Abstract
Research about weaknesses in deployed electronic voting systems raises a variety of pressing ethical concerns. In addition to ethical issues common to vulnerability research, such as the potential harms and beneifts of vulnerability disclosure, electronic voting researchers face questions that flow from the unique and important role voting plays in modern democratic societies. Should researchers worry that their own work (not unlike the flaws they study) could sway an election outcome? When elected officials authorize a security review, how should researchers address the conflicted interests of these incumbent politicians, who may have powerful incentives to downplay problems, and might in principle be in a position to exploit knowledge about vulnerabilities when they stand for re-election? How should researchers address the risk that identifying specific flaws will lead to a false sense of security, after those particular problems have been resolved? This paper makes an early effort to address these and other questions with reference to experience from previous e-voting security reviews. We hope our provisional analysis will help practicing researchers anticipate and address ethical issues in future studies.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Appel, A.W.: How I Bought Used Voting Machines on the Internet (February 7, 2007), http://www.cs.princeton.edu/~appel/avc/
Appel, A., Ginsburg, M., Hursti, H., Kernighan, B.W., Richards, C.D., Tan, G., Venetis, P.: The New Jersey Voting-Machine Lawsuit and the AVC Advantage DRE Voting Machine. In: Proc. Electronic Voting Technology Workshop/Workshop on Trustworthy Elections (EVT/WOTE) (2009)
Aviv, A., Cerný, P., Clark, S., Cronin, E., Shah, G., Sherr, M., Blaze, M.: Security Evaluation of ES&S Voting Machines and Election Management System. In: Proc. USENIX/ACCURATE Electronic Voting Technology Workshop (EVT) (2008)
Brunner, J., et al.: Ohio Secretary of State’s Evaluation & Validation of Election-Related Equipment, Standards & Testing (EVEREST) (December 2007)
Butler, K., Enck, W., Hursti, H., McLaughlin, S., Traynor, P., McDaniel, P.: Systemic Issues in the Hart InterCivic and Premier Voting Systems: Reflections on Project EVEREST. In: Proc. USENIX/ACCURATE Electronic Voting Technology Workshop (EVT) (2008)
Carney, E.N.: Voting Without a Net in South Carolina. National Journal (June 21, 2010), http://www.nationaljournal.com/njonline/rg_20100621_7815.php
Checkoway, S., Feldman, A.J., Kantor, B., Alex Halderman, J., Felten, E.W., Shacham, H.: Can DREs Provide Long-Lasting Security? The Case of Return-Oriented Programming and the AVC Advantage. In: Jefferson, D., Hall, J.L., Moran, T. (eds.) Proc. USENIX/ ACCURATE Electronic Voting Technology Workshop (EVT) (August 2009)
Claburn, T.: Google Seeks Redefinition of Responsible Disclosure. InformationWeek (July 2010), http://www.informationweek.com/news/smb/security/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=226100117
Epstein, J., et al.: D.C’s Web Voting Test, the Hackers Were the Good Guys. Washington Post (October 2010), http://voices.washingtonpost.com/local-opinions/2010/10/in_dcs_web_voting_test_the_hac.html
Fail, B.: HAVA’s Unintended Consequences: A Lesson for Next Time. Yale Law Journal 116 (2006), http://www.yalelawjournal.org/pdf/116-2/Fail.pdf
Feldman, A.J., Alex Halderman, J., Felten, E.W.: Security Analysis of the Diebold AccuVote-TS Voting Machine. In: Proc. USENIX/ACCURATE Electronic Voting Technology Workshop (EVT), Boston, MA (August 2007)
Gonggrijp, R., Hengeveld, W.-J.: Studying the Nedap/Groenendaal ES3B Voting Computer: A Computer Security Perspective. In: Proc. USENIX/ACCURATE Electronic Voting Technology Workshop (EVT) (2007)
Alex Halderman, J., Feldman, A.J.: Pac-Man on the Sequoia AVC-Edge DRE Voting Machine (August 2010), http://www.cse.umich.edu/~jhalderm/pacman/
Harris, B.: System Integrity Flaw Discovered At Diebold Elections System. Scoop (Februaary 10, 2003), http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0302/S00052.htm
Kohno, T., Stubblefield, A., Rubin, A.D., Wallach, D.S.: Analysis of an Electronic Voting System. In: Proc. IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy, Oakland, CA, pp. 27–40 (May 2004)
Mercuri, R.: Trust the Vote? Not in DC! OpEdNews (November 8, 2010), http://www.opednews.com/articles/Trust-the-vote-Not-in-DC-by-Rebecca-Mercuri-101108-990.html
Paul, R.: E-vothing Bendor Blocks Security Audit with Legal Threats. ars technica (2008), http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2008/03/e-voting-blocks-e-voting-security-audit-with-legal-threat.ars
Proebstel, E., Riddle, S., Hsu, F., Cummins, J., Oakley, F., Stanionis, T., Bishop, M.: An Analysis of the Hart Intercivic DAU eSlate. In: Proc. USENIX/ACCURATE Electronic Voting Technology Workshop (EVT) (2007)
Vic Rawl for U.S. Senate. Statement of Judge Vic Rawl (June 14, 2010), http://www.vicrawl.com/vicrawl/post/1023-statement-of-judge-vic-rawl
Tyre, J.: 2010 Pioneer Award Winner Hari Prasad Defends India’s Democracy. EFF Deeplinks Blog (November 1, 2010), https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/11/2010-pioneer-award-winner-hari-prasad-defends
Wagner, D.A., et al.: California Secretary of State’s Top-to-Bottom Review (TTBR) of Electronic Voting Systems (July 2007)
Wolchok, S., Wustrow, E., Alex Halderman, J., Prasad, H.K., Kankipati, A., Sakhamuri, S.K., Yagati, V., Gonggrijp, R.: Security Analysis of India’s Electronic Voting Machines. In: Proc. 17th ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCS), Chicago, IL (Oct ober 2010)
Wustrow, E., Wolchok, S., Isabel, D., Alex Halderman, J.: Security Analysis of the Washington, D.C. Internet Voting System (2010) (in preparation)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2012 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Robinson, D.G., Halderman, J.A. (2012). Ethical Issues in E-Voting Security Analysis. In: Danezis, G., Dietrich, S., Sako, K. (eds) Financial Cryptography and Data Security. FC 2011. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 7126. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-29889-9_10
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-29889-9_10
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-29888-2
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-29889-9
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)