The Cryptographic Fix for US Elections Is Still Sitting on the Shelf

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Re -hired by the Institute of Election Science, where he was the Chief of Technology, Pospiesalski flew to the headquarters of the election and software of election elections in Omahi, Nebraska. His task was to analyze the company IVOTROSON Voting system.

For more than a week, Posieszalski has discovered a wide range of problems, including “bad codes practices, backlog, static passwords”, and most importantly, what he described as a complete lack of “end cryptographic evidence.”

“The biggest thing that wasn’t there was the ultimate cryptographic evidence,” Pospieszalski said Decipher in an interview. “So there is no chance that the machine, even with perfect external security, could know if the ballot is legitimate or the computer is twice, three times, 10 times or 1,000 times.”

What is missing today’s voting machines

CEO of Blockchain Safety and Identity Software Company UterinePospiesal, said vulnerability is not hypothetical; Any one can use anyone who has access to voting machines and voter registration systems.

“You could only run the ballot in 10 times – and that is true today – and that will only be considered 10 votes,” he explained. “And the scanner knows nothing better, and the tabulator is not. The tabulator in the central state is not like, ‘Oh, it was 10 votes. “

Pospiesalski said that the separation of the voting and polling stations for records often prevents reconciliation without calling for original paper records.

“There is no anonymous serialization of any ballot that would allow the system to know that every serialized voting list must only be counted once once,” he said.

The solution, according to Pospieszalski, includes software – not hardware – and is based on cryptographic techniques that he first developed in the 1980s David Chauma cryptograph that has launched digital money and introduced blind signatures, allowing to check transactions without discovering their content.

Chaum later founded DigikashEarly digital currency and proposed cryptographic voice systems that keep anonymity, at the same time allowing public check. His work laid the key foundations for both safe e-headquarters and modern crypto currency such as Bitcoin.

“What you want is the machine at the end-the number of the number or system of managing the choice-adequate definition of votes, and on each voting leaf you have serialization blinded to blinded,” Pospieszalski said. “So, like in La district, that output ballot that is printed has a serial number. This serial number does not identify a voter, but speaks to the tabulator in the central environment,” Hey, this is a unique voting list. “

“If I see two of them, then someone cheated,” he added. “Especially if I see them 50.”

In the proposed model of Posieszal, there would be three points: paper leaves, conventional digital sum and third cryptographic number.

“The way you see cheating is a digital number says there are 100 votes, and a cryptographic number says it should only be 90,” Pospiesalski said. “Now you know that someone has injected 10 votes.”

Antrim district lessons

2020. Sespieski was hired to carry out forensic analyzes in the Antrim district in Michigan, after a brief mistake of counting voting launched a wide guess.

“In the Antrim district, there was a vote, like, about 2,000 votes, where, like, one day there were 2,000 for Biden, and the next day there was 2,000 for Trump,” he recalled. “What really happened was the definition of the ballot leaflets wrongly configured so that the system thought that the voices for Trump were for bidet.”

He said that when the ballots were discarded with a corrected file with a definition, “everything went back to normal.”

Pospiesalski emphasized that, although the mistake was technical, the optics of a situation that fed public doubt.

“There was no huge, hostile attack. But as a voter who broke the media-a lot of right-wing media, he would want answers,” he said, adding that such a confusion was exactly what they were, outside the chain of cryptographic evidence imagined to prevent.

However, although he did not find evidence of remote hacking or software, Pospiesalski said he had encountered signs of possible injection of the ballots during his analysis.

“If you have a ballot with 42 choices, and in the analysis you see 100 ballots with all 42 filled in the same way, you are like: Um, it’s probably not real,” he said. “These are the things I have found about some evidence in the Antrim district.”

Asked why the cryptographic serialization of the ballots was not implemented, Pospiesalski pointed out the rooted systems and corporate reluctance to make changes, adding that the proposals for safe voting often failed to get attraction because they were too complicated.

“They suggest all kinds of really, really heavy schemes for use … things like people like, if you are a manufacturer of voting machines, it won’t make sense,” he said.

Several technologies aim to improve electoral security and trust. In April, New York MP Clyde Vanel introduced A draft that would use blockchain technology to insurance voter records and choice results. While blockchain It was promoted as a solution for a safe voting, Posepieszalski claimed that the fundamental question did not require that level of complexity.

“All you try to do is solve a simple problem: get the exact number of legitimate votes,” he said. “Additional complexity is unnecessary. Many people push blockchain because it is popular, but you don’t really need it.”

On the contrary, Posieszalski says his solution works with current machines.

“I just say: Look, make a software upgrade to the existing system and work with Dominion, work with ES & S, and you can only turn it on or exclude it,” he said.

Asked how adoption can happen, Pospiesal proposed legislation or mandates from the jurisdictions that oversee the election.

“Voters manufacturers and their customers – are judicially needed by large parts to advocate a change,” he explained. “If the law said that by 2028 or 2032.

The advantage, according to him, would be clarity in future elections, especially in fierce competitions in which confidence is fragile.