But is there really any speed benefit when we have to go back and count them by hand to know they didn't cheat? Even as simple as it is now a lot of people have no clue how these machines work, and even if you explained every detail a lot would still be completely lost. I don't think the solution is to obfiscate it even more and have the select few people who truly understand blockchain in some authoritative postion for elections, I think we are much better having everything out wide in the open, and I don't think you can get much better than pen and paper for being in the open.
And having an electronic system that is truly secure inside and out wouldn't be nearly as quick and effecient as the prcoess is now, because at the end of the day you have to balance security with convinience. And I'm VERY doubtful somthing that is actually fully secure and anonymous would be any faster than pen and paper.
While I may not be the most knowledgeable person on the subject of blockchain, I do understand it's limits a decent bit. I'm not saying there arn't ways to make it work and get around those issues, but getting around them adds a lot of complexity to the equation where even more things can go wrong.
A much better solution is just bailing on all these machines altogether, what's the point when we can have a open and free election with pen and paper? Why add layer after layer of potential vulnerability?
But that's the thing, it doesn't matter if everyone in the world knows, every animal and bug knows, even aliens know. It doesn't matter if we know the aliens know we know they know. The only thing that matters is actually rising up (in minecraft)
Even ignoring anonimity problems and assuming the blockchain itself works as perfectly and securely as intended, that doesn't mean the systems that make the block chain work won't be comprimised. Add blockchain those systems themsevles and you just move the problem further down the line.
And even with hardwired logic with no programming, and all the parts clearly laid out, there are still plenty of exploits like adding a temporary daughter board to change certain functions that can easily be put in and removed at any time, or even just a few jumper wires here and there.
Windows and MacOS priotize ease of use over security. There has to be a balance between security and ease of use, and the reason Windows and MacOS are so much more popular are because most people are perfectly fine with less security for somthing they can easily use. The design goals of a voting system are very different, and there are plenty of unsecure open source distros too.
I would argue the some of most secure Operating Systems are the ones you've never even heard about, but that of course has it's own catch 22
But anyway, I don't think we should be using ANY software, open source or not for somthing we are more then capable of doing with pen and paper.
Theoretically it's a sound practice, but in the real world, there are just too many things to account for when you are dealing with the real world. Somthing as simple as social engineering can make somthing that seemed bulletproof in code swing wide open in practice. Even if you could make an "unhackable" software, there will always be some odd angle for an exploit.
Well that's us pedes. I'm just reffering to the creation of the website itself using computers, of course the things we are doing are very important in itself, just like having a family grow up around a rocking chair or house.
Spoting the difference between a written and printed paper doesn't even really need any kind of forensics outside of basic visual inspection, though they are doing forensics to determine the exact origins of the printers, and to find mass balots done with the same pen. Plus doesn't hurt to have the extra reassurance for a judge/jury. Regardless of being able to prove it, it's still not secure as they claim, and even being able to show it was printed doesn't neccessarily prove anything.
Yes, even just visually inspecting it without forensics would be very easy to spot it's printed, but that's besides the point of them claiming it being completely secure. And while finding the printed ballot would suggest fraud, that doesn't necessarily mean we can prove anything, or that they won't try to put kind of plausible deniability in place like, "ohh, it was just correcting for a ballot that was ink stained", or "the scanner malfuntioned and accidently destroyed the original(s)" But of course hard to deny when it ends up showing mass printed ballots out of the machines.
While I get your point about building a PC vs making a rocking chair, making a rocking chair from scratch isn't really a fair comparision. More inline with putting an Ikea chair together, with simular efforts and results.
A more fair comparison to making a chair from scratch would be using those computers to start a network, service, website, etc.. that it yours and all yours, and that you can have your friends and family bask in the benefits, "carve your intials" so to speak.
That is also how we stop the MSM and Bigtech, by making our own Bigtech. Things exactly like this place, which I would hardly say is "almost like it was supposed to feel when you've really done something", infact I think somthing really BIG was done here.
That works nicely in theory, but somone still needs to mail all those keys out and ultimately you lose anonimity, or have a "machine" do it where you're back to square one. We're seeing how pretty much every single gov branch and ABC agency comprimised, so who do we trust with this highly secretive task?
And especially once you start talking about tracking multiple keys, there are going to be a lot of average Joes who don't understand the significance of one or the other, and could very easily leak or discard their keys throwing anonimity out the window. Any system you make has to be idiot-proof, because people will be idiots.
Instead, it's just a much better idea to have a dirt simple method that ANYONE can understand and oversee. Still not perfdct, but get proper voter ID laws in place and most of the issues go away.
Don't forget, this isn't your average software, it esentially controls the US, the second any software gets introduced, there will be countless nations pouring billions if not trillions into cracking it.