Oops. Cryptographers cancel election results after losing decryption key.

Oops. Cryptographers cancel election results after losing decryption key.

Curated from Security – Ars Technica — Here’s what matters right now:

One of the world’s premier security organizations has canceled the results of its annual leadership election after an official lost an encryption key needed to unlock results stored in a verifiable and privacy-preserving voting system. The International Association of Cryptologic Research (IACR) said Friday that the votes were submitted and tallied using Helios , an open source voting system that uses peer-reviewed cryptography to cast and count votes in a verifiable, confidential, and privacy-preserving way. Helios encrypts each vote in a way that assures each ballot is secret. Other cryptography used by Helios allows each voter to confirm their ballot was counted fairly. An “honest but unfortunate human mistake” Per the association’s bylaws, three members of the election committee act as independent trustees. To prevent two of them from colluding to cook the results, each trustee holds a third of the cryptographic key material needed to decrypt results. Read full article Comments

Next step: Stay ahead with trusted tech. See our store for scanners, detectors, and privacy-first accessories.

Original reporting: Security – Ars Technica

Back to blog

Leave a comment

Please note, comments need to be approved before they are published.