[chapter-delegates] e-voting system for ISOC board

[Franck Martin]

James,

Thanks for your comments.

Yes we are not looking at a 100% fool proof system.

There are 2 ways to approach security. You build a fool proof system 
(hard, lot of money, lot of time). Or you build a system which is secure 
enough today, and you keep yourself at the edge of the game.

What are we looking at, ensuring that about 20,000 people can vote and 
are identified.

You need to mix the virtual world with the real world.

We are also talking about all members electing a couple of reps to the 
board, may be 2-3 reps which would add to the 2-3 reps for chapter. If 
there was serious flaw in the system, it would not destabilise the board 
as these reps would not form a majority by themselves.

Now, a new member would not be eligible to vote for one year. This avoid 
mass subscription just before an important issue.

During this time the person will have to be identified. One things that 
everybody can do in any country is send a fax. Well, let's get them to 
send a fax, with a certain number of personnal details. Chapters or ISOC 
would then verify these details. Check the internet, making a phone 
call,....

For the voting process, well, you send an e-mail to every identified 
voting member with a unique key code (like the code to recharge your 
mobile phone). And they would reply back with this code and their vote.

This would be simple to implement and relatively secure for say the 
election of a few reps on the ISOC board.

Cheers

James M Galvin wrote:

> Franck,
>
> E-voting is hard.  I know this.  I'm a technologist and I've devoted 
> considerable resources to understanding the problem and the potential 
> solutions.
>
> Consider the issue of identity.  In a physical voting system we accept 
> certain flaws in identifying people because we apply procedures 
> commonly referred to as "check and balances".  These procedures 
> include things like witnesses, physical signatures, and physical 
> presence among other things.  We know the system is not perfect but it 
> is pretty good and in general it is extremely difficult to bias or 
> swing an election.  In essence, there exists a trusted infrastructure 
> within which the election takes place.
>
> That trusted infrastructure does not exist on the Internet.  It might 
> be possible to create it, but then you will find it is not possible to 
> have one that works everywhere, all the time.  People expect ISOC to 
> ensure that it reaches out to everyone, all the time.  We certainly do 
> try but you have to admit it can be difficult some times.
>
> Even without that issue, it is a significant undertaking to build a 
> trust infrastructure.  It is not something that you can just "turn on" 
> one day. It will take time, perhaps years, for it to include a 
> majority of our members.
>
> My request for proposals was not a trick.  It was a serious question.  
> I have read all the suggestions to date but I simply do not have the 
> time to respond to each and every one.  I was hoping that someone 
> would feel really excited about their suggestion and they would want 
> both to repeat it and to fill out some of the details.  Principles 
> always sound like good ideas until you get into the implementation 
> details.  Besides, I may have overlooked something so getting help is 
> a good thing.
>
> Jim
>
> PS.  Consider too, that if e-voting were easy, everybody would already 
> be doing it.  And by that I mean a system that scales to tens of 
> thousands of people with little if any manual intervention and works 
> everywhere in the world.
>
>
>
>
> --On Wednesday, March 16, 2005 11:54 AM +1200 Franck Martin 
> <franck at sopac.org> wrote:
>
>> James,
>>
>> Nice trick ;)
>>
>> I know it too. It is called send back the work to the person who asked
>> for it..
>>
>> So here is my trick:
>>
>> Please review the whole thread because numerous propositions were made
>> on how to make a free member vote. You may have missed all these
>> discussions but hey, we have an archive! ;) ( I give you a hint,
>> because I'm really nice with you, it has to do with the indonesia
>> chapter)
>>
>> And here I pull the rabbit from the hat:
>> As VP Chapters and I'm sure there is a VP membership, the onus is on
>> YOU to propose us a system. Members give objectives to the board and
>> the board implements them (not the other way). I think there is
>> sufficient literature out there for you to come with an acceptable
>> system, where a member will be identified (not by money) and given a
>> right to vote for one or more representatives.
>>
>> We are making progress...  :)
>>
>> Cheers
>> PS: Assume you are lucky, because I did not ask you to do a state of
>> the art in e-voting and explaining the advantages and disadvantages of
>> each system in regards to ISOC
>>
>> James M Galvin wrote:
>>
>> >
>> >
>> > --On Wednesday, March 16, 2005 10:25 AM +1200 Franck Martin
>> > <franck at sopac.org> wrote:
>> >
>> >> the heart of the problem is that! one member = one vote
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > So, let's explore this.  In detail.
>> >
>> > If you have a suggestion for how we can achieve this let me ask that
>> > you do the following.
>> >
>> > Please start a new message with a relevant subject line for each
>> > suggestion.  I will promise to participate in a detailed discussion
>> > of  each suggestion so we can explore whether or not it will work for
>> > ISOC.
>> >
>> > Jim Galvin
>> > VP Chapters
>
>

-- 
Franck Martin
ICT Specialist
franck at sopac.org
SOPAC, Fiji
GPG Key fingerprint = 44A4 8AE4 392A 3B92 FDF9  D9C6 BE79 9E60 81D9 1320
"Toute connaissance est une reponse a une question" G.Bachelard

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