Security in e-voting
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Ralf Küsters
Ralf Küsters received his Ph.D. in computer science from the RWTH Aachen in 2000 and his habilitation in computer science from the University of Kiel in 2005. He spent one year at Rutgers University during his Ph.D. studies and one year as a postdoctoral researcher at Stanford University. Before joining the Department of Computer Science at the University of Trier as a full professor for Information Security and Cryptography in 2007, Küsters was a lecturer and the head of the research group Foundations of Computer and Network Security in the Department of Computer Science at ETH Zurich. He was awarded the Springorum Medal of the RWTH Aachen for his distinguished diploma degree and the Borchers Medal of the RWTH Aachen for his distinguished doctoral degree. Among others, he received scholarships from the German National Academic Foundation and the German Research Foundation. Küsters has authored and co-authored over 70 peer-reviewed scientific papers and has served on program committees of various leading international conferences in the field of security and cryptography.
Universität Trier, FB IV – Informatik, D-54286 Trier
and
Tomasz Truderung
Tomasz Truderung received his Ph.D. in computer science from University of Wrocław in 2000. Since then, he worked as an assistant professor at University of Wrocław and as a postdoctoral researcher at INRIA-LORIA-Lorraine Nancy, Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel, and University of Trier. Tomasz Truderung has authored and co-authored over 20 peer-reviewed scientific papers and has served on program committees of several international conferences and workshops.
Universität Trier, FB IV – Informatik, D-54286 Trier
Abstract
Systems for electronic voting (e-voting systems), including systems for voting over the Internet and systems for voting in a voting booth, have been employed in many countries. However, most of the systems used in practice today do not provide a sufficient level of security. For example, programming errors and malicious behavior resulting in the loss of votes and incorrect election outcomes easily go undetected. In fact, numerous problems with e-voting systems have been reported in various countries. Therefore, in recent years modern e-voting systems have been designed that, among others, allow voters to check that their votes were counted correctly, even if voting machines and servers have programming errors or are outright malicious.
In this paper, after a brief discussion of the problems of today's e-voting systems, we explain fundamental security properties modern e-voting systems should provide, including the above mentioned so-called verifiability property, and present a simple e-voting system to illustrate some of these properties. One important goal of our work is to provide security guarantees of such systems not only for abstract mathematical/cryptographic models of the systems but for the implementation of the systems directly. This requires us to combine various techniques and tools from security/cryptography, program analysis, and verification.
About the authors
Ralf Küsters received his Ph.D. in computer science from the RWTH Aachen in 2000 and his habilitation in computer science from the University of Kiel in 2005. He spent one year at Rutgers University during his Ph.D. studies and one year as a postdoctoral researcher at Stanford University. Before joining the Department of Computer Science at the University of Trier as a full professor for Information Security and Cryptography in 2007, Küsters was a lecturer and the head of the research group Foundations of Computer and Network Security in the Department of Computer Science at ETH Zurich. He was awarded the Springorum Medal of the RWTH Aachen for his distinguished diploma degree and the Borchers Medal of the RWTH Aachen for his distinguished doctoral degree. Among others, he received scholarships from the German National Academic Foundation and the German Research Foundation. Küsters has authored and co-authored over 70 peer-reviewed scientific papers and has served on program committees of various leading international conferences in the field of security and cryptography.
Universität Trier, FB IV – Informatik, D-54286 Trier
Tomasz Truderung received his Ph.D. in computer science from University of Wrocław in 2000. Since then, he worked as an assistant professor at University of Wrocław and as a postdoctoral researcher at INRIA-LORIA-Lorraine Nancy, Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel, and University of Trier. Tomasz Truderung has authored and co-authored over 20 peer-reviewed scientific papers and has served on program committees of several international conferences and workshops.
Universität Trier, FB IV – Informatik, D-54286 Trier
©2014 Walter de Gruyter Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Editorial
- Reliably secure software systems
- Special Issue
- Making security type systems less ad hoc
- The linear-hyper-branching spectrum of temporal logics
- Checking probabilistic noninterference using JOANA
- Confidentiality for Android apps: Specification and verification
- Information flow control for workflow management systems
- Security in e-voting
- Self-Portrayals of GI Junior Fellows
- Designing networks for challenging applications
- Theory for processing data on the Web
- Distinguished Dissertations
- On the insecurity of XML Security
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Editorial
- Reliably secure software systems
- Special Issue
- Making security type systems less ad hoc
- The linear-hyper-branching spectrum of temporal logics
- Checking probabilistic noninterference using JOANA
- Confidentiality for Android apps: Specification and verification
- Information flow control for workflow management systems
- Security in e-voting
- Self-Portrayals of GI Junior Fellows
- Designing networks for challenging applications
- Theory for processing data on the Web
- Distinguished Dissertations
- On the insecurity of XML Security
