codedokode

It is a yet another reminder why we should start new projects with Rust and dig C and C++. Why would anyone want to use C.

http-01 seems absolutely unreliable, any hosting provider or any government can issue fake certificates using it. What a garbage technology.

Yes Russia shows that even smartest math can be worked around. Everyone who wants to know the real vulnerabilities of electronic voting should study Russian elections.

I asked an LLM:

> Me: With this voting technology https://spec.davinci.vote/ how can one verify that the voters are real people and not bots?

> ChatGPT: The key distinction is that DAVINCI can verify that a vote comes from an authorized cryptographic identity, but that does not automatically prove the identity belongs to a real, unique human being.

The algorithm doesn't solve these problems:

- how can I verify that voters ("voter census") are real people and not fake accounts made by govt? I can generate cryptographic identities all day long.

- how can I verify that at the end of elections government doesn't take people who haven't voted, and adds votes in their name using their cryptographic identity?

- if re-votes are allowed (they seem to be) how can I verify that re-votes are made by actual voters and not the government changing their votes in its favor?

- how can I verify that voters are not coerced to vote certain way by their boss at a workplace? For example, in my country, at some workplaces the employer (unofficially) requires a proof of voting, for example, a selfie from a polling place posted to a work chat.

- how can I ensure that the government does not know who voted how? In this case, the one who holds a private key, can decrypt the votes and identify voters who voted the "wrong" way.

The paper you linked to seems to not provide the solutions (I asked ChatGPT to read it for me). It is just a funny math exercise for mathematicians. Also I do not understand why it uses Ethereum and not my own cryptocurrency which obviously would be better because I would get rich quickly.

To compare, in paper voting people leave their signatures in the voters roll, and the marks on the ballots are also unique. While usually nobody checks them, it is still a better trail than a block in Ethereum blockchain that proves nothing. And in paper voting you can see real people putting the ballots into the box while here all you see is zeros and ones.

"People watching over each other" usually do not have root (or any) access to the servers, they are usually only shown aggregated stats (like number of votes cast). They usually do not have access to voter details like IP addresses, phone numbers, fingerprints. In some cases, they can read the public "blockchain", but not the private one (in systems with 2 blockchains). The blockchain doesn't contain much useful information to verify, only votes.

The ones who have actual access, are from the government.

Yes, coercing the voter in the polling station where there are people monitoring the situation, and police, is more difficult than in supervisor's office in the factory where you just call the employee and order them to vote. No witnesses, no evidence.

You cannot verify the tally by examining one ballot.

Paper voting at least has a trail. Electronic voting leaves no trail at all.

Re: "voting the graveyard" there are following ways to prevent it:

An election monitor can manually count people coming to the polling station and compare it to the number of ballots taken out of the box. Monitor can observe how those votes are counted, and get a signed document with results. After counting the votes across the country, he can compare his paper document with official published results, filtering them by his polling station. Every step is verifiable.

Also, every voter must leave a signature. Signatures also can be verified.

Wrong. With paper voting you can stand in the polling station and see real people getting ballots. With electronic voting you cannot see anything - are real people voting or is it ChatGPT-written script adding records to the database.

Paper voting is 100x more verifiable than electronic.

You are over-engineering. You do not need to coerce a voter if you are the administrator and can just add the record into the database directly. Also no need to spend money for a party.

"Updating a vote" was supported in 2021 Russian Parliament elections (for Moscow voters). Written in Rust, built on a blockchain with contracts. Source code: [1]. No way blockchain voting can be rigged! It is protected by math!

It immediately raised a suspicion, could the government use "updating a vote" to change the vote of the voter after they voted. There were suspicious bursts of votes for government candidates during early morning (3:00-12:00 AM) between 2nd and 3rd voting days. Could it be re-votings? Who knows, public blockchain has no way to find this out.

How can an observer distinguish between a real voter voting the second time, and the government voting second time in his name?

Furthermore, to cancel the previous vote, you need some way to link the new and old ballots. In the case above, there was a non-public database (a blockchain), unavailable to observers, which kept the needed information. And theoretically it could allow de-anonymize the voters.

So what I wanted to say that electronic voting is a garbage only convenient for fraudsters.

[1] https://github.com/moscow-technologies/blockchain-voting_202...

1) How does cryptography helps to verify that the ID cards used by voters belong to real people and not generated for fictious people by the government?

2) How does cryptography helps to verify that teachers vote without pressure and not in principal's office under supervision? Or that they are not forced to give their mobile phones and ID cards to a principal for "inspection"? And the same for employees in large companies, government employees, military, police, doctors etc.

3) How does cryptography helps to verify people are not voting for a payment?

I am surprised that when someone says "cryptography" programmers become so blind that cannot see even the elephant in the room. It feels like everyone is brainwashed by propaganda.

> At any later time you can check with an independent device and look at the transaction finding out that it was altered with and retract your vote / change it.

Easy for a non-programmer.

> these details can be verified at a later date.

After election results are officially confirmed, and cannot be changed.

The rule for a decent software should be, not a single packet sent without user authorization. I wonder if such software even exists.

Small snails look cute but 8-inch snail sounds a bit scary. Also how do they avoid being eaten by predators if they are slow and vulnerable?

Also I recently saw small slugs which were crawling on the sidewalk along with worms who get to the surface after rain. I wonder what those slugs were planning to do given its middle of October and temperature is merely 10°C (50F)?

Looks like government's work to me. Why would someone risk a prison for this.

In Russia car mechanics "unlock" Chinese cars that are locked to be operated in China only (such cars are much cheaper than over-priced international versions having the same hardware).

There should be no need for hacking. If there is a right to repair, there should be a right to reprogram any computer - and penalty for implementing measures to prevent re-programming. Right to reprogram also means that the consumer gets a choice of firmware instead of being forced to use inferior factory firmware with limited capabilities and creates a possibility for firmwares market. Also reduces electronic waste.

Everybody except capitalists wins with right to reprogram.

Automation doesn't require connecting to Internet.

Yandex robots are driving around Moscow and SPb delivering food to people. Where are Nebius robots? "AI infrastructure" means just that they rent out GPUs they bought for themselves and did not find a use?

Comparing GDP means nothing. Having larger GDP doesn't mean the country is stronger, it is just a number.

Also in this case, you are comparing not the GDP (actually produced goods and services) but a "market cap" which is a virtual number calculated by price of one share multiplied by share count. Yandex shares, I assume, cannot be traded internationally so the number means nothing. Yandex has a public report where one can find out their revenue.

He made a deal (not public) with the government, he leaves Wagner and gets out of Russia and the government leaves him alone. 2 months later a private jet with Prigozhin and several Wagner commanders exploded in the air in Tver Oblast, not far away from Moscow. There is video online of the plane breaking apart and falling if you search hard enough.

The deal seems to not work out.

I think there were no official explanation for this incident, propaganda posts explain that they were using drugs and playing with a grenade onboard.

Do they check modem presence regularly or you can rip the modem and show a middle finger to surveillance state?

They will. First step, the government creates the mechanism, second step, adjusts the rules.

Russian car mechanics know how to "unlock" Chinese cars that operate only within China and require a Chinese SIM card (they are sold locally at lower prices, so some people find it cheaper to buy a car in China and unlock it). Finding and disabling modems is definitely an easier task and can be done.

Mosquitoes are not needed in the city. They can fly as much as they want in national parks.

> On the bright side I'm sure the manufacturer

I initially misread it as "On the bright side, I'm the manufacturer..." (and earn a nice profit).

Obviously, because they cannot be controlled over Internet. Also, some consumer Soviet refrigerators are still operating, they were made pretty reliable because one could not easily replace one.

There should be a name for this style of speech, using "good" to mean "bad".

You could connect to an on-premise server. As a bonus, the manufacturer cannot disable them and extort money in this case.

And centralized food destruction.

Those devices should be connected to air-gapped local network and not to manufacturer.