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Will 'controlled open source' software take over election work? (NewsForge)Will 'controlled open source' software take over election work? (NewsForge)Posted Aug 19, 2004 20:23 UTC (Thu) by bdixon (subscriber, #1055)In reply to: Will 'controlled open source' software take over election work? (NewsForge) by jabby Parent article: Will 'controlled open source' software take over election work? (NewsForge)
Ownership and visibility into the codebase that constitutes an open voting machine does not mean that we can be assured that a subversion hasn't been planted. It is impossible to be assured that inspection has found all subversions.
Solving this problem will take a codebase that is simpler and far more verifiable then either Windows or Linux.
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Will 'controlled open source' software take over election work? (NewsForge) Posted Aug 20, 2004 13:58 UTC (Fri) by hummassa (subscriber, #307) [Link] " Ownership and visibility into the codebase that constitutes an open voting machine does not mean that we can be assured that a subversion hasn't been planted. It is impossible to be assured that inspection has found all subversions. "... but it is possible (even easy) to establish a system of distributed, formalized testing that finds /many/ possible subversions (read my other posts in this same thread)
" Solving this problem will take a codebase that is simpler and far more verifiable then either Windows or Linux. "... I won't argue this, the simpler the system, the easier to make it secure.
Will 'controlled open source' software take over election work? (NewsForge) Posted Aug 20, 2004 18:28 UTC (Fri) by tzafrir (subscriber, #11501) [Link] No. This is practically impossible.
Yes, programs in OCAML (?) can be officially verified. How nice. But what about the implementation of the OCAML compiler? run-time environment? (which are probably written in C)?
What about the libraries and the kernel of the underlying OS? A formally-verifiable OS is, ATM, a non-practical academic research subject.
But then again, the aim is not a totally safe system, but a practically-safe system. If someone wants winning hard enough one can always take a shot at bribing citizens and other low-tech methods. See http://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram-0404.html#4 for a better insight.
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