Benlog

Thoughts on Technology & People

  • 2007: Controlled End-User Web APIs for Private-Data Mashups

    As far as technology goes, 2007 will be about web security. With everyone storing more and more personal data on various web sites, and with the continuing innovation of mash-ups, it’s inevitable. And it won’t be the web security issues of the last few years, either, it will all be about how to do private-data…

  • Felten on Voting

    Ed Felten, who’s done some fantastic work on DRM and steganography, is writing more and more about voting systems. It’s great to see the community growing, but it’s also important to keep the academic debate alive. In that spirit, here goes some (hopefully constructive) criticism of Felten’s posts. In Paper Trail Standard Advances, Felten writes:…

  • Because we cannot let this become routine

    Maher Arar, a Canadian citizen of Syrian descent, was sent to Syria by the US government, where he was tortured for months. He was never allowed to speak to a lawyer. He was never charged with any crime. Thankfully, his single phone call enabled his wife to discover what had happened to him and start…

  • I spoke too quickly?

    As one astute commenter notes in my previous blog post on the TGDC meeting, a second resolution presented again by Ron Rivest today was accepted, thanks to revisions that grandfathered in existing machines. This is not quite as good as yesterday’s resolution, but it’s still quite good. So I must at the very least take…

  • Presentations Galore!

    I spent a good chunk of November in Northern California, where I gave four talks on voting with different levels of cryptographic depth based on audience interest: SRI, Google, Berkeley, and Stanford. Thanks to my respective hosts at all of these places! I’ve posted all of my slides, as always under a Creative Commons license…

  • A Real Shame

    Yesterday, the Technical Guidelines Development Committee narrowly rejected Ron Rivest’s proposal that voting systems become software-independent. This is a real shame, and it should lead us to seriously question the qualifications and biases of those who voted against it. The software-independence guideline means that a voting system can’t depend on software for its correctness. In…

  • UConn voting report: bad timing, good content

    The election is behind us, so let’s talk about the reports that came out just before the election. On October 30th, UConn released a report on weaknesses in the Diebold Accuvote Optical Scan. I have a beef with the timing of the release of UConn’s voting report: one week before the election. This is no…

  • Bruce Almighty

    Bruce Schneier is generally right on when it comes to security, and his explanations are usually extremely crisp and to the point. Plus, it’s hard to argue with a man whose online reputation precedes him. That said, when it comes to voting, I’m a little worried by some of Bruce’s latest posts. On November 13th,…

  • Again, the Secret Ballot

    Salon talks about the undervote situation in Sarasota. In their “featured letters,” one reader, self-nicknamed “the voice of reason,” says: If we need to use computers to vote, why can’t there be a double receipt system? One receipt goes into the ballot box, voter gets to keep the other as a record of his vote.…

  • My Day as an Election Warden in Boston

    This past Tuesday, I was the election warden, aka the Chief, for a Boston precinct. I didn’t announce it ahead of time, because I wanted the realistic experience of an average warden, in an average precinct. I put my knowledge of computer science and crypto aside, went to the mandated 2 hours of new-warden training,…

  • Scratch & Vote in the Press again!

    Scratch & Vote is in the press thanks to Peter Weiss of Science News, who gives a very good overview of election technology issues. I’ve also posted the slides and latest paper for this work, which is joint with Ronald Rivest.

  • The Punchscan FAQ Revisited

    David Chaum and his team have just released Punchscan v1, the first open-source implementation of a truly verifiable voting system. Like other voting systems in its class (there aren’t that many), it allows for truly open auditing and voter verification. And it’s extremely misunderstood. The Slashdot thread is way off the mark, so I thought…

  • Go Vote

    Election season is in full force. The TV programs, the newspapers, and a whole bunch of smart folks are telling you that voting machines are broken, that they won’t count your vote, that democracy can be hacked (thanks, HBO.) No doubt there are serious security issues with today’s voting machines. All of them, with or…

  • Ballot Secrecy!

    I am continually surprised at how poor press coverage of voting issues can be, especially when it comes to absentee/vote-by-mail/vote-by-internet stories. Here’s a story on TechWeb about “secure vote-by-mail for the military”. Not one mention of ballot secrecy and issues of voter coercion! And the kicker: PostX is encouraging the government to allow soldiers to…

  • At the MIT/Caltech Voter Registration Conference

    I’m at the MIT/Caltech Voter Registration Conference. It should be quite interesting to see what people are thinking on this oft-ignored issue. Later today, I’m presenting a poster on Scratch & Vote.

  • Disbelief

    For the past few days, and today more so than before, I’ve been in complete disbelief over the detainees bill pushed by President Bush. I can’t believe McCain caved. I can’t believe Democrats are thinking of not standing up to this. This bill would allow the President to detain someone without proof, torture them, and…

  • Slides from My Voting Review Talk

    Well, I had far too much material for my talk today… it’s not easy giving an overview of the works of Benaloh, Chaum, Neff, and other greats in the field! But I tried, and it was fun. I’ve posted the slides, though I never did get to the paper-based crypto systems. (There are 160 pages…

  • Fixing Bugs and Breaking Certification

    During the primaries, voting machines in Maryland broke down. As a result, the manufacturer, Diebold, has been hard at work on a fix. Today, they claim to have fixed the problem, though the Maryland Election Commissioner is cautiously waiting until further tests are conducted ext week before breathing a sigh of relief. Clearly, this fix…

  • A Talk on the History of Cryptographic Voting

    I’m giving a talk at Harvard CRCS, my new home, about the history of secure voting using cryptography. Here’s the full announcement: CRCS Privacy & Security Lunch Seminar Speaker: Ben Adida, Harvard CRCS Date: Wednesday, 27 September Time: 12-1:30 (lunch provided) Place: Maxwell Dworkin 119 (one floor above ground level) Title: A Brief History of…

  • The Secret Ballot is not Optional

    Over on Scott Aaronson’s blog, I read an interesting post about voting, and one comment from Bram Cohen regarding a new voting proposal called VoiceVote. A few minutes into reading the proposal, I find the following: Why VOICE Permits Voters to Retain a Paper Copy of Their Ballot Giving the voter a paper record of…

  • Princeton, Diebold, and the elephant in the room.

    Feldman, Halderman, and Felten (from Princeton) have just released an in-depth review of an actual Diebold Touchscreen voting machine. There isn’t anything surprising about their results, but it is a very good thing that it was done with this level of care, detail, and access. I particularly like the “Vote Stealing Control Panel,” which really…

  • Yeeeehah, the Thesis, she is done.

    My PhD thesis is complete (250 pages of crypto voting goodness). It’s been one crazy month of August! In the process, I’ve updated my publications and presentations pages to reflect new work: thesis defense slides, Scratch & Vote final version, presentation slides on Privacy at the Media Lab’s Simplicity conference, How to Shuffle in Public,…

  • Peace in the Middle East: 200 soldiers outta do it

    I’ve been so buried in thesis writing and editing work that I have not written about the war in the Middle East. I have strong opinions about it, which I will write about later, when my mind is not so full of crypto proofs. But there is one thing I need to say right now,…

  • Scratch & Vote in the Press

    MIT Technology Review just published a description of Scratch & Vote, the simple paper-based cryptographic voting scheme that Ron Rivest and I devised. It’s great to see growing interest in cryptographic voting from the scientific press, especially since the debate has focused far too much on “paper or no paper,” when the real question should…

  • DRM: failure by presumption of guilt

    Since the launch of the Apple Music Store, I have used filesharing software maybe twice. I simply haven’t found the need, and when I want a song, I’m happy to pay $1 for it. I was never super happy about the DRM, but Apple’s DRM didn’t ever prevent me from going about my usual dealings.…

  • Web 2.0 and Security

    For the past few months, I’ve been thinking that security is going to be of paramount importance to web 2.0. The style of programming for web 2.0, the desire to always push the limit of Javascript and to find new and innovative ways to speed up the client/server communication, are bound to result in numerous…

  • The Daily Show strikes again

    Why is it that the best explanation of just about any issue comes from the Daily Show? Are they particularly good, or is everyone else particularly bad? Anyways, here’s their explanation of Net Neutrality. Excellent, and right on. (You’ll need to watch the latest Apple Ads to understand the inside joke, though.)

  • Stunned

    Zidane Originally uploaded by Kaptain Kobold. I am truly stunned by Zidane’s headbutt in today’s World Cup final, just a few minutes ago. One of the most shocking moments of bad sportsmanship I’ve ever seen. As a frenchman, I was enjoying the game until then, hoping for a France win. From that moment on, I…

  • Sports Commentators vs. Journalists

    I’ve been watching the World Cup with renewed enthusiasm this year. Though I’m not a huge soccer fan, I am, of course, supportive of the French team, whose performance against Brazil last week was nothing short of amazing. What’s been most impressive to me, however, is not Zidane’s gravity-defying tricks, but rather the sincere objectiveness…

  • New Things

    So I defended successfully. I have a bit more writing to do, and I have a number of projects to wrap up cleanly here at MIT, but by end of August I’ll be done. It’s a bit crazy, really. My first day at MIT was 12 years ago. Since then, I have, in some way,…