Am Freitag, den 02.Juni 2000, spricht um 16.00 Uhr
Der Vortrag findet im Kolloquiumsraum 711 des Mathematischen Seminars, Frankfurt am Main, Robert-Mayer-Straße 10 (7. Stock) statt.
A common way for Internet-based elections these days is to put up a secure web server (plus database) for collecting the votes. Assuming the web server somehow ascertains the identity of voters and allows only one vote per voter, the idea is that the web server will honestly process each ballot by keeping a running total and somehow "forgetting" who exactly voted what. At the end of the day, a final tally may then be produced.
However, for such elections there is no satisfactory way of verifying the election result without affecting the secrecy of the ballots. Already for elections of moderate importance, it is probably not acceptable that the people and computers running the election must simply be trusted to act honestly and correctly. And, what if a re-count is demanded?
In this talk we show how modern cryptographic techniques can be used to design voting systems for which the correct functioning is not based on trust in a limited number of people or companies. The talk addresses the fundamental problem of achieving the following, seemingly conflicting, requirements:
We treat several of the cryptographic techniques involved, such as homomorphic public-key encryption and zero-knowledge proofs. We will also discuss the practical deployment of these voting systems, including the achievements of the Seattle-based company VoteHere.net which has already been using this type of system in various elections in the U.S.
Dr.B.Schoenmaker bietet am Ende der Vorlesungszeit (Ende Juni) die Block-Vorlesung "Design and Analysis of Privacy-Protecting Cryptographic Protocols" an.