[johnmacsgroup] Diebold query for the Group

[R. A. Hettinga]

[cc'd to cryptography (where clues reside...), and to cypherpunks (yeah, I
know, don't feed the animals :-))]

At 8:32 PM -0800 12/1/03, Donald L. Luskin wrote:
>I see that Krugman's column today is about Diebold and his voting
>machines. I recall that this discussion group had a thread going about
>that several weeks ago that seemed quite involved, but I never read it.
>Would someone be so kind as to remind me what that was all about?
>Thanks!

Coming from someone whose primary interest is (still?...) financial
cryptography these days, and internet bearer financial cryptography in
particular, the answer here is a simple -- if you will -- paradox:

---> You cannot have a perfectly secret electronic vote unless everybody
can sell their votes. <---


The most anonymous protocols for electronic voting are the same protocols
that were invented for electronic bearer transactions like anonymous
digital cash, bearer bonds/stock, etc. You're given a unique, anonymous,
blinded, non-forgeable glop of bits, which you produce in exchange for a
single operation of the voting protocol at the time of your vote. The
problem is, you can sell said glop of bits -- for, say, another glop of
bits representing a requisite amount of cash in the fiat, or
commodity-backed, currency of your choice.


Thus, more important, and to turn the above paradox on its head, the *only*
way you can prevent the sale of that glop of bits is with some form of
direct observation of the voter, complete with is-a-person identity schemes
and/or other forms of virtual state-sponsored proctology.



As an anarchocapitalist, of course, selling votes is fine by me. Monopolies
on force are evil anyway, so selling my franchise for a mess o' pottage
doesn't carry nearly the moral suasion that it used to. Moore's law and the
internet can't price force-monopoly out of business fast enough, if you ask
me.

But, for your average demopublican (okay, I vote congenitally Republican,
somebody stop me, I know it only encourages them -- but then again I go to
church, too, silly atavist me...) selling votes is the highest sacrilege
against the State there is. Something on the order of eating the wafer
before the wine, or vice-versa, or whatever.

For anarchocapitalists, selling your vote (aka equity), is something you're
*supposed* to be able to do, something you're *honor-bound* to do,
borrowing "votes", if necessary, and selling them *short*...



Cheers,
RAH
Whose last Financial Cryptography conference, in the Caymans in 2001, was
spent pointing out that the previous "stolen" election was not a
*financial* problem, 4 hours of the best and brightest's vociferous
disputation through lunch to the contrary.



"Camels, fleas, and princes exist everywhere."  -- Persian proverb

"The direct use of physical force is so poor a solution to the problem of
limited resources that it is commonly employed only by small children and
great nations." -- David Friedman, _The_Machinery_of_Freedom_

"No matter who you vote for, the government gets elected." --Lizard,
fronting an old chestnut, he says

"When I was your age we didn't have Tim May! We had to be paranoid
on our own! And we were grateful!" --Alan Olsen


-- 
-----------------
R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah at 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'