Not a big deal, you say, that someone hacked their way into a corporate network? According to the CEO, the intruder took advantage of a network security hole “that we were a patch behind on.” Happens all the time, except that this company is VoteHere, which is “developing encryption-based software for secure electronic voting.” I admit I’d feel a little better if they were one patch ahead. Yes, encrypted voting results were stored on the network, but according to the CEO, “there is no evidence that any election was compromised.” Most reassuringly of all, it turns out that the system had only been tested on some “British local elections and nongovernmental tallies such as the Country Music Awards.”
I’m sure that you know, but still it should be noted that staying a patch ahead is literally impossible. Furthermore it is also literally impossible to not be a patch behind for at least a short time, unless you yourself issue the patch. The fact of the matter is that unless you are running a very simplistic operation, sooner or later you will be vulnerable. The window of opportunity may be short, and the technical skills required may be high, but if someone is smart enough or rich enough, and cares enough, then they will get you eventually.
Which is not necessarily to excuse these guys in this case. I have heard exactly zero technical descriptions of the attack, so don’t know whether they had good, competent sysadmins who dealt with the situation in an efficient and professional manner, or incompetent cowboys sticking up a web-server with default settings and a site powered by a motley collection of PHP scripts in perpetual beta.
And obviously the whole electronic voting industry is a stinking cess-pit of awful politics, business, and code.
“A patch ahead” is neither here nor there; surely it is not an excessive burden to require that no election voting data, encrypted or otherwise, should be stored on a system connected to the Internet? Inconvenient, I know, but this is bloody democracy we’re talking about, after all.
I fully agree, and must apologise. I hadn’t read the part where they describe “what the software does”. My comments were related to the network intrusion intself only.
Actually, the description in the article doesn’t make much sense. It is hard to tell if they are doing something very stupid (sending results over the Internet to be tallied on a central server,) or innocuous (storing results that are derived in a more secure, and therefore difficult and time-consuming manner elsewhere.) Although the bollocks about “encrypt ballots in such a way that voters can make sure their votes have been counted correctly, even after the election” does not inspire confidence.
Although the bollocks about “encrypt ballots in such a way that voters can make sure their votes have been counted correctly, even after the election” does not inspire confidence.
Indeed; I detect the presence of David Chaum, although Google doesn’t show up any connection between him and this company …
On an only marginally related tangent (it has to do with elections) can one of the British political mavens here enlighten me as to when, precisely, a British prime minister is obliged to call for a general election? In the U.S. of course the president is elected every 4 years; my understanding of the British system is that the ruling party has some discretion as to when to call for elections. Is there a law saying that elections must occur within some time period?
IIRC in the UK like in most EU, there is a limit to the time a legislature may run, 4 years in UK I believe, but the governement can call for an election if wanted. In some cases it may be forced by the parliament, like when the government is a minority one and the opposition feels that they can get a shot at governing.
DSW
In the British electoral system, a general election can be held any time up to five years after the previous one. The exact date is at the discretion of the ruling party, who will, of course, choose the most politically advantageous time as best they can. In addition, if a government loses a vote of confidence at any time then they must immediately call a general election.
Governments do not usually wait the full five years before calling elections. I would guess the average time is around 4 - 4.5 years, but I’m really not sure. Waiting the full five years is generally considered a sign of weakness, as it implies that the government is not confident of their ability to win, and just want to hang on for as long as possible. No confidence motions very rarely succeed in Britain. Only one general election in recent times has been caused by a lost confidence motion, the one that brought Thatcher into power in ‘79.
When an election is called at short notice (I think the minimum notice period required is about 6 weeks?) it is called a snap election. The ability of the ruling party to choose the date of the election can make for some very interesting politics. New Zealand has a very similar system to Britain’s, and the more politically aware Kiwis have fond memories of the announcement of the ‘84 election. The then Prime Minster, Robert Muldoon, turned up unannounced and very drunk in the state TV newsroom. He demanded to go live-to-air, and proceeded to tell the bemused nation that he was calling a snap election. That night his deputy Prime Minister (currently Commonwealth Secretary General) Don McKinnon let down his car tyres in the studio parking lot, to prevent him driving home blind drunk. He later said that he thought they were going to have a hard enough time of it anyway, without their leader killing himself in a drunken car crash. Needless to say, that election didn’t go too well for the incumbent.
À Gauche
Jeremy Alder
Amaravati
Anggarrgoon
Audhumlan Conspiracy
H.E. Baber
Philip Blosser
Paul Broderick
Matt Brown
Diana Buccafurni
Brandon Butler
Keith Burgess-Jackson
Certain Doubts
David Chalmers
Noam Chomsky
The Conservative Philosopher
Desert Landscapes
Denis Dutton
David Efird
Karl Elliott
David Estlund
Experimental Philosophy
Fake Barn County
Kai von Fintel
Russell Arben Fox
Garden of Forking Paths
Roger Gathman
Michael Green
Scott Hagaman
Helen Habermann
David Hildebrand
John Holbo
Christopher Grau
Jonathan Ichikawa
Tom Irish
Michelle Jenkins
Adam Kotsko
Barry Lam
Language Hat
Language Log
Christian Lee
Brian Leiter
Stephen Lenhart
Clayton Littlejohn
Roderick T. Long
Joshua Macy
Mad Grad
Jonathan Martin
Matthew McGrattan
Marc Moffett
Geoffrey Nunberg
Orange Philosophy
Philosophy Carnival
Philosophy, et cetera
Philosophy of Art
Douglas Portmore
Philosophy from the 617 (moribund)
Jeremy Pierce
Punishment Theory
Geoff Pynn
Timothy Quigley (moribund?)
Conor Roddy
Sappho's Breathing
Anders Schoubye
Wolfgang Schwartz
Scribo
Michael Sevel
Tom Stoneham (moribund)
Adam Swenson
Peter Suber
Eddie Thomas
Joe Ulatowski
Bruce Umbaugh
What is the name ...
Matt Weiner
Will Wilkinson
Jessica Wilson
Young Hegelian
Richard Zach
Psychology
Donyell Coleman
Deborah Frisch
Milt Rosenberg
Tom Stafford
Law
Ann Althouse
Stephen Bainbridge
Jack Balkin
Douglass A. Berman
Francesca Bignami
BlunkettWatch
Jack Bogdanski
Paul L. Caron
Conglomerate
Jeff Cooper
Disability Law
Displacement of Concepts
Wayne Eastman
Eric Fink
Victor Fleischer (on hiatus)
Peter Friedman
Michael Froomkin
Bernard Hibbitts
Walter Hutchens
InstaPundit
Andis Kaulins
Lawmeme
Edward Lee
Karl-Friedrich Lenz
Larry Lessig
Mirror of Justice
Eric Muller
Nathan Oman
Opinio Juris
John Palfrey
Ken Parish
Punishment Theory
Larry Ribstein
The Right Coast
D. Gordon Smith
Lawrence Solum
Peter Tillers
Transatlantic Assembly
Lawrence Velvel
David Wagner
Kim Weatherall
Yale Constitution Society
Tun Yin
History
Blogenspiel
Timothy Burke
Rebunk
Naomi Chana
Chapati Mystery
Cliopatria
Juan Cole
Cranky Professor
Greg Daly
James Davila
Sherman Dorn
Michael Drout
Frog in a Well
Frogs and Ravens
Early Modern Notes
Evan Garcia
George Mason History bloggers
Ghost in the Machine
Rebecca Goetz
Invisible Adjunct (inactive)
Jason Kuznicki
Konrad Mitchell Lawson
Danny Loss
Liberty and Power
Danny Loss
Ether MacAllum Stewart
Pam Mack
Heather Mathews
James Meadway
Medieval Studies
H.D. Miller
Caleb McDaniel
Marc Mulholland
Received Ideas
Renaissance Weblog
Nathaniel Robinson
Jacob Remes (moribund?)
Christopher Sheil
Red Ted
Time Travelling Is Easy
Brian Ulrich
Shana Worthen
Computers/media/communication
Lauren Andreacchi (moribund)
Eric Behrens
Joseph Bosco
Danah Boyd
David Brake
Collin Brooke
Maximilian Dornseif (moribund)
Jeff Erickson
Ed Felten
Lance Fortnow
Louise Ferguson
Anne Galloway
Jason Gallo
Josh Greenberg
Alex Halavais
Sariel Har-Peled
Tracy Kennedy
Tim Lambert
Liz Lawley
Michael O'Foghlu
Jose Luis Orihuela (moribund)
Alex Pang
Sebastian Paquet
Fernando Pereira
Pink Bunny of Battle
Ranting Professors
Jay Rosen
Ken Rufo
Douglas Rushkoff
Vika Safrin
Rob Schaap (Blogorrhoea)
Frank Schaap
Robert A. Stewart
Suresh Venkatasubramanian
Ray Trygstad
Jill Walker
Phil Windley
Siva Vaidahyanathan
Anthropology
Kerim Friedman
Alex Golub
Martijn de Koning
Nicholas Packwood
Geography
Stentor Danielson
Benjamin Heumann
Scott Whitlock
Education
Edward Bilodeau
Jenny D.
Richard Kahn
Progressive Teachers
Kelvin Thompson (defunct?)
Mark Byron
Business administration
Michael Watkins (moribund)
Literature, language, culture
Mike Arnzen
Brandon Barr
Michael Berube
The Blogora
Colin Brayton
John Bruce
Miriam Burstein
Chris Cagle
Jean Chu
Hans Coppens
Tyler Curtain
Cultural Revolution
Terry Dean
Joseph Duemer
Flaschenpost
Kathleen Fitzpatrick
Jonathan Goodwin
Rachael Groner
Alison Hale
Household Opera
Dennis Jerz
Jason Jones
Miriam Jones
Matthew Kirschenbaum
Steven Krause
Lilliputian Lilith
Catherine Liu
John Lovas
Gerald Lucas
Making Contact
Barry Mauer
Erin O'Connor
Print Culture
Clancy Ratcliff
Matthias Rip
A.G. Rud
Amardeep Singh
Steve Shaviro
Thanks ... Zombie
Vera Tobin
Chuck Tryon
University Diaries
Classics
Michael Hendry
David Meadows
Religion
AKM Adam
Ryan Overbey
Telford Work (moribund)
Library Science
Norma Bruce
Music
Kyle Gann
ionarts
Tim Rutherford-Johnson
Greg Sandow
Scott Spiegelberg
Biology/Medicine
Pradeep Atluri
Bloviator
Anthony Cox
Susan Ferrari (moribund)
Amy Greenwood
La Di Da
John M. Lynch
Charles Murtaugh (moribund)
Paul Z. Myers
Respectful of Otters
Josh Rosenau
Universal Acid
Amity Wilczek (moribund)
Theodore Wong (moribund)
Physics/Applied Physics
Trish Amuntrud
Sean Carroll
Jacques Distler
Stephen Hsu
Irascible Professor
Andrew Jaffe
Michael Nielsen
Chad Orzel
String Coffee Table
Math/Statistics
Dead Parrots
Andrew Gelman
Christopher Genovese
Moment, Linger on
Jason Rosenhouse
Vlorbik
Peter Woit
Complex Systems
Petter Holme
Luis Rocha
Cosma Shalizi
Bill Tozier
Chemistry
"Keneth Miles"
Engineering
Zack Amjal
Chris Hall
University Administration
Frank Admissions (moribund?)
Architecture/Urban development
City Comforts (urban planning)
Unfolio
Panchromatica
Earth Sciences
Our Take
Who Knows?
Bitch Ph.D.
Just Tenured
Playing School
Professor Goose
This Academic Life
Other sources of information
Arts and Letters Daily
Boston Review
Imprints
Political Theory Daily Review
Science and Technology Daily Review