Why Electronic Voting is a BAD Idea - Computerphile
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- Опубліковано 8 лип 2024
- Voting is centuries old, why can't we move with the times and use our phones, tablets and computers? Tom Scott lays out why e-voting is such a bad idea.
More from Tom Scott: / enyay and / tomscott
/ computerphile
/ computer_phile
This video was filmed and edited by Sean Riley.
Computer Science at the University of Nottingham: bit.ly/nottscomputer
Computerphile is a sister project to Brady Haran's Numberphile. See the full list of Brady's video projects at: bit.ly/bradychannels
you know this video is accurate because they animated the usb stick going in the wrong way the first time
:D
03:10
MY LIFE IS COMPLETE
It's satisfying when you get it right the first time... which happens once every 3469 years.
To people not getting USB connections right the first time - look at your USB stick or cable, there's a USB logo only on one side. Usually the side with the USB logo is up, or to you, i.e. to make the logo most visible. With this logic you should get it right much more often.
someone had to do it:
1. 00:00 - 00:20 is 09:50 AM
2. 00:20 - 01:24 is 10:05 AM
3. 01:24 - 01:55 is 10:35 AM
4. 01:56 - 03:22 is 10:05 AM
5. 03:23 - 05:09 is 10:10 AM
6. 05:10 - 05:18 is 10:25 AM
7. 05:19 - 05:42 is 10:15 AM
8. 05:43 - 05:56 is 10:40 AM
9. 05:57 - 07:24 is 10:15 AM
10. 07:25 - 07:49 is 10:40 AM
11. 07:50 - 07:52 is 09:15 AM
12. 07:52 - 07:52 is 10:45 AM
the recording went by this order:
started filming at 09:15AM (11), first take 9:50AM (1), second take 10:05AM (2, 4), third take 10:10AM (5), fourth take 10:15AM (7, 9),
fifth take 10:25AM (6), sixth take 10:35AM (3), seventh take 10:40AM (8, 10), last take 10:45AM (12)
but, sadly, I couldn't figure out how many times Tom got to repeat it because he was very frustrated
thank you big-ben, god bless the queen
Tal Dru this is the best UA-cam comment I have read in a while.
Hahaha, yes, BE THAT GUY!
Your majesty! The pedants are revolting!
autism level: out of the spectrum
respekt
In Argentina's capital, a law passed enabling electronic vote. Hours later, the government website was hacked and it's database compromised.
Frustrating as always
Everyone opposed but they don't lisent even after 3 simulation failed.
Sounds like someone wanted to demonstrate how bad an idea it was.
@@ragnkja yesterday election failed miserable but yet it was the paper backup that save everything.
Alejandro Rodolfo Mendez
A.k.a a very expensive pencil.
@@ragnkja billets, not pencil, but yes expensive printing. But it works instead of the electronic system that went down easily.
For people who are making a comparison to electronic banking, please note there is one crucial difference: banking transactions can be individually verified _after_ they are processed. I can fetch my bank statement and verify that all transactions are correct. Of course, the bank could display a wrong statement. But in the end, you can always trace an error and correct/shut down the system. You *cannot* do this with an electronically cast vote because they are anonymous. So you might not know when your results are manipulated.
Why can't public-key cryptography solve this? Every registered voter gets their own key. Only the voter and the voting machine can decrypt their vote.
@@EthanMallove You have to be a bit more specific in how it works. There are several ways of using a PKI for voting, but most of them have flaws traditional voting does not have.
@@EthanMallove That just transfers the problem.
The main difference between electronic voting and electronic banking is anonymity. The bank needs to verify your identity before giving you access to your account. In electronic voting nobody should be able to verify your identity though. But we have an e-banking system in place that is completely anonymous - Bitcoin.
@@martinzihlmann822 if you are implying that Blockchain technology would solve thoose problems? It would not, for several reasons. For one Bitcoin is not anonymous it is pseudonymous.
I just realized that the video starts with "", and ends with ""! :O
Michael Scott The slash in was put in at Tom Scott's request because he pointed out that the tag needed to be closed.
Nillie That's brilliant!
Michael Scott
in this video to be precise :) ua-cam.com/video/L5l9lSnNMxg/v-deo.html
***** Quick thing - you should have put the tags in the correct order on the starting slide :P (i.e. Computerphile first then the episode - this makes the episode a child of computerphile - and you should probably close the electronic voting tag)
Ben Lewis Or you could have something like
Then at the end have
Yes, soon the ceo of 4chan will be elected president.
I wish. Sadly It doesn't work like that
@@piter4595 Do you mean how electronic voting doesn't work like that or how non-us citizens can't be elected president?
boaty mcboatface is my candidate.
@@SquareoftheLightOnes Yea i just meant that it didnt work like that but the other reason seems plausible as well
Are we talking literally or figuratively....because if the 2nd....
I love how knowing a lot about technology makes you into more of a luddite than people who know very little.
"Man of little knowledge is seldom surprised."
playing the game Orwell and learning about OSINT has made me swear off social media
I’ve always been fascinated by this fact. I work in tech and myself and most of my coworkers are vastly more apprehensive adopting of new gadgets (social media, IoT...) than the majority of the population.
oh man, you have no idea
@@TaylorIserman I'd say it's similar to people who work at slaughter houses not wanting to eat cheap meat, or people who've worked at a shady restaurant not wanting to eat there.
Ignorance is bliss, but once you realise how dirty the process behind all the cool stuff is one tends to become more wary of said stuff.
He should play the "desperate scientist trying to get people realise the impending doom" in a movie, and should be allowed to write his own script.
3:13 that usb joke was actually pretty amazing.
look at the usb stick
@@duncanhw but it *didn't*
It had a skull and crossbones on it. Well there's your problem.
Looking at the Big Ben, it took them 50 minutes to record this video. Haha
+Carolus Rex Well, it seems we've found "That Guy" ;)
It's called the Elizabeth tower.
+Никита Корзун but Big Ben is the clock itself, he wasn't reading the time off of the building so congrats on being pedantic about semantics.
+Carolus Rex or it took 24 hours and 50 minutes
+Peter Wilkins Actually, the nickname of the bell is Big Ben.
No computer system is 100% unbreakable. When we say a system is safe, we just make it hard enough to break, so that the cost for breaking it is not worth the benefit. However, in an election, no matter how huge the cost is, it will always worth it.
And also we have to consider that voting machines are accessible by people. There are more ways to break them than if they were in a locked warehouse thousands of miles away. The error in the last election that moved 6000 votes from Trump to Biden was because a person didn't update the software on his USB stick (sic).
Nothing is unbreakable, this is true. However, some things require millennia of computing time to break. Still worth it? Not really, because you simply will not get the results in time for any use.
@@MCLooyverse but if you break it you can sit tje next election
@@justarandomtechpriest1578 Not if the encryption keeps getting stronger. Say I start trying to break something now, and 100 years later I finally crack it. What can I do now? Not much, because the encryption for the now-current elections should be much stronger.
Wrong, unbreakable systems can exist, but they must be kinda useless because everything has to be hardcoded both at the software level AND hardware level. These systems are so limited in their functionality that they aren't versatile enough. Now if you wish a system to be able to adapt/change/reprogramable you must use cryptography, which means that it becomes breakable by brute force, but bruteforce is usually futile. Regardless of the digital system, you can always just modify the hardware itself if you get physical access, or just use a hammer to destroy the device
"Attack on physical voting take so much effort and 1 person to ruin the conspiracy"
Me: Laughs nervously in Turkey
Same in Russia
Well if the physical election is easily attacked, then surely electronic election is even easier to attack?
Much better than having YOUR BABY HELD HOSTAGE IN ILLEGAL CUSTODY OF PROVEN MENTAL&IMMORAL ENTITIES for BLACKMAIL&PAID BY POLITICAL CROOKS COPS&THUGS CIRCLING your HOUSE 24X7 #WEATHERWARFARE ILLEGAL HACKING BLOCKING NEWS FREEDOMRINGSFORALLL OF MOVEMENT SPEECH PRESS & INFORMATION while ACTUAL PROVEN CONVICTED TERRORISTS ILLEGALLY in POWER talk about CHANGING AMENDING LAWS like as if THEY'RE the SUPREME COURT, when BTW they THEMSELVES INCLUDING SC&MHC&EC&NIA listed in @IntlCrimCourt Case OTP-CR-503/18 YET DARE to make the MOST RIDICULOUS CLAIM that even ONE PERSON can be DEEMED a TERRORIST with ZERO EVIDENCE whatsoever be DETAINED & KILLED and the PAID up NEWS MEDIA WON'T REPORT IT TO🇮🇳🌍👥!
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Oh in case you think this is a JOKE, feel free to visit my channel and Twitter @MICKYLEAKS_MGR media tab! YEP THIS S#it's FOR REAL! OH EVM DEMO IS UP BY SYED SHUJA 41:26 MIN MARK STARTS THE DEMO OF EVM HACKING PROVED! CHEERS INDIAN 🇮🇳 WORLD 🗺 CITIZENS EVMS ELECTIONS ARE THEREBY NULL AND VOID BY DEFAULT! YOU ARE FREE TO CONFIRM MY STATEMENTS +919445626079 SIGNAL WHATSAPP VIA ORBOT&VPN!
"Attacks on physical voting don't scale well. It takes so much effort, so many people and it only takes one person to leak your conspiracy and the whole thing falls apart." should read "Covert attacks on physical voting don't scale well..." - If you're going to engage in blatant vote manipulation then all of this stuff is irrelevant: just announce the result you want, for instance.
@@tor9885 i'd say in Russia Putin wins an election regardless of the votes
"The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything." -Joseph Stalin
PREACH DOWN WITH THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE
+Gabe Merritt People chose the members of the electoral college, it would be his/her head if one of them went against the people of a state.
+Shane Killian
Oh look at you, you can find a halfway relevant quote and post it as opposed to forming your own damn words. How clever.
+Burkutace27 I want to be a lazy psuedo-intellectual too! teach me the way please!
iSk00L The first step is always use sorta relevant quotes from historical figures in place of actually forming ideas in your own words.
The next step is to always use pre-baked debate routines engineered to beat your opponent into submission.
"congratulations, you've just invented the world's most expensive pencil"
+1 best quote ever.
i still didnt got y expensive pencil ?
That's what the russians sad to NASA when they invented the ball pen
Erez Rotem NASA never invented that. They bought finished ones at normal going rate for the product.
Erez Rotem and then they bought those exact pens from them
This aged well.
shh shh shh shh shhh
What do you mean?
@@xCorvus7x That it is still very current or applicable despite the 6 yr (now in 2021) age of the clip.
@@KevinPetrusNL Yes, I got that but I am in the dark to what particular circumstance they are referring.
Usually people refer to some particular event that happened in the meantime since the creation of that which they allege has aged well.
@@xCorvus7x America.
Let me add another issue not included on this video
In order to verify and audit the votes being cast in an electronic voting machine, it would have to include recording the date/time of each vote cast (if it’s not doing this, forget it anyhow).
Now, most people these days walk around with a mobile phone which can be tracked to each voting station relatively simply.
Hence, you have the issue of being able to fairly accurately report on each persons vote - and hence all the issues of extortion, bribery etc to influence votes being cast return.
Ditto any bad idea to use online voting from home where the traffic can be tracked back to match voter to vote.
As an IT security professional, I wholly agree with everything in this video - the issues of electronic voting are intractable, and anyone who promises otherwise is attempting voter fraud, or at best, unwittingly enabling it.
Now, don’t get me started on requiring voter id...
I've written essays and done research about phone tracking before, and it's not THAT accurate that you can pinpoint when exactly they are in the voting station, and which of them it is(you'd be able to pinpoint the room easily of course, but not which box).
I'm not saying it's impossible but it's certainly not "relatively simple" and will absolutely not have a high degree of accuracy.
Tarmin Slingerfinger it depends how busy a voting station is. Usually when I’ve voted through my life, there are one or two people in voting at any time, and so you could say with reasonable certainty, who voted when based on when they arrived at a station. Yes, if it were a hectic station with queues to vote, you’re right - I was thinking from personal experience rather than all cases. However, since someone could put additional effort into accurately positioning phones down to within feet (if the voting station has Wi-fi and three APs to triangulate, then devices can be located very accurately, without the device connecting to the Wi-fi, just from tracking the chatter) then the issue remains, and since it could be done without interfering with the voting devices themselves, this ‘side channel’ leak of information to link a voter to their vote, remains - but yes, it wouldn’t be trivial then. But, for a nation state, definitely possible.
@@sputukgmail Ah yes, you are completely right. I was thinking of personal experience too, where in the voter building there were at least a 100 people on a non-busy moment.
And putting extra devices in the building would also make it way more accurate of course.
Def possible, but not trivial indeed.
Not that I disagree with you, but what is the problem with requiring voter ID?
@@yonatanbeer3475 Provided everyone of voting age is already mandated to have some form of voter ID, I suppose nothing.
this whole time i thought it was a tom scott vid
"... and that's something you probably didn't know about electronic voting."
+Osmorosvo haha yeah
Joshua Chhakchhuak ikr
Tom is everywhere hahah
What
WHAT
I've been bamboozled
2 years later and I’m still re-watching this video.
Yeah...
I need a life.
Yep.
Wait, this video came out in December of 2014, unless you're a time-traveler, that's not possible
Macho Hedgehog Well, I am a time traveler, in fact.
Same. I'm actually rewatching a few of Tom Scott's videos every few days, because they're just that enjoyable.
I like how he talks about this like it's because of incompetence, and not on purpose.
that's because it's the best case scenario for electronic voting
if it doesn't work with just incompetence at play it will not hold up when malicious intent shows up
when you live in Australia and they failed to handle the sudden traffic for our online Census..
Im from Venezuela. We use electronic voting.
The joke tells itself
there's internet in Venezuela?
@Mr.b yeah the joke writes itself
In Venezuela the electronic voting machines are just plastic toy boxes, the outcome is dictated by the dictator Maduro. ;D
You're allowed to vote in Venezuela?
I am from India.
Here corporates vote for me.
I like how at 3:14 he plugs in the usb stick the wrong way first :D
lol
That just proves it's a real usb... not matter how you first try to put it in, it's wrong.
No, if it was a real USB, the first 2 or 3 times will be wrong, and then it would magically work again despite being in the same orientation as a previous attempt which failed.
Yes.
Too many middlemen.
For each level, we have to assume that they're competent and trustworthy.
There's no transparency.
Just like with paper ballots, if you can't trust who's counting the votes, you're in trouble. Seems like there's always a scandal here about the paper ballots being lost or damaged.
@@cmelton6796 Beautifull thing about paper is nobody has to trust anybody, everybody can mistrust everybody else and check on everybody else to see that they are not doing anything wrong. That is, if it's set up correctly.
@@Quintinohthree but how often do they really check in reality? If 80%of checkers are trump supporters how could the result be?
@@xkjg4808 If 80% of the checkers are Trump supporters there will still be 20% who are not and they will object to any mistake made, counteracting any such mistake. Any party contesting an election should always send a representative to each polling station, and if they do, no vote for them should get lost.
@@Quintinohthree false, what if both of the people who are supposed to be watching each other suddenly want to throw away a million ballots because they dont like them? Electronic voting is the way to go and a large company like google or microsoft should own the system.
boy this aged like fine wine
dominionized election
One of the disadvantages of paper voting is that it takes a long time to count. Obviously e-voting would solve that, but at the cost of all the other disadvantages mentioned.
I was wondering, though. Is there a reason why we don't do punch card voting?
If we voted by physically punching a hole in the ballot, then it would solve the worry about vanishing ink, it would solve the worry about someone invalidating a vote by erasing the pencil mark, and it would likely decrease the number of people accidentally invalidating their own vote by doodling in the corner. Their only option would be to punch a hole for their chosen candidate or party.
Additionally we could then use old-school analytical engines to count the votes, and being purely mechanical and made for only one purpose, it would be very hard to tamper with their programming. We could even have redundency in running the punch card ballots through several analytical engines to see if their final count matches up.
Most importantly it would speed up the process of counting votes.
Or am I wrong here? Surely there's some obvious reason I haven't thought of as to why we're not doing this?
Also if this were implemented I'd turn up to vote in full steampunk regalia.
+DisThoughts It doesn't take that long. I have worked on several elections and that verification count, the count and handling any disputed papers can be done in about six hours for a large turn out. Its not instant but its overnight.
+The Twisting Twist but then you would have the problem if the card is punched incorrectly and the counting machines can be tampered with
bas den hollander I'm assuming you're from the US or somewhere that uses the punch card system. I'm not going to comment on that as it's not a system that I know well.
I'm from the UK where voters get a paper ballot and they using a pencil make a cross by the name of the candidate and then the votes are counted by hand. It's not a perfect system as some papers are spoilt by people writing things on or voting more than once etc. But it's beauty is in its simplicity
+The Twisting Twist im actualy from europe in a country that uses paper bills, i just pointed out a possible problem with the semi-electronic voting system that that could happen, its just the problem i replied to the wrong person since im not used to comment.
The thing is, none of this makes electronic voting a bad idea. It makes electronic voting a problem with a lot of hurdles to overcome. After all, you start out the video pointing out that physical voting, too, has its weaknesses. And that attempt after attempt has been made to defraud the system. And that, over time, we've found ways to defend against those attempts.
Effectively, you're saying that electronic voting hasn't had that kind of proving period yet, and thus it's a bad idea, and thus we shouldn't use it. That sounds like a great mindset for NEVER DOING ANYTHING NEW.
Have you actually watched the video?
I believe he's saying that it would be a bad idea to use it now- not in the future.
by definition electronic voting will ALWAYS be COMPLETELY unsafe. COMPLETELY. There's absolutely no safety aspect to this whatsoever, whatever measures you'll try to do.
With paper votes counted by people, yes it's possible still to manipulate votes and I'm not going to say it doesn't happen, it does, just remember presidential election in Russia few years ago..
But there is substantially more people that you need to influence somehow in order to fake votes. It's much more difficult. And as Tom said in the video, if you can change one e-vote, you can change thousands of them with literally the same effort. The same doesn't apply with standard votes.
TheParkourPenguin Yes, that's exactly what he's saying. And that's my point. All of the problems he's pointing out are real problems. Which is why we need to use electronic voting, so we can find the problems, and fix them. If we avoid using it now, how are we going to know what to do to make it work in the future? Technologies don't advance by not being used until some magical process of thinking about them gets them to perfection. They advance by being used, and breaking, and being fixed, and breaking again, and being fixed again.
vyli1 So, what if I were to tell you there exists a system where you can't change one e-vote. It doesn't matter what this system is, maybe it hasn't been invented yet, maybe it's been in existence since around 1976. It's irrelevant for this discussion.
My question is, would you still consider electronic voting ALWAYS COMPLETELY unsafe? COMPLETELY?
It's kind of a bold statement to make based on no argument, don't you think?
This seems relevant in the USA right now.
Fraud doesn't exist this year. It's science.
Does not.
It's the most secure election in history! We USED E-VOTING TO MAKE SURE!!!
How dare you bigot
@@rswindol True facts, it's called fortifying now.
3:13 Schrodinger's USB stick strikes again.
Pissed off Tom Scott is my spirit animal.
As a certified ethical hacker (yes, that is the real, cringeworthy name of a certification I [actually my employer] spent 5 grand to get, which basically mean's I'm a good guy with the same computer intrusion skills as a bad guy) I agree with everything you say here. Once you know how easy it is to compromise systems it's hard to trust them with anything as important as elections.
You surely never used online banking then.
TheHolonist I have, but I don't trust it. I use it because it's ensured against fraud. Besides my personal finances are nowhere near as important as elections.
Same here on the online banking. ONLY reason I use it is because the banks are forced to take the loss on actual frauds.
What is your opinion on the Wiki Leaks releases recently?
Also people argue that it is possible here in the US, others don't. Curious to know what you think..
Electronic voting is actually even worse than than online banking. You could compare it to anonymous online banking, if we had that.
I am watching this almost saying "dude chill you're gonna have heart attack"
It's an act.
Love how this video always crops up again in the run up to any election :')
I really like how here in Belgium in the places we have paper voting we have observers of every party onthe ballot every step of the way and the actual work is done by people who are (sort of) randomly called in the same manner of jury duty
I'm from Brazil, for years we have the electronic voting system, and mind you, all of it is true!
marcelo vinicius that's what you think
Meh. It could be worse. In my country, if you vote for the wrong candidate, you can end up disappearing under mysterious circumstances.
+DerAlmighty --> What country is that ?
marcelo vinicius did they switch back to physical ballots?
No they didn't, actually there is a lot of publicity just to convice the population that eletronic voting is safe.
I find it hilarious how you're the only person I've ever seen point out all of the very obvious flaws. Responsibility for common sense is often abdicated to someone else... This is how freedom and democracy dies!
With thunderous applause.
Actually, among "white hat" hackers this is common knowledge. And believe me; at the same time those hackers are trying to find a way to mitigate all those flaws as were they trying to find the holy grail. The more they try, the more it becomes clear that we don't have found any useful approach yet.
It's actually the other way around, reliquishing your own freedom is exactly how democracies are born, and this is by no means a criticism to it
Anyone here after what's going on in Iowa rn
Love the ragequit at 5:15. And how the evil infected usb stick is inserted twice. :)
You didn't mention DDoS attacks too. The Australian census was done via online this year and was targeted by DDoS attackers.
Yeah, when that happened my grandmother called me, panicking lol
No, it wasn't.
the census was just done on a criminally badly made website. no hacking just incompetent
AngelusDoyle No, there was an attack, and IBM were aware of this in foresight so they gave all the ISP's a security measure to mitigate this and one didn't implement it, which allowed the attack to occur
Which really just showcases the issue ...
BoltedCoffee Osu Source?
UPDATE votes SET voted_party="My Awesome Party";
Done!
UPDATE votes SET voted_party="My Awesome Party" WHERE 1=1;
I mean who would name his table votes in these situations? 😂
@Hand Solo Sure, you could use an Integer.
@Hand Solo It's not _meant_ to change it. Some databases will not accept UPDATE or DROP or DELETE statements without a WHERE clause, in order to prevent accidental table-wide, possibly catastrophic, queries. In those cases, people just use obviously true WHERE clauses, the most common one being "WHERE 1=1". I have certainly encountered this with MySQL.
@Hand Solo Fair enough, I misremembered then. It was probably something like "where id>0" on an auto_increment key, so I just remembered the notion that it was obviously true.
One of the best and most relevant videos on UA-cam
Pedant reporting in. They were there from about 9:45 to 10:40am, so something like 6-10 total takes. Also it was filmed between 2-6 december 2014 based on the weather and tide conditions
I noticed that little joke about the USB drive in the video
i noticed the joke too, i just don't know any context
Only it should have flipped twice. :)
I'm not sure about that either, but USB devices is how we slowed down the Iranian uranium enrichment program. Look up Stuxnet.
Jeff C
Tony Hong Buu k Buu
the more you know about technology the more you distrust them.
It's just like those [Insert your least favorite racial minority here] people.
Kristoffer Johnsen ???
@@DenGuleBalje My least favorite racial minority is people who don't pronounce "gif" the way I do.
@@blarg2429 It's pronounced 'yiff'
@@claytongiambelluca3551 Correct.
Anyone here after the 2020 Iowa caucus?
Hi from Estonia, where half the population uses e-voting with id-cards.
So your Votes aren't secret anymore congratulations you haven't Vote at all there are nullified because it breaks one of the 5 terms for Voting , free ,general, secret, equal, directly. With ID Cart it's not secret anymore
@@icebluscorpion Yes, you can check your vote later, but It's secret for anyone else but you.
Tell that to the brazilian government.
+The Heartless Alchemist Bad example.
+The Heartless Alchemist they wont listen dude. br hue
The Heartless Alchemist im Brazilian.
TheMulekews
Oh, OK.
*****
Sério que você acredita nisso? Se a NASA já foi hackeada, você realmente acha que a urna eletrônica brasileira, que foi recusada pela Argentina e outros países é segura?
Love this guy's enthusiasm and passion for the subject he's presenting - it's contagious. Well done!
It's a pitty that he has to
That’s what happens when you witness a stolen election in your lifetime
I’m surprised this video didn’t get removed in 2020 lol…
Why on earth does so many people argue against this and present their "solutions", most of which are actually addressed in the video? Why so eager to get an electronic system? The paper ballot system works really well. It doesn't need fixing.
Because it is probably the only functioning way to revive direct democracy in a modern large scale societies. At least that's my personal concern.
Direct democracy would be terrible! :o
Jim Groth Well, opinions.
P. Marios Christodoulou Brexit should be evidence enough of that.
Jim Groth No, it isn't. I don't want to get into such a conversation; I only mentioned a valid reason why someone would have an interest in applying electronic voting.
Well.. that's rather pessimistic isn't it.
You mentioned people would immediately comment about solutions using crypto. So here I am commenting about solutions using crypto:
If you were to construct your vote in a booth, sign that vote using a digital signature (whichever, ECDSA, Schnorr, or even RSA) with some private key known to you, public key would be registered with the local voting authority, unknown to the public, and co-signed by the local voting office, making the result valid. You can then publish that vote over whatever channel you like (altering the published vote makes the result invalid due to the signatures) and store it in a publicly readable or even publicly distributed database of cast votes, they may be chained together after or during the voting period in a structure such as a merkle tree or a merkle chain, making the order at which votes have come in inalterable. Computing a hash out of a vote, signed with your public key, may be considered a receipt you can read with the private key known only to you. You can take this home and use it at a later date to verify your vote has been cast and counted correctly, or discard/destroy it right then and there.
After (or even during) the voting period, the public keys of the voting authorities and the people casting the vote are made public (in fact, they should be stored in the vote structure being signed). The public database of votes that have been cast may be counted and verified to be valid by anyone at this point. Local voting offices may publish the public keys that have passed through their office after the voting period, bringing the whole system together.
Now, probably there's a load of edge cases that need attention here. Sure. I invite anyone to think on it.
I do want to point out I don't think it's fair to so blatantly dismiss electronic solutions to the voting problem. Just because we haven't found a secure and private solution yet, doesn't mean it doesn't exists, and it certainly doesn't mean it's a bad idea to continue exploring this.
Just my 2 votes.
Definitely agree. I think the problem is that we need all this infrastructure in place, and it needs to be thoroughly vetted before we can even think about using it in an actual election. In time though it's definitely possible.
A proper voting system needs the following features:
1) Anonymity (So no buying or bullying votes)
2) No extra votes can be added.
3) No votes can be removed.
4) Observability (It must be possible to watch what is going on, so any fraud will be caught. This handles 2 and 3 above.)
and finally (the one that electronic voting will inevitably fail):
5) Transparency. It must be explainable and demonstrable to any eligible voter, that the system has the above features.
Jorn - you're missing his point - this makes one person, the developer of the system responsible.
That person, the one who holds the private key, has the ability to modify and change elections results by the nature of the system. By the nature of voting - no single person can be considered responsible.
If we consider this as a server-client issue, I can explain clearly why this doesn't work:
1. The server cannot store any secure information - storing any data which would secure the client-server connection would enable MIM attacks by those who have developed the server - we don't normally consider this an issue because we normally trust our server (i.e. I trust Google not to mess with my Google account). In voting, this isn't acceptable.
2. Almost all client-server connections are susceptible to downtime - this is far easier to do than to prevent physical access to a polling station. Hence it is far easier to rig votes by producing downtime in areas known to disapprove of you.
***** ***** I propose a different solution using the power of the crowd and distributed computing:
1. Each voter is also a counter.
2. Their computer (or ballot box machine if that is the case) both records their vote and counts the votes of others from the local area which exchange their votes with each other.
3. When the computers are added, they auto-connect to each other and setup a private key that they share.
4. The vote is verified using this private key and a public key (much like SSL).
It relies on the computer being safe to start with (so using clean ballot systems would probably best to start with) - but given that, each ballot machine would be able to verify the result against all the rest - this would mean that to fix the ballot, a hacker would have to breach every machine it wants to change the vote on (much like intimidating every voter). As such this could be much more secure than any other voting system and would not be impossible to build - computing power means counting such things is completely viable.
I'd love to hear the flaws in my suggestion.
Ben Lewis I never said the designer of the system is the holder of the private key, this would make for a terribly bad system. I'm talking about digital signatures through asymmetric cryptography in which the person who is voting is the holder of a unique private key, of which the public key has been authorised by the local voting authority to be able to sign a vote which will, after verification, be valid. This makes transmitting and storing the vote safe because the only person that is able to produce a valid vote for a registered public key will be the person who is holding the private key.
Jorn C Any system where a voter can demonstrate the integrity of his specific vote is a system where votes can be sold.
This is why it is not enough that the system can't tell who voted what. The voter must also be unable to demonstrate their vote.
For this reason, in Denmark it is illegal to take a picture of your filled-out ballot. You are allowed to claim to have voted whatever, but you are not allowed the ability to demonstrate the truth of the claim.
Someone please send this video to the United States of America.
Hey, this guy looks a bit like Tom Scott
ikr
he should start a youtube channel!
No, Tom Scott looks like this guy.
Creepernick02 they do!
Tom Scott should meet this guy!
Estonia has e-voting. And this somewhat makes me worried. I was quite disappointed at the lack of any mention of Estonia. Considering that it's a country very proud of its e-everything. Especially voting.
Well, Assuring that the users computer isn't breached is always a challenge and a impossible one at that. The part about hacking into home computers being hard. I have to say I slightly disagree. All it takes is 1 security flaw in 1 of the many, many, many programs a person has installed on their computer and you have access. If the price tag on taking over a large proportion of the countries computers turns from a small botnet to chaging the outcome of a election. More is at risk and for the bad guys theres a larger reward.
Any large scale attack (even just using an already existing botnet) is unlikely to go by unnoticed - invalidating the whole effort. Which is where most of the difficulties lie - getting anything sinificant done without a trail.
Btw, since the physical token (ID card, its chip is what actually does all signing - obviously, nothing of that can be done at PC side) required for voting is used for many other services also (card has two main, separate, functions: authentication and authorization [two passwords to convince the chip on the ID-card to do thous in your name]) - like paying bills etc / signing contracts and banking in general. Sabotaging e-voting seems like a silly thing to do.
Oh, btw: Back in the day in that class - we though out a fix to this, single noteworthy, flaw. Put a small screen to the ID-card reader -> easy to make all kinds of man-in-middle attacks just impossible (PC does the rich/fancy part and the card finalizes - talking with the user directly outside the reach of any programmable device). Did not thought that to happen back then due of the extra costs (i think even current cards have enough free space for 'response' authentication to make it impossible for the PC or anyone else in-between to throw away your vote/whatever-action) - but, i would not be surprised for things to go that way in the future (the cost would be fairly minimal in %-vise nowadays). -> one more reason why this video was mostly FUD bollocks.
TheLeftLibertarianAtheist
You can't bribe a computer.
Siim Haas No, but a bribed or corrupt human can program a computer.
I would like to make a vid analyzing the Brazilian electronic voting system, and making a verdict and pointing out where the insecurities lie, if any. I think it's not covered in this video because you mentioned nobody moves the actual voting machine to a central count-up station, but yes that's how it's done here (on a regional, not national level).
I loved your hint to Stuxnet. Kudos, man!
I consider this video to basically be the gold standard for a short, topical video: it’s concise, precise, accurate, and persuasive. I have a fundamental belief in democracy and I feel like this should be required viewing in all civics classes (at the very least)
4:50 India does that. They literally move the machines to the counting centre. They doesn't have any kind of ports.
So how are they programmed? Who audits those counts or does the machine just say x candidate got y votes and you accept it as true?
@@turbulentmk yes
@@turbulentmk Every political party has the right to audit the count and verify if there is any tampering at any point in the election. And yes we accept it because it has no internet connectivity and has been checked for tampering many many times in a single election. And that is just for one machine. There are additional paper ballots and if the ballot count mismatches the machines for even one vote the whole region's votes are nullified. Thankfully that has not happened yet.
@@agrmohit "There are additional paper ballots and if the ballot count mismatches the machines for even one vote the whole region's votes are nullified. Thankfully that has not happened yet." So they just do it with the machines and in paper? What's the point then?
@@orlandomoreno6168 There's a bit of backstory to it. Actually not too long ago the paper ballots were not there and only the machines. But in some instances the losing political party started accusing the Voting Machines were hacked and after a thorough investigation, it was declared that they are safe and hacking is not feasible. After that paper ballots were also mandated and only a very very small number of paper ballots (relative to India's population which is quite large) are matched. The main reason for still using machines is that the counting process becomes much much easier and fast. It is just not feasible to count hundreds of millions of paper ballots and verify the counts. As a result, even in the largest elections in India, the result is finalized in a few hours as compared to many days that it took before the introduction of the voting machines. I hope this answers your question.
And no word about Estonia, which is strange. Because we the only country who made possible voting from home and legal etc. Because we have something, that no other country has: all citizens have a smartcard ID with private number on it. Though March this year there was a paper criticising our system.
I was about to comment about Estonia but you beat me to it. I would like to hear Tom discussing the weaknesses of our (Estonian) system. It seems to me that so far it has worked reliably.
JohnVrSo How can you tell? xD
I'm not exactly sure how a smartcard ID would solve any of the problems presented in the video, but it does sound fascinating that the systems is used :D And a bit worrying....
Strangley prophetic 6 years down the track.
one of the best videos Ive ever watched on this channel so far
Wait, as far as I know, problems 2 and 3 exist also with paper voting, at least in my country.
The local comission in each ballot room counts the votes in their ballot box and send the data (if I remember correctly, it is USB stick or CD+some paperwork as a backup) to some central entity. They also send the original votes (papers in envelopes), but these are never re-counted in normal circumstances.
Sure, paranoia and trust are issues, but they are about the same in paper and electronic voting. The possibility of hack or DoS is what makes the e-voting worse. As you said in the beginning, it would not take that much effort to mess with multiple votes if you can mess with one. That's the crucial difference. Getting many fake IDs to cast paper votes is harder and scales pretty well with the magnitude of the attack you want.
lol failed usb plugin at 3:13
3:14 I love the USB flip over haha
Lol but i take 3tries and i gey it on 3rd try evrry time so its not accurate but nice try
Computerphile - come to Estonia and do an update to this video.
Also to Brazil
@@eduardoavila646 what the country that "elected" a fascist?
@@CBGB42 Facist? I wont defend any politcs here, but do you at least know what you're talking about?
Or just searched "Brazil" in google and cameup with the first sensationalist content you could find?
Politics on Brazil, arent either extreme left or extreme right. All "center" with a light tint of right or left. With the previous party, PT, Brazil wasn't living in a communism just as it isnt living in a fascist regim right now.
Keep in mind that Bolsonaro, isnt even half nationalyst as Trump for example. Yet both aren't fascists but are called like that.
Again, i dont agree with many stuff they say or do, but one thing is Stalin, other thing is Trump or Bolsonaro.
And yeah that guy was elected by the people dissapointed/tired after 14 years of the previous party government, PT, wich is a so called left party, but actually its that center with slitly left tint. Probably with the hope of changes in government, many voted in Bolsonaro, just to not vote on PT again even if they didn't agree with his ideology or proposals.
But except for some newer relulations and the new relations with Israel, the governmemt is pretty much the same thing. The economy seems to have risen a bit, mainly in investments, the "real" value got a bit higher, but probably its just a momentary positivity with a new party in the government.
So yeah, get some better fonts.
@@eduardoavila646 I think he's talking about getulio vargas
@@equalibrium7037 Probably not, most of the press is really exagerating and making drama on top of the recent elections.
And there would be no point into taking Vargas in consideration to a electronic voting discussion, its been more than 50 years since that, not only the country changed quite alot, but also computers as we know them didnt even exist back there, neither the electronic votation.
I had no thought to follow the time on Big Ben through the video until you mentioned it at the end! Then, of course, I had to watch it all again!
Great video! As ever, with Tom.
I did the same thing!
I'm a programmer. Tom is 110% correct. Stop arguing with his point. Technological progress should never be driven by laziness.
TheLeftLibertarianAtheist Nothing conceived online will ever replace the security of simply voting in person. As bad as Tom says it is, trust me, it's worse. Elections should NEVER be held online.
MrBlaq It shouldn't, and I totally agree.
I'm also a programmer. And both you and he are wrong.
You have confused "I don't know how to do e-voting" with "E-voting cannot be done properly"
highly relevant to the Dominion Voting Scandals
"...the online voting systems employed across
the province did not fare as well. 51 of the municipalities whose online voting system was provided by Dominion Voting Systems experienced outages which required an extension of voting hours, with 11 communities extending voting into the next day. The 99 Ontario municipalities which used online voting organized by Intelivote Systems did not experience any issues (Gollom, 2018). Despite the computer problems, the number of municipalities adopting online voting for their elections is only continuing to grow. Canadian Citizens’ Acceptance of Voting Technologies
This just popped up in my suggestions and it's still relevant.
if you got a haircut you could use your hands for other things
This is your profile picture running away
Hahaha
OrbitalParkour why so salty man, I wasn't even referring to you moron
+Eriiaa its the same person but running
Once you see it, you can't un-see it.
"When they say 'just trust [the election]...nothing has gone wrong', SOMETHING HAS ALREADY GONE DISASTEROUSLY WRONG" -Tom Scott, 2014
And then the party that screamed that everything went wrong spends 3 years not being able to prove that anything went wrong...
Exceptions prove the rule my friend.
I submit my vote (US) on a computer this year and Tom Scott and this video was the first thing that came to mind after I was lead into that room... Ay caramaba...
So many people saying "but wut if u did thn it be sucure"
It's not as simple as you'd think.
Thomas Lynn Yes and: When the problem is pointed out, they want to layer on another idea. Soon it starts to look like a 1970's era US "smogger" car engine with about a billion controls for special cases but still not working.
1+1=2 is sort of easy to prove
C^2 = A^2 + B^2 - 2ABcos(Angle) is harder to prove
The more complex the idea is, the less it should be trusted to be correct because there are more places for mistakes.
I've seen a lot of arguments against it, and I've always found them lacking. This one convinced me.
And he only touched the surface, only mentioned some of the problems.
I’d like to see an update of this video, but then on the topic of i-voting, with the Estonian model in mind, addressing the possible gaps there, and finding possible solutions to them.
Although 6 years before the event, this video was made for the 2020 US Presidential Election.
46 states have universal paper backups for all electronic voting, ie the machines are expensive pencils.
i agree, but some of these problems are also true for voting over letters which became quite popular in the last years.
The deeper idea is that those problems will _always_ be present in e-voting, inherently.
i agree, but the same is true for voting by mail.
as he said earlier mass rigging of mail elections gets exponentially harder as the size of the conspiracy increases as opposed to electronic elections where the computer exponentially rigs the election
I think with postal voting its a risk the electorate is aware of and willing to take. You don't have to postal vote, if anything you are encounraged to vote at a polling station.
I love all computerphile videos but the ones with Tom Scott are definitely the best!
In the Philippines we use the "world's most expensive pencil" method
Paper ballots are counted and scanned by electronic "Smart-matic" machines. The paper ballots are still used to confirm the machine tally when needed.
November 17th 2020. This video suddenly has become delightfully relevant. #Dominion
But don't the blockchain, and platforms like ethereum solve all these problems?
Auditing the software and hardware: In ethereum every smart contract that runs on the network is seen by every node on the network, and as the system works to make sure that everyone always sees the exact same state throughout the network, you can be sure of the software that is processing your votes.
Votes in transit: Precisely the same mechanisms as above solves this. Every node agrees always in the exact state, that means that every node knows exactly how many, and which votes have been cast at all times.
Central count program: Yet again, you are assuming there needs to be a "central" count program. Ethereum is decentralized, and by the same tokens as above, the counting process will be done using the consensus system, which means everybody knows HOW and WHAT is being counted.
The nodes in the network would certainly include the voting machines themselves, but every citizen that wants can also install one on their computer to add security and watch how the election is processing.
The votes are anonymous and linked to anonymous unique ethereum addresses, that may be issued on the voting place (as NFC chips for example), with people from the different parties watching to make sure nobody votes twice, just like nowadays. Some other schemes for this part are also possible.
This system is not totally invulnerable, but the vulnerabilities become as unlikley as those for the current system, but we gain many advantages of speed, efficiency, and even security.
+Guillermo Valle It could also make the whole process a lot faster, perhaps, allowing for more public votes rather than politicians just deciding something. Ie. a strengthened demoracy by it being more direct rather than representative.
1:05
But nobody is less suited for ruling anything than Zaphod.
May be Zapp Branigan. Hey, lets just ban anybody with a 'Z' in their name !
Hythloday71 But then you'd be banning *Sir* Kray Zee, too.
That guy's knighted, he must know what he's doing.
Obvious George Bush joke, also the current Prime Minister of Australia, Tony Abbot could probably give Zaphod a run for his money.
this is basically an angrier version of the main channel e-voting video and i love it
I'm glad to hear that at least one other person still remembers the Stuxnet breakout.
If we can safely handle most of the worlds economy electronically, online banking etc, where my whole life saving is nothing more than a number, I'm sure it's possible to do it with online voting as well.
I can understand the problem arising from anonymity though. So let me ask a question: Is it really that bad to have a non-anonymous voting?
***** He addressed the problem with non-anonymous voting in the video.
Nillie Feel free to think for yourself and bring up arguments that appealed to you.
What are you afraid of if your vote is tied to your passport number for example? And I don't mean it's published, but simply checked afterwards by the election committee. Sure it can get leaked like any data but shouldn't most of the time. Every system has its flaws, but I think an anonymous system definitely is less trustworthy.
So the arguments raised in the video... Bribing votes obviously has to be illegal. To do so on a large scale with people you hardly know is bound to be found out eventually, and even then I don't see this as a major issue.
With non-anonymous voting you erase any possibility of extra/duplicate votes. I consider this a major benefit. And again: non-anonymous doesn't mean it's public for everyone to see. Just like a lot of your other data (creditcard information) isn't just on google either...
***** The possibility of bribing or threatening people to vote a certain way is much more of a problem with non-anonymous voting. If someone threatened to hurt someone dear to me if I didn't vote a certain way, and they were able to check how I voted, would I really dare to vote according to my own political views?
You're not really bringing up any arguments. I'm not sure why you enter a discussion to be honest. Try more than 1 sentence maybe?
People can try and bribe/threaten me now too. And since the results won't be public even when a vote is tied with your account, the difference won't be much. Only if the person bribing you can hack the database. And if you can't secure data in this century than nothing electronic like payments would work in the first place..
As a guy studying politics at uni, I could genuinely talk to you for days about the secrecy of the ballot. You aren't completely without a point though, I would just recommend you look at the incredibly vast amount of academic literature on the subject. The general consensus is that the secrecy of the ballot is vital.
In soviet Russia Putin votes for you!
This joke has never been so literal until now, Thanks Tom Scott!
wait till you see how different is in other states..
In Russia, Central Election commission will never allow voters to distort the outcome of elections
In Soviet Russia, the voting machine votes for you and your future. ;D
well, this video should be stored in a vault somewhere...
Writing from Brazil! Here it is forbidden to question the electronic voting machines and anyone who does is included in a government investigation and has their social networks blocked by the justice system.
I have came across cryptographic voting protocols during my studies... that is the future in my opinion. If England makes crapy voting software (vulnerable to XSRF) it is the same problem as poorly executed manual voting. This is the first video with Tom Scott where I really REALLY don't agree with the content. Also please don't call sending ballots by e-mail as "electronig voting". It is the same as saying that "electronic signature" is someone attaching photo of their signature in their Word document.
Do you know the difference between theory (your studies) and practice? In theory there's none...
***** not that I agree with him, but theories have enough evidence to back them up.
you want some search terms to know why it's impractical? Here: "Stealthy Dopant-Level Hardware Trojans", "reflections on trusting trust" and for some lighter reading: "reproducible builds". Have fun!
***** you might be surprised that everything in IT was at some point just a theory. So that is not a valid argument. Btw. I am kind of working close to the field of my studies (mathematical methods of informational security) and I can see the "theories" I have studied all around me :).
666Tomato666 thank you for the topics, will check them out. But I have feeling that they will not change my opinion on the video (it's mainly the contained emotions which I don't like).
It took 52 minutes to film this
This video is immortal. Thank you so much!
John Oliver should have featured this in his episode about E-voting
Did Oliver offer a proper critique of E-voting?
he wouldn't criticize e voting now, he'd get cancelled
Been living abroad and voting with my ID-card and ID-card reader from home for a long time. Then again Estonia is a small country and the risk of serious attacks might be lower.
It is hilarious how Brazil takes pride on that XD
***** I don't : (
***** it's how propaganda works, we are taught at school how that is "great"... truth is: you don't have to rig the voting system, you just have to make everyone so ignorant that they will believe the political parties in the country are trying take the power to improve society, instead of just fighting for the most power to make the most money for the companies that support them (which is what happens in brazil).
This video aged well
Tom. Thanks for your investigative pieces to camera - you've uploaded some great pieces over the years. I came across this one for the the first time today and I do not share the confidence you put into the paper ballots system in UK. Ballot paper are now all numbered with a similarly numbered counterfoil; the numbered counterfoil also bears the voter's registration number from the electoral register which is hand-written by the Polling Clerk when the ballot paper is issued. Therefore anyone with access to those documents can speedily trace the name and address of every voter and find out how they voted if they wish. Maybe you would like to investigate - a simple search will confirm the facts.
You should check the Estonian E-voting system where you can verify that your vote counted as you voted it and you can see all the data live.
+Jürgen Koks I'm sad he did not mention the successful efforts.
I know it is 7 years late and I don't even know how exactly Estonian E-voting system works, but I have to say; you're wrong, no that cannot be verified.
Suppose the following situation. There are 3 people, X, Y, and Z, who can vote, and two candidates, A and B. Let's say that X and Y voted for A, Z voted for B. If X or Y asks the program, the program should reply "you voted for A, and A got total of 2 votes while B got 1". Instead, someone can hack the program to report "you voted for A, and A got total of 1 vote while B got 2." How can you tell whether program is modified or not? If you are X, the only viable way to tell if this is modified or not is to ask Y and Z whether they both voted for B or not. The problem is, if you want to verify that the program is not modified, you need to check at least half of the other voters "physically in person". Not to mention this is difficult in real elections, but also this inevitably breaks the anonymity of the vote, thus exposing the voters to the threats and bribes.
Moreover, suppose somehow you made a perfect program that 1. you can directly see the entire dataset and find your vote somewhere and verify it is not modified and 2. you cannot identify who else voted for whom, except for your own vote. Then, what happens is that the "token" you use to check your vote can be used by others as well, by just asking you. Now, in the similar setup as before, suppose Z offered Y that, if Y votes for B and Z can verify this, then Z will pay Y. Basically, in this perfect electric voting system, Z just purchased Y's ballot. This is huge risk to democracy; what happens Z is a loan shark and Y is in debt to Z? We live in a real world not utopia, and this can and will definitely occur. How do you prevent this if Y can check its own ballot after the voting?
The point of physical voting is that 1. You can vote anonymously, 2. and more importantly, even you cannot find which was your ballot after you vote, and 3. despite 1 and 2, you are assured that your vote is counted and it does not include any malicious ballots. Electronic voting cannot satisfy all 1, 2, and 3. On top of that, you have a cyber-security risks. Whatever Estonian system is (or was, hopefully) is nowhere close to successful.
I'm interested in what you people think about the Estonian e-voting thing that has been happening for a while now...
Tom is so soft angry ball here and I can't, amazing 10/10
This video has aged wellllllllll
Canada is running public consultations right now regarding reforming our electoral system, and one of the sections of the survey is regarding online voting. Good god I really hope we don't do online voting here.
I partook in the process last week and am happy to hear, (by the tone of your comment), that at least one other fellow citizen clicked the "strongly disagree" button. Cheers from the left coast.
I clicked "strongly disagree" indeed. I wouldn't support online voting if you paid me a million dollars. Cheers from Manitoba!
just a shame they all got added to the 'strongly agree' column at the other end
Make sure you guys change from first past the post though, to anything! Pretty much anything would be better.
Best of luck from New Zealand.
Something something something ... something something!
Cheers from Northern Ontario!