[Fwd: Re: [E-voting] Fwd: [ILUG] A GPL e-voting project]

[David GLAUDE]

Hello ILUG,

I don't have much time to discuss the following with you.
Since I was told your list is "OPEN" then I forward it myself.

Maybe some of you on this list know me from contact with "FSF IE" or 
"SWPAT" of "FFII" or "AEL".

Feel free to keep me in Cc: as long as this thread continue on your 
list. ;-)

David GLAUDE
Web master of http://www.PourEVA.be/

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: [E-voting] Fwd: [ILUG] A GPL e-voting project
Date: Tue, 22 Mar 2005 09:34:20 +0100
From: David GLAUDE <dglaude at poureva.be>
Organization: PourEVA
To: Rory McCann <ebelular at gmail.com>
CC: ompaul at eircom.net, ICTE List <e-voting at lists.stdlib.net>
References: <423D47AD.4030802 at eircom.net> 
<20b463fd05032111159a3289 at mail.gmail.com>

GPL or Free Software is not sufficient to garantee anything about
electronic election... I have a quote from Richard Stallman (RMS) about
this (http://wiki.ael.be/index.php/VoteElectroniqueAndFreeSoftware):
[[[
Free software is not enough to ensure that elections are carried out
properly.

The software used in and for government should always be free software;
the government should always have the freedom to run it, study its
source code, change it to suit government needs, and distribute copies
to others either unchanged or modified. That way, software owners will
not have power over the government's computers. But that is not enough
to ensure that computerized elections are fair and honest.

It is easy for a programmer to change a program so that it tells the
user "You voted for Mr Smith" but actually record a vote for Mr Brown.
Unfortunately, free software does not prevent this. There is no known
way to prevent this.

With free voting software, a government election committee can study the
source code. If the program has been published, anyone can study the
source code. But there is no way to be sure that the program actually
running when you cast your vote is the same program that you and the
election committee studied. Someone could have installed a fiddled
version an hour before the election and replaced it with the authorized
version an hour after it ended.

To assure honest elections, we need physical ballots that can be used
for a recount.
]]]

If you want more on Richard Stallman, the Free Software foundation and
Electronic Voting... you might want to read the following on the web
site of Free Software Foundation France (with another quote from Richard
Stallman:
* http://fsffrance.org/voting/voting.en.html

The most interestion person that worked on Free Software Electronic
voting is Jason Kitcat. Indeed he stopped is project and changed
oppinion after havind discovered some impossible to solve problem.
You can read his OLD opinion "Why Electronic Voting Software Should be
Free Software" on http://www.j-dom.org/h/n/WRITING/evoting/ALL/53/ ...
don't forget to read the line:
[NOTE: This article no longer represents my position but is left online
for archival purposes.]

For your information Jason is now working on better eVoting (not remote
eVoting) in UK.

All those working on internet voting and believing that they have the
sollution to make the world more democratic (maybe with "direct
democracy") are making a few big mistake:
* You can not have physical ballots with internet voting
* A program once it is running can not be verified as beeing the
original (the one we have the source code of)
* A server running on the internet can not be verified to run the proper
software (you have to trust: DNS, SSL certification, ISP, those running
the server, ...)
* On the internet, you can not simultaniously vote anonymously and
authenticate yourself as a legitimate voter (and voting only once)

As a reminder to this VVAT devoted list... remote evoting will never
respect VVAT.

There is another such attempt at internet direct democracy made by a
small team of French programmer that are searving a team of "thinker".
That project is:
[[[
DEMEXP
The democratic experience
The project that will change everything
]]]

You can contact them on http://www.demexp.org/ or demexp.contact at ras.eu.org

I can not recommend their software or project for the reason above.

David GLAUDE

PS: Rory or Paul, could you forward this to the ILUG list as I am not a
member of it.

Rory McCann wrote:
> This was on the Irish Linux User Group list a few days ago. Thought it
> might be of interest here.
> 
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Paul O'Malley <ompaul at eircom.net>
> Date: Sun, 20 Mar 2005 09:51:41 +0000
> Subject: [ILUG] A GPL e-voting project
> To: ilug <ILug at linux.ie>
> 
> http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2005/3/16/144321/983
> 
> It is a project for GPL Based code for voting. Some of you might want to
> have a look.

_______________________________________________
E-voting mailing list
E-voting at lists.stdlib.net
http://lists.stdlib.net/mailman/listinfo/e-voting
http://evoting.cs.may.ie/