[1384] in cryptography@c2.net mail archive
Re: distributed virtual bank
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Alan)
Fri Aug 29 17:21:20 1997
Date: Fri, 29 Aug 1997 10:26:17 -0700 (PDT)
From: Alan <alan@ctrl-alt-del.com>
To: nospam-seesignature@ceddec.com
cc: "James A. Donald" <jamesd@echeque.com>, tzeruch@ceddec.com,
cryptography@c2.net
In-Reply-To: <97Aug29.111737edt.32258@brickwall.ceddec.com>
On Fri, 29 Aug 1997 nospam-seesignature@ceddec.com wrote:
> On Thu, 28 Aug 1997, James A. Donald wrote:
>
> > Schneier's protocols for voting all involved a trusted central authority,
> > which is a pain,because the central authority is usually the one you
> > have least reason to trust.
> >
> > There are theoretical reasons to believe a protocol is possible that
> > does not require a trusted central authority, but I have not seen
> > it yet.
>
> Generally any of the digital cash protocols would work. I get a token
> from the government which I can send (like exchanging a "spent" for a new
> coin) to validate the tokens. The government won't know if I am a
> republican or democrat. On voting day, I send my "coin" to the party HQ
> of my choice. The tokens are easily proved valid or invalid, only a
> finite number are issued (one to each voter), they can't be forged, and
> the Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians, etc. merely act as collection
> agencies and count them (and they can't forge the votes either, nor
> identify who they came from). The votes could then be published by each
> party HQ (although the list would be huge), but there could be no
> cheating.
I don't know about the "no cheating part". With blinded digital cash
protocols you have no assurance that the person who "owns" the "vote
token" was actually the person who used it.
Such a token would have to be distributed via some physical means
(bar code on a card or the like). (Since many people do not have, or
want, access to the net and/or computers.) Such tokens could be traded,
stolen and/or sold. "Buying the vote" is a long standard practice. You
also have to assure that the people who make the tokens do not run off
100,000 or so extra tokens for "test purposes".
It does not eliminate the cheating, just change the methods slightly.
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