==================================================================== Panel: The Business of Electronic Voting Place: Financial Cryptography 2001, Grand Cayman, Feb 21st, 2001 10:40 AM. Panel Chair: Moti Yung, CertCo Panelists: Ed Gerck, safevote.com Andy Neff, VoteHere.net Ron Rivest, MIT Avi Rubin, AT&T research Abstract: This panel will concentrate on the emerging business of e-voting. The problems associated with traditional voting machines in a national election---their unreliability, inaccuracy and other potential hazards---were placed in an international limelight by the last US presidential election. At the same time, but less conspicuously, an industry centered around e-voting has started to emerge, offering various solutions for national, boardroom, company-wide, and other sorts of elections. Indeed, the cryptographic research community has dealt with issues related to security and robustness of e-voting as a fundamental protocol problem. In contrast, this panel will discuss issues regarding the real-life aspects of actual implementations of voting systems. We will discuss basic requirements and problems associated with the reality of election technology and the business built around it, covering issues of reliability, fairness, and scalability, and asking such questions as: Does one solution fit all situations? How much security is actually required? Is e-voting for real? How far are we from ``real'' voting? Is the Internet the right arena for voting? What is the interaction between the technology and its quality and the business? Is it a business at all? (Is there money to be made, and how? Alternatively: does e-voting really belong in ``financial cryptography''?) What are the social and legal implications of e-voting? We hope to learn about new angles to examine voting problems, to learn about related burning issues of all kinds (social, business, technology), and to learn about new questions for further basic, systems, market, legal or social research. ==================================================================== --- end forwarded text -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah@ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'