Ballot secrecy: Security definition, sufficient conditions, and analysis of Helios

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-61
Author(s):  
Ben Smyth

We propose a definition of ballot secrecy as an indistinguishability game in the computational model of cryptography. Our definition improves upon earlier definitions to ensure ballot secrecy is preserved in the presence of an adversary that controls ballot collection. We also propose a definition of ballot independence as an adaptation of an indistinguishability game for asymmetric encryption. We prove relations between our definitions. In particular, we prove ballot independence is sufficient for ballot secrecy in voting systems with zero-knowledge tallying proofs. Moreover, we prove that building systems from non-malleable asymmetric encryption schemes suffices for ballot secrecy, thereby eliminating the expense of ballot-secrecy proofs for a class of encryption-based voting systems. We demonstrate applicability of our results by analysing the Helios voting system and its mixnet variant. Our analysis reveals that Helios does not satisfy ballot secrecy in the presence of an adversary that controls ballot collection. The vulnerability cannot be detected by earlier definitions of ballot secrecy, because they do not consider such adversaries. We adopt non-malleable ballots as a fix and prove that the fixed system satisfies ballot secrecy.

2015 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-86 ◽  
Author(s):  
Trevor Latimer

I demonstrate that a set of well-known objections defeat John Stuart Mill’s plural voting proposal, but do not defeat plural voting as such. I adopt the following as a working definition of political equality: a voting system is egalitarian if and only if departures from a baseline of equally weighted votes are normatively permissible. I develop an alternative proposal, called procedural plural voting, which allocates plural votes procedurally, via the free choices of the electorate, rather than according to a substantive standard of competence. The alternative avoids standards objections to Mill’s proposal. Moreover, reflection on the alternative plural voting scheme disrupts our intuitions about what counts as an egalitarian voting system. Undue emphasis on Mill’s version of plural voting obscures three important reasons to reject plural voting in favor of strictly egalitarian voting systems: (1) that certain choices that generate inequalities of political power are morally impermissible; (2) that even chosen inequalities may undermine the potential epistemic benefits of democratic decision-making; and (3) that such choices may undermine citizens’ commitments to democracy understood as a joint project.


2017 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 56
Author(s):  
Nani Mulyati ◽  
Topo Santoso ◽  
Elwi Danil

The definition of person and non-person always change through legal history. Long time ago, law did not recognize the personality of slaves. Recently, it accepted non-human legal subject as legitimate person before the law. This article examines sufficient conditions for being person in the eye of law according to its particular purposes, and then, analyses the meaning of legal person in criminal law. In order to do that, scientific methodology that is adopted in this research is doctrinal legal research combined with philosophical approach. Some theories regarding person and legal person were analysed, and then the concept of person was associated with the accepted definition of legal person that is adopted in the latest Indonesian drafted criminal code. From the study that has been done, can be construed that person in criminal law concerned with norm adressat of the rule, as the author of the acts or omissions, and not merely the holder of rights. It has to be someone or something with the ability to think rationally and the ability to be responsible for the choices he/she made. Drafted penal code embraces human and corporation as its norm adressat. Corporation defined with broad meaning of collectives. Consequently, it will include not only entities with legal personality, but also associations without legal personality. Furthermore, it may also hold all kind of collective namely states, states bodies, political parties, state’s corporation, be criminally liable.


Symmetry ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 730
Author(s):  
Ravi Agarwal ◽  
Snezhana Hristova ◽  
Donal O’Regan

In this paper a system of nonlinear Riemann–Liouville fractional differential equations with non-instantaneous impulses is studied. We consider a Riemann–Liouville fractional derivative with a changeable lower limit at each stop point of the action of the impulses. In this case the solution has a singularity at the initial time and any stop time point of the impulses. This leads to an appropriate definition of both the initial condition and the non-instantaneous impulsive conditions. A generalization of the classical Lipschitz stability is defined and studied for the given system. Two types of derivatives of the applied Lyapunov functions among the Riemann–Liouville fractional differential equations with non-instantaneous impulses are applied. Several sufficient conditions for the defined stability are obtained. Some comparison results are obtained. Several examples illustrate the theoretical results.


1973 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 206-215
Author(s):  
Hanns Ruder

Basic in the treatment of collective rotations is the definition of a body-fixed coordinate system. A kinematical method is derived to obtain the Hamiltonian of a n-body problem for a given definition of the body-fixed system. From this exact Hamiltonian, a consequent perturbation expansion in terms of the total angular momentum leads to two exact expressions: one for the collective rotational energy which has to be added to the groundstate energy in this order of perturbation and a second one for the effective inertia tensor in the groundstate. The discussion of these results leads to two criteria how to define the best body-fixed coordinate system, namely a differential equation and a variational principle. The equivalence of both is shown.


Author(s):  
Ronald L Rivest

This paper defines and explores the notion of ‘software independence’ in voting systems: ‘A voting system is software independent if an (undetected) change or error in its software cannot cause an undetectable change or error in an election outcome’. For example, optical scan and some cryptographically based voting systems are software independent. Variations and implications of this definition are explored. It is proposed that software-independent voting systems should be preferred, and software-dependent voting systems should be avoided. An initial version of this paper was prepared for use by the Technical Guidelines Development Committee in their development of the Voluntary Voting System Guidelines, which will specify the requirements that the USA voting systems must meet to receive certification.


Mathematics ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (7) ◽  
pp. 630
Author(s):  
Dandan Yang ◽  
Chuanzhi Bai

In this paper, we investigate the existence of solutions for a class of anti-periodic fractional differential inclusions with ψ -Riesz-Caputo fractional derivative. A new definition of ψ -Riesz-Caputo fractional derivative of order α is proposed. By means of Contractive map theorem and nonlinear alternative for Kakutani maps, sufficient conditions for the existence of solutions to the fractional differential inclusions are given. We present two examples to illustrate our main results.


2011 ◽  
Vol 2011 ◽  
pp. 1-19 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Akyig~it ◽  
S. Ersoy ◽  
İ. Özgür ◽  
M. Tosun

We give the definition of generalized timelike Mannheim curve in Minkowski space-time . The necessary and sufficient conditions for the generalized timelike Mannheim curve are obtained. We show some characterizations of generalized Mannheim curve.


2017 ◽  
Vol 20 (K2) ◽  
pp. 131-140
Author(s):  
Linh Manh Ha

Knaster-Kuratowski-Mazurkiewicz type theorems play an important role in nonlinear analysis, optimization, and applied mathematics. Since the first well-known result, many international efforts have been made to develop sufficient conditions for the existence of points intersection (and their applications) in increasingly general settings: Gconvex spaces [21, 23], L-convex spaces [12], and FCspaces [8, 9]. Applications of Knaster-Kuratowski-Mazurkiewicz type theorems, especially in existence studies for variational inequalities, equilibrium problems and more general settings have been obtained by many authors, see e.g. recent papers [1, 2, 3, 8, 18, 24, 26] and the references therein. In this paper we propose a definition of generalized KnasterKuratowski-Mazurkiewicz mappings to encompass R-KKM mappings [5], L-KKM mappings [11], T-KKM mappings [18, 19], and many recent existing mappings. Knaster-KuratowskiMazurkiewicz type theorems are established in general topological spaces to generalize known results. As applications, we develop in detail general types of minimax theorems. Our results are shown to improve or include as special cases several recent ones in the literature.


Author(s):  
Олексій Сергійович Вамболь

Asymmetric ciphers are widely used to ensure the confidentiality of data transmission via insecure channels. These cryptosystems allow the interacting parties to create a shared secret key for a symmetric cipher in such a way that an eavesdropper gets no information useful for cryptanalysis. Network security protocols that use asymmetric ciphers include TLS, S/MIME, OpenPGP, Tor, and many others. Some of the asymmetric encryption schemes are homomorphic, that is, that they allow calculations on encrypted data to be performed without preliminary decryption. The aforesaid property makes possible using these cryptosystems not only for symmetric key establishment but also in several areas of application, in particular in secret voting protocols and cloud computing. The matrix-based knapsack cipher is a new additively homomorphic asymmetric encryption scheme, which is based on the properties of isomorphic transformations of the inner direct product of diagonal subgroups of a general linear group over a Galois field. Unlike classic knapsack encryption schemes, the cryptographic strength of this cipher depends on the computational complexity of the multidimensional discrete logarithm problem. Despite some useful properties, further research into the cryptographic strength of the matrix-based knapsack cipher has found serious drawbacks inherent in this cryptographic scheme. In the given paper an improved polynomial-time plaintext-recovery attack on the matrix-based knapsack cipher is proposed. Applying this cryptanalytic method requires only public information and has time complexity O(t1.34), where t denotes the decryption time of the attacked cryptosystem. The aforementioned attack is more productive and easier to implement in software in comparison with the original one. The advantages of the proposed method are due to using in its algorithm the simple and relatively fast matrix trace operation instead of more complex and slower transformations.


Voting is important for any democratic country. It can be considered as one of the major factors that make a government for the people and by the people. The most common methods of voting that currently exist are ballot-based voting, purely electronic methods, and Electronic Voting Machines, among others. Over the years, it has been a challenge to build a secure E-voting program that provides the privacy of current voting systems while offering a means of accountability and versatility. Using blockchain technology and cryptography we can make the process of elections as open and cost-effective as possible. In this review paper we discuss a new, blockchain-based electronic voting system that addresses some of the limitations in existing systems and evaluates some of the popular systems designed to create a blockchain-based e-voting system.


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