Here is a good video explaining the concept: link to this video
9View on Reddit

tajenon Hacker News • Mentions

On “Edward Snowden Demonstrates How Easy It Is to Hack a Voting Machine”

@jjuhl answered that question somewhere else in the thread with homomorophic encryption (Numberphile : link to this video ): The hash out of the machine doesn't tell who you voted for, but the sum of the hashes do tally properly. It's still unclear for me, but it's sure that there are mathematical solutions.
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simiason Hacker News • Mentions

On “Hacking Voting Machines at Defcon”

Even if the machines were open source you'd have to personally inspect it to make sure it's actually running what it's supposed to be running. Unless you're reading to bring an electron microscope to the polling booth it doesn't seem particularly practical. It would make more sense to check whether your vote was counted post-facto but it's hard to especially if you still want to make it difficult to figure out who voted for whom. There are a few mathematical possibilities but they don't seem particularly practical to me: link to this video So for the time being paper ballots are probably the way to go.
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Zalastaxon Hacker News • Mentions

On “Building for the Blockchain”

How does the blockchain ensure that I can both verify that my vote was counted but can't sell my vote? link to this video describes one electronic voting system that's supposed to have those important properties, even though I don't fully all the details yet.
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EGregon Hacker News • Mentions

On “Colorado scrambles to change voting-system passwords after accidental leak”

You’re still misunderstanding how it works. First of all, blockchains are a third party ledger , which is maintained by many independent nodes are the large ones are infeasible to corrupt by a nation-state. The attack could only happen at the point where you sign transactions for the smart contracts. Voters are required to use at least 2 devices, such as scanning a QR code on their laptop (which runs Chrome) with their phone (which runs Safari). The QR code contains (or points to) a vote that is cryptographically signed by one gateway. The website or app on the phone checks this QR code and displays the same result back to you, and you confirm it on eg your phone’s screen. On both gateways (…
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