W. Virginia's Conclusion To Let Smartphone Voting For Midterms Raises Serious Safety Concerns

by Paula Bolyard: For the showtime fourth dimension inwards our nation's history, voters inwards 24 counties inwards W. Virginia volition hold upward able to vote using their mobile phones. While some are hailing the conclusion because it volition brand voting easier for members of the state of war machine deployed overseas, experts are alarm of possible safety breaches.

"After researching previously available options, the Secretary’s squad identified that most electronic ballot delivery engineering required access to a desktop computer, printer in addition to scanner, all of which acquaint meaning barriers to overseas voters, particularly those inwards fighting zones or engaged inwards covert operations," the W. Virginia Secretary of State's purpose explained inwards a press unloosen this week. The nation is partnering amongst a Boston, Massachusetts-based fellowship called Voatz, Inc.

"Voatz has developed a secure mobile voting application that allows voters to receive, vote, in addition to render their ballots electronically," the press unloosen claims. "The application also utilizes blockchain engineering to shop electronically submitted ballots until election night, in addition to requires a heightened criterion of identity verification for users than traditional absentee ballot processes. This projection is unprecedented inwards United States of America history, existence the showtime mobile voting application in addition to showtime utilization of blockchain engineering inwards a federal election."

During the state's primary election inwards May, a airplane pilot was conducted inwards 2 W. Virginia counties amongst voters inwards half-dozen unlike countries utilizing the technology. "Post-election safety audits yesteryear several independent in addition to widely respected engineering auditing companies showed that the engineering provided a secure platform for voting in addition to an alternative to the traditional absentee newspaper ballot," the Secretary of State's purpose declared. "Voatz’s app, which also utilizes biometric facial recognition software in addition to thumbprint safeguards to ensure the identity of the voter, increased the confidence of the auditors. In short, the nation’s showtime mobile voting app examine airplane pilot was a success."

In social club to utilization the mobile technology, users register amongst Voatz yesteryear taking a pic of their regime ID in addition to also a selfie video of their face. Voatz thus uses facial recognition software that (they claim) tin verify the voter's identity. Once approved, voters tin cast their ballots using Voatz's app. After the vote is cast it is added to the blockchain, a digital ledger of sorts, popularized yesteryear digital currencies such every bit Bitcoin.

"Because blockchain is a distributed ledger of transactions, state of war machine mobile votes perish immutable in addition to tamper-proof 1 time recorded," says Voatz.

The nation of W. Virginia admits that at that topographic point are "substantial" safety concerns, but explained that Voatz volition hold upward utilizing "federal standards for software development, regular maintenance in addition to safety upgrades, in-depth penetration testing, source code auditing in addition to audits of the system’s cloud infrastructure. After surpassing those requirements, the airplane pilot moved forward."

Federal standards? That lonely should elevate ruddy flags.

H5N1 report from Thales eSecurity points out that 71 pct of federal agencies convey experienced information breaches. Their 2018 "Data Threat Report" concluded that "federal agencies are experiencing a 'perfect storm" approximately information that is putting means secrets, in addition to the soul information of over 330 1 K m citizens, at risk."

Research Principal Analyst Garrett Bekker posited that "the United States of America federal sector has experienced a higher charge per unit of measurement of breaches inwards the yesteryear twelvemonth than whatsoever other sector."

A Heritage Foundation report on 2017 federal cyber breaches concluded, "In financial twelvemonth 2016, regime agencies reported 30,899 information-security incidents, sixteen of which met the threshold of existence a major incident." The study includes an extensive listing of breaches.

A study at Spiegel Online terminal month warned of a broad diversity of safety concerns amongst mobile voting:

• To start with, the infrastructure that Voatz uses cannot hold upward secured -- i.e., the voters' smartphones in addition to the networks used to transfer the data.
  Voatz is also sketchy on details relating to its utilization of blockchain technology, making it unclear whether it offers a specific wages over criterion databases. "With all the servers inwards the custody of the vendor, a dishonest vendor could do anything they desire to the results," warned Marian K. Schneider, president of the United States of America advocacy grouping Verified Voting.
• Voatz says it has commissioned third-party firms for extensive safety audits. But information most these safety firms on Voatz's website has been repeatedly revised inwards recent days, plainly inwards answer to queries from the media.
• There are no indications that a technical inspection yesteryear nation authorities took house either. Voatz, at the real least, has made no claims to that effect. If that didn't happen, it would hateful that Earth authorities aren't fifty-fifty aware of what, exactly, is behind Voatz's technology.
• Internal Voatz code has popped upward inwards at to the lowest degree 2 places on the platform Github, a volume database where code is uploaded in addition to widely shared. The fellowship claims it was examine code unrelated to the existent system. But details inwards the code elevate concerns that Voatz doesn't ever attach the utmost importance to mutual safety practices.

It's of import to recollect that inwards Apr the Department of Homeland Security announced that Russian hackers had targeted all 50 states during the 2016 election cycle.

Assistant Secretary Jeanette Manfra told lawmakers at the time, "Two years agone the Russian regime launched a brazen, multi-faceted influence drive aimed at undermining world religious belief inwards our democratic process, mostly in addition to our election specifically." She added, "That drive involved cyber espionage, world disclosure of stolen data, cyber intrusions at the nation in addition to local voter registration systems, online propaganda, in addition to more. We cannot permit it hap again."

Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats also warned that “the alarm lights are blinking red” amongst honor to Russian interference inwards United States of America elections.

West Virginia has seemingly ignored those warnings, launching headlong into mobile voting amongst a barely tested technology. While everyone agrees that nosotros desire to teach inwards every bit tardily every bit possible for state of war machine voters to participate inwards elections, those needs must hold upward weighed against safety concerns. In reality, the men in addition to women serving inwards our armed forces are existence used every bit guinea pigs for an experimental engineering that could conceivably hold upward vulnerable to hackers in addition to others determined to disrupt our election processes. While newspaper ballots are cumbersome in addition to the vote totals are oft delayed, they've been proven over in addition to over 1 time again to hold upward the most secure way to cast a ballot.

Paper ballots are "absolutely the safest way,” to vote, Richard DeMillo, a cybersecurity professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology inwards Atlanta, told Bloomberg. “All this fancy stuff—you are talking to a reckoner scientist, in addition to it breaks my view to say this—but it simply drives upward the toll in addition to doesn’t add together anything.”

National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, in addition to Medicine warned inwards a 2018 report that election administrators should move toward using “human-readable newspaper ballots" for the 2020 presidential race in addition to should brand "every effort" to utilization them for this year's elections.

“The issues highlighted inwards 2016 add together urgency to a careful reexamination of the comport of elections inwards the United States of America in addition to demonstrate a postulate to carefully consider tradeoffs amongst honor to access in addition to cybersecurity," the study explained.

The researchers farther warned that ballots that convey been marked yesteryear voters “should non hold upward returned over the Internet or whatsoever network connected to it, because no electrical current engineering tin guarantee their secrecy, security, in addition to verifiability.”
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Paula Bolyard (@pbolyard) is the superving editor at PJ Media. In addition, her move has been published inwards several other publications.

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