[$] Cryptography and elections

Transparent and verifiable electronic elections are technically feasible,but for a variety of reasons, the techniques used are not actually viable forrunning most elections-and definitely not for remote voting. That was one of themain takeaways from a keynote at this year's linux.conf.au given by University ofMelbourne AssociateProfessor Vanessa Teague. She is a cryptographer who, along with hercolleagues, has investigated several kinds of e-voting software; as isprobably not all that much of a surprise, what they found is buggyimplementations. She described some of that work in atalk that was a mix of math with software-company and government missteps; the latter maydirectly impact many of the Australian locals who were in attendance.